Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat

There are a lot of guys like Inman out there. Only in the sense that there are a lot of guys that scouts think project as bottom of the rotation starters. If you look through all of AA so far this season, do you know how many pitchers have as many as the 50 Ks Inman has so far registered to lead the Texas League? Three. Do you know how many of those are younger than Inman at 21? One - Philly's Carlos Carrasco. The other 50 K guys are Baltimore's David Hernandez (age 23) and (I was pleasantly surprised to discover) our own Steve Hammond (age 26, which takes some of the shine off the pretty numbers). Strikeout ratios are the single most important stat for projecting minor league pitchers. I have a hard time looking at Inman as run-of-the-mill when he's among the minor league leaders in Ks year in, year out, and he's always among the youngest players at his level.

On the booing, I don't get it at all. It's one thing to boo if the team is really stinking it up that day, but it's completely counter-productive to just lay it on a player every time his name is announced. Splitter - thought you might want to know that Owen read this part of your post on the air this afternoon. This is sort of awesome. We should lay into some more on-air personalities and see if we can get them to come here. Next stop, world domination.

I think a lot of the booing comes from fans seeing it as a possible way to affect the team's decision-making. It isn't like anybody thinks that booing Gagne will make him pitch better. They're hoping that if they boo him enough, Yost will stop bringing him into games. You can argue that they're wrong (and that the team needs Gagne to succeed), but virtually every booer probably believes getting Gagne out of important situations would improve the team's chances of winning games. I'd also add that this is a risky strategy with someone as stubborn as Yost as manager.

Even two incredibly easy innings should have precluded his use on the following day. It had been 4 years since he had gone longer than an inning. But considering how many pitches he threw, I think it's hard to disagree with TLB's assessment.

Even tonight, he actually goes to Gagne to save the game. I, for one, did not see that coming. The last 4 days, boiled down to the essential events: GAGNE: Boy, coach, I sure do stink. No way I should be the closer anymore. I need some time to think, you know, get my head on straight and all. YOST: What a great idea! It was very brave of you to admit to your problem. Closer-by-committee until further notice. GAGNE: (scratches head) GAGNE: (scratches beard) GAGNE: (scratches head some more) GAGNE: Boy, was that ever refreshing. I feel 100% better now. Put me in coach, I'm ready to play. YOST: Right then, in you go.

"It's exactly the same," Golden Gate University law professor Peter Keane said. "It's two ways of saying it's lying and there's really no substantial difference between what he was charged with then and what he is charged with now." This is a non-story. It's in response to a defense motion, which was upheld, that said the prosecution was lumping charges into single counts in a way that could be confusing and vague to the jury. So it appears the prosecution split the charges in as atomistic a fashion as they could. If anything, this sequence of events probably counts as a victory for the defense, but in keeping form, ESPN has stuck a headline on it that makes you think Bonds is somehow in even more trouble now, because that's what people want to read and that's what will generate the most click-throughs. Journalistic responsibility? Ethics? ESPN says bah!

NED YOST IS NOT THE REASON THE BREWERS AREN'T WINNING! The writer is setting up a false dichotomy here. Why would anyone believe that there is such a thing as THE reason the Brewers aren't winning? I would never even attempt to argue that getting rid of Yost would instantly solve all of the team's problems. But why, in addition to the "babies" (as he calls them) having down years, can't Yost be A reason the Brewers aren't winning as much as they ought to?

Oh and count me among those who think that Ben must've been joking. I'm sure going to miss that lovable goofball stuff - almost as much as the outstanding pitching - when he inevitably bolts for richer pastures in 2009.

Agree that this is entirely semantic argument, but I'm not sure that most basebally fans knew that fastballs literally rising was a myth. Heck, I'm not sure every major leaguer knew that...I've seen some hitters talk about Nolan Ryan in a fashion that led me to wonder if they didn't literally think the ball moved upwards. For everybody not familiar with pitch f/x, they're measuring the trajectory of the pitch in relationship to a ball thrown without spin (and I think without air resistance, since anybody who's seen Tim Wakefield or Charlie Hough can certainly attest to the fact that balls without spin actually move quite a bit). So basically, what Russ's numbers mean is that without the spin, in a vacuum, a pitch would drop 11.2" more than Sheets's fastball actually does.

He added. "Inman is in his first year ever in the majors and frankly, 4.17 as an era in the bullpen would be an improvement." Yes, a reliever who essentially gives up one run ever other outing would be an improvement...or not. Inman's single A stats do nothing for me, regardless of what Bill James has to say This was what I couldn't get my head around listening to to clip...whichever e-mailer said that Inman was throwing out of the bullpen for the Padres at the big league level was dead wrong. He's still at AA, starting for San Antonio. I can totally understand being dismissive of condescending jerks who aren't even close to correct about anything they say. I do it all the time. Bill James probably wouldn't really take you to task overmuch for not caring about single A stats. Most analysts agree that there is a pretty large make-or-break factor making the jump to the AA level, which is generally regarded as the hardest promotion a prospect will face. Personally, I'm very high on Inman, because he's always posted excellent to outstanding peripherals (strikeout and walk ratios, HR allowed) and he's always been very young for his leagues. I suspect that Melvin was willing to trade him because scouts are not that high on him. He's a short (6'0) RHP without a blazing fastball, so they see a guy with the ceiling of a #4 starter. None of that bothers me much, I don't really care how he misses bats, I just know that he does. So I still think it was a mistake to trade him for a third a season of Linebrink, who at this point is no better than an average middle reliever, and just wasn't likely to pitch well enough in enough innings after the trade deadline to make the difference between winning and losing the pennant. It's worth noting as well that the Padres immediately called up Thatcher and he outpitched Linebrink down the stretch last year, though after his experience with Grant Balfour, I can understand Melvin's reluctance to call up another unproven veteran minor leaguer, regardless of how impressive his AAA performance. Jack Z could still save this trade for Melvin, but he's going to need to do better with the two Linebrink comp picks than Inman and Garrison, which will be no easy task. Inman would be the clear-cut #1 pitching prospect in the system right now, and probably the first option to replace Bush, Villy, or Parra in the rotation right now should the team decide a move needs to be made. As it is, we're pretty likely to see the corpse of Jeff Weaver trot out to the mound to take a start at some point this season, and I think that's at least a little appalling. And even if Jack Z does strike gold in June, you also have to consider whether those players will be ready to help the team during the current contention cycle. I'm virtually positive that, barring injury, Inman would have been. Oh, and hey Owen, sorry about the "least objectionable" quip earlier in the thread. I actually like Weasel radio quite a bit. Hopefully me pimping the show and providing the link gets you one or two extra listeners - though I wouldn't count on it (who knows whether anybody takes anything I say here seriously). Here it is again just in case: http://www.espn1070.com/pages/weaselradio.html?_show

Well, I listened to the clip, and he actually never claimed to not know who Inman is. He simply trotted out the age old gem (you'll here it from time to time from posters here as well) that "these guys have never done anything in the majors." Bill James, who at this point basically everyone has come to respect at least a little bit, once said that the concept behind MLE's (i.e. that minor league statistics, properly adjusted, have the same predictive power as major league statistics) was the single most important concept he ever developed. If I could go the rest of my life without hearing someone resort to "but what has he done in the majors?" it would be far too short a period of time. (Oh, and he also did call us dorks. But as I sort of said earlier, I'm pretty sure that's part of his job description. If he wants to plug Baseball America, that's fine, I don't think anybody would dispute that they're a valuable resource if you want to know about prospects. If he's plugging ESPN for prospect info, well, try to remember what station he's on. JJ's right that ESPN is a business. The purpose of a business is to make money. Sometimes, in a capitalist society where anti-intellectualism is a cultural hallmark, that means that you are forced to be deliberately stupid. Maybe this is anti-American, but I'm totally willing to loathe ESPN as a consequence of this behavior. Obviously, they don't care - I'm in the minority here - but I think that should tell everybody something about ESPN, America, and capitalism. I'll leave what that means for your enjoyment of their product to you.)

Owen's got one thing going for him - at least one extremely cool friend: http://www.espn1070.com/pages/weaselradio.html Ben Weasel is one of my musical heroes, and their radio show has its moments. Check out the podcasts if you want to hear Owen Murphy at his least objectionable. Honestly, putting on a completely phony anti-intellectual persona is pretty much a job requirement these days if you want to talk sports on the radio or write about sports for a newspaper or a magazine. It wouldn't surprise me much if he was only pretending not to know who Will Inman was, because 99% of his audience doesn't know and would be put off by being expected to know. If he really doesn't know Inman, I'd say that's evidence he's wholly unqualified to have any opinion whatsoever about the Brewers, much less one that is beamed out to the public at large.

I'd say Crabbe is a middle class man's Iribarren. Their performance records are so similar it's kind of eerie. Which of the two you prefer comes down to whether you're an AVG guy or a BB/K ratio guy. I tend to lean toward the latter (especially in prospects), so I have an ever-so-slight preference for Crabbe. But Iribarren does make Crabbe redundant, so it's not going to break my heart if the Brewers opt to let him go for a marginal prospect.

A nitpick - Hardy's overall swing % looked impossibly high to me so I checked it and it should be 41.68%. I second TLB's appreciative note though - this is full of interesting stuff: - Pujols's numbers, across the board, are disgustingly good. - Aramis Ramirez doesn't look here like the sort of hitter who has sustainably doubled his walk rate (he HAS doubled his walk rate, but my money's on flukish variance over fundamental approach change), so that's encouraging. - Soriano's approach is a cosmic joke. Oh, how I cannot wait until his bat speed drops off just the teensiest bit and his contract begins to resemble Zito's in millstone factor.

You're talking about a guy that saved about 160 out of 170 games in his career until this year. I guess my point was that in my view, all but the 25 games he saved in Texas last year and Milwaukee this year are essentially irrelevant in trying to figure out how well the Eric Gagne we signed is going to pitch this season. He's pretty obviously not the dominant Gagne who could run it up into the high 90s and spot his change perfectly from '02 - '04. He missed basically all of two consecutive seasons (Tommy John surgery and a serious back injury). You wouldn't want to use Mark Prior's Cy Young-caliber season to project his '08, and the same is true for Gagne, even though Prior is admittedly a more extreme example. All we have to clue us into who the new Gagne is is 77 IP this year and last. The first 33 of those IP went pretty well in Texas, but the last 34 have been atrocious. Both of those are small samples, so there's still a lot of uncertainty projecting his performance, but... 1) I'd weigh the more recent info more heavily. 2) Even if you don't, you're looking at @ a 4.50 straight ERA projection, xFIP is around 4.25. To me, that's the ceiling for what we should reasonably expect Gagne to do. He could outperform that, but if he does I'd say we got lucky. To Russ's point that Gagne shouldn't be expected to be the worst reliever on the staff, and therefore you can't DFA him, I agree for now. From a purely performance analysis standpoint, you'd have to expect both Mota and McClung to be worse, and Torres perhaps around the same. But the team makes claims to have "fixed" the former two, and Torres can at least go multiple innings, so he's got much more value as a middle man. I'd say it won't take many more bad Gagne outings before you really should expect him to be the worst reliever on the staff going forward. I will admit, this is as unscientific an attempt to crystal ball gaze as I'm ever likely to make, but I suspect that at some point in the next, say, 6 weeks, it is going to become very evident that Gagne isn't good enough any longer for high leverage innings at the end of games, and I worry that he's going to get Yost's patented Derrick Turnbow mold'ring-away-in-the-closet treatment. At that point, they will really need to DFA him, but I worry that, in part because of the PR nightmare lurking should that move be made (at bottom, this is what I think is relevant about all of JJ's points about the public perception of the deal and of Melvin), the team will be extremely reluctant to do it. If he does start getting the Turnbow treatment, I'm going to need to try to dig up a link for a study I read (I think over the offseason) that used Pitch FX data to investigate the effects of consecutive day reliever usage and long layoffs between reliever appearances on the velocity and break of various pitches. If I recall correctly, long layoffs had almost as much negative effect as consecutive day usage. Offspeed pitches were particularly hurt by long stretches with no appearance. I was thinking about that when Turnbow was rotting away on the bench but never brought it up here. Even if you want to hope that Gagne might get it straightened out and give you some return on your investment, the dead roster spot will be a huge problem, especially when your manager is as prone as Yost to wear out the effective pitchers in his bullpen even without a designated bullpen leper (should it come to that with Gagne as it did with Turnbow).

I don't really see any reason to believe Gagne will get it turned around enough to be an asset in any bullpen role this season. It's tough to get a handle on what his true talent performance level looks like because there's so little relevant information. You have to basically throw out everything from before the 2 missed seasons - he's obviously not that guy anymore. He's reached the point now where his inept pitching in Boston last season and Milwaukee this season is both a larger sample and more recent than his successful stint in Texas, so I think you're forced to conclude that it is far more likely at this point that he really is just this bad. An optimist might want to split the difference (between Texas Gagne and Bos/Mil Gagne), but then you're saying that the best you could hope for still isn't anywhere near good enough to pitch in late game high leverage situations. And since Gagne's as one-inning a one-inning guy that ever one-inninged, he's not really going to be worth a roster spot in middle relief either. The $10 million is a sunk cost. I think it will eventually come to DFAing Gagne and eating the money. I wouldn't do it today, but sooner would be better than later, and Melvin probably won't even consider it until at least the all-star break.

DiFelice. Easy call. You don't post the kind of peripherals he's posted for 1+ seasons now at AAA without being able to help at the major league level. It's been more than 3 seasons since Weaver pitched well enough to deserve a spot on a big league roster. I shuddered when they signed him in the first place. Best thing that could happen would be for him to get really roughed up in his next couple of outings so that Melvin can't possibly justify calling him up to keep control of him and they lose him as a FA.

I'd cast my vote for Larry Dierker, though I'm not sure he'd want to manage again. If not, Davey Johnson is an excellent choice as well. I'd be fine with Kremblas too.

I'm really looking forward to the draft next month. Hopefully it's on TV again this year.

Please, no Weaver. Seriously, pretty please? A 6.20 ERA over 147 IP (half at Safeco) last year, and 5.76 ERA the year before (despite spending half the season getting help from Dodger stadium) says he's toast. Might as well see what Jose Lima's doing if we go that route. The first SP called up, should it be deemed necessary, really needs to be Mark DiFelice.

Man, the Padres must have a bad offense. The Brewers apparently lead them in every offensive category. None of those stats were ballpark adjusted. Considering that their park plays as the most pitcher-friendly in baseball, it wouldn't surprise me much if the Brewers are actually behind them in a few of those categories. The Padres do trail the Brewers 82 to 93 in OPS+, which is ballpark adjusted, so it is fair to say that their offense has been worse overall so far this year. The Nats are last, at 81 (but we don't really know how much to park-adjust their numbers yet, since it's a brand new park, so BR seems to be using a multi-year park factor of 100 - dead neutral - this might make the offense look worse than it actually is and the pitching look better than it actually is). Long story short, there are at least a few teams that have been more inept offensively so far. Not like that's much to write home about, though.

Hardy is seeing plenty of pitches to hit, a majority being fastballs early in the count. He led the entire NL last year in percentage of first pitches taken, and has been among the league leaders his entire career. Now, I vastly prefer someone who takes all of them to someone who swings at all of them, but I think we can all see that pitchers are coming right after Hardy early in the count. The one HR he has hit was a first pitch fastball middle in. I was really hoping that would encourage him to look for more first pitch fastballs to drive. It wouldn't take too many extra base hits before pitchers started aiming for the corners against him on the first pitch again, and then it makes sense to take nearly all the first pitches, because getting ahead 1-0 is awesome. As is, he's getting himself into way too many 0-1 counts, as pitchers groove fastballs right down the middle on the first pitch and he refuses to make them pay. I hope he gets this figured out soon because he's one of the only hitters in the lineup who can actually tell the difference between a strike and a ball with any regularity.

With respect to Hardy hitting in front of the pitcher: I know that conventional wisdom says that he'll see fewer pitches to hit. Hitting in front of the pitcher is therefore supposed to result in more walks, but a lower AVG (and therefore not necessarily higher OBP) and certainly a lower SLG. This makes all the intuitive sense in the world. But to my knowledge, no one ever bothered to check if it was true until Jeff Sackmann wrote this article for the Harball Times a few weeks ago: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-benefit-of-batting-eighth/ Almost all findings are the opposite of what you'd expect. In 2007, hitters with 20 or more PA in front of the pitcher walked slightly less often than they did elsewhere in the lineup, but got a 37 point AVG boost and a 61 point SLG boost. They did see a slightly lower percentage of strikes, but their P/PA actually dropped in the 8 spot. As Sackmann notes at the end of the article, it would probably take a multi-year study (with higher PA cutoffs) for us to be absolutely certain that the old saw about hitting in front of the pitcher is a complete crock, but ever since I've read this, I sigh heavily every time Schroeder talks about what a difficult job it is. Confirmation bias, ladies and gentlemen, is a harsh mistress.

odd reason = anti-intellectualism

According to Dictionary.com Mediocre is not average. Off topic, I know, but I can't resist comment. Etymologically, mediocre is derived from Latin. medius ("middle") + ocris ("jagged mountain") = mediocris (Literally - "halfway up the mountain" Figuratively - "of middling height or state") I just wanted to take a moment to say shame on dictionary.com for empowering the legions of humans who have misused and continue to misuse this relatively simple concept. I understand, they probably view their task as chronicling the actual use of language, not dictating its proper use. There's even something to be said for this perspective. But when the root of a word is obviously middle, to take it to mean "rather poor" is patently absurd. Another note for everyone: stop saying "decimated" when you mean "utterly destroyed" or "annihilated". Decimation is a precise term that means losing 1/10 of one's ground forces in a particular ground battle. There was a time when 10% losses were very significant, before we invented tanks and machine guns and such. Anyway, your favorite football team isn't "decimated" when they're losing 45-0, but you could say the defense has been "decimated" if the free safety goes down with a ligament tear. Oh, and Dillon better be up again and that right quick. What he gives you that Kapler doesn't is sustainably decent hitting. He's significantly better than Branyan and Nelson too.