Playing Catch

It was the equivalent of watching Charles and Kenny dissect college basketball. Like, do those guys even watch baseball? With all of the valid frustration over the myriad streaming/cable requirements to watch baseball, it has allowed for some variety in terms of production and presentation. The NBC coverage has been exemplary (Benetti has a lot to do with this). TBS is acceptable unless Smoltz is droning on. ESPN does baseball as if they hate the sport. Fox just SUUUXXX. Muppet-man has me averting my eyes, and Papi just needs to go, god love him. Jeter could be great if he was with the right combination of panelists, but A-Rod's slick businessman thing doesn't work at all. And then they got the ONLY guy that watches baseball over in a subway platform trying not to embarrass the HOFers, like some sagacious homeless guy offering wisdom in exchange for dimes. It's awful. And then the booth has Wainwright having to bridge the gap between a milquetoast pro and a former catcher/dirtbag, current podcaster/dirtbag. Baseball deserves better.

I'd bet they'd be at the top of the statcast leaderboards, too. Gosh did they hit the ball hard in this series. Their BB%/K% has been stupendous (10.4%/16.9) considering the arms they've had to deal with.

The celebrations are quite obviously contrivances encouraged --- nay, contractually obligated --- by MLB/Media. The Pancakes were dumb. The Ueck letters are dumb. The ski-goggles are dumb. But it's the "Show," after all. There's an awful lot of dumb stuff that publicly-facing entertainers have to provide media so that we can gorge ourselves on it. And when you are the soon-to-be three time manager of the year on a team full of kids, YOU are the show, whether you want that attention for yourself, or you accept that attention for your team. For everyone that dislikes it, that's fine, but just like posters here, one can choose to ignore it. I PROMISE YOU, that if Murph and the clubhouse had their way, they would do with less media present, so that fans can't dissect every meaningful moment between teammates after a HUGE win. I want the letters to go away, but I don't want the legend of Ueck to "go away". He represents us. Brewers fans. Milwaukee fans. We are fortunate that the organization's heart and soul is represented by the fans instead of by logos and trademarks and piped in noize at stadiums.

Let's all hope the changeup-fastball-sweeper combo keeps them honest and confused. Let's not forget the REVENGE FACTOR of having once been a Padre farmhand.

The short answer is 'yes'. The Brewers could have offered Made, Pena, Frias, Ragsdale, and 10 minor league pitchers for Skubal. The question then, is do the Dodgers offer still MORE? As tmwiese55 mentions above, I think the Padres lineup is an especially difficult task for the Brewers and their left-handed dominant staff. Tatis, Machado, France. It's hard to get through them all with a lefty. I think Gasser's sweeper can neutralize them, but as we saw during the regular season, if he can't land that pitch in just the right spot, things can unravel on him quickly. The Friars are back in their happy-place at Petco, sure. But regular season losses aren't to be feared, so it's a party in Padreland every night. But elimination games bring on an awful lot of nerves. If the Crew get out to any kind of lead, I suspect the Padres crowd to sound different tonight, and for those Padres sticks to get gripped real tight. Conversely, I think the Brewers will play one of their finest games of the season. The Padres could end up beating them, but I'd be surprised if the Brewers lay another stinker playing away from home with a 2-0 lead in the series. I expect the Brewers to beat them in a rout, playing free, playing focused, and playing for fun.

Re: Pitch Tipping... 1. No pitch-tipping incident gets more than two likes on Twitter if the pitch ends with an out. 2. Determining the pitch and discerning the location of said pitch are two different skills. Foreknowledge helps, but only so much in terms of execution. 3. Machado was flashing "3," or perhaps "OK" at 2nd base earlier in the game. Was the pitcher tipping? Or did Machado simply want the Brewers to think they were tipping? OR... How on early does a helmet tap prove to outside viewers anything? 4. IMO, the psychological distraction of feeling like one's opponent is gaining an edge is probably just as damaging as what is gained from believing you have an edge. 5. All it takes is for one hitter to get a heater high and tight when they were expecting a slider for tipping to become much less reliable. 6. I think signalling from 2nd can be really valuable. But I think that's an awful lot of mental gymnastics with the game on the line to blindly trust a half-hearted Sal helmet tap on a 1-2 count in the last AB of the game. All of this to say that maybe Miller was tipping pitches and that maybe it gave the Brewers an edge. But that it probably isn't as impactful as garbage-can-gate has led us to believe. Especially because garbage can gate was a method with much more surety to it because it was literally stealing signs, not merely picking up visual cues and relaying that info to a hitter from 2nd. Chourio could barely touch Miller's heater. Chourio was able to smoke that last one because Miller left it in the goldilocks zone for squaring it up. Two inches up, down, left, or right, and Chourio fouls it off at best.

Selig, Aaron, Yount, Attanasio

That game was right at the top of memorable Brewer games. I can't stop reliving it. Their stars picked each other up. Turang had a really poor game. Bauers and Contreras didn't do anything of note (I was as frustrated as he was with that 1-0 flyout in the 8th --- can't have a two-pitch AB in that circumstance), but Chourio, the bullpen, Yelich was huge. Guys really rallied. But the things I keep coming back to were the Hamilton catch, the Pratt snag, the Frelick outfield assist. Yelich and Frelick on the basepaths in the 9th. It's the little things that win in these tight games, and it's the little things that get forgotten after the heroics. Particularly baserunning. If Bauers is in right field, he isn't throwing out Machado at third, and he's not scoring that winning run. Every guy out there was playing to their strengths, and doing it for their teammates. Just so gratifying.

Let's do this!!!

Most of us played enough to understand the tension of a two-strike count, and heard over and over, "too close to take," This has been my attitude toward missed calls against a hitter. When the hitter (a human), gives up their opportunity to swing at a close pitch, they are foregoing their first opportunity to "challenge" a pitch, allowing the umpire (another human) to make the decision for them. ABS has given hitters a "take-back," on their original decision to keep the bat on their shoulder. I have more symptathy for pitchers that throw a strike that gets called a ball.

It's a widely-held belief among MLB folks that Bregman is one of the more impactful "clubhouse" guys in the league. He gets artificial bumps for being on a team that *won a World Series*, and for being a Red Sox/Cubs FA signing, but to a person, Bregman is one of the most respected players in baseball. Feel free to disagree, of course. None of us can prove such a thing, one way or another.

I heard on some podcast that Maddux and the Angels FO has been woefully behind the technology curve, and that upon his firing one of the first things they did was use commonly used technology that's been around for years now. Basically the assertion was that, (as we have suspected), that the Angels have been operating their major league pitching as if it were 2006. But at the same time, this could all just be a symptom of an attitude bump from the coaching change, or the result of playing poor competition, or small sample, or any of those types of factors.

Excellent article from Hogg. I did have to chuckle at this line in the article... "[Along with the RH sinker,] Ortiz also historically struggles with righty changeups, curveballs and sweeper/sliders."

Great stuff, Sveum. Getting closer to understanding "how" the Brewers do it.

I think the fastballs are the result of wanting to throw strikes and rely on their defense.

That was an amazing game. Duran's 25th pitch being the decider.

I guess the same way we saw the 3TO and launch angle era change how the game was played, which itself was response to extreme shifts and a generation of small ballparks, among other factors. What is the saying about such things? Something like, when the measure becomes the goal, [you get unintended consequences], or something like that?

I think that over the course of a few seasons, the players would adjust how they play due to the "perfect" zone, and that it would have unforseen impact on how the game is enjoyed by fans. For that reason, I'm in no hurry to change this current system. Additionally, I have wondered about the "why" behind many challenges. We know that there's a big difference, statistically, changing the count from 1-1 to 0-2 or vice versa. But based on my observations, I think batters should only challenge calls at the top of the zone (their best vantage-point, and one of two parts of the zone that has been curated especially for them). I also think catchers, specifically the Brewers catchers, will --- at times --- challenge a pitch because they want the umpire to see where a specific pitch landed. We know the old adage, "So-and-so needs that pitch to be successful in this game." I think that on close pitches, especially breaking balls down, and at the edges of the zone, catchers want to give a sense to the umpire just how close those pitches are. Or perhaps the scouting report on a specific umpire tells the catchers which parts of the zone the ump struggles with the most, and they are asked to be aggressive on certain challenges or pitches. Anyway, long story longer, I think that there are more motivations to deciding to challenge than we realize, and that distilling the decision down to "good:bad::strike:ball" is much too simplistic.

Since umpires get most calls correct, and the Brewers force the umps to make more calls due to their passivity, the Brewers force umps to call more correct pitches for the Brewers, too. In terms of what @Brian said, I think a home crowd is going to have a positive impact on calls for the home team. I am basing this on a decades-old SI article* on the phenomenon of home field advantage, where they showed data that demonstrated that home field advantage in most sports is almost entirely based on unpire/referee decisions (it may be different in baseball with the variety of ballpark dimensions). Basically the article stated that we are subconsciously wired to want people to like/agree with us and that since they are human beings, umpires/referees can't help it. *I'd welcome any newer evidence

I am still under the impression that rosters can be re-set after each round, correct? And that injured players can be immediately replaced, but only if they sit out the next round as well?

Oh good, so at least if the Brewers lose 3 straight, we can still complain about how dumb Fangraphs is.

I don't know who Baseball Bros from Nosebleed Sports Media are, but being that Mariners leadership also mentioned that they were looking to retain Wilson in another capacity and he's been there for 30 years tells you that they didn't "force" Dan to do anything. I suspect they asked him if he wanted to have a parting Q&A, and if he wanted company up there on the dais. Provacative clickbait. Say what one will about Seattle's front office and management, but this moment wasn't surreal, nor was it a poor way to do a firing in today's live media landscape.

I was looking at these same numbers earlier this week, and the ages of the players involved really jumps out. Additionally, this organizational deluge of young talent is magnified when you consider how young the MLB roster is. Get old, stay old is a great mantra for college sports (and AAA success), but get young, stay young seems to be the way to try and win in the arbitration era.

I always feel like Game 2 is the most important game outside of elimination games. Why not game 1? Well, sure, Game 1 is equally important as you cannot be down 0-2 after two home games. But if you can only win Game 1 OR Game 2, I want the confidence boost of winning the game before the first road game. I think losing Game 2 invites an awful lot of jitters heading to their place. You always prefer going with your Ace in Game 1 so that they are more likely to be available in an elimination game. Avoiding blow-up innings from a pitcher is the key to winning the playoffs. Is it more likely that Henderson blows up (literally has never happened), or that one of May, Gasser, Patrick, Senzatela, Harrison, or JoJo Romero blow up?

All of this. He uses his old-school persona when it fits his purposes, but the organization fed him all of these players and all of their contemporary analytics to use according to their models. His ability to embrace and help to guide change, rather than reject or fear change is a huge credit to him.