Ennder

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?t=11657 Check out that thread.

1st inning Weeks.

They project Fukudome for an .905 OPS which would be huge. Pie with an .825 which would also be huge. Soto with an .829 which is insanley higher than their C last year. I think all 3 of those projections are too high though so I'm comfortable with them being wrong.

Hudson with 29 pitches in the 1st and then just 23 over the next 3 innings. The little things like that make such a big difference since the Nats had a real chance to put him in pitch count troubles early in this game and failed.

Go Braves! Not that I'm a big Braves fan, I just want to see the Mets crash and burn and miss the playoffs.

Yes the pitcher has some control because flyballs have a lower BABIP and groundballs have a higher BABIP. Also different counts come with different BABIP so pitchers who are always ahead in the count tend to have slightly lower. Generally speaking a pitcher will regress towards his career rates and the range of sustainable BABIP is pretty small. I think the key is if a pitcher maintains all of his rate stats but his BABIP is off his career pace he pretty much just had bad luck. If all of his numbers look strange then BABIP trends aren't as reliable. You don't just give up more hits and not have your BB/9, K/9, ISO etc change, when you are pitching poorly more than just one of those things should change.

The Braun and Fielder swap makes complete sense so I have no problem at all with it, if one of them needs protection it will be the lefty not the righty. I don't really get Hall batting 5th and Hart 6th but I'm willing to bet it is fluid and won't last the entire season so not going to lose sleep over it. Hart should be batting #2 at least until Cameron comes back and Gwynn should be batting in the bottom of the order where he will cause the least amount of damage.

This is 100% a false statement. The white sox won a WS because their pitching all had career years at the same time. They scored fewer runs after the trade and Pods runs scored per game was in the bottom half for leadoff hitters. Prince (45)- It is hard to hit 50+ multiple years in a row. Braun (35-40) Hart (20-30) - Not sure how much of the power was for real Hardy (20-30) - Last year was not a fluke at all, he has hit HR at a 23 HR pace since the 2nd half of his rookie year. I don't know if there is a higher level in him or not but I expect something in the 20's. Weeks (15-25) Hall (15-25) Cameron (18-25) - Even with the suspension I expect him to break 20 HR in the friendly HR park. Rest of team (15-30) - Not much power with the rest of the team.

If Davis had been a Brewer his ERA would have been over 5, really doubt it would have made a difference other than maybe us having a better C for last year.

Lilly had never stayed healthy a full season in his career, I think that was probably the most significant reason for the difference in their contracts.

Then all predictions are useless because they aren't 100% correct, that is a horrible way to look at it. It took an epic winning streak for the Rockies to make the playoffs with an extra game that they probably didn't really win(Holliday was out). Many experts picked the Brewers to be in 1st last year and a lot of sources didn't like the Cardinals. Injuries are obviously the big issue with predictions, that and the rookies who are just hard to project.

Melvin also picked up Pods didn't he, then traded him for Lee which to me is the best deal he has made overall? Then traded Lee for Cordero and got a year of him before he went FA and gave us draft picks? I also disagree that we lost the Doug Davis trade, Davis and Vargas are the same guy but Vargas had more plausible upside. Vargas just happened to get hurt and Davis had a lucky ERA. Eveland hasn't done anything to suggest he is a big loss and Krynzel is useless. We 'lost' the linebrink deal but only because we failed to make the playoffs. If we had taken the division by 1 game then we win that trade. It is a tough position to be in. I'm not a fan of the Suppan signing and I'm dubious about Kendall. Melvin is far from perfect but then again you can't always get the guys you want and sometimes plan B and plan C require a good bit of risk.

Wins is not a useful for stat for judging how good a pitcher is though. There is no reason to expect 15 wins out of Marquis or to expect Marquis to get more wins than any other pitcher in those #4/#5 lists of pitchers.

It is to a degree, but the predicted one isn't completely useless either. If a team won 83 games last year with a predicted record of 100 wins I'd certainly expect more out of them than a team won won 83 games with a predicted record of 70. Sometimes teams just get lucky or unlucky and you can't fully quantify that. I didn't increase my wins prediction because of the expected record but if I think they will improve by about 2-4 wins the fact that their expected record was 87 wins instead of 85 does give them a little extra wiggle room to play with.

Well Bush had a 4.41 ERA in 2006 and Marquis had a 6.02. Relying on a single season of ERA is just about the worst way you could judge a pitcher. Bush is a better K guy than Marquis, he is a better BB guy as well. Marquis induces a lot of ground balls which is his saving grace. If you look at a component ERA type stat like xERA Marquis has been 4.44, 5.21, 4.58 over the past 3 years, Bush has been a 4.23, 3.49, 4.18 which suggests Bush will be a better starter though I'm not convinced he'll ever get over his 1st inning problems or his problems with RISP so my guess is he lives in the 4.50 ERA range which is also what I'd expect out of Marquis. Now if I were going to compare them 1 to 5 this is the way I think makes most sense. #1 Sheets = Zambrano. Sheets is a better pitcher and Zambrano has a 3 year pattern of regression, Zambrano is also a significant injury risk because of his pitch counts over his career so if I had to give the edge to one it would be Sheets. #2 Gallardo = Hill. Both high upside younger pitchers. Hill's age doesn't bother me much because lefties tend to mature late so it is expected. If Gallardo were starting the year healthy I'd give the edge to him but since we don't know how the knee will hold up I ended up calling them even. #4 Suppan = Marquis. Both guys are mediocre innings eaters who will probably sit at a 4.50 ERA or so. If I had to give a slight edge it would be to Suppan but with the Cubs defense I expect Marquis to end up with a better ERA. #5 Bush = Dempster/Lieber. These are all just guys, Bush has the most upside of the bunch at this point since all it would take for him to improve is pitching better with runners on. So at this point we have what I consider four pretty even matchups with the Brewers having maybe a tiny edge in each one. #3 Lilly vs Villanueva. This is the one that will decide things and the one I cannot predict but I think CV has our best chance of being the #3 guy that Lilly is for the Cubs. If CV pitches as well as people expect him to this is a wash, I tend to think that Lilly will win this one and offset the tiny advantages seen in the top 4. #6 Parra > Marshal/Guzman. If this thing goes to a #6 starter the Brewers hold all the cards and in reality Parra is probably better than Lilly/CV though he cannot pitch a full season. If we get to the #7 starters I think the Cubs are holding all the cards because of Capuano's injury. I think the rotations are pretty close overall, if I got to take defense out of the equation I'd give the advantage to the Brewers but since I can't take it out I think things will be pretty even. The Cubs can withstand a major pitching injury better than we can because we released Vargas(assuming somebody picks him up) and Capuano went down for the year(I'm assuming, if he gets better with rest then it is even).

Yeah I expect 30-35 HR out of Lee, but I think his AVG will dip some so overall the loss in OBP will make the gains in SLG only a small upgrade. He has had such flukish BABIP numbers it is pretty hard to get a good read on where his AVG should be.

Fukudome is a defensive upgrade in RF, not really an offensive one since their RF did a good job last year. Pie/Johnson are probably an upgrade over what they got out of CF last year. Soto is overrated but is still an upgrade over their C from last year. Lee's wrist is healthy so I expect slightly better numbers than last year. If Wood is healthy that most certainly does improve the team. They still could potentially end up with a Crisp or Roberts which improves the team too. I'm not saying they have had huge upgrades but they should win a couple more than they did last year. They also underperformed their expected record last year so they have a little extra wiggle room. The Brewers upgrades are harder to gauge since the bullpen changes could go either way. Cameron is a pretty big upgrade over Menchkins in my opinion though we'll probably blow a lot of that upgrade by starting Gwynn in CF for 25 games, Kendall is about the same as Estrada. I'm not sure the rotation will be much better overall than last year though the defensive improvements should lower their ERA a little.

AL WEST 1. Angels 2. A's 3. Mariners 4. Rangers AL CENTRAL 1. Indians 2. Tigers 3. Twins 4. White Sox 5. Royals AL EAST 1. Red Sox 2. Yankees 3. Blue Jays 4. Rays 5. Orioles AL WILD CARD: Tigers AL CY YOUNG: King Felix AL MVP: Cabrera AL ROY: Carlos Gomez NL WEST 1. Dodgers 2. Diamondbacks 3. Rockies 4. Padres 5. Giants NL CENTRAL 1. Brewers 2. Cubs 3. Reds 4. Astros 5. Cards 6. Pirates NL EAST 1. Mets 2. Phillies 3. Braves 4. Nationals 5. Marlins NL WILDCARD: Cubs NL CY YOUNG: Webb NL MVP: Utley NL ROY: Kershaw AL CHAMPION: Red Sox NL CHAMPION: Dodgers WORLD SERIES CHAMPION: Red Sox

I think the team that wins the division does 89 or 90 wins. The rest of the division is pretty weak other than maybe the Reds and that will pump up the win total. Both teams are better than last year and last year they averaged 84 wins. I think this year they average 87 wins or so.

Pettitte - Back problemsHughes - Might have lingering injury issues, is on a pitch count Kennedy - pitch count Mussina - breaking down somewhat over the past few years Joba - pitch limit Wang is the only sure thing pitcher they have right now, the rest is a mess. It might work out it might not but I could easily see that rotation missing the playoffs given the division they play in.

The Phillies rotation isn't any better than the Cubs or the Brewers. Hamels is as much of an injury risk as Sheets, he has been hurt 4 years in a row now. Myers isn't likely to be any better than Gallardo. Moyer is basically Suppan. Kendrick isn't any better than Villanueva. Eaton wouldn't make the Brewers team.

I actually think the odds are pretty good that both NY teams miss the playoffs. The Mets offense just isn't going to be that great so the pitching needs to step up which it could. The Yankees starting pitching is a complete mess.

Yes but compare it to the Nathan deal and a 4.50 CV for Franklin isn't in the same realm at all. Villanueva has to be a #2 starter to really make those two trades comperable at all. It is all about context.

Yeah but most of them project Soto, Pie and Fukudome to be better than I really think they will be and most of them project Zambrano to improve on last year which I don't think he'll do and assume Sheets and Gallardo won't pitch full time because of youth/injury. To me on paper the two teams are about as close as they can be, close enough that some breakout or injury or just who gets hot or cold at the right/wrong time will decide things. I expect this thing to be decided in the last week of the season again.

I don't think Lilly will be close to a 5 ERA, he is a 4.25 ERA type guy who had a spout of great control last year. Hill has legit #2 potential and I could easily see him with a mid 3 ERA assuming his horrible spring isn't because of an injury. It would not surprise me one bit to see Zambrano with over a 4 ERA give his 3 year slide in every peripheral and Hill being their ace by the end of the season.