Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat

I dunno, I had sort of hoped going into this season that, patience-wise, he'd turn out to be somewhere in between the 40 and 63 walks he's drawn the last 2 years. I haven't accepted that he's the sort of hacker that needs 20 PA to draw one walk, which it may yet turn out that he is. And if that's the case, Joe Dillon should probably be the everyday 3B.

Gabe Gross was a mediocre player, as long as you remember that mediocre means average and average players in their cost-controlled phase have a lot of value to an MLB team. I disagree that he was a mediocre backup. I think he was a good to very good backup. I'm having trouble thinking of too many 4th outfielders who I think are true-talent average major league hitters. In our division, Matt Murton is probably better. That's all I got. Maybe I'm forgetting somebody, but the Astros traded Luke Scott, so... Ennder's basic point is the correct one, though. Neither Gwynn nor Kapler is anything like as valuable a player as Gross. Their skills might fit better with traditional notions of what backup outfielders are supposed to be able to give to a team, but that's no reason for an intelligent organization to prefer them to an obviously better player. Maybe there's something to the received wisdom that says a slappy singles hitter needs less playing time to keep being a slappy singles hitter whereas a power / patience guy like Gross needs more consistent at bats to be at his best. I don't know, I've never seen anybody bother to make an intelligent attempt to check if it was true. That's the only perspective from which the preference for Gwynn makes sense. If it's not that, it's the whole "he's buddies with Prince" angle, and that would mean that management kept one worse guy because he's friends with the team's best player and another worse guy because he's friends with management. Not good. Granted, not likely to amount to a hill of beans one way or the other. Nonetheless...not good.

Is that really fair? No, probably not. Checking some other guys who rely heavily on the sinker shows that lower strikeout rates aren't terribly uncommon. But it seems like everyone I can think of (Wang, Carmona, Westbrook, Derek Lowe, Shawn Hill) was already at least in AA by the time they were Butler's age, making direct comparison somewhat difficult. I may have spoken a bit hastily though. I feel encouraged that it's not totally impossible for someone with crappy A-ball K-rates to eventually become an effective major league pitcher.

I was comparing their "prospect" level. (If that makes any sense) Yeah, all you really said was that they had similar value. That might even be fairly accurate. Butler was a recent 2nd round pick, and high draft status does confer a lot of prospect value. But even if that's true, in my view it says more about how prospects are (improperly) valued than it does about how good Butler or Inman actually are. If I'm a Rays fan, I'm happy that my team got a genuine major leaguer for a guy we just drafted that (it turns out) is a sinkerballer that gives up too many homers and can't strike out A-ballers. In other words, a guy who up until now has looked like an overdraft.

I know this Butler gets a lot of ground balls but are the lack of strike outs concerning to anybody? Yes. Just 100 in 140 pro innings so far. All IP at A+ or lower, and he was old for his leagues. A real prospect should be able to fan around a guy an inning under those conditions. If you look at pitchers who become successful major leaguers, even the ones whose success looks unsustainable due to low K-rates, usually they're around 1 K/IP in A ball. Brian Bannister, for instance, struck out 8.5 per 9 over his first couple of pro campaigns. You usually don't see a dropoff to K numbers like Butler's until AA. For a sinkerballer comp, I checked Webb and he was over 9 per 9 in A ball. I don't see him as in any way comparable to Inman. I wouldn't give one Inman for 3 Butlers, but I'm higher on Inman than most because I don't care very much about radar gun readings and not a whit about height measurements. At least they got something for Gross. On the downside, there were two non-replacement level hitters on the bench to start the season. They sent one of them down to AAA and now traded the other. They've certainly put a lot of eggs in the Gabe Kapler basket. Never let rational thinking get in the way of a good story / good ol' boy network I guess.

If you've seen Idiocracy, (whence my moniker came), you know there are fundamentally only two choices for Ryan Braun: 1) Braundo: The Pitch Mutilator 2) Braundo: The Ball Mutilator The latter might be funnier but I find it somehow...unsettling. On the other hand, what he does in the field can be described more times than any of us care to admit as mutilation, so #2 might also be more apt. He's got electrolytes!

When I was a younger man, the Yankees - Red Sox rivalry was one of the things I pointed to in order to try to explain why baseball was the most interesting professional sport I hate it now. I hate every player, front office guy, broadcaster, media type, et al. associated in any way with either team. I hate ESPN largely because of its role in turning this rivalry into the kind of disgustingly insipid self-parodic wretchfest that produces "stories" like this. Any "journalist" or "commentator" who has said anything whatsoever about this story that gives it credence should be summarily executed, without a trial, last meal, and certainly without a chance for last words. Let their last words be whatever they said or wrote about this story. Oh, in case anyone was wondering, as I'm just 29 years old, it's only taken around a decade for this to happen. All hope is lost for the future of our wretched culture.

FTJ - thanks for the update. I'd need the league average dropoff from pitches 76-100 as a baseline to know whether or not those numbers are unusual, but it sure looks like those guys were pitching at a much lower true talent level than you'd expect when they were allowed to pitch deep in games. In other words, I'm mostly convinced that Yost left them in games too long. On the other hand, this mostly quashes the widespread criticisms of bullpen overuse, since Yost didn't really have much of a choice but to burn his relievers up - 4 out of every 5 starts was being taken by someone that turned into a pumpkin at the stroke of pitch 76. I'd hesitate to forecast a repeat performance for this year, as we're no doubt talking about small samples here, but you don't need very large samples for K, BB and HR rates to become meaningful. I suppose I didn't consider that someone would see 4 pitchers at ~.400 BAbip as an event of luck The thing about BABIP is that (and I think this should be intuitive for most people) the outcome of an event where the batter has successfully put the ball in play is determined mostly by the batter's hitting skill, secondly by the fielding skill of the defenders, and only a distant thirdly by whatever innate BABIP suppression skill the pitcher might possess. At the point that you're looking at a BIP, the hitter has already succeeded at his basic objective. This is why BABIP rates need to be treated as meaningful skill-indicators for hitters, and random luck fluctuations for pitchers. They aren't really the products of "luck", it's just that there's WAY too much noise to pick the statistical signal out unless you've got a pitcher with years and years of data, most of which happens to point in the same direction (oddly enough, the only kind of pitcher for whom this tends to be the case is the knuckleballer, for whom BABIP rates are usually lower year in and year out). So, for all practical purposes, it makes sense (statistically at least) to treat the pitcher as having nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome of a BIP. That's why I questioned whether those obscenely bad BABIP rates should be taken as evidence that there has been a dropoff in pitcher performance after pitch 75. If anything, I'd use those rates to explain the dropoff in pitcher performance we could measure any number of ways (including stats as basic as ERA) as something that is not terribly meaningful; at least not indicative of a true measurement of a decrease in pitcher skill for those situations. If there was an abnormal dropoff in K, BB, and HR rates on those pitches, that's indicative of a genuine problem that last year's team had and a reason to worry a little bit about running into the same problem this year.

FTJ - thanks for the update. I'd need the league average dropoff from pitches 76-100 as a baseline to know whether or not those numbers are unusual, but it sure looks like those guys were pitching at a much lower true talent level than you'd expect when they were allowed to pitch deep in games. In other words, I'm mostly convinced that Yost left them in games too long. On the other hand, this mostly quashes the widespread criticisms of bullpen overuse, since Yost didn't really have much of a choice but to burn his relievers up - 4 out of every 5 starts was being taken by someone that turned into a pumpkin at the stroke of pitch 76. I'd hesitate to forecast a repeat performance for this year, as we're no doubt talking about small samples here, but you don't need very large samples for K, BB and HR rates to become meaningful. I suppose I didn't consider that someone would see 4 pitchers at ~.400 BAbip as an event of luck The thing about BABIP is that (and I think this should be intuitive for most people) the outcome of an event where the batter has successfully put the ball in play is determined mostly by the batter's hitting skill, secondly by the fielding skill of the defenders, and only a distant thirdly by whatever innate BABIP suppression skill the pitcher might possess. At the point that you're looking at a BIP, the hitter has already succeeded at his basic objective. This is why BABIP rates need to be treated as meaningful skill-indicators for hitters, and random luck fluctuations for pitchers. They aren't really the products of "luck", it's just that there's WAY too much noise to pick the statistical signal out unless you've got a pitcher with years and years of data, most of which happens to point in the same direction (oddly enough, the only kind of pitcher for whom this tends to be the case is the knuckleballer, for whom BABIP rates are usually lower year in and year out). So, for all practical purposes, it makes sense (statistically at least) to treat the pitcher as having nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome of a BIP. That's why I questioned whether those obscenely bad BABIP rates should be taken as evidence that there has been a dropoff in pitcher performance after pitch 75. If anything, I'd use those rates to explain the dropoff in pitcher performance we could measure any number of ways (including stats as basic as ERA) as something that is not terribly meaningful; at least not indicative of a true measurement of a decrease in pitcher skill for those situations. If there was an abnormal dropoff in K, BB, and HR rates on those pitches, that's indicative of a genuine problem that last year's team had and a reason to worry a little bit about running into the same problem this year.

Interesting stuff, but a couple points of clarification on BABIP. I've seen some widespread misunderstanding on these boards lately. 1) BABIP against for pitchers: A pitcher's BABIP is often rightly cited as a helpful indicator of good or bad luck distorting the view provided by the more familiar stats (ERA, WHIP, even W-L). So, for instance, we can say that Chris Capuano actually (from a true talent perspective) was pitching about as well last year as he has in the past, but he'd had some outstanding BABIP luck previously that swung over to the opposite end last year. The current thinking on pitchers' BABIP against is that it IS indicative of a genuine spread in skill, but that the spread is quite small. As a result, it takes YEARS of data for an individual pitcher's skill or lack of skill to show up. Most pitchers are up and down in this stat (like Capuano), indicating that the best approach to assessing their current skill (and projecting their future performance) is to regress BABIP all the way to league average. If you're looking at someone who has pitched 10+ MLB seasons and has posted BABIPs consistently above or below league average, you might not want to do this, because it is becoming more and more likely with each additional data point that this performance represents a genuine skill (or lack thereof) rather than luck. There aren't many pitchers that fit this description though, so DIPS (FIP, xFIP, etc.) is still an excellent quick and dirty way to get a rough assessment of a pitcher's genuine skill level for almost every season and for almost every pitcher. How this affects your study: Looking at this data, I'd be inclined to argue that Brewers pitchers, as a group, were massively unlucky from pitches 76-100 (and probably somewhat lucky on pitches 1-76), relative to the rest of the league (which you've provided as an excellent baseline). Yost can't really be blamed for bad luck concentrating in one particular chunk of pitches. If anything, the BABIP performance you identify is a mitigating factor that ought to instruct us to temper any criticism we throw at Yost for the lousy OPS-against performance his starters had from pitch 76-100. To wit: "Maybe Yost left them in too long, on average, as evidenced by the OPS-against data, but then again, maybe that OPS stuff was largely the result of lousy luck, as evidenced by the fact that most of the dropoff in results (OPS-against, ERA, WHIP, whatever) can be explained by the drastic rise in BABIP-against, which we think was probably just bad luck. If the starters were still striking out hitters, walking them, and allowing HR at basically the same rate from pitch 76-100, then Yost was probably right that they still had something left in the tank, whatever the results." What I'd really like to see is whether there was a larger-than-normal FIP dropoff for pitches 76-100 - if there was, then I think we'd be justified in blaming Yost for having too slow a hook. 2) BABIP for Hitters: Unlike pitchers, hitters demonstrate a wide and fairly stable spread in this statistic year over year. It is much less advisable to look at an unusually high or unusually low BABIP posted by a hitter as a sign that his actual AVG was a product of good or bad luck. It's not as stable as OBP or SLG or ISO, but it's at least as good an indicator of a hitter's true talent as AVG , and probably better. So it's not quite correct to say, for instance, that we ought to expect a significant dropoff in Ryan Braun's BABIP this year because his BABIP was SO high last year. It is correct to regress his BABIP to the mean somewhat more than we would for a vet, along with all the other measures (OBP, SLG, ISO, etc.) but only because we have less than a full season of MLB data for Braun, NOT because an unusually high BABIP is unsustainable. It is incorrect to view his huge BABIP as lucky, it is more correct to say: "We cannot be confident he's actually THAT good at BABIP because we have too little data, so we're hedging our bets and expecting some dropoff, while acknowledging that it's entirely within the realm of possibility that Ryan Braun is a BABIP monster the likes of which we've never seen before." The difference between those two views is fairly subtle, but I think it's important and a reason for optimism. How this affects your study: Not at all really, I've just been looking for an opportunity to bring it up. To the other unrepentant stat-geeks that populate these boards: if you feel I've mischaracterized anything about BABIP here, please do feel free to chime in, as I recognize I'm calling into question something that is at this point largely regarded as received wisdom on these boards (i.e. that hitters with high BABIP were lucky in the same way and to the same extent that pitchers with high BABIP against were unlucky).

Interesting stuff, but a couple points of clarification on BABIP. I've seen some widespread misunderstanding on these boards lately. 1) BABIP against for pitchers: A pitcher's BABIP is often rightly cited as a helpful indicator of good or bad luck distorting the view provided by the more familiar stats (ERA, WHIP, even W-L). So, for instance, we can say that Chris Capuano actually (from a true talent perspective) was pitching about as well last year as he has in the past, but he'd had some outstanding BABIP luck previously that swung over to the opposite end last year. The current thinking on pitchers' BABIP against is that it IS indicative of a genuine spread in skill, but that the spread is quite small. As a result, it takes YEARS of data for an individual pitcher's skill or lack of skill to show up. Most pitchers are up and down in this stat (like Capuano), indicating that the best approach to assessing their current skill (and projecting their future performance) is to regress BABIP all the way to league average. If you're looking at someone who has pitched 10+ MLB seasons and has posted BABIPs consistently above or below league average, you might not want to do this, because it is becoming more and more likely with each additional data point that this performance represents a genuine skill (or lack thereof) rather than luck. There aren't many pitchers that fit this description though, so DIPS (FIP, xFIP, etc.) is still an excellent quick and dirty way to get a rough assessment of a pitcher's genuine skill level for almost every season and for almost every pitcher. How this affects your study: Looking at this data, I'd be inclined to argue that Brewers pitchers, as a group, were massively unlucky from pitches 76-100 (and probably somewhat lucky on pitches 1-76), relative to the rest of the league (which you've provided as an excellent baseline). Yost can't really be blamed for bad luck concentrating in one particular chunk of pitches. If anything, the BABIP performance you identify is a mitigating factor that ought to instruct us to temper any criticism we throw at Yost for the lousy OPS-against performance his starters had from pitch 76-100. To wit: "Maybe Yost left them in too long, on average, as evidenced by the OPS-against data, but then again, maybe that OPS stuff was largely the result of lousy luck, as evidenced by the fact that most of the dropoff in results (OPS-against, ERA, WHIP, whatever) can be explained by the drastic rise in BABIP-against, which we think was probably just bad luck. If the starters were still striking out hitters, walking them, and allowing HR at basically the same rate from pitch 76-100, then Yost was probably right that they still had something left in the tank, whatever the results." What I'd really like to see is whether there was a larger-than-normal FIP dropoff for pitches 76-100 - if there was, then I think we'd be justified in blaming Yost for having too slow a hook. 2) BABIP for Hitters: Unlike pitchers, hitters demonstrate a wide and fairly stable spread in this statistic year over year. It is much less advisable to look at an unusually high or unusually low BABIP posted by a hitter as a sign that his actual AVG was a product of good or bad luck. It's not as stable as OBP or SLG or ISO, but it's at least as good an indicator of a hitter's true talent as AVG , and probably better. So it's not quite correct to say, for instance, that we ought to expect a significant dropoff in Ryan Braun's BABIP this year because his BABIP was SO high last year. It is correct to regress his BABIP to the mean somewhat more than we would for a vet, along with all the other measures (OBP, SLG, ISO, etc.) but only because we have less than a full season of MLB data for Braun, NOT because an unusually high BABIP is unsustainable. It is incorrect to view his huge BABIP as lucky, it is more correct to say: "We cannot be confident he's actually THAT good at BABIP because we have too little data, so we're hedging our bets and expecting some dropoff, while acknowledging that it's entirely within the realm of possibility that Ryan Braun is a BABIP monster the likes of which we've never seen before." The difference between those two views is fairly subtle, but I think it's important and a reason for optimism. How this affects your study: Not at all really, I've just been looking for an opportunity to bring it up. To the other unrepentant stat-geeks that populate these boards: if you feel I've mischaracterized anything about BABIP here, please do feel free to chime in, as I recognize I'm calling into question something that is at this point largely regarded as received wisdom on these boards (i.e. that hitters with high BABIP were lucky in the same way and to the same extent that pitchers with high BABIP against were unlucky).

There really isn't any meaningful comparison between Dillon and Rottino. Dillon spent '06 in Japan, but his AAA stats from '04,'05, and '07 are remarkably consistent and off-the-charts good: '04.....329 / 398 / 669 '05.....360 / 459 / 631 '07.....317 / 405 / 605 All three years that's an OPS north of 1.000. For comparison, here's Rottino's last three: '05.....299 / 354 / 408 '06.....314 / 379 / 440 '07.....289 / 363 / 446 Nothing to scoff at, but not remotely in Joe Dillon's league as a hitter. Believe that CHONE projection I posted earlier. Given a full season's worth of ABs, he's a threat to post an OPS in the 850 - 900 range. There's no reason they both can't make the team, though. I'd rather carry Rottino as an emergency, do-anything type than have Gwynn or Rivera on the roster, as he'd likely outhit either one of those guys.

I think this question essentially boils down to which of the following two camps you belong to: 1) Minor league stats don't mean anything, or at least mean very little. AAA is filled with guys that can put up huge numbers in the minors but fail in the big show, that's why scouts have the "4A" tag. It's a big risk to stock your bench with unproven guys, because they might fail completely. At least with vets you know what you're going to get. 2) Minor league stats are as useful, or nearly as useful, as major league stats for projecting future major league performance, provided you're careful to adjust for things like park factor, league factor, etc. There's no such thing as a "4A" player, there are just guys who rot away needlessly in the minors as a consequence of major league GMs having a fetishistic fixation with Proven Veterans . Smart teams should want to pay the league minimum for bench production from guys other teams think are "4A". In reality, there's probably a continuum of viewpoints from (1) to (2). I'm much closer to (2), so I look at Joe Dillon as a fairly proven commodity. He's put up big numbers in AAA for several years now, CHONE projects him at 280/356/492 for '08 (that's better than Geoff Jenkins' CAREER line). Matter of fact, I'm starting to wonder whether he shouldn't be given an opportunity to be the starting 3B, if the asking price is too high on Rolen/Blalock/Chavez/Beltre. I want us to be the sort of team that recognizes the value that the Joe Dillons (AKA "Ken Phelps All Stars") of the baseball world provide. Rottino and Rivera have much more modest projections, but I think only one of them will make the team. I'm hoping it's Rottino, because his 257/319/378 projection isn't embarrassing for a guy that can fill in at so many different positions.

His logic is that Hall struggled offensively when moved to the OF and Braun would do the same. That isn't really logic at all, it's extrapolation based on one data point. In 5 minutes, I thought of 3 players who pulled off the 3B to LF switch and hit the same or better the next year: Player................Year.....Previous OPS+.....OPS+.....Change Chipper Jones.....'02............160..................153............-7 Gary Sheffield.....'94............120...................145...........+25 Kevin Mitchell.....'89............121...................192...........+71 But that table doesn't represent logic or reasoning either, it's just another set of datapoints. Hall may have hit less well because he was distracted by the demands of his new defensive position (that's certainly the narrative nearly everyone used to explain/excuse his hitting struggles), or he may have just had a down year, or he may have hit insanely over his head the previous two seasons. Let's say Braun does switch positions. He'll hit the same, hit better, or hit worse. And the mainstream media will likely construct a narrative that explains whichever of those outcomes actually occurs in terms of the defensive switch, as if there's any real reason for supposing a causal relationship. I vaguely remember a bunch of sportswriters attempting to "explain" Kevin Mitchell's out-of-nowhere MVP season by appealing to the decreased defensive demands of his new, permanent position as the Giants regular LF (He'd played some outfield before, but then, so had Hall). If Mitchell's hitting had collapsed, the same writers would doubtless have blamed the position switch for his struggles. The issue for the Brewers front office ought to be how best to align their defenders in order to allow them to succeed at playing defense. If that means half the team has to learn a new position, so be it. They shouldn't worry about potential effects on any Braun's offense any more than they'd worry if learning a new position would wreak havoc on his love life. And they shouldn't let the "We don't want to move Billy two years in a row" stuff get in the way either. Does anybody really think that stance is indicative of Melvin's concern for Hall's career? If he was worried about that, he'd have left him at SS or traded him to a team that could use a SS. Not wanting to admit you made a mistake is a lousy reason for sticking with a dumb decision, particularly when it's preventing you from doing something that would rather obviously help the team. Oh well, we're only human.

Interesting to me was that Gross is projected to get better in RF, but worse in CF. How does that work? Gross's 2007 numbers were fairly anomolous in that he looked better relative to the average CF than the average RF. He must have played a great deal better in his limited CF innings, since it is much more difficult to outperform an average major league CF than an average major league RF. If you look at all the outfielders in the projection spreadsheet, a gap of 7-9 runs between the corner outfield projection and CF projection for each player seems fairly standard.

My guess on Hall - he doesn't benefit from age adjustment anymore and looks worse largely because he played only about 3/4 worth of the innings in CF last year. The 2008 projections are for a full season. Why regression to the mean helps Braun (who also played just 3/4 of a season) so much more relative to Hall is what's a mystery to me.

Chone Smith (who posts on BTF as "AROM") has a blog entry up that links to fielding runs info for 2007 averaging STATS zone data (used for UZR) and BIS zone data (used for RZR and PMR). He's also got projections for 2008 that are "based on 4 years worth of data, age adjusted, and regressed to the mean." Here's the link: http://home.comcast.net/~briankaat/statsite.html Below I've summarized relevant info for 2007 and/or 2008 Brewers. All the numbers are in runs saved above/below average for position. Catchers aren't included, so we're stuck guessing how many runs Estrada cost us. As always, sample size warnings should be in effect. I almost left Dillon out because he's logged so few innings at each position. I feel pretty strongly that given the differences in BIS and STATS data, this is as close as we can currently come to a best guess at measuring a player's defensive value. As such, these numbers are probably better than looking at THT or BP's fielding stats alone. Enjoy. PLAYER..........POS.....2007.....2008 (projected as regular) Prince Fielder......1B.......-10........-6 Rickie Weeks......2B.......-10........-16 J.J. Hardy............SS........-5.........-1 Ryan Braun..........3B.......-24........-16 Craig Counsell......2B.......+1.........+14 ............................3B........+7........+6 ............................SS........+2........+12 Tony Graffanino....2B........-1.........+2 ............................3B........+5........+2 Joe Dillon.............1B.........0..........0 ............................2B........+1........+1 ............................3B.........0..........-3 ............................LF.........0..........-3 ............................RF........-1.........-3 Geoff Jenkins........LF........+7........+3 Bill Hall................CF........-8.........-14 ............................LF.......N/A.......-3 Corey Hart...........RF........+5........+5 ............................CF........-1.........-3 Gabe Gross..........RF........-2.........+2 ............................CF........+1........-7 Kevin Mench........LF........+1........+3 Tony Gwynn, Jr....CF........-3.........+3

Unless I am mistaken, none of the fielding metrics give credit to the 1B for a "play made" when he registers a putout, unless there is no assist on the play. If somebody else fielded the ball and threw it, the credit goes to him. Catcher is the hardest position for which to quantify defense. 1B comes in second, since zone data doesn't tell you anything meaningful about throw-receiving, which is probably the single most important defensive skill for the position.

By the end of the season, management seemed to have (finally) figured out that giving Gabe Gross AB's in the OF would help more than giving them to Tony Gwynn, Jr.

Excessive employment of extreme positioning that also happens to be foolishly based on partial, misleading information would also help explain why, if you look at the plus minus numbers from the link rluz provided, virtually everybody on the team is above average out of zone and below average in zone. Even the guys you'd expect to be the opposite (e.g. Fielder and Hardy). They're never positioned in their correct zone, so they can't make the plays the system thinks they should. Once in a while, the hitter actually does hit a ball at the crazy spot where the fielder is standing, and the system shows that as a play made out of zone (which I suppose it sort of is, but then, that number is supposed to measure range). The more I look at those numbers, the less I'm certain any of our young infielders are actually bad. Except for Braun. He looks terrible both in and out of zone.

If this is true, I'd just like to say that it is utterly crazy. From a statistical analysis standpoint, however, it does square with Yost's approach to lineups. Ride the hot hand, play the pitcher-hitter matchups, etc. Make all your decisions based on the smallest, most meaningless, sample of data that is available to you. Ned Yost should have his statistics taken away from him.

I like the idea of putting some of the surplus starters, whoever they may be, in the bullpen. Why not have, say, 2-3 guys in the pen who can pitch 2-3 innings two or three times a week? Barring several trades, there's no question this will be part of next year's solution. The last few days I've been wondering whether it might not be the entire solution. Note: There is no way a MLB team would actually go with the sort of arrangement I'm about to propose. They'd get slagged in the mainstream press before the season even started and absolutely destroyed whenever anybody pitching in relief fared poorly. Having said that, this would play to our organizational strengths, and assuming Yost is back, it would utterly prevent him from chewing the relief pitchers' arms up like he seemingly did this year. The plan: No relievers. At least no 1 inning, 2/3 days types. 10-man starting pitching staff (with one in reserve for extras and injuries), arranged into 2-starter teams, like they sometimes do in the minors. Everybody on the whole staff pitching on regular rest. Pair the best starter with the worst "reliever", and vice-versa. However long the starter goes, it's up to his designated "reliever" to go the rest of the way. Call this my plan for the de-Larussazation of the modern bullpen. Staff: 1. Sheets - 10. ??? (Pettyjohn? FA?) 2. Yo - 9. Z. Jackson 3. Villaneuva - 8. Vargas (CV squared - ha!) 4. Suppan - 7. Parra (Save Manny's arm a bit) 5. Capuano - 6. Bush (or vice-versa, possibly flip them based on favorable platoon matchups) Feel free to change the 1-10 rankings of the starters based on your personal preference. Again, I know they're not going to do this, but I really wonder whether it might not produce the best results next year with the least financial expense and the least damage to our farm system (i.e. this requires no prospect for reliever trades, which I feel represent the most irredeemably stupid trade variety there is).

If Sveum is indeed behind the Brewers excessive shifting, I would go with "nay" as well. The Brewers are dreadful at turning batted balls in play into outs. One of the problems zone-based metrics still have is in accounting for defensive shifting. Either Braun, Weeks, and Fielder really are among the very worst fielders at their respective positions, not just with respect to reliability but with respect to range as well (which is possible, but at least range-wise my eyes tell me different), or part of the problem is that they're all being handicapped by the positioning tactics the team employs. At the very least I think we could all agree that the teams the Brewers play don't seem to employ extreme shifts as often as the Brewers do. Whatever the team is doing defensively, it isn't working this year. Since they are (and should be) committed to this group of players, it might make sense to take a stab at drastically changing the positioning tactics next year. If Sveum has to go in order for that to happen, so be it.

They got Britton for Jaret Wright and $4 mil (another in a long line of brilliant moves by the Orioles). Ramirez was signed out of the independant leagues after the Angels released him (twice). Your more general point may be correct, however. I suspect the Yankees would like to keep them both. But I think Britton would have to clear waivers to be assigned to AAA next year (he's had 6 full years in the minors), and since it's the Yankees, who knows if they'll have the roster space. Ramirez may still have options. He's probably the longest shot on this list, but he's also the most attractive, and his poor performance in the bigs this year (8.38 ERA in 19.1 IP) may make him available. After all, how many chances do the Yankees tend to give a guy like him?

I spent a little time this afternoon trying to dig up possible 'scrapheap' candidates with good minor league peripherals this year and in previous years. I don't think many of these guys figure in their teams long-term plans, and several may be available this offseason as minor league free agents, at no cost. I hope that Melvin brings in a bunch of guys of this general variety and throws them up against the wall to see what sticks. First, a couple of Yankees who look like they might be out of options and are fairly unlikely to make the team's opening day 25 man roster: - Chris Britton: (Age: 24, throws R) Excellent minor league numbers three years running. Very solid in 60 ML IP over the last two seasons, though with a lower K-rate than you'd like. - Edwar Ramirez: (Age: 26, throws R) K/9 has been at least 13, ERA below 2.00 last three years in the minors. Just dominating. Scouts may not like his build if the listed height/weight are anything close to accurate (6-3, 150. Man that's a skinny dude). Probably has an option left as he's only had 5 years in the minors. Others: - Eric Hull: (Age: 27, throws R) Dodgers' farmhand struggled with control issues in 05 and 06 before putting together a very nice year in 07: K/9 was 11.1; BB/9 was down to 3.6; ERA was 2.74. 6 years in minors, so should be out of options. - Dan Giese: (Age: 30, throws R) Sept. call-up for the Giants has been excellent in AAA 3 out of the last 4 years. K/9 has been rising the last few years. Great control and seems to keep the ball in the park (0.25 HR/9 this year. Very impressive, especially if Fresno still plays in that ludicrously hitter-friendly park that made Pedro Feliz and Damon Minor look like such can't-miss stars). - Winston Abreu: (Age: 30, throws R) Has been pretty bad in 34 ML IP for the Orioles and Nats, but it's tough to ignore his 06 and 07 AAA performance. Has always missed bats (10.8 K/9 lifetime in the minors, 14.1 this year). 1.20 AAA ERA this year. Seems to have by and large gotten a handle on the control issues that have hurt him throughout his career, but hasn't sustained his K/9 in the majors so far. I know Grant Balfour didn't work out so great for the Brewers this year (not that he was given much of a chance), but I still think the best approach to building a bullpen is by augmenting a couple of proven quality relievers with a crapload of guys like him, who keep succeeding at AAA but don't get a chance because most Major League GMs still believe there is such a thing as a AAAA player.