Thurston Fluff

Why on Earth would anyone want to protect a draft pick position when they are one game out of the playoffs with 19 to go? They aren't going to move up significantly in the draft either way. The odds of getting a significantly better player with the 18th pick vs the 25th is less than the odds of this team making a deep playoff run even with Yelich out.

Can we turn all these debates about managing the bullpen into codes to save time. We can number every clique complaint made about every manager ever and just use that number instead of outlining the entire complaint again. It would save a lot of time. For instance from now on when the manager uses a guy too many days in a row all we have to say is 1. When a manager has to strict of roles for a pitcher just say 2. When a manager uses a pitcher you feel wasn't good enough to be put in that spot just say 3. When a manager goes with someone a batter to long just say 4. When a manager pulls a pitcher doing well and the next one messes up just say 5. When a manager uses a pitcher who had a rough two week stretch and you now deem him worthless and should have been DFA'ed just say 6. I know there are more so please feel free to add to the list as necessary. We could save more time by also coding the retorts to said complaints. For that I suggest using letters instead of numbers to keep things clear.

Albers had one of his bad days yesterday and Counsell pulled him before it hurt us. I think we'll see him do the same for Peralta when he has one of his bad control days. Both of them can be dominating at times but when they aren't on they are awful. If Counsell uses them properly they can be major assets in September. He just has to know to pull the plug early on those bad days.

I would say the 2011 Cubs were in a much better spot than the 2015 Brewers when Hoyer took over. They had a number of major league pieces to trade off just like the Brewers did and the minor league system already had Baez and Rizzo in it. Stearns took over a team that had no real impact prospect on it, Arcia being the #1 prospect and I never thought he would hit. This team had nothing at all when he took over, the outlook was really bleak. The fact he didn't take 5 years to rebuild it means a ton. Hader, Houser, Phillips, Santana, Knebel, Nelson, Davies, Woodruff and Suter were all here prior to Stearns taking over. While most of them were not considered top prospects a good portion of the core players on this team or used in trades to get some of the other players on this current roster were here before Stearns got here.

The jury is still out for me on Stearns. The promise was to build a team that could remain competitive over a long period of time with in budget. He hasn't been around long enough to know if he can do all that. What he has done so far is impressive. But that was the easy part. He wasn't left with a bare cupboard like the Cubs or Astros were. He also wasn't walking into a place run incompetently with substandard coaching and player development systems like Dean Taylor had when he got here. Melvin was competent and did a decent job setting him up. Including trades for some key minor league players. I think that helped make the rebuild shorter Stearns showed he was more than up to the task. Now comes the hard part. Keeping it going. He's got a good core that will be around for a few years but he did so at the cost of the farm. How he replenishes the farm while remaining a contender is key to fulfilling the whole promise.

Make sense to DFA Chacin. The way Hauser and Lyles are pitching combined with Nelson and Suter doing well on their rehabs Chacin wasn't going to get a shot anyway.

Make sense to DFA Chacin. The way Hauser and Lyles are pitching combined with Nelson and Suter doing well on their rehabs Chacin wasn't going to get a shot anyway.

Make sense to DFA Chacin. The way Hauser and Lyles are pitching combined with Nelson and Suter doing well on their rehabs Chacin wasn't going to get a shot anyway.

There is almost no proof of this other than an old baseball adage that is suddenly disappearing as analytics continue to infiltrate baseball. Kimbrel only has 22 innings in the 8th inning over his career, but he certainly isn't a bad pitcher in that inning. I understand the idea that a certain guy wants to warm up at a certain time or his adrenaline is higher in the 9th, but it's not as if they're pitching on mars when they come in for a different inning. It's still a major league baseball game. In fact, we need to look no further than Wade Davis, who was an absolute stud in 2014 for the Royals in the 8th inning when they made it all the way to the World Series and lost in game 7...and he did fine in the 9th inning the following year. I don't agree wholly with xisxisxis 100% on the #2 vs. #3 hitter thing (even if he is right, it is a very small matter IMO) but at least he has presented some data. Almost every other complaint on here is, "I think Counsell is a bad manager because [insert pre-2010 baseball adage here]." Is there any proof the other way is better? I know using the strict role method worked for Yost when he had good pitchers to use. Not so well when he didn't. But can't the same be said of Counsell's more modern use of the pen? What I know there is ample evidence of is every fan base complains about how the manager manages it's bullpen. What there is absolute proof of is bullpens with a lot of good pitchers in it do better than bullpens with few good pitchers in it regardless of who is the manager. Beyond that the difference of how they are used is minimal IMHO.

There is almost no proof of this other than an old baseball adage that is suddenly disappearing as analytics continue to infiltrate baseball. Kimbrel only has 22 innings in the 8th inning over his career, but he certainly isn't a bad pitcher in that inning. I understand the idea that a certain guy wants to warm up at a certain time or his adrenaline is higher in the 9th, but it's not as if they're pitching on mars when they come in for a different inning. It's still a major league baseball game. In fact, we need to look no further than Wade Davis, who was an absolute stud in 2014 for the Royals in the 8th inning when they made it all the way to the World Series and lost in game 7...and he did fine in the 9th inning the following year. I don't agree wholly with xisxisxis 100% on the #2 vs. #3 hitter thing (even if he is right, it is a very small matter IMO) but at least he has presented some data. Almost every other complaint on here is, "I think Counsell is a bad manager because [insert pre-2010 baseball adage here]." Is there any proof the other way is better? I know using the strict role method worked for Yost when he had good pitchers to use. Not so well when he didn't. But can't the same be said of Counsell's more modern use of the pen? What I know there is ample evidence of is every fan base complains about how the manager manages it's bullpen. What there is absolute proof of is bullpens with a lot of good pitchers in it do better than bullpens with few good pitchers in it regardless of who is the manager. Beyond that the difference of how they are used is minimal IMHO.

There is almost no proof of this other than an old baseball adage that is suddenly disappearing as analytics continue to infiltrate baseball. Kimbrel only has 22 innings in the 8th inning over his career, but he certainly isn't a bad pitcher in that inning. I understand the idea that a certain guy wants to warm up at a certain time or his adrenaline is higher in the 9th, but it's not as if they're pitching on mars when they come in for a different inning. It's still a major league baseball game. In fact, we need to look no further than Wade Davis, who was an absolute stud in 2014 for the Royals in the 8th inning when they made it all the way to the World Series and lost in game 7...and he did fine in the 9th inning the following year. I don't agree wholly with xisxisxis 100% on the #2 vs. #3 hitter thing (even if he is right, it is a very small matter IMO) but at least he has presented some data. Almost every other complaint on here is, "I think Counsell is a bad manager because [insert pre-2010 baseball adage here]." Is there any proof the other way is better? I know using the strict role method worked for Yost when he had good pitchers to use. Not so well when he didn't. But can't the same be said of Counsell's more modern use of the pen? What I know there is ample evidence of is every fan base complains about how the manager manages it's bullpen. What there is absolute proof of is bullpens with a lot of good pitchers in it do better than bullpens with few good pitchers in it regardless of who is the manager. Beyond that the difference of how they are used is minimal IMHO.

Some pitchers do better in strict roles while others are more versatile. The trick is finding enough if that type of pitcher to fit the way the pen is going to be used. If you have the wrong players each way will fail. Kimbrel might be an example of a 9th inning only guy. How would he have done being used like Hader? Does getting more versatile pitchers mean we are Counsell proofing the pen like so many said KC did for Yost? No, it means they're finding the players for the strategy. The better the players the better each way works out. See our bullpen vs last season for example. Personally I don't think one way is better than the other. I think having the right pieces for each way is most important. Ideally I'd like to see a manager use the way that fits that year's players the best but I'm not sure that is realistic considering the player movement during any given season. To bring this back to the topic Counsell fits what the Brewers want. Ned probably wouldn't. But the same might be said in reverse for other teams/situations.

I never wanted him fired and felt somewhat vindicated by what he did with KC. His bullpen management was a major issue most had with him here yet that was the biggest strength of those World Series teams. Now we have a thread that starts out by saying he didn't like Counsell at first and made up his mind a couple years ago that he wasn't the right man for the job. One of his first complaints is the bullpen management. What do these two managers have in common? They both had deep playoff runs by leaning heavily on a great bullpen. I say lets fire him now and watch him win a World Series for Seattle by relying on the bullpen. It's the Brewer way. I still don't think Ned was a good manager. Good Ra Ra guy but bad in-game strategist. You could make the argument that anyone could have managed the Royals bullpen in 14 - 15 and looked smart regardless of role. That is what most Yost haters did argue. But couldn't the same be said of every manager on every team? If you have enough good arms you can't screw it up. If you don't there is little to nothing you can do to make it better. I've always agreed Yost wasn't a good in game manager. I just didn't think it was that big a deal. But he did get players ready to fill roles that needed filling and was generally liked by his players. Counsell IMHO does that as well but has the added ability to make decent in game decisions. I'm really not sure what more anyone can expect out of any manager.

The only thing I wonder about with Grandal is how well he calls a game. I really have no clue if he is part of the problem with our pitching staff this season but the pitchers ERA is better with Pina than Grandal and he is one factor that's different between this year's staff and last year. I have no clue how well he does nor how much it really matters but nothing shows he is better at it than Pina for sure.

I never wanted him fired and felt somewhat vindicated by what he did with KC. His bullpen management was a major issue most had with him here yet that was the biggest strength of those World Series teams. Now we have a thread that starts out by saying he didn't like Counsell at first and made up his mind a couple years ago that he wasn't the right man for the job. One of his first complaints is the bullpen management. What do these two managers have in common? They both had deep playoff runs by leaning heavily on a great bullpen. I say lets fire him now and watch him win a World Series for Seattle by relying on the bullpen. It's the Brewer way.

I'm ignoring it because: 1) It provides no information 2) It doesn't address the current discussion. 3) Generalizations tend to have very poor correlation with specifics. Sure, subsetting data leads to problems with sampling issues and introduces noise, but more specifically reduces the signal to noise so signals are harder to detect. Looking at a teams data for almost a year, reduces the signal to noise issue. The Brewers have been at the bottom of baseball for 2 years in a row as a team converting baserunners into runs. There's no small sample issue there. If you go back and look at the numbers, the Brewers will score 30 less runs in 2019 compared to a team that can convert baserunners into runs at the MLB average, and 50 runs less than a team at the top. Using 10 runs per win as an estimate, that means the Brewers lose 3 games a year compared to the average offense and 5 games per year compared to teams like the Braves and Dodgers. That's a huge inefficiency in the offense. -The information it gives is how well a player is doing as a situational hitter. Making conclusions about any player's ability to situation hit based on any given season is not reliable. It is informational as to what the problem is but it does nothing to help us figure out who is the problem. What it might do is help us find a type of hitter who is naturally going to be better at it. Even then it appears most hitters situational hitting is pretty volatile so I'm not sure if it even helps that. -It also helps prevent us from making changes to the current situation based on misleading information. It is no better to address a situation based on misleading information as it is than it is to do nothing at all. -While I agree with you generalizations don't correlate well to specifics, specific players will have very different results in situational hitting from year to year. So where is the generalization? The past two seasons we've had at least two really subpar everyday offensive players. Three if you count third until Huira came up for good this season. That takes a toll on the team's situational hitting. That's where volatility of players from year to year comes in. If a couple have a down year, which given the volatility of situational hitting is bound to happen, you get what we have the past couple seasons. When a third of the batting order is subpar overall we are bound to have bad situational hitting. The remedy is to get better overall hitters. But we already know that. The problem is at what cost? It will cost more money, defensive, pitching or prospects. So the real question should be is making sure we fix our situational hitting worth it or should we fix things that are easier to address?

It's not ironic at all. There is very minimal year to year correlation between RISP/clutch stats. You've said this a couple times, and I agree with you, but it seems to be getting ignored? I don't know if it's because accepting that variance makes it harder to blame somebody or if sometimes we all get caught in oversimplifying a players ability. Ability, or talent however one wants to put it, isn't a set number that stats like WAR leads people to see it as. Players ability is a range dependent on a lot of factors.

The other issue is that while Moustakas (17.48% in 2018 w/MKE) is having a very good year looking at traditional saber stats, he has been part of the problem with runners on. Doesn't that just show what Sveurules said about situational hitting being volatile from year to year? I think the 'Stache did a great job of explaining where the team is failing but I don't think it says much about the players going forward. It just seems like something that fluctuates a lot from year to year with most players. What should help is getting more players who an hit for average. Something as old school as batting average might be due for a comeback.

Same here. I think some people have addictive personalities and could get hooked on a lot of stuff. It isn't about the exact substance as much as it is a substance they go overboard on.

Burnes failed in AAA with an entirely different set of coaches. Burnes crashed an burned (no pun intended) all on his own. I also think Adrian Houser should be on the list of successful pitchers under Hook's watch. For me it's not any individual......it's the collective. And the fact we are giving up 5 runs a game means he needs to go. The pitcher's era is higher with Gandal than Pena too. The defense is noticeably worse than last season as well. I'm not necessarily trying to defend Hook but I think we have to acknowledge the pitching coach isn't the only thing different from last season.

Burnes failed in AAA with an entirely different set of coaches. Burnes crashed an burned (no pun intended) all on his own. I also think Adrian Houser should be on the list of successful pitchers under Hook's watch.

I fail to understand how what he does between games to improve game results relates to FIP. The catcher might have something to do with this too.

It's national tell a joke day today. So here are a few. I think I'm still pretty athletic for my age. Then again I think Marylin Monroe looks pretty good for her state of decomposition. Ear, nose, and throat specialists must be for doctors who couldn't make up their mind.#theleastspecializedspecialty I bought a couple Faberge eggs. Worst omelet I ever had.

You are skewing statistics to suit your argument. Now let me try. I am almost positive that DHonks is referring to JJ's last three appearances, where he's pitched a total of 3 2/3 innings of 1-hit ball. Small sample to be sure, but there's no denying that he has looked better over the last week. Isn't using the last three games also skewing the stats to fit the argument?

But we needed a needle mover.