http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgkhtjgz_19fxgch6c3 5 keys for the 2010 Milwaukee Brewers to make the playoffs: The best way to demonstrate the best ways for the Brewers to get back to the playoffs in 2010 is to look at the 2009 team and find what got the team to a roughly .500 record last season, point out the weakness of the team, and pray they get better. But what exactly does that entail? How do the Brewers go from winning 80 games last season to winning 90? Sabermetrical analysis tells us that a win is roughly equal to 10 runs, and that a run prevented is equal to a run scored. Thus, we need to get the 2010 Brewers to score or prevent 100 total runs. Where are the best ways to gain these runs from last season? The 2009 Brewers scored 785 runs (4.85 per game) while giving up 818 (5.05 per game) runs for a Pythagorean win/loss of 78/84. This tells us that the Brewers won 2 more games than they should have. The 2009 Brewers went 40-41 both at home and on the road. This is probably the most underrated place for improvement. The Brewers over the last couple of years was the incredible home record with a dismal road record. For example: 2005: Overall 81-81 Home 46-35 Road 35-46 2006: Overall 75-87 Home 48-33 Road 27-54 2007: Overall 83-79 Home 51-30 Road 32-49 2008: Overall 90-72 Home 49-32 Road 41-40 2009: Overall 80-82 Home 40-41 Road 40-41 Total: Overall 409-401 Home 234-171 Road 175-230 This is a huge difference in a noticeable trend. In 2008, the teams with the 4 best road records made the playoffs. The Brewers need to regain that home field advantage that they enjoyed in earlier years. Assuming the Brewers can win the close to the average or median number from the last 4 years should give the Brewers sizeable improvement, but this represents a non-statistical analysis. Perhaps further introspective analysis could tell us more about these numbers, and is something I will look at more in depth in another piece. A recap of the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers, starting with the offense: 2009 Brewers (Rank) OBP wOBA SLG OPS BABIP wRC .341(8) .335(9) .426(10) .767(9) .305(8) 786(9) (Just one off of actual total) And now for a position by position analysis: Position (Rank) OBP wOBA SLG OPS BABIP wRC C 23 .330 .292 .315 .645 .292 54 1B 2 .415 .426 .616 1.031 .318 147 2B 2 .382 .371 .475 .857 .345 121 3B 14 .332 .336 .443 .775 .322 94 SS 21 .305 .291 .351 .656 .281 62 LF 2 .374 .392 .531 .906 .342 128 CF 19 .328 .330 .428 .756 .293 86 RF 22 .339 .333 .419 .758 .301 89 DH (36) 20 .350 .328 .389 .739 .346 5 P (285) 10 .193 .175 .182 .376 .236 -3 PH 3 I added up the wRC for all positions I had data for. PH I deemed as being worth 3 wRC because that was the difference between the added positions number (783) and the total aggregate number (786) A couple of observations or areas of improvement: Jason Kendall was putrid, and he was the best catcher. AB by Gregg Zaun as well as a fair share from one of the prospects vying for the backup job, Salome or Kottaras or Lucroy or whomever wins the backup job should be a way to create some runs to the team. Rickie Weeks is a common, and lazy, place to expect improvement. He will have a lot to do in order to replicate the numbers that the 2nd base contingent produced last season. A drop-off is likely, but Weeks could breakout, he is 27 and has a ton of talent, but that breakout would likely result in simple reproduction of last year’s 2nd base production. Fielder and Braun had tremendous seasons last year, but both benefited from a higher than normal BABIP. Expect a minor drop-off in both of their production, but nothing too drastic to expect a collapse of the offense. Corey Hart will be fully recovered from his mid-season surgery and has new contacts. Will this be enough for the former All-Star to have a breakout year? He made noticeable strides in his plate discipline last season, and sometimes that uptick in walks is followed the next season by an increase in power. Since Hart accumulated so many of the RF AB a year ago, his improvement, or rather just simply producing at his 2007 or first half of 2008 stats would be another way. CF could end up being a shot in the dark for the Brewers. Carlos Gomez will have to severely perform better than he has thus far in both his major and minor league career to produce the way Mike Cameron did last season. Expect a drop-off there. Bill Hall’s anemic numbers were essentially canceled out by Casey McGehee’s incredible breakout campaign. However, McGehee has never, not in the majors or the minors performed the way he did last season. Expect another drop-off. Escobar will probably only slightly improve on J.J. Hardy’s putrid numbers last season, based on his minor league profile. Let us now turn to some projections to try to estimate the run production based on some of the stipulations that I put forward in the preceding blurbs. I will try to approximate things like AB and things like that which are admitted very unscientific. I will also only use OBP and SLG, and then will plug them into the Lineup Analysis tool provided at Baseball Musings to try and get an approximation. My method was to weight the 3 projection systems ¼ each as well as Fangraphs’ fan projections ¼. Position Player PA OBP SLG C Gregg Zaun 321.25 0.33375 0.37725 1B Prince Fielder 661.75 0.39225 0.575 2B Rickie Weeks 452.5 0.3585 0.44375 3B Casey McGehee 461.75 0.33325 0.43375 SS Alcides Escobar 467 0.33225 0.38875 LF Ryan Braun 643.5 0.3725 0.5715 CF Carlos Gomez 479 0.3155 0.37275 RF Corey Hart 536.75 0.33075 0.45875 Here are your projected starters. Using last years’ teams’ AB totals, again not such a good method, the Brewers went to the plate 6296 times. The projections above accumulated only 4023.5 AB. This means I am looking for 2272.5 PA. Last season, the pitchers went to the dish 285 times, and since the difference would be minimal at best, I will simply add those numbers. We now need 1986.5 AB. Taking into account some key backups: Position Player PA OBP SLG IF Craig Counsell 360.5 .33575 .3335 OF Jim Edmonds 269.5 .332 .428 OF Jody Gerut 311 .323 .431 IF Mat Gamel 414.25 .34675 .445 P 285 .193 .182 IF Hernan Iribarren 302.5 .334 .3955 C George Kottaras 304.5 .331 .409 All together this brings us 6270.8 AB, leaving us around 22 AB short. Even if Prince Fielder was batting in these AB, the output would only be about 5 runs, not even a win. These remaining AB are negligible, and therefore, I am simply going to multiply them out in the tool. Here is the starting lineup with my preferred order: 1) Weeks 2) Zaun 3) Braun 4) Fielder 5) Hart 6) McGehee 7) Gomez 8) Pitcher 9) Escobar Now using the projected plate appearances, we must divide the production, notably of the bench into positions on which they will start to either give the starter an off day or in case of an injury. This method is a tad flawed because positions like CF will be overrepresented, while positions like C will be underrepresented. Because of the relative closeness in the projected production of the Brewers SS, CF, and C, I feel like this method, while inaccurate, is still close enough to be given merit. Sabermetrical analysis also feels like the batting order doesn’t matter, a notion that I disagree with, but not entirely. The positions are divided up as follows: Then equate each player’s projections into their weighted playing time at each position. I will put both the Extra and the DH into the pitchers spot as they are the ones most likely to be pinch-hit for. And plugging into the Lineup Analysis tool that lineup is projected to score 5.048 runs per game, or 818 runs total, which places them just over 30 runs higher than last season’s mark of 785. Okay Milwaukee, we received 3 wins more than last season. How else can we improve this season? Looking at Jack Z’s incredible improvement in Seattle, one thing comes out at you, DEFENSE. Can the Brewers similarly improve with the mitt? Likely not to the extent, but let’s see where improvement can be made, first by tallying runs last season. I find that the most accurate measure is UZR. The following from the 2009 Brewers: Overall UZR/150= -0.2 1B -0.6 2B 14 3B -1.2 SS 4.7 LF -11.5 CF 6.4 RF -3.9 So where will fluctuations likely come? The main substitutions are as follows: SS: Escobar in for Hardy CF: Gomez in for Cameron C: Zaun in for Kendall 2B: Weeks in for Lopez/Counsell C seems like a wash, while SS and CF seem like upgrades and 2B seems like a downgrade. With last season’s league leading 14 UZR, can Rickie Weeks playing a ton of innings improve or even break even with 2009 production? I think that Weeks can settle in at around +10 UZR, which would be just a 4 run drop-off from the 2009 production. Gomez’s UZR last season of 10 makes up for that from Cameron’s. I think that Escobar will improve on Hardy’s numbers, perhaps vaulting to +15 UZR. I have nothing but the eye test to attribute to that. There is one win right there. McGehee was putrid according to UZR last season, producing a -17.7 UZR. I found this odd considering McGehee’s reputation was that he was a good defender. Having his knee surgery should surely help that, so let’s make him average, which I do not believe to be a stretch considering his 12.1 UZR at 2B and his minor league reputation. Braun lost a win of value last year in the field from his rookie season, and should probably gain back half of that to maybe -8 instead of -14. These may seem too many, and with almost the entire bench sans Counsell not so good defensively, I will say that the only real impact comes from the upgrade from Escobar to Hardy, which results in 1 more win. To 84 we go. Now we turn our attention to the pitching, which destroyed the 2009 Brewers. They gave up an astonishing 818 runs last season. The Brewers made some splashes in FA. Will they pan out? Were they smart? We shall see. But what to the numbers tell us? The signing of Rick Peterson as pitching coach could be a source of improvement. In 1997, the last year before Peterson was the coach, the team gave up 946 runs. In 1998, they gave up 866 runs, nearly 60 less. Then Peterson went to take over the Mets. In 2003, the year before he took over, the Mets gave up 754 runs. In 2004, the Mets gave up 731 runs, a 23 run difference. Can we simply average them out. I think that we should turn more to the Mets example than the A’s example. The Mets did not have the talent infusion that the A’s had during that time, I’m sure you are aware of the Big 3. Let’s say that he can get 40 runs or 4 wins out of this team. Where will this improvement come from? Last season the Brewers’ pitching staff pitched 1435 innings, giving up 818 runs, earned and unearned. I will use the same algorithm to determine runs giving up as I did to determine runs scored. I will not use ERA, only xFIP and Runs given up, in this model, until I get to 1435 innings. Okay, sorry I got to 1432 innings, but still I leave you with: In these 1432 innings, these Brewers gave up 717 runs. The Pythagorean winning percentage of scoring 818 and giving up 717 is .533 which gives the Brewers 86 wins. This number is without any injuries except for those already factored in during the projection process. Is that enough to overcome the Cardinals and Cubs? I say that it is enough for the Cubs, but not enough for the Cardinals. What are the most likely sources of improvement on this 86 wins? 1) Corey Hart out produces his numbers 2) Alcides Escobar shows a more noticeable difference defensively than the projections say. 3) George Kottaras plays more than Gregg Zaun 4) Ryan Braun plays defense more like he did in 2008 than in 2009 5) Yovani Gallardo takes 2 step forwards instead of just 1 that is outlined in the systems.
