tmwiese55

Yea generally agree on the it's two years, the hard hit % can only go so far. his spray chart shift is figured out, whatever it is. Results have to come at some point. But, Aug OPS was 843 and Sept was 991. That's where it came through and that's why you don't freak out after 3 games. Especially once you add in Yelich's two baserunning blunders his OPS isn't bad in these 8 games.

I really don't know how one can argue that an AB that ends in a hard hit is a bad result of an AB. It's not like you can magically trade off hard hits for walks or that there is a give/take relationship. I mean, it's not like one can really think that taking 6 pitches and striking/popping or weakly getting out is a better result to hitting the 2nd pitch really darn hard. The right argument would be that with more patience he'd increase his hard hit % even more and reduce his K rate. That's where he's been struggling. well actually K rate could go up due to more 2 strike counts now that I think about it. But yea point is he's chased too many breaking balls off the plate, just like everyone else on the team and what I've been saying in this thread. And as someone pointed out, this has been a problem for the whole team so it seems like it was a coaching strategy to me. So again, tough to single him out when Cain has likely been the worst offender of this (at least relative to what we're accustomed to with Cain's patience). ETA: Long story short, there just isn't a spot for Grandy to start so we're grasping at straws here. First, their starters lefties. Cain/Yeli just can't sit even though they've been bad. Braun hasn't been bad either and had an RBI double vs their righty for the game winning run in game 2. Braun plays better D and doesn't have drastic splits. It is what it is but I think it's really that simple unless you get weird with Braun going to 1B or 2B.

Again, this is only relevant in game 7. Get real desperate, Braun at 2B to start in Game 7. I mean, 2B plays half the game in RF anyway at this point. Once Buehler is out swap in Shaw for Grandy. I know it's not gonna happen.

It would help you lay off a breaking pitch and get the count in your favor though. With how good our P has been it's tough to think this has affected too much. however, one person this could have really come into play is vs Jeffress, there was always runners on and he has four pitches, and they laid off pitches barely off the plate. Some incredible takes vs him. I remember people speculating at the time with Jeffress. I think I saw something yesterday that teams coming home down 3-2 have still won 44% of the series. Not dead yet, get the W today and anything can happen.

Yup. And try remember how absurd it would be during the regular season to overreact to 3ish game sample sizes that sweeping changes need to be made. Sometimes you just have to ride things out and hope for corrections to the mean.

"The team as a whole hasn't taken a lot of pitches so it stands to reason that's by design - attack early in the count." Yea I think I agree with this and I agree that it was likely the wrong move coaching wise. Kind of gets into what I said about Bauer on MLB network. It sure seems like that has been the gameplan and it seems wrong. Best example is Cain, he's been so heavy on taking pitches all year then this series he's done the opposite, it had to be pushed that way. Until last game and he shockingly had his only good game. I really hope they move on from Coles this year, I don't wanna be a hot take blame just one guy or anything. So it's not like I'm screaming to fire him but I think it's time for a change up

Yup, I agree. That's where the tradeoffs I threw out come in. Do they make it worth it? IMO they don't because that contract is so bad/risky. Well I guess until you start thinking about how much they'd kick back to us financially I suppose. And production wise one could probably convince themselves that either one of them can basically be trusted to be good for 2-3 more years then who knows. I know Votto is older, but he was still #1 in OBP this year in the NL so can't expect him to fall off completely right away. Jeez, I'm almost talking myself into it, haha.

Except I didn't even make a big deal of it. I said Granderson should have more than 3 plate appearances and get a start against the RHP. It's the Braun Police that have to overreact to anything like that who made a big deal of it. It's not a hot take, a mere symptom of Braun hate, or a fixation. There's sufficient evidence to support the argument. It's debatable at worst, but some people here are trying to turn any disloyalty to Braun into something sacrilegious. This isn't the only time you've pushed it and I think people remember your name easily haha, whereas many names just blend in. At least they do to me anyway, most of the time I have no idea who made what points when or any history. Yours stands out easily so I think that's a bigger part of it actually. Just my two cents that I think people have gotten an anti-Braun sentiment or push from you. And in this case he really hasn't been that bad just not good, especially compared to how awful the rest of the lineup has been. Everyone has been bad so I think it seems odd to single him out. To the real point though, if they win tomorrow this actually becomes relevant. Start Braun in Game 7 or Grandy? I mean no way they don't start Braun especially considering he did get the double off him last game. I'd really be curious how much Braun has kept fresh at 1B, I bet not at all since Jesus became every day. I was watching some MBL network earlier and they had Bauer from Cle on talking about pitching. And the examples they were showing just had me thinking it's crazy how many breaking balls our guys have been swinging at out of the zone, Braun included, almost like you could coach them to literally not swing at a curve until two strikes and it would probably have made a huge difference. He ws showing some ABs Hous had vs him and making points about how Ps just hate to see hitters spit on breaking balls out of the zone, like it almost rattles them a bit. Or at least gets their head spinning regarding what they hitter is looking for. Yes we have swung away over and over at curves in the dirt. ETA: I forgot on the eye test D discussion. Yea, that's why they've tried to create these advanced stats to judge it as best as possible. And those have Grandy as awful, which you wrote off as not trusting and that you're test says he looks fine. So it can't go both ways.

I think what most are getting at is that you seem kind of fixated just on Braun in a lot of posts as some crux of the problem, when he hasn't been near the worst. That's really I think the jist of it. And specific to this starting GRandy over him in one game will have made no difference in the current 3-2 deficit because they won the game anyway and Braun's hit was key to it. So why not focus on something that matters to this series. Your discussion would be more relevant if say they play Hous next with only one lefty starter. Also, just realized when I did the L/R stats breakdown earlier that I had it in my head that Buehler was game 2, not game 3. So those numbers are off, whoops. But a reminder again on his postseason stats, simply adding in Yelich's two base running blunders drastically increases his OPS due to such a small sample. Those were hits. Your points on taking pitches and not taking walks is good though, that guy should have more than 1 walk in 8 games.

Votto still has six more years on his contract and will be getting paid $25M a year. That is not at all what I wanted in my original post. I do love me some Votto though. Gotcha, I guess I took the leap that you were then hoping to sign him for something like a 5/100 extension afterwards(thus making his contract similar-ish to Votto but he's way younger). I think someone threw that idea out through this somewhere at least What I saw on Sportrac is 5/125 and the 6th year is team option with a 7 mil buyout. That's where i got 5/132. Maybe I read wrong. CHL's last post, yea I get that for sure. We're on the same page.

But all I said was he should start against RHP's (Buehler, basically). He has 3 at-bats in the whole series and has looked far better and more on top of his you-know-what than Braun in all of them. That's kind of ridiculous. And I don't see this issue with a drop-off against LHP's. Just PH for him with Braun at that point. Not buying the horrible defense. At the time of the trade, there was some talk about how the Brewers curate their defense using the greatness of Cain and Broxton in CF and hiding guys like Santana, Thames, and Broxton, but that was nuanced and I think some people ignored it. He looks fine in RF, and certainly Yelich is a lot better than Braun in LF. He was roaming a pretty big outfield in Toronto and those dWAR stats are pretty superficial when you dig deeper. His dWAR surely was punished by a lot of fly balls that would have flown out of the park or been caught by Cain/Broxton as a Brewers. Right, this is all about starting one game which we won anyway. I get the point and certainly an argument can be made to start him vs RH. But this has nothing to do with why they're behind right now because it's only been one game and we won it. so much ado about nothing. Yea, I'm not D stats wiz by any means. Just saying what was said on here by others, not by me. You can toss those stats out the window or accept them, IDC. To me, I think he looked old out there when he played. Whereas this year Braun eye test has looked much better than he's treated on here regarding his D.

I'm not advocating this at all due to how bad that contract is. But given the OP's premise here, perhaps Votto would be a more logical move. First, he's already signed to the contract (whereas Goldy is not). Second, the contract is so bad that you shouldn't have to give up many legit prospects (AZ is gonna demand legit back) and if you do you would make CIN toss in money. Third, they should toss in many regardless to reduce the cost. Fourth, Reds aren't contending anytime soon whereas AZ is still kinda good. Fifth, Reds would probably want Thames based on what they've seen (JK). Gets you that professional hitter and high contact, high OBP. Should be able to trust him as still good for at least the next 2-3 years. Just need enough money tossed in to make it palatable. Looks to me like he has 5/132 left on his deal, man, can't believe someone was dumb enough to give that.

Think the argument us much ado about nothing anyway since only one game has been started by a RH anyway. Any late game swaps bring in the issue of the vs LH dropoff of Grandy. So you probably don't wanna PH Grandy for Braun and then leave him in. Combine that with presumably worse D. Braun is only ok at D but I recall when we got Grandy that people posted that he is basically awful now, like sub Santana last year bad now. So it's all this about whether Grandy should've started game 3, and we won that game.

Pull Braun's last two months or some timeframe like that and he probably trumps him big time. It is crazy that Grandy has gotten 3 ABs and smoked all 3 of them though. And with our WI sports luck, the only one that fell was the meaningless one while the other two would've won games.

It's risky given Goldy's age. But contract/salary wise he'd only overlap with Braun for 19 and 20. And Goldy's extension would only be one year overlap. If he only took 20 mil per year you could probably swing it. Especially if you backload it a bit. But even after Braun is off then you have close to 40 mil wrapped up in Goldy/Cain as they hit their mid 30s. Plus factor in the prospects you'd have to give up. Not sure you can take that risk. But considering their likely going to have all their pitching in arbitration salaries now is probably the time if any that you can swing for the fences on something like this. Safer route is probably riding a Jesus and someone platoon or shared job so hopefully Jesus doesn't crash like this year. Top of my head it seems like we don't have any 1B legit prospects beating down the door though either.

And I know Cedeno hasn't been great for us but I thought this last night when he came in and they had his stats up, he really did have a great year overall. One or two bad outings happen for relief pitchers, if he's on the roster to face lefties you have to let him do it or he shouldn't have been on the roster to begin with.

When dealing with such small sample here one has to remember that Yelich cost Braun 2 hits on base running blunders. That's 57 points of OBP and more in OPS once slugging is added in from my quick eyeballing of it. Again, Braun isn't killing it or anything since mostly been all singles and he hasn't taken enough walks like he should be. But he's been the least of their problems.

Yelich is 100 OPS points better against RHP's for his career. Only about 20 points this year, but that doesn't have nearly the same statistical significance. I don't really think you can use Braun and "always good" in the same sentence ever again, in any baseball context. Aguilar could be one of those guys who had a spike peak at prime age. That's not an unusual trajectory. He had a year that would make Eric Thames proud, though he did sustain his best hitting for longer than Thames last year. I'm down to give all of them except Schoop another chance next year (even Hernan!), but whom they replace Schoop with is going to be a huge factor like you said. And if Moustakas is gone, you also probably want an LHB middle infielder option too. Right, but when they built this plan they thought they had righties to handle this situation, that's all I was saying, that basically they were one RH IF short of being covered (and Schoop falling off that hard couldn't be foreseen). It's not like they were clueless to it all. And again, Braun's advanced stats vs lefties were top 10 in the whole league. Still, you can't bank on it due to the injuries and another year older. But, if Santana is fixed you have that covered for next year. And I know Schoop isn't a big splits vs LH guy, but to not have to play atrocious Shaw or Moose vs lefties it was still an improvement according to plan. Jesus, IDK what happened there, he just looks so different now than 2-3 months ago. Also, think you're being a touch harsh on Braun in this series. He's 5/21 overall and was the only guy to show up in game 4. And in that 21, remember the 110 MPH rocket to 3B Turner who just covered his face and caught it, Yelich's base running blunder cost him a hit too since it counts as a FC. He has also had a gapper to RC in one of those games that would've scored a run but got chased down by a great catch. Has he been great, no, but he hasn't been awful either. Now specific to lefties, he was 0-4 vs the one RH starter. So now up to 5/17 vs lefties with a walk. 5/14 vs lefties if you take out the Kershaw in the shadows game. Again, nothing special and I grant I hate how often he's swung early in counts and that he has had a few head scratching bad ABs/Ks where you're shocked he looked that bad.

I get that it seems that way due to how bad their struggling now. But overall: Cain kills lefties, Yeli was better vs lefties. Braun of course is always good vs lefties. Jesus as well. So 'roster building' it seemed to be fairly balanced other than Schoop crapping the bed completely so you're left playing Perez. The guys just aren't performing at the biggest time. But really adding one RH infielder who is a better hitter is all you can do from a roster building view of it. That way you can sit at least one of Shaw/Moose. Same problem will be there next year even without Moose since Shaw is so bad vs lefties. So you need someone to play 2B and 3B. Perez isn't awful but you need better if you're playing for a title, and Schoop really needs to play better. After that you have a Keston waiting. Still a RH hitting contact hitting guy who can play 2B/3B seems to be a key target to me.

Yes, the pitching management was the least of our problems. If anything, it was the one thing that has gotten them this far and had them in position to win the first 4 games. It's all the hitting. Thinking positive, they'll have their whole P arsenal the next 2 games so anything can happen. especially if the offense can wake up just a bit

I think 2-2-1-1-1 should be the way the series are lined up I like 2-2-3 better. That is an actual advantage. The current format makes no sense. So the home field advantage is 5 games to 2? tough problem to fix. the old 2 2 1 gives too many off days for baseball. Allows the Johnson/Schilling approach to pitching. Current has the issues described. 5-2 home field advantage will never fly. What about 1-3-3?? SPitballing of course, same number of off days as now. However the issue is giving the lesser team 3 of the 4 first games. Tough problem

Well he is still within the number of pitches you would expect in a normal 5 inning outing. 3rd time through the order, hmmm. I know due to last night they had to push it, but just another example whenever someone gets yanked even though they're going well

Right, LAD called our bluff this time. But they tried to do that and stuck with the plan for Miley in a later game instead. Can't say they're not trying all they can

Good point, basically shouldn't throw a breaking ball vs the P. I agree with your second guess, I think he was gambling so that it helped make the next inning easier. Maybe they wanted more of a "throw junk and if he swings great" approach rather than being so close to the zone though, who knows.

Agree. Aside from that bad stretch before the ASB. It seems that after a gut punch type loss they've always responded well the next game. Take game 3 as an example. Who knows if it's just selective memory but hope it holds true today