sveumrules

That's how I see it. It's like in the NFL when the west coast offense took over then the defense had to adjust and voila you've got Tampa 2. Maybe spray hitters will be the next undervalued thing? FanGraphs has league wide batted ball splits going back to 2002, here they are with pitchers excluded... https://rb.gy/veni6f For all the talk of a fly ball revolution, FB% was at 35.6 in 2002, peaked at 38.2 in 2007 & was back at 35.7 in 2020. The difference is that HR/FB% was down at 10.8 in 2002, bottomed out at 9.5 in 2010 & was at 15.4/14.8 in 2019/2020. As far as hit direction, there does appear to be some evolution on the macro level with a pull/center/oppo split of 43.2/28.9/27.9 in 2002 versus 41.0/34.6/24.4 in 2020.

Elvis Andrus is saying "hold my beer." Arcia 2018-20: 233/284/347 (65 wRC+) Andrus 2018-20: 260/306/378 (74 wRC+) Elvis is King.

Orlando Arcia has 1,865 career PAs with a 73 OPS+. Luis Urias has 422 career PAs with a 73 OPS+. Arcia has definitely proven more than Urias to this point, though I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing.

Over the last five seasons, there have been eleven pitchers to put up at least 17 WAR. Here is a look at how they stacked up as prospects... Player (5 year WAR | peak prospect ranking): Scherzer (27.9 | #66), deGrom (25.7 | UR), Sale (22.7 | #19), Verlander (22.3 | #8), Cole (20.6 | #3), Kershaw (18.9 | #5), Nola (18.3 | #37), Kluber (18.2 | UR), Strasburg (17.9 | #1), Greinke (17.6 | #14) & Bauer (17.0 | #9). Of those eleven that is five top 10, two top 20, two 35-70 range & two unranked prospects. Obviously Verlander is hurt, but all of the remaining ten pitchers (except Kluber) come in among the top 21 projected starters for 2021 by ZiPS. Here is a look at how they stacked up as prospects... Player (2021 ZiPS WAR | peak prospect ranking): Giolito (5.8 | #3), Cole (5.7 | #3), Bieber (5.7 | UR), deGrom (5.1 | UR), Scherzer (4.6 | #66), Bauer (4.4 | #9), Nola (4.3 | #37), Buehler (4.0 | #13), Marquez (3.9 | #53), Flaherty (3.9 | #38), Castillo (3.7 | UR), Corbin (3.5 | UR), Berrios (3.5 | #17), Kershaw (3.4 | #5), Strasburg (3.4 | #1), Sale (3.4 | #19), Woody (3.2 | #61), Gray (3.1 | #65), Yu (3.1 | #4), Glasnow (3.1 | #9) & Greinke (3.1 | #14) So that is seven top 10, four top 20, six 35-70 range & four unranked prospects. There are no guarantees of couse, but your best bet at getting a top of the rotation pitcher is to have a highly ranked pitching prospect or the Cleveland Indians development staff.

And thats absolutely insane for a kid with 183 professional ip approaching 4 years from drafted. Hader was on the SP trail who ran out of time to become a SP due to how good he was but how much further in IP he needed to become a full season SP. Gore has 0 chance to give you more than 170IP the next 2 years. But he's going to be pushing for a call up (if the rankings are spot on) by end of this season. Certainly early in to next season. He may fall in to high-end RP when all is done. Julio Urias comes to mind. A top 3 SP prospect who surpassed the minors level before he was ready for a season full of Starting in the Majors. Now 5 seasons in he has a career 3.3 WAR. 172IP as a Starter to. 67IP as a reliever. TJ was needed by him. See how bad that derailed his career. Here goes one of many examples why that trade proposal is insane- https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2021/03/astros-forrest-whitley-suffering-from-right-ucl-sprain.html Forrest Whitley was inside the top ten prospect rankings. An injury plus later, he has 0 ML IP what will now be at minimum 4years after such ranking. His prospect ranking as dwindled what does his value as a #41-80 prospect look like in a Hader trade? Oh and you know it'll drop maybe out of the top 100 altogether. Every year you can likely take a top 20 pitching prospect and see them go down to injury or prospect ranking tanks. 1st rd pitching selections have so much bust potential as the helium from just the draft often overinflates where that prospect should rank. I know it will never happen but it'd be nice if a prospect ranking site had a minimum requirement to be top 100 in first place. 1st rd picks arent just inserted in to top 15-40s because they were on most top 10 pre-draft lists. Yes, pitching prospects bust, even the most highly rated ones. That bust rate is figured into the surplus value calculation. Sure, there's a chance Gore is never an effective MLB pitcher. There's also a chance he turns in SP1 level results for his six years of team control at salaries even the Brewers could afford. It's not like his prospect ranking is based entirely on his draft position. He posted a 34/7 K/BB ration in 21 innings at age 18 in rookie ball after being drafted, a 74/18 K/BB ratio in 60 innings at age 19 in A ball & a 135/28 K/BB ratio in 101 innings between A+/AA at age 20.

From 2017-2109 Brewers position players averaged about 5,900 PAs a year. Hoping to figure out something like a baseline expectation for the 2021 offense I attempted to distribute those PAs among the 13 players I would break camp with (list below). That particular player/PA distribution yields about a 753 OPS, a 51 point improvement over last year's 702 mark. So, what say you, will the Brewers position players post a 2021 OPS closer to the 753 that is roughly projected or the 702 from last season? PLAYER | PAs | ZiPS OPS Yelich | 650 | 902 Hiura | 650 | 778 Shaw | 550 | 751 Wong | 550 | 736 Urias | 550 | 736 JBJ | 550 | 726 Garcia | 500 | 756 Cain | 500 | 727 Omar | 400 | 736 Arcia | 350 | 685 Robertson | 350 | 669 Manny | 200 | 688 Vogie | 100 | 810

I think the point is that relatively speaking, a young SP with ace potential has far more value than we think he does. Then why aren't we talking about trading Burnes? Hader costs about 10x more, hits free agency a year sooner, will probably throw around 50% fewer innings & we have less depth in the rotation than the bullpen.

Over the last three years the Brewers are one of only six teams to make the playoffs each season. There were eleven teams that didn't make the playoffs at all the last three years, even with over half the league qualifying in 2020. They are 10th in regular season wins & 7th in postseason wins the last three years. They've literally won as many postseason games in the last three years as they did in the thirty five years before that. I'm cool with the Stearns playbook.

Over the last three seasons the Orioles have won an MLB worst 126 games. Things don't look much better this year as they are projected as a bottom 3/4 team for 2021 by both BPro & FanGraphs. Seriously, go look at their roster, three years of being the worst team in MLB & you have to squint to see a foundational piece on the team. Maybe someone(s) out of the Austin Hays, Anthony Santander, Ryan Mountcastle trio turns into something(s)? It's not that different from reading the Indians roster in Major League. What does three seasons of being the worst team in MLB get you? A prospect list like this... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-45-prospects-baltimore-orioles/ Wow. Adley & Grayson sound like absolute studs. Of course we never had a chance to draft either on account of winning too many games. After that the O's farm isn't really all that much better than ours. Doesn't seem like ends really justify the means to this point, maybe in a couple two tree more years.

Halfway through the season & 538 thnks the East stacks up like this... Bucks: 29% make finals / 13% win finals Nets: 29% make finals / 13% win finals 76ers: 16% make finals / 5% win finals Celtics: 13% make finals / 5% win finals

Did Hader really choke against Washington though? He struck out the first batter. He hit the second guy, but it looked like ball hit the knob of the bat & should have been ruled a foul ball, but wasn't. He struck out the next batter. Zimmerman hit a broken bat, bloop single. He was careful with Rendon, who walked. Soto singled & the tying/go ahead runs scored on an error. Even if you want to qualify that one outing with at least three bad luck outcomes (erroneous HBP, broken bat blooper, E9) as a choke, Hader allowed zero runs in his other eight postseason appearances covering 11.1 innings. That's essentially setting the standard at never allow a run ever, which seems like a pretty unrealistic expectation to me.

I'll put Cain down for say 115 games, a 96 wRC+, about +3 on the bases & around 9 runs saved in the field for 2021, which probably shakes out somewhere in the neighborhood 2.5 to 3.0 WAR. There are seven seasons worth of data points supporting that kind of potential outcome in Lorenzo's history.

Now we don't like first round playoff exits? We've become spoiled. Well you have anyway. Dude. I was a fan of Skip Lockwood and Gus Gil. So I think I've earned some impatience with the playoff stage being too bright for Hader, Suter, Gallardo...hell, Pete Ladd. I want a ring before I freakin' die, so yeah, playoff chokes don't do much for me. Josh Hader has 12.1 playoff innings with 20 strikeouts, 2 walks and a 1.46 ERA. Tough crowd.

Adding Odorizzi to rotation. After adding Bradley Jr. I don't see the Brewers spending anything more on FAs. I just don't see the team the way they are currently set up as contenders. After Woody and Burnes there isn't much and 3B is a hole once again. After Flaherty, there isn't much and the Cardinals 2B are projected essentially as bad as the Brewers 3B. If the Brewers aren't contenders, then neither are the Cardinals nor the Cubs nor the Reds. Somebody's gotta win the NL Central I guess.

Considering the contract that La Stella actually received, and the lack of much chatter about him this offseason, I wonder if he has been perhaps overrated? Maybe he signed too early out of concern of lower spending this off-season? There must be something I’m missing. Because at his contract, being the better hitter, being good the last full year (unlike Bradley) and actually playing a position of need, La Stella seems like a much better fit on this team Maybe the Brewers offered 3/20 to LaStella & he just preferred San Francisco.

Could be. But by continually upgrading the defense, you could also flip a 2-1 loss to a 2-1 win in several places. Better defense means more competitive in close games. Over the last four season the Brewers have played 547 regular season games. 32 of those games (less than 6%) ended with a 2-1 or 1-0 score. The Brewers went 18-14 in those games. I don't think we'll be in for a lot of 2-1 or 1-0 losses this year.

Another aspect of offense is baserunning. In 2020 the Brewers ranked dead last on the bases (-17.6 runs in only 60 games!!) by a considerable margin (next worst was -11.1). Now with JBJ (+7.6, 27th) to go along with Wong (+9.7, 16th) and Cain (+7.0, 30th) returning we have essentially added three of the top thirty baserunners over the last three seasons to the 2021 team. Stearns & company continuing to play the margins to eke out every ounce of potential value. That's how you win the 11th most games over the last five seasons despite only spending the 26th most on payroll.

Do you believe the Brewers will finish 2021 closer to 30th or 15th in runs scored? Not sure if they've incorporated JBJ yet, but Baseball Prospectus currently has the Brewers projected for 13th in runs scored, which if the pitching & defense hold up their end of the bargain should be enough for the fifth consecutive summer of competitive baseball... https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

Those raw slugging & HR totals are likely inflated because 2018 was in the launching pad of Colorado Springs then 2019 AAA used the juiced MLB baseball. Minor league wRC+ isn't park adjusted, but it does take leaguewide offensive context into account & Tyrone posted a 110 wRC+ in 2018 at Colo Springs & a 90 wRC+ in 2019 at San Antonio. For all his HR & SLG in AAA the last two years he's still only been around a league average-ish hitter.

In 2018 the Brewers finished 5th in ERA, 2nd in Defensive Runs Saved & scored the 12th most runs en route to Game 7 of the NLCS. Over the last four years the Brewers rank 9th in ERA, 7th in DRS & 15th in runs scored. Pitching & defense has kind of been Stearns & company's MO.

Luis Urias gets a mention in this 2021 Breakout Hitter Candidates article published over at FanGraphs today. Also kind of interesting because it gives percentile distribution on his ZiPS projection... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/szymborskis-2021-breakout-candidates-hitters/

Luis Urias gets a mention in this 2021 Breakout Hitter Candidates article published over at FanGraphs today. Also kind of interesting because it gives percentile distribution on his ZiPS projection... https://blogs.fangraphs.com/szymborskis-2021-breakout-candidates-hitters/

I recall Harrison having a lot of injury/production issues. I was not upset to see him and Brinson go. I was far more worried about Yamamoto and Diaz. The latter I saw as a possible option at shortstop as opposed to second base, especially with Hiura on the way. Too bad we missed out on that Braun at 3rd, Isan at SS, Hiura at 2B defensive alignment, it definitely would have been something to behold.

I recall Harrison having a lot of injury/production issues. I was not upset to see him and Brinson go. I was far more worried about Yamamoto and Diaz. The latter I saw as a possible option at shortstop as opposed to second base, especially with Hiura on the way. Too bad we missed out on that Braun at 3rd, Isan at SS, Hiura at 2B defensive alignment, it definitely would have been something to behold.

Rasmussen retired four or more batters in five of his twelve appearances in 2020.