Thurston Fluff

I thought he was going to be one of those breakout types this year. BUC does not predict well. I think some head clearing time in the minors would be in order now. I am slightly worried about is his jump in innings last year. I have no real proof of this but doesn't it seem like some players lose their control then end up injured shortly after. Sometimes we find they have been injured or are fighting through some minor ailment for some time before it was revealed sometimes the loss of control mat lead to it. Given the loss of control and the jump in innings last year maybe he is on the verge of something like that.

I didn't initially even bring up the fangraph values nor have I given it my stamp of approval. I don't know how many times I've said I don't completely agree with all of its methodologies. I'M the one who pointed out it's origins. My bad Russ. sorry for accusing you of something you didn't do. I thought it odd you would use that. I guess I'm getting some posts confused. I wish there was a way to assess his true value but I'm not sure how. I just don't think fangraphs does it well at all. How about this for quick and dirty. Melvin signed Soup primarily for his durability and he was deemed to be worth 10-12 million. Lets subtract that from fangraphs 20.5 million and settle on him being roughly worth what he was paid. Not scientific but maybe fair enough to get us to sing the praises of Brewer nation together once again?

If you begin to value specific wins over others based upon context, then we've lost any means to quantify the argument, and it regresses to a "no, he wasn't" "yes, he was" argument. I'm not arueing specific wins and losses I'm arguing the use of fangraphs as a viable means of assessing past performance. It does not take into account players not being healthy when they sign the contract so you cannot use it to assess a players relative worth when it is known they are not healthy. Granted contracts take into consideration player health as a risk factor but they do not take into account guaranteed missing of games. The very few times there are contracts like that you do not see the figure $20.5 million come up. I guess a common sense argument could be - Do you really think any GM would think a player is worth $20.5 million if he knew ahead of time it was a guarantee they would not be available come September? Personally I don't. If it is true you wouldn't find one then why is it true that he was worth that? Part of the fangrpahs equation is set by what teams value players at so if no team would pay that much for a guaranteed injured player then it stands to reason they are not worth it. I certainly don't think it can be determined by using a predictive tool in a descriptive past tense manner. To be clear I'm not really arguing if he was worth that much as much as I am the method/tools used to arrive at that number. If you wish to assess Sheets value I think you have to use some other means. It is not possible to use free agent contracts in a formula to assess a past performance if no free agent contract was handed out to someone who was known to fit the circumstances we know about Sheets now.

So you're looking for the opportunity cost lost by him not pitching? no I'm arguing you cannot use contracts handed out to players who are expected to be healthy as a means to measure the value of someone who is guaranteed not to be. That is a vital part of any contract and since fangraphs does not take a guarantee of not being healthy into account it cannot be used to assess the value of someone who was not healthy. It could be used very well to assess what he might get in the future, which is what it was designed for, but not to look at his relative worth in the past when he was not. No offense intended to Russ, I learn a lot from him, but in this particular instance I think he was putting a round peg in a square hole.

You think Sheets performance wasn't worth $20 mil because he wasn't available in the playoffs? That's fine. Fangraphs is looking at the regular season only. They are saying his 3.1 ERA over 200 IP during the regular season is worth $20 on the open market. What does fangrpahs say the value of a pitcher who is guaranteed not to be available for September would be? Since you are measuring Sheets past tense we know that is a true circumstance. I don't know how using contracts handed out to players who are, to one degree or another, expected to be available is of any use what so ever in correctly assessing the value of someone who is guaranteed not to be. You cannot use a tool meant to measure relative value going forward as a way to measure value of something in the past when a major component of that tool is based on expected availability to one degree or another and that availability is known not to exist. Sorry but I believe you've completely misused fangraphs. It is not of any value in objective measurement in this particular case.

You think we could have gotten MORE than 20 million dollars of value with the 12 million we paid Sheets? If every free agent/arbitration/contract extended player on our team performed a 1.67x the cost of his contract, we'd be in the playoffs pretty much every year. That $20 million figure is calculated via the most expensive way to acquire a player which (obviously) is the worst way to acquire a player. For that calculation to be truly useful it has to take into account all salaries not just what they can get on the open market. One that is only used when necessary. That is not how most or our players have been acquired. If you plug our entire team into that calculation you would find a team vastly more expensive than what our payroll was so that is not a valid way to calculate value IMHO. How valuable was Ben in relationship to our other players who would be worth quite a bit more than they were paid as well? What Sheets could have got us in trade would not have cost us $20 million and very well could have helped us get to the playoffs as well as during the playoffs. So the whole he was worth $20 million is off base. I've already made it clear that I don't even agree with all of Fangraph's methodology. You can define "value" in all kinds of ways, afterall. I think it's a reasonable method but there's nothing definitive about it. It was initially designed by Tango to be used with projections to predict what a player will get in free agency, which it does pretty well. If this is the case then it is clearly a misuse of it to assess Sheets value last year. It is meant to assess value going forward not looking back. If it was meant to calculate the value of past performance I think it would have to include something about health and availability to a much larger degree. Looking forward there is merely a risk of injury not a guarantee of it like looking back does.

I don't have a problem with him thinking it. It's that he's stupid enough to say it that makes me shake my head. I wouldn't want him popping off like that if I was a fan of the Reds. There is nothing good that comes from such public proclamations.

If you want to go ahead and take 5 million of that and put it in the playoffs, you wouldn't have the chance. Without Sheets last year, we don't make the playoffs, and that's a fact. It's most certainly is not a fact because we can't really tell if we would have or not because we don't know what else we would have done with that same money. We need look no further than this years rotation to see it is possible to win without him. We don't have the same level of pitchers in the rotation this year but that doesn't seem to be a problem in the win column so far. It is telling that we are ahead of last year's pace when he was in the rotation and healthy so that money must have been spent pretty well. What we know factually is we made the playoffs with contributions from him. I think we can also safely say we lost in the playoffs in part because of him. Have to give him the blame were due if you want to give him the credit he was due. Not only did he not pitch there but his injury seriously effected CC's ability to pitch effectively in the playoffs. We might not have gone without him but are not sure if that is a fact or if his money could have been better spent. We do know he hampered our ability in the playoffs. That fact is hard to argue.

I don't think it's a big deal but I tend to agree with lcbj68c. It's not smart to say - I think we are better than them - after getting swept. If he wanted to say - I think we can compete or we can play better than we did this weekend - is one thing but to say we are better than them kind of neglects the fact that they are a defending playoff team who is leading the division and just swept you. It's is kind of dumb to say something at this time even if you believe it. All it can possibly do is give the Brewers a little bulletin board material. I reminds me a little of the stupid wake a sleeping giant comment last season by St Louis. A giant that has been asleep for 2 years isn't asleep... it's dead.

I think testing will end up doing as much harm as it does good. It was a good starting point and I am in favor of it but it cannot be counted on to stand alone. The problem I see with it is while some have been caught from testing it gives baseball an excuse not to investigate thoroughly to find cheating players and organizations. It is partially teams that would prefer to have the production that may be tempted to turn a blind eye. That aspect has to be stopped as well. that can't be slowed unless there is some mechanism in place to find teams that knowingly look the other way as well as find those using undetectable PEDs. If testing was done in combination with investigating allegations of abuse it would increase the risk of getting caught. At this point any player who had used steroids prior to testing should certainly be suspected of using ones they know are undetectable. I don't think testing for them stops cheaters from wanting to cheat. At best it makes it harder to cheat but even that is debatable. The incentive to stop cheaters need would be getting caught in a probe not a cup full of pee. You can't make the handing over of syringes and supplies undetectable even if it can't be found in a lab. Unless of course nobody is looking for the guys with the syringes and supplies.

He's always been streaky but I am startign to worry that maybe the league has found a weakness he has yet to adjust to. I don't think it's doom and gloom time yet but he has to start to play better soon or he may share the same fate as Bill Hall is.

After thinking about this line more A rivalry that has its roots in Milwaukee's public awe and open emulation of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise a few years ago has turned decidedly spicy. I think I see the disconnect. they thought they were teaching us how to win the right way while we thought we were teaching them how to lose with dignity and class. Learning is a two way street. They don't think we learned the lessons they taught us while we know they didn't learn the ones we taught them. As has been pointed out plenty of times they are as big a show boaters as any so it seems we did learn how to win from them. They had no more class while on top than we do. The key is they have much less class when they lose than we did all those years. Guess all that means is we are by far the classier organization. We know how to both win and lose with class. They only know how to win with it.

But if the ump calls the pitch in question a foul ball and then Stetter gives Mauer the pitch he served up to Morneau it's still going a long way If Stetter was going to throw that exact same pitch in the exact same circumstance then maybe we could expect a similar outcome. He did not have Mauer in the same circumstance as he had Morneau so I don't think he would have thrown the same pitch. Even if he did there is no way to know Mauer wold have done the same thing with it. It is never good for an ump to reverse a call unless there is clear and irrefutable proof he was wrong. I think in this case there was some question whether the hand or bat was hit first. In that type of circumstance the ump should have stuck with the original call regardless of how right or worng it turned out to be. That said less than Stellar play by the Brewers was more to blame than one call by one ump.

Well we do have DiFelice & Catalanotto... maybe the Cubs are the Gauls? Can't be. The Gauls managed to sack Rome roughly 500 years after Rome defeated them. It'll take the Cubs longer than that to win a WS.

God hates a Mauer. If I hated his so much why would I let him take a base on a foul tip? Sincerely God.

A rivalry that has its roots in Milwaukee's public awe and open emulation of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise a few years ago has turned decidedly spicy. I don't know how this type of arrogance is any more respectful to us than how a group of players celebrates a victory against them. A group, by and large, built "the right way." Through good drafting and player development. This is how the game is supposed to be played. By a team that grew up together and learned to play hard, to the end, to win by any and all means available and take no prisoners yet find ways to enjoy it for the game it is. If the St Louis fans or team can't accept the way this team celebrates maybe they should just shut up and leave long suffering franchise to enjoy this stretch as much as they enjoyed all the winning years they have had. We didn't have the audacity to tell them how to enjoy their glory years nor did we pee in their Cheerios when hit happened. Now we would appreciate the same from them now. We as long suffering fans love it. If they can't deal with it then the hell with them. I, for one, have no intention of letting their arrogance cast a shadow on our moment in the sun.

Man that 5 1/3 innings every 5th day is going to really be hard to replace. It's not that easy to find a pitcher who can go 5 plus innings in games and still hold a respectable 4.70ish ERA. It will be even harder to find someone who can do that and hold up for 30 starts a year. I think his reputation is far better than his actual ability at this stage of his career.

This is the type of trade that makes Melvin so good IMO. He gets a serviceable player for marginal prospects. It's kind of like when he got Shouse for Cruz. He got a much needed loogy who pitched for us a couple years for a rule 5 shortstop who would never make the big league roster in Milwaukee.

The Gameler. Then when he makes an error they can play The Gambler by Kenney Rogers ... you gotta know when to hold em...

SO far LaPorta is struggling. It is way to small a sample to tell but, from most of the things I heard about him, he did have holes in his swing that he has to work out before he could be called can't miss. He is not, and likely never will be, Prince IMHO.

Scutaro is a good one Endaround. Almost forgot about him. Just looked him up and was kind of surprised how many gave up on him at one point or another. I guess that will probably be a common theme. A lot of these guys are pretty run of the mill which is why they aren't here anymore. But still run of the mill is useful enough to carve out a nice career. July 26, 1994: Signed by the Cleveland Indians as an amateur free agent. August 30, 2000: Sent by the Cleveland Indians to the Milwaukee Brewers to complete an earlier deal made on July 28, 2000. The Cleveland Indians sent a player to be named later, Kane Davis, Paul Rigdon and Richie Sexson to the Milwaukee Brewers for a player to be named later, Jason Bere, Bob Wickman and Steve Woodard. The Cleveland Indians sent Marco Scutaro (August 30, 2000) to the Milwaukee Brewers to complete the trade. April 5, 2002: Selected off waivers by the New York Mets from the Milwaukee Brewers. October 9, 2003: Selected off waivers by the Oakland Athletics from the New York Mets. November 18, 2007: Traded by the Oakland Athletics to the Toronto Blue Jays for Graham Godfrey (minors) and Kristian Bell (minors).

Given how many prospects and guys just don't work out a line has to be drawn somewhere to let the next guy get his shot. We've all seen the posts of how Nelson Cruz is going to be a star or Dana Evelend or Will Inman or JDLR or Ben Hendrickson or Joe Dillon and now its Brad Nelson. That's kind of why I started this thread. The ? on the end was so we could debate if it was a mistake to let them go. That and it is kind of fun to follow these guys and see how/if they develop. I think JDLR can develop though I thought he has to be moved when he was for the very reasons you mentioned. This team is not in a position to have guys develop on the job anymore. But De La Rosa could be the Doug Davis type who may be a late bloomer. As a lefty with good stuff he will be given every chance in the world to do so.

Since we have a Cruz and 3TO thread I though maybe a thread following former Brewers would be fun. If not oh well let it die a quick death. I remember plenty of debate on Jorge De La Rosa's potential. Seems like he's finally putting it together. WHIP of 1.17, 3.16 ERA, .217 BAA for the seaosn and his last couple starts have been very impressive. 15 IP, 22K's, 1 BB. All that while playing for the Rockies. I was one who felt his time was pst wiht the Brewers and still feel it was something that had to be done since he was hurting the team at a point in time where waiting for promise to turn in to production was not an option. But I am happy for him that he seems to have turned the corner. Joe Thatcher so far this year looks pretty decent though he was far from special last year. So far though 21IP, 0.90 WHIP .167 BAA and 16:6 K:BB. Seems liek an effective lefty. looking atthe center piece of the Linbrinck trade Will Inman so far is repeating AA but lloks like a call to AAA is a matter of time. 3.05 ERA, 36:8 K:BB rate in 44 innings. If anyone had any other names to add it would be nice to see.

It's just that when one team's on the losing end of things, they're (and their fans are) going to start pointing fingers to distract themselves and other people from the fact that they are sucking. while true the Cards fans can't both wrap themselves in a best, most knowledgeable fans, cloak but act like every other fan of every other team. They are either no more of an authority on what baseball should be played like thus they can be angry at other teams antics simply to distract themselves. Or they can be what they think they are. Some kind of superior fans and acknowledge their frustration isn't because of what other teams do and accept their frustration is due to their team.

That's what I thought but doesn't even FIP have to take into account small sample sizes? I know HR's, K's and BB's are almost completely controlled by the pitcher but that doesn't mean there is no luck involved at all. Especially over an 8 game period. In 8 starts one ump with a small strike zone can hurt the walk rate. Add in a start in a small park or a power hitting team or unfavorable weather and there goes the HR total. Get a patient offense or one that doesn't stike out a lot and even if he pitches great his FIP won't look that great. Then in such a small period simply having a couple bad outings, which he has every year, also skews it to look a lot worse than it would if he had the entire year to average out those couple bad outings. Small sample has the same small sample issues to some extent regardless which stat is used. Either way it seems a bit odd to both say he has been lucky and while simultaneously not acknowledging luck may be playing a part of the equation in two separate comments on the same player at the same time.