MrTPlush

On a brighter note a loss likely ends the Mets season. Would but the 4.5 behind the Brewers...5.5 out of a spot.

Bummer day outside of winning. Cubs/Cardinals both looking like they will win.

Another win? What a great end to the night.

Who started this non stop trend of umpire complaining? My gosh, it looked like it was a ball on the lil tracker box by a sliver. Or it hit the strike zone by a sliver. Is umpiring worse now than a decade ago...I bet not. It is okay, I will get off your lawn now.

98 at one point

Can you imagine if the crappy NL Central finds a way to have both WC spots? National writers would self implode.

Why does it seem like Freddy Peralta just reels backs, chucks it towards home, and prays?

That was a waste of time, his glove didn’t even close...

I'm nervous about this after seeing what Segura did after we gave up on him. Then oh well. Clearly we can’t fix him. So many guys switch organizations and get a new recommendation to help them out. People assume, “Man we gave up too early and he figured it out.” No...likely his new organization was the answer and if we kept those guys they would still suck. I don’t think he could ever be what we thought. I think those hopes were way inflated due to one season in AA. It got the hype train rolling like crazy since he had the defense to bring him to the MLB aaa is. If he can be above average hitting at this point that would be unreal. Likely another Alcides Escobar from the Brewers farm.

Arcia’s MLB ranks via FanGraphs: #139 out of #140, the only one lower is Khris Davis and his defense rating is way messed up for only 86 innings in the field. So really, Arcia is the worst qualified player in baseball. #140 out of #140 just offensively, BY A MILE. Like, it isn’t even remotely close between him and the next guy. I don’t know how you take that into next season as your starter. He only gets worse.

Pretty convinced this is the end of Arcia. It’s gone too long.

Jalen Ramsey...?

I totally agree that WAR shouldn't be treated as an end-all-be-all stat. (especially considering the variation between the 2 major types), but that is what WAR really IS trying to BE--an end-all-be-all stat. So when somebody treats it that way it's hard to begrudge them for treating it that way and it actually makes more sense to rip on the stat itself as being dumb. Hmmmm.... Depends on the context you are using any stat in. Sometimes a general stat like WAR works and sometimes not. Like using WAR for part time players, small samples, smaller defense sample, etc. can be really wonky. WAR is kinda a lazy mans summary stat. It isn't terrible, but its a really simple summary of a players value. Like a projection I think it is a good starting point for a discussion/argument, but then pick apart what it may be compensating for too much or what it may be missing. I like WAR because it works pretty good for simple arguments/conversations. No one wants to get on here and read a novel about a players value and his predicted future value. Summary stats are necessary for conversation, like on this forum...no one has time to breakdown a player to the last nail of detail. I would rather start a conversation with WAR and move a little one way or the other than try to build a house from the foundation up so to speak. End of the day you have to look at it from many different angles. There are posters that make their argument so one dimensional and beat the poor horse 5 lifetimes over. ERA isn't a bad stat, but often times is considered that way because when used as an argument that is all one wants to use. You just can't use any stat by itself.

Army is not a cupcake team like who the Badgers played. Army is not that good...they aren't a joke...but the betting line was like 3 TDs for a reason. At home...yah, it was pretty ugly for Michigan to only score 14 points. You could argue the only reason Michigan won is because Army can't kick field goals. For a team that was considered a strong CFP team that was a pretty pitiful game. Central Michigan is a joke, but Central Florida is probably comparable to Army. Hard to know, but I would guess similar. Michigan also only beat Middle Tennessee by 19 points at home. So they have played two home games against greatly inferior opponents and really haven't dominated like they should have. Not a great look.

You understand the Brewers use a lot of algorithms etc. to help win games or deciding who to go get or not get...right? You have to take the statistical projection in this case, see how it is calculated, and ask yourself...okay why might this be too high or too low. You must gather a lot of information before coming to a conclusion. That projection is one and in my opinion a good starting point. People like to say "WAR is dumb" or "Run Differential is dumb" etc., but that is mostly because people treat it like is the be all end all stat. No...it is a piece of the puzzle you can use. Using one stat/data point as an entire argument is what makes something dumb. Can you imagine how much data the Brewers look at before making a decision on something? It has to be astronomical. Whether that is something you can quantify in numbers or something that can't be.

Man that Roethlisberger injury sucks for my fantasy team (James Conner). Of course who knows with Conner at this point too (knee). I have Samuels as the handcuff so I guess I have that going for me. Going to be mad if injuries try to derail my keeper league super team.

But, these are not regular season games per-say, far from it. Burning desire to win trumps everything. We know from experience, teams that absolutely have to win vs teams that don’t, usually do win, I would argue at an unusually high rate. That’s why, with all other factors being equal the projection of the crew at 6.5 is asinine. Sure, I agree playing teams out of it certainly can be to the benefit of us...among other things not reflected in past stats/data (like losing Rizzo or us losing Yelich etc.). But projections are stupid...because they rarely account for things like that. How that projection was calculated is dumb, like most, when reality is likely going to be different. That being said if we just round it up to 7-6...it isn't necessarily that out of the realm of possibility. It is a projection not a prediction. That is what 149 games of data says is likely to happen. You have to take statistics for what they are worth, statistics is a language. I bet if you asked fangraphs staff to make predictions they would go against the projection systems a lot...just because a human brain can take into consideration a lot of things that are hard to measure with statistics. How exactly do you measure the motivation of PIT or COL? You really can't and it is even hard to predict that. To me projections and predictions are entirely different things.

Fangraphs is a great tool. Some parts of it better than others. Projections in general are pretty dumb. It is statistical models based on the past and uses data at face value. It has limitations. We aren't that good of a baseball team and our pitching is putting on a great disguise these days. This isn't the 2018 team and certainly not safe from struggling against inferior competition. I also don't think we are that much better than the teams we are about to play...at least not so much better it should be assumed it will be a cake walk. Just like the Cardinals aren't that much better than us so just assuming we would lose 2 this past weekend was a little silly. I am certainly taking the over on that 6.5, but would anyone be shocked if we went 6-7 to end the season...? I would be ticked, but shocked...probably not. The winning streak is nice, but it didn't just suddenly make us the Dodgers or Astros good. This team could go 5-8 or 10-3 for all we know. Always risky business with the duct tape job roster we have.

I am not an expert...but I am going to go out on a limb and say that ankle sprain will be more than a few games easily. If I was the Cubs (or their fans) coming back in the regular season would be a total miracle. It wasn't pretty and he looked rough getting off the field. Ankle sprains usually end up as DL trips.

From a standings perspective this is a big week. Every win this week means we have to gain a game on one of the teams in front of us (Cubs/Cards/Nationals). There is no winning and the standings staying static. There are 7 losses assured between the three teams in front of us this week. If we go 5-2 this is the worst case scenario that could happen among the other teams that I could find. Brewers: 5-2 Cubs: 5-2 (Sweep CIN, split with Cards) Nationals: 3-3 (Get swept by the Cards, sweep Miami) Cardinals : 5-2 (Sweep Nats, split with Cubs) NL Central Cardinals: ---- Cubs: 2.0 GB Brewers: 3.0 GB Wild Card Nationals: ---- Cubs: 0.5 GB Brewers: 1 GB Of course this is worst case. The Cardinals splitting with the Cubs and losing their series to the Nats (pretty probable/possible in my opinion) would dramatically change the NL Central standings if everything else above stayed constant. Brewers: 5-2 Cubs: 5-2 (Sweep CIN, split with Cards) Nationals: 5-1 (2-1 vs. Cards, sweep Miami) Cardinals : 3-4 (1-2 vs. Nats, split with Cubs) NL Central: Cubs: ---- Cardinals: ---- Brewers: 1 GB Just random food for thought. The division is very much so in play. For us it would likely involve a Game 163...but we could still win it outright.

I hope someone gets swept in the Cards/Nationals series...preferably the Cardinals. Why cheer for a team to lose to better your chances at the #1 WC (or WC in general)? I would rather shoot for the division. We virtually are behind both teams the same amount.\

Badgers opened as favorites to win against Michigan. Surprised it is only a 2 point advantage considering we have walloped our opponents (including a road win), Michigan almost lost to Army at home, and Michigan has lost 4 times in a row on the road vs. Wisconsin.

The pitching staff is not good, but they have been holding it together and pitching like it of recent. Which at this point is all that matters. It is like the run differential thing. I don't really care how we look on paper...I just want wins and guys producing. A big difference maker in these last few weeks is those role player guys. Can the Peralta, Jackson, Claudio, etc. guys of the world hold it together and get big outs? The way we are working them they need to or we are going to be a sinking titanic quick. They are the main reason we have won so much recently. We pull a starter early and those guys carry the freight. That Rockies series is a little dangerous in my opinion. That is a legit offense that has scored more runs this year (by a lot) than most teams we have been playing (and will play) in recent weeks. Maybe Coors induced to an extent, but we have to play on the road so it doesn't matter a whole lot regardless. Good news, their pitching is the biggest dumpster fire outside of Baltimore.

7+ years? I'm not seeing many pitchers signing 8 year deals these days. I'm seeing very few signing for 7 years. We'll see what Cole gets. I think he's getting about 6/180 and at most 7/210 by the Yankees, but I've been surprised by the suppressed market in the last couple years. Yu Darvish signed in FA for 6 years and his contract started at age 31. Cole is hitting FA with his age 29 season to start the contract. Darvish was also a sliver of what Cole has been in recent seasons. Pitchers like Cole simply have not hit FA in recent memory. Max Scherzer got 7/$210mil back in 2015 a year older than what Cole will be. Cole has arguably been better than Scherzer was before FA too. Greinke got 6/$207mil in 2015 at the age of 32. Scherzer deal is his floor. But at younger than 30 teams could go nuts for him. He is arguably the best pitcher in baseball this year.

It's a stupid rule put in place to really protect QB's. 2 of 3 years ago they changed the rules so that it no longer matters if the QB(or any player, but it's mainly for the QB) slides feet first or head first, as long as they're "giving themselves up," they cannot be hit and they're down as soon as they touch the ground. So basically, if it happens in the final couple seconds of a game and the team has a timeout, they're going to assume the guy is giving himself up and make sure they give the other team another play. I didn't see when Trubisky started signalling TO, but in order for the Refs to put a second back on the clock, they basically said that the absolute moment he was down Trubisky got the Refs attention and signaled for a TO. Robinson made it closer than he should have taking those extra two steps. The most obvious action would be for him to catch the ball and just drop. No need for a knee, just go down and make it clear you're giving yourself up. Eagles just lost a 2 point conversion due to this rule as Wentz dove for the end zone and had his knee touch the ground without being touched. It looked like he made it to the end zone before actually getting touched.