SoCalBrewfan

It's so tough to evaluate any player this year. In normal seasons, players will have a terrible month but it's buried in the middle so all we notice is that they look bad but their early season stats hide the depth of the badness. I'm sure we could find really good players with stretches as bad as Hiura in an otherwise solid season. I think this has led to premature player moves, too. Brock Holt looked atrocious with us, but he seems to have rebounded to his norms. Similarly, Vogelbach's season stats last I checked were a dead ringer for his career norms, it's just that Seattle and Toronto got his bad days and we've had his good ones. I mean, players look lost for full 162 game seasons and then rebound. Plus he's young. Tim Anderson at 24 had an 81 OPS+ and 162 Ks and terrible defense, was below replacement value after a solid rookie season. He was better at 25 but still not great (.281 OBP!), then finally broke out last year. The White Sox are surely glad that they stuck with him. Hiura is a key asset for this franchise, so I'd give him chances. But sure, maybe he will be a Ben Grieve, bursting on the scene and then never measuring up to those initial expectations? As with any young player, what adjustments he makes after things get tough will matter a lot for his long term future.

More from the Nature piece (dated Sept 9) I linked above: So they say above that 50% is probably too low for herd immunity, but even if we optimistically assume that it's enough, that's 500K-2.1M deaths in the US. If it takes getting to 67%, the math is obviously substantially worse. Like many here, I have at least five loved ones in the high risk category, and I'm probably at least medium risk due to asthma. Even if it didn't have a chance of affecting me directly, that's an unacceptable loss of life. And that's not including the direct cost of care or the broader economic impact of so many cases and deaths.

[edited] I think it's better to assume good faith and try to clarify rather than getting angry. FOLLOWUP EDIT: This should really be what guides us all, in my opinion, and it's unfair of me to single out any one poster. We try very hard on brewerfan to keep the heat low even when we disagree.

Herd immunity can be achieved by widespread vaccination. That's obviously a desirable endgame. What most people who use the term (in this thread and in national conversation) seem to be advocating is herd immunity by infection and subsequent immunity. That requires that people get infected and then some of them will die. Is that a viable strategy? I don't know that it's well known what percentage of a population needs to develop antibodies to COVID to reach that threshold. For some diseases that percentage is very high, over 90% for measles. A number I've seen frequently is 65-70% for COVID; I hadn't seen this before, but this mentions an outbreak on the French aircraft carrier that hit 70% before the outbreak stopped: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00451-5 From that article:

I wouldn't hate it if the norm of going to school or work with cold or flu would become less prevalent. I have been as guilty as anyone, but it's kind of gross to teach a class of coughing, dripping zombies.

I don't have deep analysis, but I wonder whether this highly unbalanced schedule might be concealing to some extent which teams are good and which are mediocre. The Central divisions have more solid to really good teams than not, and I think last I checked both Central divisions have collectively more runs scored than allowed. Yeah, Pittsburgh is terrible, and KC and Detroit are not great, but there are 7 / 10 playoff quality teams. Normally the competition would even out over a season, but this year?

Yeah, wanting low-paid retail workers to enforce mask rules is asking a lot; they've probably all seen the videos of people losing their minds and getting violent. I've heard of a few restaurants in SoCal that have closed for the duration because of people hassling their counter staff; from the few times that I have gone out, the vast majority of people seem to follow the rules but some of the ones that don't are really obnoxious about it. Of course those low-paid workers, often young and unable to work from home due to the nature of these jobs, are then also terribly vulnerable to getting the virus themselves; at least some of the spread among younger people is due to that rather than their feeling invulnerable or anything like that. I teach college kids (all online, thankfully) and many of them are under a ton of pressure because of the competing fears of losing jobs in this economy and being exposed.

One of the longterm challenges of science communication is that scientists are naturally cautious and skeptical, and should be. That is especially true with an emergent phenomenon like this one. That caution, and the natural back and force of models, predictions, and observations, can lead non-scientists to conclude that science changes every day and experts don't know anything. You can see that in this thread, and in national news, with COVID, with climate science, with all sorts of things. The voices that seem certain can get amplified, particularly now with social media, and then you have people certain that young people can't get sick, or that warm weather will end the outbreak, or that hydroxychloroquine is a miracle cure. Then, as consensus begins to emerge, people point to the uncertainty and say, see, nobody knows anything, I'm just going to do what I want. Or they haven't paid close attention and still think the early reporting is accurate. Some of that is genuine confusion, but in other cases it is not in good faith. Actors with vested interests play up the doubt, e.g. tobacco companies and their purchased politicians for years pretending that the evidence on smoking was inconclusive. Fossil fuel companies have played that game for years, so that despite overwhelming evidence, plenty of Americans including many political leaders at least pretend that climate change is a hoax. When an issue becomes politicized any hope of rational discussion and learning seems to vanish. I remember being super doubtful about masks, actually making fun of someone at the dentist office in early March, but as evidence emerged that they were helpful, I changed my mind. I simply cannot accept the claim that Americans can't deal with this virus. It's not rocket science, it just requires effort and leadership and people willing to do things for the greater good. Those used to be things that Americans valued... Kind of an aside, but, 'Other than funding' is kind of a big deal though; that determines whether the research happens or not and even whether the lab remains open. I have acquaintances whose labs lost funding for climate related work, and I knew a bunch of PhD students whose dissertation work disappeared when the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled. A close friend had balloon observations cancelled due to US-Russia relations going sour at one point. As far as I know nobody's going to a bench chemist giving political instructions, but if your proposal is rejected, or your whole funding line at NSF or EPA is eliminated, that's careers postponed or eliminated. (NIH has seemed to be freer from these issues and my physical and earth science colleagues are endlessly jealous of what seems like endless and unencumbered pots of NIH money in biomedical work.)

Bill James once said that bad teams blame their best players for their problems, rather than recognizing that they need more good players. Seems like fans do this too sometimes...

So the Royals aren't exactly the 27 Yankees (11th in the AL in OPS), but that was some pitching tonight. 9 innings, four singles, no walks, 15 Ks. Also, a pitcher the Brewers drafted and developed is being seriously mentioned as a CY candidate. Another, as ROY. Still another was listed among the 50 highest in trade value a few weeks ago. There's a lot about 2020 that stinks, but that is pretty cool.

Yeah, you look at many of the playoff teams this year and their rosters reflect the potential value of sell offs of veterans for prospects. The Padres as noted benefited from getting Tatis for James Shields, but the White Sox themselves though have done well this year in part due to key players from the Quintana and Eaton trades. It's not easy to get this right of course; the Marlins didn't do as well as they surely hoped in the Yelich and Stanton deals, but the guys they got for Ozuna were solid (it still remains to be seen how Jazz Chisholm pays off after they got him for Gallen). But clearly sometimes sacrificing the now for the future indeed does pay off, and I don't know how you can say otherwise.

I can't really tell if this is about Grisham, Urias, Arcia, or what anymore. Mods feel free to move this if it belongs elsewhere! Didn't Urias have a broken hamate bone this winter? Those tend to heal slowly and make for lost power even after the player is able to return to active duty. This is an older article, but says https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/5/2/5672834/hamate-fractures-and-power-in-the-pitchfx-era Between that and the strange season, not to mention his relative youth, I really don't take his performance as fully indicative of his future value. He might well never be any better than this, but I wouldn't bet on that.

I tend to agree with Briggs here. The baseball economy, as with many other sectors, is hugely uncertain, and it's quite possible that many existing long-term contracts based on old assumptions are now seen as liabilities. The market has the potential to be dramatically different this offseason, and I have hope that the Brewers, with relatively few onerous long term deals on the books, will be in a good position to find some good fits. (I think they'd happily shed Garcia's contract, but that's the only really awkward one IMO...I'm still bullish on Yelich and Cain and Lindblom is pretty cheap.) Having two top-of-rotation starters and a deep bullpen, mostly at bargain prices, is a good place to build from, and in most years they've done well finding inexpensive rotation depth. That leaves a few obvious holes to fill (a solid starter to slot in #3) and choices to be made (left side of infield), but there's some reason for optimism. Spending $30M+ for one pitcher seems like the most unlikely response to the offseason that I can imagine, but of course I am surprised nearly every year.

Cristobal Colon is the Spanish name of Christoper Colombus. I don't know if the ages check out, but I've always had a hunch that Big Bartolo is related.

That's fascinating. But I guess we're creeping upward by swapping Vogelbach for Smoak!

Sigh.

Never really committed to Thames = over 1400 plate appearances over three years. Never really committed to Aguilar = over 1200 plate appearances over 2.5 years. With those two guys producing, Choi seemed like surplus, but it seemed to me that they tried to keep him around as long possible. But then, as noted above, Aguilar lost it completely. Later, Thames' contract expired, and we were back to square one. (Both are replacement level this year so moving on from them doesn't seem unwise.) It's quite possible that Stearns had convinced himself that he could pull 850 OPS guys out of a hat at that point, and generally it's true that 1b/dh who can hit but are defensively challenged can be found reasonably cheaply. I mean, yeah, I'd rather have a Freddie Freeman holding down the fort there for a decade, but in the absence of that, we have still mostly done ok at finding production at 1b. This year they have gone through LoMo and Smoak without either sticking, but Gyorko has performed well. But it should also be noted that it is a weird year. At 36 games, this would be less than a quarter of a regular season most years, and it's hardly unusual for a player to have a bad month or two and turn things around. A guy on a one year deal, is it worth giving them time to figure things out? Apparently not, for many teams this year. This offseason we will probably be grateful that we don't have many long-term commitments because it seems likely that the economics of the game will be unsettled. I imagine there will be bargains to be had for teams that have the roster spots and payroll to take advantage.

I guess I'm a little surprised, but you can't really say Smoak showed he deserved more looks. All across the league, vets who are flailing are just getting dumped. We could get Matt Adams after the Braves released him, but he's been even worse this year. I guess there's still a chance Vogelbach rebounds and has some future value, though he can't field, throw, or run? Who's next, you wonder? Bring on Chad Spangberger!

SoCal had great post above. I was just quoting FVBrewerfan; should have been clearer, sorry! I guess the moral of the story is that I should use the full editor instead of quick reply...

There's a lot of guys that are hitting terribly that might work it out with some consistent at bats and work with a coach. We already have a bunch of hitters in that category though, and it's hard to see what adding another one, who has zero or negative defensive value, would accomplish. The guy you might want on a waiver claim is the catcher the Phillies just DFAd: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/grullde01.shtml He's a 24 year old catcher, had OPS over 800 in AA and AAA the previous two years.

BF.net summarized: "What has Stearns done lately, the farm is horrible." Stearns trades for upside arms to bolster the minors. "Why is Stearns trading a bullpen arm for prospects!?!" I know someone already gave this a thumbs up, but, well, yep. All three guys are 19 and had big K numbers way down in the low minors. Who missed Adam Lind much? There is a great chance of none of them being anything, but you have to hope some scout saw some value in one or more of the three. For nostalgia's sake tho, I was kind of hoping we got the new Victor Santos from the Phillies.

The deadline was extended this year: https://www.mlb.com/news/july-2-international-signing-period-moved-to-january-15

I'm not defending Sweden, but just wanted to say that it is too soon to know for sure. Re Sweden, it's not just that they have had more deaths than their immediate neighbors...the long term aspects of their experiment remain to be tested. It's the second part that is also important. Despite their lack of a hard-core quarantine, their economy is no better off, in fact is very similar if not slightly worse than than that of Denmark, probably their closest nordic peer in terms of development. The reason people hold up Sweden (at least some of them) is to say, see, we could develop herd immunity and keep our economy humming along! As the article says: It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself. And “There is just no questioning and no willingness from the Swedish government to really change tack, until it’s too late,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Which is astonishing, given that it’s been clear for quite some time that the economic gains that they claim to have gotten from this are just nonexistent.” Even when things are theoretically open, plenty of people are scared and other people are sick or living with someone who is sick...and while many countries have beaten down the transmission rates, in the US the virus is still there in the community without good testing or tracking available. And of course, as we see, the virus doesn't care about anyone's models or slogans...it just spreads, remorselessly, when people are in contact. So to the people saying, reopen because we have to fix the economy, well, it's just not that simple. If you don't do something about the virus, hanging a victory banner and saying now we are reopening, it just doesn't solve the problem.

There was a report that Dylan File was added to the 60 man roster, which I don't fully understand. We have 45 participants in whatever they're calling it, so are the missing 15 (or now 14?) names not on the 60, or is it that we just don't know? In a normal season a AA starter might be a good candidate for the major league roster later in the season, so it makes sense to have File ready for action I guess.

That's rough news for Nelson, though missing this season may not be much of a loss. I will still root for the guy but his road to being a productive pitcher seems all the more challenging now.