SoCalBrewfan

The Brewers are now tied with Atlanta for the second best record in the NL.

Brewers up to 81.8%. Cardinals drop almost 10% down to 26.6% FWIW, the BP has the Brewers' playoff percentage higher than fellow division leaders Texas (81.5%) and Detroit (65.6%). I just posted this in the IGT, then came over here to see I am not the only one with an addiction to that report...

Nice. If you follow the baseball prospectus playoff odds (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/), it's fun to see what they do day-to-day....I don't take them too seriously but they are interesting to watch. After game 1 of this series the Brewers' odds were bumped from 75% to almost 82%, and St Louis had theirs drop almost 10%. Very interested to see tomorrow's report...that's one less chance for St Louis to make up ground.

Dude's managing like it's a playoff game. Meanwhile the dude in the other dugout is losing his mind. Baton has been passed...it's our division to lose.

Pitcher spot will bat so you bat Lucroy there, maybe with a RISP, and then swap out Yuni in the bottom of the ninth. A fella can hope so anyway. Edit: or maybe not. Wierd.

I haven't read anything official, but De La Cruz started Sunday and I would imagine that he's up to make a start or three; otherwise you might have seen McClendon. (Though if you believe he's a PTBNL or at least on the Mets' list maybe this supports that theory?) I think de la Cruz is a far better bet to go six than Estrada at this point. Edit: seems like fondy beat me to it.

You can check the 40-man roster here: http://mlb.mlb.com/team/roster_40man.jsp?c_id=mil While it's not impossible to add a player like Fiers or Frankie de la Cruz who is not on the 40 (we have some 60-day-dl candidates if need be), Melvin's track record makes it seem unlikely for what looks to be a short-term situation. That leaves the following starters as possible call ups:Peralta, Rivas, Rogers, Scarpetta. Rogers isn't close to ready, Rivas has had a mediocre year, Scarpetta remains promising but has control lapses...smart money would be Peralta. If they did add a guy to the 40 I wouldn't be stunned to see de la Cruz, who's had a nice AAA season; Fiers would also be a good choice though he's just recently hit AAA.

Lopez isn't a world beater, but why would you leave Yuni in there? Maybe they think that Berkman and the ph for Dotel will be more likely to hit to the right side? You got me.

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Hairston and Dillard are apparently lost in the same Vortex. They won't get into a game again until they trick Roenicke into saying his name backwards.

I almost think some of this is a misconception of statistics, the gambler's fallacy. If a .300 hitter goes 0 for 7, that doesn't mean that statistics predicts that he will be 3 for his next 3 to get back to .300. If the true ability level of the player (and that's a sticky part) is that he's a .300 hitter, then our best guess would be 1 hit (actually .9) in the next 3 AB. The part of the season that's already happened is in the books and can't be changed without a Delorean; the deep question is whether we use that first-half record to revise our estimation of the true talent level or not. At the same time, there's a tendency to over-emphasize the most recent data points. That makes you think the guy is done in May and then, at the same time, that he's a resurgent star in August. If your'e projecting in a statistical sense, you try to avoid those fallacies and biases to make a best guess. For Betancourt, his established performance level was already pretty grim, and that remains part of the record that you must consider. Then, after the first half of the season, when he was even worse than that, there is a question of how to project his second half performance. Four caricatured answers: 1. He's due...he was so bad in the first half that he's certain to have an MVP-like second half, just to get back to his career norms. (the gambler's fallacy) 2. His first half shows that he's done at 29. To heck with his career norms...the guy's just lost it completely and we should dump him. (the recency effect) 3. The best guess for his second half is to use a projection based on his career norms, as though the first half never happened, or with a small adjustment to reflect recent performance / aging / whatever. 4. I've taken a look at the details and he has a new stance / tends to hit better in the second half / gets motivated by a contract year / got Lasix / hurt his wrist so his established talent level needs to be adjusted in a way that statistics doesn't really predict. A lot of baseball journalism is a mix of 4 and 1, or maybe 2. If these were coin flips and not human beings, both 1 and 2 would be terribly flawed, but it might be that scouting lends support to the notion that a guy has lost bat speed or has vision problems or something. A caricatured stat zealot might instead tend to 3, with a careful adjustment of estimated true talent level to account for the most recent data. (When Russ posts the rest-of-season ZiPS this is what they reflect I believe.) A lot of 4 tends to be after the fact justification that is hard to use to project future outcomes, but sometimes those are real effects there...a guy learns a new pitch or changes his approach at the plate or has his injured wrist finally heal. It's hard to predict sudden changes in ability, and many if not most perceived changes can be accounted for by random variation. Flipped coins will come up heads several times in a row, just by chance...it doesn't necessarily mean anything. That said, it might be that for some reason Yuni really is a second half hitter...I hadn't noticed that trend and it could well be real. If you go by #3, the hot streak is a short-term phenomenon, and I think you'd still be dissatisfied with Yuni going forward, suggesting that Hairston should play some short down the stretch. What Russ was asking is whether there's any evidence for #4, that he's really a different hitter than he used to be.

I'm responding mostly to Briggs, who points to his hot streak and says Only on the planet that the sabermetric zealots live is Betancourt "about replacement level". As you note, all the games count...the good ones and the one he's thrown away. (Almost literally in one case.) As I check this morning, Yuni has indeed reached zero at bb-ref. Bully for him.

To me it depends on which Edwin Jackson we get...he's always seemed to me to be really good or really bad...and he's got to remember the pounding he got last time out. I'd love to see a 3 up there in the top of the first of the first game. My analytical side says 1-2, but my gut says we win two. And there's at least one Cardinal ejected.

He's hot now, so all the awfulness of the first half apparently doesn't count? It's sadly not hard to find games in April and May, one- or two-run games and extra inning games, where a guy who wasn't a complete black hole might have made the difference. Remember this game: http://www.baseball-refer...s/WAS/WAS201104150.shtml There are others...the boxscores are out there if your memory has faded. (Maybe it's post-trauma memory suppression.) And that's not even measuring the balls in play that a shortstop with more range might have converted the out. A few more Ws in those games early, and we're not sweating this Cardinals series quite so much. Now he's hot, undoing some of that damage, but even with the hot streak, we're still looking at a guy who is sub-replacement level...at this instant his season so far is exactly the player that stat 'zealots' predicted. That's more than I dared to hope for given where he was on June 1, so count me as pleasantly surprised. For better or worse he's our shortstop, so I'll hope he outdoes himself going forward. That's what makes this fun...sometimes unexpected things happen, just as sometimes a coin flips heads ten times in a row. This is, after all, the city that remembers Hurricane Hazle.

He's finally about where we should have expected, season line just a little worse than last year and his career numbers. He's just finally undoing the colossal damage he did to the team in May with an equally improbable hot streak. (Seriously, the May numbers are truly unbelievable: .178/.200/.289 ??! A paid saboteur would not have done so poorly for fear of raising suspicion.) With the roster as it sits, and Counsell's diminished skills, Betancourt's probably the best choice at short for now, though I'd get Hairston some at bats and get a look at his defense at short when Yuni cools back down. And heavens to Betsy, please say no on the option. Melvin doesn't have that many parts of the team to work on this offseason, but shortstop has to be among the very top priorities, possibly even the very highest. We're losing Prince and several relievers, and need to do some thinking about third, but in each case we have some options both internally and on the market. Shortstop is the place where we can put some defense behind our excellent starting pitching and protect those investments. Sadly it is also the one place where I can see no hope of an internal solution, and where the free agent pool is very possibly weakest. I do have this nagging fear that a continued resurgence and some postseason heroics plus lack of better options could lead back to Yuni...$6M for a slugging run-producer like Betancourt seems so beguilingly cheap when the alternatives are the John McDonalds and Alex Gonzalezes of the world.

Kind of disappointing that after sweeping a series on the road, we lose 1/2 a game in the standings. We're the front runners though, so look at it the other way...St Louis is saying something similar but they only picked up half a game. They're thinking 'when are those guys going to lose? we do as well as a team can do and it doesn't seem to help...' Now we stomp 'em and break their hearts.

Yeah, Yuni's pretty hot right now, but it's August 8th and even with his big hot streak he's still hoping to get his numbers up to replacement level. Remember in May when the team was five games under .500 and the board was a toxic waste dump of negativity? We lost a lot of close games against mediocre teams, and some of the blame belongs to Betancourt. One guy can't change everything, but a better performance from the left side of the infield earlier in the season would have us checking Philly scores and thinking about home field advantage right about now, not watching St Louis scores and counting on Florida to help us stay ahead in the Central. But all that said, I'll enjoy his good days and hope like heck he stays hot. Just so long as they don't exercise that danged option...

Do we know if Lopez and Reed signed 2011 or 2012 contracts? There's only three weeks of AZL left to play, so I wouldn't be surprised if these guys didn't start until instructionals.

Remember that 1 minus OBP is the out percentage, so a .340 obp will get more plate appearances over the course of a game than a .275. It takes 41 plate appearances to make 27 outs with a .340 obp, and 37 for the .275. So it's like the .340 team gets an extra inning every game....but it's better than that, because the odds of stringing together several hits+walks is better with longer sequences. As an aside, I saw this on MLB trade rumors: The Angels have interest in Betancourt, tweets Troy Renck. Alas, it's the reliever they want, not the reviled.

I've read the Phils are sending down Dom Brown so Ibanez will continue to play, meaning it's less of an upgrade than it might have been. Still, Pence is under control until after 2013, and Singleton and Cosart will probably still be in the minors when he hits free agency. According to most experts, they're top 50 prospects in all of baseball, and two of the top four in the Phils system, immediately become the top of the Astros' weak system, but both guys have things to improve upon. I don't think it's as clear a win for Houston as many seem to, unless they have money troubles I am not aware of and think they can't affort Pence's arbitration cases. EDIT: In response to above, both Singleton and Cosart were in the Florida State League, so high A not low A. Still, not likely that either sees the bigs until '13 at the earliest.

I liked Komatsu, and think he'll have some value as a major league bench player down the line, but we have a number of similar players, with Schafer and Gindl in AAA already. If I were making out the lineup card, Hairston would play almost every day for the current Brewers, as a platoon partner to Morgan as well as a semi-regular in the infield. Perhaps his veterancy will pass the Roenicke test and we'll actually see Betancourt on the bench from time to time? Please? The numbers projected by ZiPS of .339/.394 would be an improvement over our current starters at two or three of the positions he plays (not counting catcher), and he's been a little better vs LHP, against which Morgan is fairly helpless. Nice pickup...just hope we use him effectively.

Considering all of Nashville (some of who are batting over .300 in AAA) is a collective 31 for 201 at the major league level this year (.154), I can see how Melvin would not be very confident with bringing Green up at this point. Perhaps, as a result, we should rule out any player who's ever played in AAA.

I don't think Pence is a free agent until after 2013...so two years and change of Pence, though he'll get raises in arby and won't be must of a bargain salary-wise. Two top fifty prospects and two lesser guys is a decent haul, but Pence fills a significant hole for the Phils, will be there for a while, and the two good prospects are still very young, in the A+ FSL I believe. The road to the world series got tougher in the NL, sadly. Philly is a well-run team now, but I sure remember them being mired in mediocrity for years on end. Meanwhile the Astros are in that hole that we can remember all too well...and just lost a guy who is one of the few things to be excited about.

I believe his stats for June and July would be .395/.464/.686/1.150. That is one dominant two-month stretch. Good thing none of that success has come in the bigs...it would have taken at bats from established players who used them oh so well. Casey McGehee is proof positive that minor league players who are not high draft picks but have some AAA success never have any success if given major league playing time. Seriously, compare Green in AAA at 24 to McGehee in AAA at 25. Then weep.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree that this is a stopgap move until they can figure out a plan. It's the wrong stopgap move, IMO, but it doesn't have much in terms of long-term consequences if they have another deal brewing, as Farris is on the 40 etc. For the moment, Farris is the guy that fits the brain trust's view of the role Weeks had: 2b, top of the order guy. (He's good in the first role, hasn't been so hot in the second this year.) They plug him in and there's minimum disruption...nobody has to think too hard. Green would be my choice, but the last time he played a lot of 2b was five years ago. Then again, given the way we've used Carroll since his callup (3PA in a week?), it might well a cosmetic difference anyway. It's premature to declare Green a PTBNL or anything else, though I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility either.