BruisedCrew

The Cubs are just 5.5 games behind the Brewers. That’s a deficit that can be made up in a week. They’re going to have to fall a lot further back to be sellers at the trade deadline. The Pirates are no pushovers with some of their young talent, especially the new pitchers.

It was the Reds that beat the Cubs. They have now won 8 of 11 and are tied with the Cardinals just a game behind the Cubs and a half game ahead of the Pirates.

I think putting all run totals for which the league winning percentage is under 50% in one bucket is very logical. When I chose these a month ago for the reasons I gave, the Brewers were very low in the middle bucket. That was in the thread about the Brewers offense. When I updated them now they brought the middle bucket up.

Why is that? Regardless of the curve aspect, the Brewers have more games scoring 3 runs or less than the other teams listed. And scoring 3 runs produces generally produces more losses than wins. This year the Brewers are 4-7 when scoring 3 runs.

I gave the reasons why I chose the buckets the way I did. IMHO it’s no more arbitrary, and actually more logical than the ones used by BR. I chose those buckets a month ago and before I knew how they would come out.

First, there's an obvious type here because the Brewers have 25 games of 6+ runs, not 35. The percentages are correct. You will recall that when we had an exchange about this on another thread a few weeks ago, I had independently defined the buckets differently. I used 0-3 runs as the low bucket, 4-6 as the middle, and 7+ as high. This might be arbitrary, but I thought it made sense because: !. In recent years it has usually taken 4 runs for a team's expected win % to approach 50%. So, I consider scoring 3 runs or less to be "low scoring" because to win the opponent has to be held to 2 runs or less. When the Brewers had strong pitching the announcers would often talk about how high the Brewers win percentage was when they scored at least 4 runs. 2. I used 7+ as high scoring because there had been graphics touting the Brewers as leading MLB in games with 7+ runs scored. When a team scores 7+ runs the win percentage is quite high. 3. That left 4-6 as the middle bucket, which seems appropriate since we are talking about teams averaging close to 5 runs a game. Scoring in the 4-6 range should produce a good winning percentage, and scoring within 1 run of a 5 run average on a regular basis would be a sign of a good and consistent offense. So, updating the numbers I posted a few weeks ago and applying them to the teams you listed produces this: (low/middle/high) Baltimore: 20/22/18 Cleveland 20/21/19 Philadelphia 17/29/17 NYY 21/23/19 Milwaukee 25/18/19 Kansas City 24/21/17 LAD 20/28/15 What stands out now is that, of the teams listed, the Brewers are tied for the most high scoring games, but have the most low scoring games by a significant margin (except for KC which has just one less) and the fewest games in that middle bucket (and quite a few less than most of the other teams). So, make of it what you want. But it is a fact that the Brewers have more low scoring and fewer medium scoring games than the other top scoring teams in MLB.

I don’t think “consistency” is really the goal. A perfectly consistent offense averaging 5 runs a game would score exactly 5 runs each and every game. Nobody is going to do that, and it isn’t necessarily what you want. What you want is to reduce the number of low scoring games that usually produce losses unless you get perfect or near perfect pitching. Since they won’t let you take excess runs from blowouts and apply them to other games that has to be done some other way. I guess what the Brewers need to reduce the low scoring games is have more high quality major league hitters who can find ways to get on base and produce runs even against elite pitchers. That’s a lot easier said than done.

I don't think the Phillies have to be alarmed about anything. Their offense produced the runs they needed to win. The Brewers don't necessarily have to be alarmed by scoring just 2 runs against the Phillies. But they might be concerned about having so many games in which they have scored 3 or fewer runs. That number is more like an average offense than one of the top offenses in the league.

Probably not considering that (1) they won all 3 games meaning that they scored what they needed to win those games, and (2) they have only been shut out twice and scored only 1 run twice this season. The Phillies provide a good contrast to the Brewers in terms of their run distribution. The Brewers have scored 7 or more runs 19 times compared to 17 for the Phillies. 7 runs should be enough to win most of the time. In fact, the Brewers are 18-1 and the Phillies are 17-0 when scoring 7 or more. Those games where a team piles on runs can be fun for the fans they do tend to pad the stats. Every team has some of those, but the Brewers have had more than all or most. They have scored 10 or more runs 8 times and the Phillies have had 5. What makes the Phillies offense more effective in winning games (and one might say more "consistent") is that they have significantly fewer games with 3 or fewer runs (which more often than not result in losses) and a lot more in the 4-6 range where the probability of winning flips above 50%. The Phillies have 29 games where they have scored 4-6 runs (22-7) while the Brewers have had only 18 (11-7). The reason I call the Brewers offense more "feast or famine" than normal is that their run distribution chart looks more like a dumbbell (heavily weighted on the ends) than a bell curve with the heavier weight in the middle like the Phillies and most other top offenses.

This comes at it in a different way, but confirms what I found a few weeks ago when I looked at how many low scoring games the highest scoring teams had. While the Brewers were 2nd in runs scored per game at that time (they are now 5th), they had more high scoring games and significantly more low scoring games (which I had defined as 3 runs or less). I would point out that Fangraphs projects the Brewers to average 4.40 runs per game for the rest of the season, a drop from their current 4.94 runs per game. They also project the Brewers to go 50-50 in their last 100 games. I don’t think a perception or opinion that the Brewers are going to have trouble maintaining the scoring pace they’ve had so far is some wildly pessimistic viewpoint

No, my impression hasn’t changed. I have been skeptical about the offense continuing to be one of the best in MLB and this series highlighted its weakness. Sure, the Phillies have good pitchers but 2 runs in a 3 game series is sad against anyone. Even while they score a lot of runs on average, they continue to be more feast or famine than a good offense should be. In their last 7 road series they are 8-14, and in 10 of those losses they scored 2 runs or fewer (2 three times, 1 three times, and 4 shutouts.). That’s a lot of games giving the team little to no chance of winning.

Outs at home don’t mean anything unless the runner would have scored if he had held at third and been driven in by the next hitter. My guess is that if every one of the runners thrown out at home had held at third, the Brewers might have scored a couple more runs and it might or might not have led to one more win. IMHO that’s a big fuss over something that doesn’t happen that often.

More predictable whining from Levering.

So, the Brewers have the most runners thrown out at home in MLB with 12. That’s about 1 every 5 games. What they don’t say is what is the norm for other teams. If everyone (or almost everyone) has like 8 or more, that difference seems pretty insignificant. And when runners thrown at the plate are on force outs, like Turang’s DP the other day, that has nothing to do with insane baserunnjng. This could be a stat that says nothing about the team’s phiosophy.

After their hot start to the season, the Brewers have become road weaklings. This makes losses in 5 of the last 6 series and a sweep here would make them 6-12 in those games. They haven’t won a road series since the sweep over the Cardinals in mid April. They’ll be facing some tough pitchers in Detroit too so the offense is going to have to find something to win that one.

Can’t take a day off when you have a chance to break a record that nobody knows or cares about.

I brought it up because they have talked about it, and put up a graphic about it every game in this series. My point is, that is such an obscure, random, and relatively meaningless thing that I doubt anyone really cares about it.

Has anyone ever thought about, much less cared about, the Brewers record for most consecutive games started by teammates to start a season?

Burnes had twice as many innings in 2018 as Hall had last year. That may not be tremendous, but IMHO it is pretty significant. He had several outings covering more than 1 inning and a WHIP of 1.00 compared to Hall’s 1.19. Burnes was also making his MLB debut in 2018 while Hall had a pretty rough career debut in 2022. I too am willing to wait for Hall to pitch more before classifying him. But the discussion here is mostly about what to do with him this year if the Brewers are in a playoff chase. There’s a big question mark over whether he will be ready to contribute as a starter this year. I’ll go out on a limb and say Hall won’t be winning the Cy Young award in 2026. I actually think comparing him to Burnes is a disservice to him. In the short term once he’s physically able I think he would be better placed in the bullpen. Unless something changes dramatically the Brewers are going to have plenty of use for pitchers to come in from the bullpen and pitch multiple innings

Burnes showed something in 2018 that Hall has not yet shown in his career. Nobody would be comparing the two if they didn’t happen to be involved in the same trade.

I was responding to a poster who said he felt better because the Sox led the Cubs by 5.

Did you really think they would hold a lead?

Brewers put their playoff offense on display

Darn contact play.

That’s been my experience. They don’t look for a second opinion if the original diagnosis is that it’s no big deal.