Playing Catch

Why are we supposed to be disappointed with Eichorst?

Oh, and to get back on topic, I love Frelick. But I think Lara is better than Frelick right now, AND later, including in this season's playoffs. I think that for anything that he gives up with his inexperience/youth, he will make up for with his precocious ability to do things other guys can't. He's gunna win some games with sheer "playmaking" ability, whether that's lining soft-stuff into the corners, hard-stuff into the gaps, or taking a mazy path to the wall before making a spectacular catch. I think he's more skilled, in every facet than Frelick, except for perhaps throwing --- but that's just because Frelick is really good, and I haven't seen enough of Lara to form an opinion. One could argue that Frelick would be better than Lara in two-strike situations, as he'd rather get a Catcher interference or foul tip than take a close pitch, but that's a wash for me, as I think Lara will take far more 2-strike walks than Frelick. I also disagree with those that think Lara has be scuffling any more than anyone else in the last couple of weeks, based on my eye test. He's hit some hard balls into outs, and has been learning that MLB pitchers can hit the edge of the zone much more effectively than in AAA. But I still see a disciplined, elite swing-decider who has enough power to keep pitchers honest in-zone. (Sidenote for all the haters of their offense: the Brewers last 7 games have been @SD and @LAD. Did we really expect that they'd be tearing it up on such a roadtrip?).

I don't remember which game it was, but Lara successfully challenged a high pitch this last week or so. I, too, think that kid's eye is elite and believe he should lead the team in coming seasons in batter-challenges. When I see guys that aren't challenging "obvious" errors, I used to jump to the conclusion that the player isn't "allowed", or that they lack the confidence/conviction. However, as this season has progressed, I think it has more to do with how hard it is to identify ball/strike for anyone, and that each player has their own "effective range" when contemplating a challenge, so that everyone is guessing. Some are just better at it. I know how much stick Sanchez gets for his challenges, but I think that typically (not always) his challenges are pretty good. They are often (not always) on important pitches, and they are almost universally really close. I think Sanchez is merely "average" at the skill of challenging, so I'm not defending his record as much as contesting the assertion that he needs to stop what he's doing. It's super-easy to look back and believe that the team should "redistribute" challenges away from Sanchez in order to provide "more" challenges to others, but I don't see any of the hitters challenging more effectively than Sanchez. They all stink except for Bauers and maybe Yelich, but neither of them have had nearly enough attempts to find any meaningful information about it.

I'm with those that just think the team is driven this season. They look calm and determined. A lot of these guys have been little more than kids in recent seasons, and they just look more mature. Even during their struggles I haven't noticed much, if any of throwing bats/helmets or what-have-you. Not that I've seen a lot of that from any Brewers over the last decade or so. I thought it was telling early in the season when you realize that they don't do anything goofy on HRs or anything, including just mugging for the camera. And there was an early season series (I can't remember which one), were Yelich seemed particularly animated, in a competitive way, and I raised an eyebrow wondering if he and some of the other vets were trying to send a message to the youngsters a little bit. I've also noticed some minor production issues with Brewers.TV this season, and wonder if their production team just isn't getting the right smiling faces on camera at the right time.

It's kind of the essense of baseball, really. Fail 7/10 times and all that. Winning teams, like in every sport, hustle, endure, they are tough. They pick themselves up. They win at the margins. I get all the reasons why Murph can be annoying, but I happen to believe in that competitive, hardnosed, "football" mentality, and believe that without it, this team would merely be decent, instead of really good.

I wasn't as confident with his being able to make the big-league jump as other pitchers (2-pitches), but he's essentially matched/exceeded his minor league numbers, which were consistently really, really good. Now that he's throwing a more complete starter's arsenal, and continuing to pepper the zone... I mean it's only been 16 big-league starts, but maybe this is just who he is. In interviews he just oozes ease and self-belief. It makes me wonder if he's just gunna be really really good for a long time.

My first rxn was "Whoa! That's so bad!" Which it is, so I'm not disputing he's comparatively poor at playing SS at the MLB level. But I believe those shaders are percentage-ranks based among all innings played at SS, so that whomever is the "worst" MLB SS is in the 1st percentile, which hypothetically, could still mean that he's the 30th best defensive SS in the world, rather than, "Of 100 major league shortstops, he would rank 100th"*. After all, a "bad" shortstop would never accrue enough innings there to get to -17. Again, If I were the Nats, I would've moved him a long time ago, because I happen to think having a good defensive shortstop is really important for winning teams, but I think those shaders sometimes give us a false impression of just HOW bad/good players are. Unlike say, Misiorowski's shaders, which I am sure has a lot of 99s, because he is truly that kind of outlier. *I acknowledge I could have this wrong

IMHO, that draft is an A. I would guess the Brewers' 2021 Draft has accrued more MLB WAR than any other team that drafted behind them, and probably a lot more than most teams that drafted ahead of them. Based on a few cursory prompt responses from Google's AI, the Brewers currently have accrued about the 6th most WAR of that draft, although most of that is due to Frelick, of course, however I think that any draft that produces a legitimate starting CFer and a legitimate 3rd or 4th starting pitcher on a championship-caliber team is beyond what teams should "expect" from a draft. At the less valuable picks, they also drafted two starting caliber corners in Peters and Tyler Black, and throw in a guy that was a tradeable asset, like Alex Binelas (not mentioned above), and other AAAA-guys, like Rodriguez, or Wes Clarke, and the Brewers drafted some "advanced" organizational depth as well, to fill out a very successful, albeit "ordinary" draft. Obviously as time goes on, the WAR totals will certianly shift, and perhaps this draft becomes more/less successful due to those shifts, but as of right now, I think it was an A.

Things aren't looking good. Guys are underperforming. Guys are banged up. Winning with depth has been their recipe all season, having a deeper bench, a deeper staff, a deeper bullpen has allowed them to keep winning series all season. But much of that depth has been sucked dry, and the Brewers, on August 12th, are a shell of the team they were designed to be, and now we're left knowing what it's like to try and field a winning team without any shortstops. Right now, on August 12th, I don't believe the Brewers will be able to hold off the Cubs for the division. But if they can tread water for the next two weeks, and be in a healthier position come Aug 31 for that series at Wrigley, I think they can right the ship. But they will need to bunt and bullpen, and Murph their way to scratch out wins. It's going to be an absolute bear to watch, and if I were to make bets, I don't think they can "tread water". I think they will go something like 7-10 in the next 17 games, and I could see it being worse, particularly because they are having to try and monitor pitcher workloads at the same time. As impossible as it is to believe, the Brewers have basically been an average MLB offense since the deadline, and they've been winning. But they've played the Marlins, Mets, Rockies, Giants, Angels, Pirates, and Twins. I agree with the IGT's consensus, that they will need to play better in order to beat the teams coming up on the schedule. If that is to come about, I think the two main keys will be our Venezuelans. Coming into the season, I think most of us felt like Contreras and Chourio were our two best position-players (Turang has since surpassed them both, despite his platoon splits). They will need to play like that for the Brewers to win the division+. We can blame all the other players all we want, but those two are the two most important bats to wake up. Not Yelich, who, due to his role as a DH, can simply ride the pine, and be a pinch-hitting threat. Not Hamilton or Bae, or whoever else is batting 7, 8, 9, or starting the game on the bench. Chourio and Contreras MUST be hitting in the middle of that lineup every day and performing in their roles if the Brewers are going anywhere. This has been true all season.

Or, alternatively, they believed that adding more offense would be at the expense of the league's best run prevention, or even its run-scoring, if the player acquired strikes out a lot, or is a clogger on the basepaths thus ending innings before being able to scratch one across.

I was just looking over at yesterday's thread, and being that this could be a difficult, pivotal road trip, I thought you regular IGTers needed a playful poke, just to tease you a little bit... Last night, the lineup looked good, so Murphy was right (the IGT was right!). The Brewers didn't score enough, Murphy was wrong (The IGT was right!). Taxed bullpen? Murphy's fault (If only he'd listened to the IGT!!) Last night, Henderson's pitch count looks good, sent back out. Murphy was right (The IGT was right!). Ooops, but not for that long. Wrong again, Murph! (the IGT was right!). Brewers win? Murphy's press conference sucks. Hate his kids. Brewers lose? Murphy's press conference sucks. Really hate his kids. Day after day, the theme is the same in the IGT. Murphy is responsible for the mess this team is in, and if it wasn't for him, and his kids, and Levering and Sophia, and BA, and Attanasio, and Yelich's Mom constantly tripping over their own feet, this team would achieve... more. If they only cared more, like the IGT does, then the Brewers would be a team we can be proud of. A team that actually wins something, a team that isn't satisfied with just one bite of an apple, or even a few bites, but rather wants to eat the whole damn thing. In some ways, the IGT is the conscience of Brewerfan, constantly reminding us what the goal should always be. Nay, the expectation. That is an impossible standard by which to live one's life, but it's the right standard for a playful pastime such as baseball. Never change, IGT. Just lighten up.

Can I get some links from verifiable sources inside the league or MLBPA that are predicting that their red-line, public statements are anything more than typical pre-negotiation bluster? I've seen the reports after the deadline that there are enough middle-class owners pissed at the Dodgers that they will go after them with a salary cap. But that threat is directed toward the Dodgers, and are ostensibly built from fruatration with competitive balance, not with the players. I don't think the players give a crap about revenue-sharing/competitive balance so long as there isn't something called "a salary cap," after the CBA is complete, and that they get a slightly improved situation so that their constituents keep getting paid a great wage for a great job come April. I honestly believe anyone that even whispers, "no season in '27," isn't looking at things very realistically, and is just fear-casting.

This has been brought up oodles of times throughout the season. I suspect there is actual data out there that could be trusted, but I'm not savvy enough to find such stuff. It looks, from my 2 or 3 minutes of googling, that they've demonstrated that the drag coefficient of the ball is off across the baseball landscape. Perhaps that is that, and there isn't anything left to say about it. But I would like to posit that pitchers and hitters, with their access to incredible training tools, have learned to seek and destroy each other using the narrowed zone (and perhaps "fairly" adjudicated top/bottom of the zone). Pitchers aren't pitching to contact, but they are being taught to win in the zone using stuff/tunnelling, where there is more whiff top/bottom and using speed/deception, rather than beating the hitter on the edges of the zone. What I'm wondering about is that based purely on my watching baseball on TV, it looks like a lot of players that used to go the Dan Uggla route with their careers (or perhaps Andrew Fischer --- I'm not suggesting launch-angle is "over," or unimportant), have instead embraced the idea of maximizing their swing, trying to find the barrel. In the quest for ever higher EVs (and posting them to their social media), I suspect hitters have gone back to line-drive approaches that result in more balls on the ground, but [perhaps?] more consistent EVs, spraying balls pole-to-pole and higher EVs/contact rates when getting beat in the zone. With the anti-shift rules, the (effectively) smaller zone, and bouncier balls, and instant AI-enhanced video feedback, Pitchers have chased velocity, needing to beat hitters in-zone, and hitters have needed to counter, seeking EV where they can get it, on pitcher's pitches, but with smaller parks (Biloxi's park is too small. There. I said it), where they don't have to pull the ball to do damage.

Bingo.

It's funny because they set up the whole narrative the week ahead of the deadline. Basically that if the Dodgers get Skubal and ruin everyone's good time, it's the Brewers fault.