Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat

Also, Steve Bray had better get a very long look in the spring. He's done nothing but dominate in AAA and has been passed over for guys like McClung and Aquino, because they can throw in the upper 90's, but with little control. In addition to Bray and Aquino, there are a few other guys within the organization who had nice years at AA and AAA and probably deserve at least some consideration for bullpen roles next year: - Marino Salas: Exceptional job closing at AA, decent in AAA, but peripherals are just ok. - Mark DiFelice: Fantastic out of the pen at AA, very nice performance starting at AAA, better peripherals. Doesn't walk anybody. - Zack Jackson: Yeah, he was just ok as a starter at Nashville. No, his K/9 and BB/9 don't exactly blow you away. But it's looking increasingly unlikely that he will ever crack the starting rotation here and he's got to be close to running out of options. I'm sick of patchwork, scrapheap bullpens. That was fine when we weren't competing but that just isn't going to fly next year. The alternative, unfortunately, is probably to (way) overspend on lousy veterans. Ask Cubs fans how much they're enjoying Scott Eyre. If the bullpen has to be terrible, Melvin should at least make sure it's cost effective. The trick is not to get too married to the guys you find on the scrapheap when they exceed expectations. Get an effective season (maybe two) out of them before the league figures them out, then kiss 'em goodbye when they turn into pumpkins. Even if they have piled up a ton of saves in the interim (see: Derrick Turnbow). Under no circumstances give them large free agent contracts to retain their services. Having said that, I do think they do need to come away from this offseason having either retained Cordero or found some other reliable guy to anchor the bullpen. The other Cordero is a pretty good suggestion. Maybe the Twins would part with Nathan and go with Neshek as their closer in order to save some money for Hunter or Santana. If not, maybe their new GM would be nuts enough to give up Neshek. In any event, it appears a massive bullpen overhaul is on its way. I don't exactly see that as a bad thing.

Nevermind - I didn't look closely enough at the bottom of Raburn's numbers. He hit in the majors this year, so he probably can't be had for next to nothing any longer.

I'm pretty sure that if we pick up Jenkins' option, he gets 10-5 rights and an automatic no-trade. He'll either be back or the Brewers will get nothing for him. If the Tigers really want Jenkins as a part of their LF solution, maybe they'd let this guy go for a low level prospect or cash or what-have-you: http://thebaseballcube.com/players/R/Ryan-Raburn.shtml Between Dillon and Raburn, I think the Brewers would be extremely likely to have somebody who would outperform Mench as the right-handed half of an outfield platoon with Gross, and bring more versatility to the bench too.

You guys honestly think Jenkins couldn't play first? I don't doubt that he probably could. But I would guess that if the Tigers needed help at another position (say CF depth), the linked author would have painlessly concluded that Jenkins can play there too.

Maybe in this guy's universe the Tigers might see the strong-armed Jenkins as possibly being useful as a backup catcher, or perhaps even full-time at the position if Ivan Rodriguez continues to fall off a cliff.

As to how this affects pitchers, look at Jeff Suppan. His ERA this year is the highest its been since 2002 when in the AL. But if you look at Suppan's FIP, its the best of his career. Suppan has pitched his career this year but the defense makes it look like one of his worst. It's basically the same story with Capuano and Bush. What scares me most is that in terms of assembling a high K/ low BB pitching staff, we're basically already there. 3rd in NL in Ks and 4th in BB rate. And it still wasn't good enough for this team to be any good at run prevention (9th in NL in fewest RA).

There's a pretty good empirical basis for guessing what Hall's fielding at 3B would be like: Hall's previous seasons when he played 3B. For his career he is +2 FRAA as a 3b, +3 as a SS, and (oddly) -11 as a 2B. There's at least a half season's worth of games to each of those samples. Again, I don't really like BP's fielding stats, but I don't have quick access to any of the better ones here at work. How much he might've declined since he put up those numbers is also tough to gauge - a whole season in the outfield probably didn't do him any favors, and his last year in the infield was his worst FRAA year anyway (-8), but I don't think it would be foolishly optimistic to hope for league average fielding out of Hall at 3B. It's pretty easy to be a league average LF (after all, that's where the Adam Dunns of the world get stuck to minimize the damage they can do). Braun is a good athlete, so he might even be a plus fielder out there. That said, I doubt the FO will seriously consider moving Braun off 3B until he's had at least one more season to prove he can't hack it. As far as catching goes, Cap'n Lou might reasonably be expected to put up something like .230/.310/.360, but I don't know if anybody would label him a "defensive stud". Still might be better than Estrada overall, and a heckuva lot cheaper.

Is it possible to win with a defense this bad? My guess is it is but we would have to hit like the 27 Yankees or have a staff full of high strikeout low walk pitchers....not exactly easy to find. 1) There's no guarantee that the defense remains this bad. Weeks has shown some improvement both visually and in most of these metrics (most of them had him as a Braun-level butcher his first couple of years, which corresponds pretty well with what my eyes told me, and offers hope for Braun - besides, one season isn't nearly enough data to dismiss his fielding potential even if all the metrics end up agreeing he was lousy this year). 2) We might be able to hit something like the 27 Yankees if Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hart, and Hardy all show normal development arcs, peaking ages 25-29. 3) High K, Low BB is absolutely the correct approach to building a pitching staff in front of this sort of team. It probably is the correct approach in front of any sort of team. Somebody tell Melvin before he trades away any more Will Inmans. So buck up, all hope is not lost. And check out the thread about Fielder being in "esteemed company" for more good vibes.

I think when the smoke clears, you will be able to see with fielding metrics, and probably some pitching metrics that we left a non-trivial amount of games on the table because of shoddy glovework. 100% agree with that. I'm just not sure that we're in a position to adequately divvy the blame up at this juncture. It does seem likely that Braun, Weeks, and Fielder were a good chunk of the problem. Estrada too, but all the advanced metrics are terrible at measuring catcher defense, so who knows when we'll be able to say how many runs he cost this team behind the plate.

Oh yeah, and THT's got Fielder as the second worst 1b in the NL, ahead of only SteakGrowsOnDmitri Young.

Only thing I want to point out here is that BP's fielding stats (FRAA) are generally regarded by most SABR types as the least reliable of the advanced fielding metrics. Maybe that has something to do with the black box methodology through which they are derived, but that seems to be the concensus view as far as I can tell. It's nice that they make them available throughout the season and all, but that doesn't mean they measure anything terribly accurately. On the other hand, THT's revised zone rating isn't any friendlier to these two. Weeks is third to last among NL 2b and Braun is dead last among NL 3b. I'm anxious to see how they fare in the really good plus/minus systems (Dewan's especially), but as far as I know those are not available mid-season. My current attitude towards objective measurement of fielding is that if all the metrics agree a player is bad, it's pretty safe to say that player is indeed bad, whatever scouts and gold glove voters might think (cough-Jeter-cough), but that we really don't have any decent idea exactly how many runs or wins anybody's fielding adds or subtracts. It seems very likely that all of the advanced metrics will say that Weeks was at least a below average if not a bad fielder this year and that Braun was bad if not downright awful. Definately something to be concerned about.

The one thing I don't want to see is Hall in LF. He just isn't likely to hit enough to justify getting playing time there. If that's what it comes to, they should make every effort to flip him to a team that needs a SS for a legit corner hitting outfielder, selling low or no. I think Wilson's possibly splittsville from Pittsburgh this offseason. If so, I wonder how much above and beyond Hall it would take to get Jason Bay in a swap of 07 disappointments?

My favorite line in that article is the closing one: If you can't recognize that "tied in the tenth inning, other team's best guys up, a half-game out of first place, 12 days left" is about the highest-leverage situation you're going to come across, and act accordingly, it's possible that you're not the best person for your job. True dat double true, Mr. Sheehan.