sveumrules

Right. We haven't played well, against an extremely difficult schedule & will still have a winning record after tonight's game no matter what happens. That's a good thing. A better thing would be to be playing better & have a better record, sure. But with how we've bern playing & who we've been playing, our record could be a whole lot worse. That it isn't is good. Unless you'd prefer us to have an even worse record?

ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

Good thing we scored on Gant, we definitely won't be scoring on Reyes tonight.

Yes we can! Yes we can!

Saw somewhere that the better seed wins approximately 80% of the time in the NBA postseason. To get a similar success rate the NFL would have to change to a best of 11 series, the NHL a best of 51 series & MLB a best of 75 series.

Both the ERA & the OPS against marks are being driven by the unsustainably high HR allowed number (in our case) & the unsustainably low HR allowed number (in the Reds case). Pretty much the entirety of the "our pitching sucks" argument comes down to HR allowed which is by far the flukiest element of pitching over a sample this small (still only 211 IP as a team). The most important thing you wrote relative to future results is "It's still April". If at the end of the year the Reds are still top 3 in all categories & we are still bottom 3 in all categories I'll drink a Budweiser Light.

Two different sports, two entirely different CBAs & economic structures. The top NBA team salary is 153 million & the bottom is 87 million. The top MLB team salary is 213 & the bottom is 62 million. Also, The Bucks owners are also billionaires, I believe Mark A is only a hundred millionaire. He’s close to billionaire now with the team worth xtra 144 million just last year alone. & all he has to do to access that money is sell the team, though then he wouldn't be able to spend it on payroll I guess.

All of Hader, Woodruff, Burnes & Peralta developed & exceeded expectations under Hook's tutelage in the minors.

Two different sports, two entirely different CBAs & economic structures. The top NBA team salary is 153 million & the bottom is 87 million. The top MLB team salary is 213 & the bottom is 62 million. Also, The Bucks owners are also billionaires, I believe Mark A is only a hundred millionaire.

Then most fans haven't been paying enough attention (no real surprise). Most projections had us around a 50/50 shot to make the playoffs this season in a stacked NL. If you flip a coin, I call heads & it comes up tails, is that a major failure? Sorry but most of those same projections had us at less than that last 2 yrs. The only teams I would've considered postseason locks coming into the season were Boston, New York, Cleveland, Houston & Los Angeles. Any of those five teams missing the postseason would be a major failure in my eyes. No other team had a high enough postseason probability entering the season to be considered a major failure if they miss out.

Then most fans haven't been paying enough attention (no real surprise). Most projections had us around a 50/50 shot to make the playoffs this season in a stacked NL. If you flip a coin, I call heads & it comes up tails, is that a major failure?

Yes, it has. & despite abysmal, horrendous pitching & playing a very difficult early slate of games & half the line up seemingly forgetting how to hit, we still have won more games than we have lost. Ahhh, baseball.

I'm having fun.

I can't confidently say we have two above average starters. The range of outcomes of this rotation are from replacement level to well above average. The Youngs guys had success last year but they all have big time warts too. Replacement level? Totally sandbagging their performance last year IMHO. Anderson and Chacin above average. 3young guns above ave now, with potential TOR stuff. That’s 5 above average. Then there’s Nelson. Peralta & Burnes have both been replacement level or below to start the season, Woodruff might be too after today's start. Nobody was sandbagging anything, just being realistic about the wide range of potential outcomes.

Eric Thames begs to differ.

Can you explain what you mean by that? This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. There's no doubt they're fortunate to have the record they have with the performances all-around so far. Sure. In 2016 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.10/4.37/4.42 In 2017 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.00/4.24/4.26 In 2018 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 3.73/4.01/4.04 So for three consecutive seasons under Stearns, with a varying collection of pitchers & defenders, the team managed to prevent less runs than their peripheral estimators would indicate, to the 3rd highest level in all of MLB. Maybe it was just luck, maybe it was all because of DJ, I don't know, but those are the numbers. In 2019 the Brewers have posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.96/5.00/4.42 The main issue driving the poor ERA/FIP marks is our unsustainably high 1.76 HR9 mark, which is why the xFIP is much more respectable & a better indicator where the team will likely end up at the end of the year than ERA through 200 innings. HR rate is extremely noisy through a sample this small. Our HR9 is the third worst in MLB at 132% of league average. Right now from top to bottom the HR9+ rankings go from 195 to 61. Over the last two seasons the HR9+ ranges have been 77-129 & 78-127, for comparison. To build it out a little further here is an article from last year where Jeff Sullivan investigated which is the best indicator of 2nd half results out of 1st half results, 1st half pythagorean results or the projections. The projections won in a landslide & we're currently dealing with a sample about 1/3rd the size of 1st half results/1st half pythagorean results at this point. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-best-to-predict-the-seasons-second-half/

Can you explain what you mean by that? This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. There's no doubt they're fortunate to have the record they have with the performances all-around so far. Sure. In 2016 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.10/4.37/4.42 In 2017 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.00/4.24/4.26 In 2018 the Brewers posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 3.73/4.01/4.04 So for three consecutive seasons under Stearns, with a varying collection of pitchers & defenders, the team managed to prevent less runs than their peripheral estimators would indicate, to the 3rd highest level in all of MLB. Maybe it was just luck, maybe it was all because of DJ, I don't know, but those are the numbers. In 2019 the Brewers have posted an ERA/FIP/xFIP of 4.96/5.00/4.42 The main issue driving the poor ERA/FIP marks is our unsustainably high 1.76 HR9 mark, which is why the xFIP is much more respectable & a better indicator where the team will likely end up at the end of the year than ERA through 200 innings. HR rate is extremely noisy through a sample this small. Our HR9 is the third worst in MLB at 132% of league average. Right now from top to bottom the HR9+ rankings go from 195 to 61. Over the last two seasons the HR9+ ranges have been 77-129 & 78-127, for comparison.

If you count today as a loss, we are still in contention at 13-10 with a record of 7-6 in games started by Peralta/Woodruff/Burnes. Up until now we have done both at the same time. You continue to point to the record. The record is meaningless this early in the season. The record is not sustainable under the year to date level of play and is largely attributable to luck. You continue to point to about 200 IP of performance, which is meaningless this early in the season. That poor performance is not sustainable under the year to date level of play and is largely attributable to bad luck.

I disagree, it’s a fair comparison. Care to expand on why? Brought along differently. Both were brought along as starters in the minors, Woodruff only bounced around between roles in 2018 (21 starts/15 relief appearances) out of team need. Nelson's first full season as a MLB starter was at age 26, same as Woodruff is trying for this year.

This. If you count today as a loss, we are still in contention at 13-10 with a record of 7-6 in games started by Peralta/Woodruff/Burnes. Up until now we have done both at the same time.

So far Braun has started 16 of 22 games, about 73%. He would have to start 130 of our remaining 140 games to hit 90%. Even if he is "healthy" all season & starts hitting closer to his last couple two tree years, I don't think that's happening.

At this still very early juncture the only results that matter are wins & losses, we are 13-9. Individual category ranks for our pitchers prior to tonight's game were... K9 9.34 (12th) BB9 3.94 (22nd) HR9 1.85 (28th) ERA 5.21 (25th) FIP 5.07 (25th) xFIP 4.34 (17th) The only thing dreadful is a fluky high HR9 (which can happen over less than 200 team IP thus far) which is driving the poor ERA/FIP numbers. I'd bet our ERA/FIP are closer to our current xFIP at season's end than their current levels.

Yup. Career BB%/K% of 8.1/18.5 vs 4.3/25.7 so far in 2019. That will tend to happen when you have a 13.1 swinging strike % vs a 9.8 career average. Braun also has a 54.8 contact % on out of zone pitches vs a 66.7 career average, that is a huge dropoff. He's also swinging at more out of zone pitches this year, 37.4% vs a 34.0% career average. Add it all up & Ryan has only seen 39.4% of pitches in the zone vs a career average of 44.1. The book seems to be, pitch him out of the zone, he will swing & not make contact.

Good observation. Coming into tonight's game the Brewers were dead last in MLB with a 55.2 first strike % vs. a league average of 60.1.

Now four games over. Not too bad considering 4/9ths of our lineup (pitchers & bench have bern solid), 3/5ths of our rotation & 7/8ths of our bullpen (by most posters estimation, seemingly) have been varying degrees of hot garbage to dumpster fire.