sveumrules

On the one hand, the Brewers will have the #1 seed as long as they are active in the postseason. On the other hand, they've been pretty bad for most of the year. Started 21 W - 25 L, will end either 19 W - 21 L or 18 W - 22 L pending today's result. That's 86 games bookending the season where they played to about the same level as two of this year's bigger disappointments in the Braves and Orioles with matching .466 winning percentages. As someone who wasn't old enough to be aware of 1982 when it was happening I'd probably put my top Brewers memories as... 01. the run to end 2018, going to Wrigley for Game 163, coming up one game short of the WS 02. everything post-Sabathia in 2008, getting that first taste of how electric the city can be for playoff baseball 03. those 76 games in the middle of this season. Hopefully a month and change from now there's a new number one.

Guess my biggest concern is that Ueck has been having too much fun these last six weeks pursuing other worldly pursuits beyond baseball and he forgets to come back for the playoffs.

I think Kim exercises his $16M player option following the season because no one is giving him more than that after his lackluster comeback campaign - 93 wRC+ and 0.4 WAR over 179 PA.

Judge has a pretty big margin at 9.3 WAR to 7.2 WAR on BRef, but they don't include catcher framing in their calculations. Over at FanGraphs where Raleigh gets credit for his receiving they are a lot closer at 9.6 WAR to 9.1 WAR. Judge and Ohtani are both pretty much at that LeBron stage where they are so far ahead of the field that they should each get MVP every season that they're healthy, but the writers get bored with that so if it's close they'll look for reasons to give it to someone else. I'd have no problem with Raleigh getting it. Ultimately him going from like a three to five WAR guy the last few years up to a seven to nine WAR guy this year is a major factor in the Mariners going from First Team Out of the playoffs the last two years to Division Winners with a shot at the #1 seed in the AL this year.

The Brewers 188 wins since Murphy took over are the most in baseball. The Brewers +17.40 Win Probability Added from their relievers is 2nd most in MLB since Murphy took over. How many wins do you think he has cost them with his lack of feel for running a game? Which managers do you believe have a good feel for running a game and how many extra wins do you think they've gotten for their respective teams over the last two years?

For his career at 3B Ortiz has +9 DRS and +9 FRV. For his career at SS Ortiz has -2 DRS and +11 FRV. One of these things is not like the others. When you watch Ortiz at SS do you think he looks like more of a -2 or a +11 defender?

Ortiz was horrible for the first 50 games with a .441 OPS (25 wRC+) over 166 PA. Then from game 51 to game 124 he posted a .728 OPS over 257 PA (104 wRC+), that is not horrible. From game 125 through yesterday he has posted a .500 OPS (38 wRC+) over 74 PA. He's been horrible for 240 PA and slightly above average for 257 PA this year.

Welcome to the board!!

Believe it is just breaking up the pitches like a simulated game. Throw 15-20, sit down for a little while. Get back up and throw 15-20 more. Repeat as needed depending on each pitcher's individual recovery timeline and role as starter vs reliever.

To take things one step farther, after this weekend there will have been 810 individual team full seasons since 1998 when the league expanded to its current thirty teams. Of those 810 individual team seasons, only four others have approached the 23.0 WAR the Brewers' 27 and under crew are currently sitting on. 2017 HOU (23.7 WAR), 2017 CHI (23.7 WAR), 2016 CHC (23.0 WAR), and 2011 BOS (22.9 WAR). That 2017 Astros team was four stars at the top - Altuve (7.7 WAR), Correa (4.9 WAR), Bregman (4.7 WAR), and Springer (4.4 WAR) - plus a nice chip in from Jake Marisnick (1.7 WAR). 2016-17 Cubs were Bryant (14.5 WAR), Rizzo (9.3 WAR), Addison Russell (5.8 WAR), Baez (5.7 WAR), and Contreras the elder (4.8 WAR) up top then guys like Happ (1.8 WAR), Heyward (1.6 WAR), Almora (1.6 WAR), and a green Schwarber (1.0 WAR) rounding things out. 2011 Red Sox had a a couple big dawgs in Ellsbury (9.5 WAR) and Pedroia (7.9 WAR) with Saltalamacchia (3.4 WAR) and Reddick (2.0 WAR) having solid years too. Brewers have definitely done in it in a much more all hands on deck manner with Turang (4.1 WAR), Contreras (3.7 WAR), Frelick (3.7 WAR), Durbin (2.8 WAR), Chourio (2.7 WAR), Collins (2.6 WAR), Vaughn (1.9 WAR), and Ortiz (1.5 WAR) much more tightly grouped together. Full leaderboard also features five more Brewers squads with pretty strong showings at #15 (2007 | 20.7 WAR), #17 (2013 | 20.7 WAR), #21 (2010 | 20.4 WAR), #30 (2011 | 19.6 WAR), and #39 (2024 | 19.0 WAR).

Construction of the roster and opportunity is definitely one part of it. The Brewers' 4,301 PA from players in their age 27 or younger season this year is 2nd in MLB while the teams made up mostly of pricey free agents are all down at the bottom of the list when sorting by PA...PHI (1,444 PA | 28th), SDP (1,263 PA | 29th), and LAD (1,083 PA | 30th). But then the other teams at the top of the playing time leaderboard haven't had nearly the success from those players that the Brewers have gotten... MIA (5,141 PA) 15.4 WAR MIL (4,301 PA) 23.0 WAR STL (4,163 PA) 11.2 WAR COLOL (4,124 PA) 0.9 WAR WAS (3,892 PA) 8.1 WAR ATH (3,878 PA) 16.6 WAR DET (3,872 PA) 13.9 WAR CHW (3,784 PA) 5.9 WAR CLE (3,743 PA) 4.4 WAR BAL (3,449 PA) 8.2 WAR The other nine teams that have given the most PA to players 27 and younger this season have averaged 4,005 PA and 9.4 WAR each so the Brewers are pretty much lapping the field when it comes to both opportunity and production in that regard. Think I was mostly just surprised by how fast & the extent to which the Brewers went from "not being able to produce position players" to having a core of eight young starting calibre position players, plus two perfectly cromulent back ups, plus guys like Quero, Pratt, and Made not that far off, and even Yelich out here earning his money after years of go nowhere trade proposals.

Was messing around with some FanGraphs leaderboards and this thread seemed like as good a place as any to drop this nugget about how much Brewers young position players have improved since Arnold took over. Last year, for position players in their age 26 season or younger the Brewers 18.1 WAR was 2nd in MLB just fractions behind the Yankees at 18.2 WAR (with a healthy boost coming from Juan Soto and his 8.3 WAR.) This year, sliding the age up to 27 to keep all the same players accounted for, the Brewers 23.0 WAR is 1st in MLB a full 6.4 WAR ahead of the Athletics at 16.6 WAR. All in all, position players age 27 or younger accounted for 38.2 WAR (16th in MLB) over 709 team games from 2018 to 2022, since Arnold took over in 2023 they are at 56.1 WAR (1st in MLB) over 481 team games.

Kinda interesting that Turang’s 122 wRC+ on the season is a dead ringer for Trea’s career 122 wRC+. Obviously a big difference between 5,604 PA and 632 PA but gotta start somewhere. Here’s how each has gotten to that 122 wRC+… Trea career 78 BB+ | 83 K+ | 118 AVG+ | 109 ISO+ Turang 2025 113 BB+ | 104 K+ | 116 AVG+ | 97 ISO+ Of course Brice has had two different 2025 seasons to an extent with the August power explosion… Turang thru July (99 wRC+) 111 BB+ | 99 K+ | 110 AVG+ | 59 ISO+ Turang since August (175 wRC+) 116 BB+ | 115 K+ | 130 AVG+ | 181 ISO+

ERA- and FIP- minus take run scoring environment into account. For instance, Kershaw had a 2.91 ERA in 2010 when league average ERA was 4.08 so that shook out to a 76 ERA-. In 2019 Clayton had a slightly higher ERA of 3.03 but league average ERA was up at 4.51 with the juiced ball so his ERA- was lower at 71.

Yeah, even with their career numbers so close I think Pedro has a better reputation because he did it smack dab in the middle of the steroid era (though ERA- and FIP- do adjust for that), had a higher peak with probably three seasons (1997, 1999, 2000) that are better than Kershaw's best year, and was better in the playoffs with 96 IP of 75 ERA- | 83 FIP- versus 194 IP of 114 ERA- | 92 FIP- for Clayton.

2,827 innings of 66 ERA- | 68 FIP- 2,844 innings of 65 ERA- | 70 FIP- Pretty nuts how close Pedro and Clayton are for their respective careers.

So all it takes is one of Ortiz, Perkins, Hoskins, Bauers or Jansen in the lineup to make it half ass? Or does Murphy get one mulligan per lineup and it has to be two or more of those guys to be half ass?

Right. They played Perkins over Collins on Tuesday then Perkins, Monasterio, and Bauers all played yesterday. Do those qualify as half ass lineups, or more like 1/9th and 1/3rd ass lineups, respectively?

Did they rollover and play half ass lineups the last two games? Or did they win by a combined score of 18 to 4?

It might be a future goal, but I'm not sure how realistic it is at this point. Ashby's professional inning totals by year... 2018: 57.2 IP 2019: 126.0 IP 2020: N/A 2021: 95.0 IP 2022: 107.1 IP 2023: 7.0 IP 2024: 112.1 IP 2025: 66.2 IP He's just never had a chance to get in a groove and build innings on account of injury and to a lesser extent his command issues preventing him from working deep in games. They probably wouldn't want Ashby to throw more than 120 IP next year, which would maybe set him up for a "full" year of 150 to 160 IP in 2027 and then two seasons of ready to go full bore no kids gloves for his team option years in 2028/29. There's also the issue that Ashby has been two different pitchers based on his role... As starter (110.1 IP) 107 K+ | 127 BB+ | 132 HR+ 101 AVG+ | 88 LOB+ | 132 GB+ 118 ERA- | 113 FIP- As reliever (116.1 IP) 137 K+ | 100 BB+ | 39 HR+ 89 AVG+ | 110 LOB+ | 143 GB+ 65 ERA- | 62 FIP-

StatCast says he has saved two runs in center, which places him 17th of 26 CF with at least 500 innings this year. DRS thinks he has cost the Brewers five runs in center, which also comes in at 17th place on their leaderboard. Either way, both are perfectly competent for a 21 year old with only half a season of games in CF.

I know this post is about Clemente the person, but the similarity between his era adjusted career rate components and what Chourio has done to this point is pretty interesting... Roberto (129 wRC+) 73 BB+ | 92 K+ | 121 AVG+ | 119 ISO+ Jackson (119 wRC+) 71 BB+ | 92 K+ | 112 AVG+ | 126 ISO+ Walk and strikeout rates about as close as you can get, little more average for Clemente, little more power for Chourio. But of course, Clemente kind of had two different careers, taking until age 25 in 1960 before breaking out... 55-59 Roberto (88 wRC+) 44 BB+ | 88 K+ | 105 AVG+ | 75 ISO+ 60-72 Roberto (143 wRC+) 83 BB+ | 93 K+ | 126 AVG+ | 135 ISO+ Crazy thing is that Clemente isn't the only inner circle stone cold legend ballplayer & human being that Chourio compares somewhat favorably to. Here is another... Age 20-21 Jackson (119 wRC+) 71 BB+ | 92 K+ | 112 AVG+ | 126 ISO+ Age 20-21 ?????? (127 wRC+) 70 BB+ | 84 K+ | 111 AVG+ | 131 ISO+ ?????? = Henry Aaron.

StatCast thinks Ortiz has saved ten runs so far, 5th most in MLB among 31 shortstops with at least 500 innings this year.

The Brewers lost their first nine Saturday games this year with an overall record of 30 W - 28 L entering their 10th Saturday game. I said something along the lines of them being a 99 win team the other six days of the week though. At that point I probably would have been pretty happy if someone told me we’d finish all 162 with the 91 wins we already have today.

Right, because the left handed hitting Seigler was spelling Durbin at 3B against certain RHP pitchers with select arm angles. Jack Stern wrote a great article about it earlier this week.