Lathund

I would expect Suter to start game one, with it being a Peralta piggyback or more of a straight bullpen game. Woodruff to start game 2 on regular rest. And then pray that's enough to end the series and avoid a game 3.

I know Fangraph doesn't have tonight's performance into Burnes' stats yet ( As of this post) but before this start, he wasn't considered a qualified pitcher, if there is ever such a thing in this season. FYI in the "split" menu on the Fangraphs leaderboards you can select "Live Stats - Full Season" and it'll show up to date stats, usually updated within a few minutes of the event actually happening. Similarly, going to a player profile during a game or in the evening after one there'll be a "live stats" section above the usual stats that'll show todays stats and the new totals.

I'll start judging this trade at the all-star break next year or so, and even then with the caveat that Grisham and Urias will still have 4½ seasons worth of team control at that point and Lauer 3½. We'd be somewhere in late May by this point in a normal season. And this season has been anything but. What's also making us feel worse about it is that Davies and Grisham (probably) have been overperforming so far, and I'm saying this as a fan of both. While Lauer for sure has underperformed, and Urias probably has. So time will tell. As for Davies, I think it was always quite clear that had more to do with service time and salary than expecting Lauer to be the better pitcher in 2020. They seemingly had to cut salary, and Davies was a little over $5m this year and a few more million next year before hitting free agency. Which is not unreasonable at all, but definitely the kind of player who gets traded with 1-2 years remaining if there's no interest in an extension. While Lauer gets us 5 years, the first few years very cheaply. And you can't just throw out Lauers 250 previous innings pitched because of the 9 so far this year.

For Braun it all depends on how interested he is in playing. In the unlikely event the Brewers exercise the option for $15m I'm sure he'd happily stick around for a farewell tour. In the more likely event it gets declined and he gets the $4m buyout we'll have to see what kind of agreement can be reached. If there's no DH it changes teh equation, then it becomes more about the roster spot rather than the money. And with all the injuries and off days it becomes hard to justify. But we also don't know what the roster size will be either. 28 vs 26 makes a big difference. It's probably 26, but again we don't know for sure yet. I'm also interested in seeing how real Vogelbach is. A .571 BABIP obviously isn't sustainable, but at what level will it settle is the question. I like his patient approach and willingness to go oppo. Making hard contact so far as a Brewer too.

Players have been against the expanded playoffs for just that reason. Which I think they're right to. Playoffs are a crapshoot already, but they're hard to qualify for so you have to put out a good team just to be able to take part in the crapshoot. Making playoffs both even more of a crapshoot and also easier to get into, and yeah owners will start pocketing more money. And the union does have to approve it, the owners can't force it through on their own.

This is pitching staff as a whole, not just rotation, but figured it was a good place to post. Per Fangraphs WAR, Brewers with 8 fWAR are tied for second with the Twins, behind only the Indians. fWAR is mostly FIP-based (Unlike FIP it also treats infield flyballs the same as strikeouts, and also take reliever leverage into account), so Brewers do well largely on account of being 2nd in strikeouts. For the FIP-haters out there, it's worth pointing out that the Brewers pitchers also lead the league in lowest average exit velocity allowed, 3rd lowest hard hit rate, 4th highest soft hit rate, and are 3rd in groundball %. Statcasts xwOBA (Quality of contact + BB + K) rates Brewers tied with the Dodgers for 3rd, behind the two Ohio teams. As far as difference between wOBA and xwOBA goes, Brewers have the 4th largest difference. SIERA also ranks the Brewers 2nd, and while I don't know how to see team-wide DRA for 2020, Brewers do well individually (3 in the top 10, 6 in top 100). What I'm trying to say is that Brewers pitching is good by almost any metric, and suffering mostly from sequencing, defense and batted ball luck. Better run prevention will follow if they keep this up. And the best part about it is that so much of it is either completely home grown (Burnes, Woodruff, Suter, Williams, Rasmussen, Houser), almost home grown (Peralta) or at least acquired as minor leaguers still (Hader, Knebel). And the majority of them will be here for many years to come.

The thing with Arcia is that this is actually the first season where something *is* different. Swinging less at pitches outside the zone, fewer swinging strikes, higher contact %. Leading to fewer strikeouts, more walks. As well as a slightly better batted ball profile. Looking at the statcast data (Taking quality of contact + walks + strikeouts into account) his results in past years at the plate were, if anything, somehwat lucky rather than unlucky in spite of how poor the results were. Whereas this season he's deserved better results than he's getting. I'm very jaded when it comes to Orlando Arcia "breakouts", but unlike his hot streaks in the past there's something to go on here. Then it was just doing the same thing but getting some better results. Now the question is whether these changes are for real; things like swinging strike rate or almost any plate discipline stat really, tend to stabilize fast, but even then less than 2 months isn't a lot of time.

I don't think there's any way that the Brewers actually exercise that $15m option. They'll take the $4m buyout. But with how he is playing, there certainly is a chance they try to get something done at a cheaper cost. I think a lot of it depends on what the roster rules will be like for next year, and whether the DH stays. Expanded rosters and DH, and Braun makes sense. No DH and no room to carry a bench bat? Not so much.

Yeah he does look terrible. Garcia has been good recently, and even when he was struggling you could see a good player somewhere in there. But with that slow-looking heavy uppercut swing of Narvaez it's hard to believe that Narvaez was a 120 wRC+ catcher over the last couple of years.

I prefer NL baseball, but I can live with the DH. 7-inning double headers I'm actually fine with, didn't expect that. I hate runner on 2nd less than I thought, but that doesn't mean I like it. Having 2 normal extra innings and only then (So from the 12th innings, or 10th inning in a DH) putting the ghost runner on could be a decent compromise. But the 16 team playoff? Absolutely not. The one tiny positive might be that for a mediocre team there's an alternative to just trying to tank, but that still pales in comparison to the downsides. I was OK with it this year since the regular season was so short, but the problem with "temporary" revenue-generating changes is that once they're in they're hard to get rid of.

I think that from the outside we really have no way of judging what's going on and who, if anyone, is at fault. And also that we as fans tend to overrate the (negative) impact a hitting coach can have, particularly on veterans with a proven track record, getting them to completely change their game is probably beyond most people. But at the same time, not a whole lot of good has happened to this offense since 2018 (Haines was hired after 2018), so I don't really see a positive impact either. We don't really know for sure though; maybe players are slumping for other reasons, maybe they would be even worse without him. Maybe he really is a terrible coach. Who knows. I just know that last year I was never on the "Fire Hook" bandwagon, in fact I was against it, whereas the more I see of this offense the more I feel something needs to be done. Is that getting a new hitting coach? Maybe, I don't know.

I think that from the outside we really have no way of judging what's going on and who, if anyone, is at fault. And also that we as fans tend to overrate the (negative) impact a hitting coach can have, particularly on veterans with a proven track record, getting them to completely change their game is probably beyond most people. But at the same time, not a whole lot of good has happened to this offense since 2018 (Haines was hired after 2018), so I don't really see a positive impact either. We don't really know for sure though; maybe players are slumping for other reasons, maybe they would be even worse without him. Maybe he really is a terrible coach. Who knows. I just know that last year I was never on the "Fire Hook" bandwagon, in fact I was against it, whereas the more I see of this offense the more I feel something needs to be done. Is that getting a new hitting coach? Maybe, I don't know.

I think that from the outside we really have no way of judging what's going on and who, if anyone, is at fault. And also that we as fans tend to overrate the (negative) impact a hitting coach can have, particularly on veterans with a proven track record, getting them to completely change their game is probably beyond most people. But at the same time, not a whole lot of good has happened to this offense since 2018 (Haines was hired after 2018), so I don't really see a positive impact either. We don't really know for sure though; maybe players are slumping for other reasons, maybe they would be even worse without him. Maybe he really is a terrible coach. Who knows. I just know that last year I was never on the "Fire Hook" bandwagon, in fact I was against it, whereas the more I see of this offense the more I feel something needs to be done. Is that getting a new hitting coach? Maybe, I don't know.

The time to worry for me is if he has a mostly normal offseason and spring training and is still struggling like this a couple of months into 2021. It's also worth pointing out that it's not been all bad. He had an awful start, 1-27 and 3-34. Had a wRC+ of -4 I think it was before that inside the park HR. Over the next couple of weeks he got that up to at most a 115 wRC+, and had a 29 game on-base streak going, before struggling again over the last couple of weeks. You can even find a 1 month stretch in there where he had a 150 wRC+. He has issues; seemingly with timing up pitches and with swings and misses on pitches he'd make hard contact with previously. But Statcast data can tell us a thing or two as well. He's still 97th percentile in exit velocity, 94th in hard hit rate. xwOBA, which weighs quality of contact together with strikeouts and walks, has him at .366. That's lower than the ~.425 he averaged over the last two years, but right in line with two of the three Miami seasons in the Statcast era. Or for the sake of comparison, it's .002 on either side of AL rookie of the year candidates Luis Robert and Kyle Lewis, just below Mike Yastrzemski. Again, I am concerned with the extra swings and misses. But I'm also not overly concerned, despite those swings and misses he hasn't been quite as bad as results suggest. He hasn't just suddenly forgotten how to hit. He still hits the ball extremely hard when he connects. Seems like he's having some mechanical issues, issues that are probably made worse by the mental aspect of it, that he's pressing so hard. It's fixable. It's also worth keeping in mind that was this a normal season, we'd by now be in mid-late May. Being a roughly league-average hitter (98 wRC+) at that stage of the season is not the time to panic. There are many worse 6-7 week slumps out there by great hitters. Perhaps this isn't something he'll get through in the middle of the season, but he will in the offseason. He's actually swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone than he has at any other season, significantly less than in 2018 or 2019. He's got issues, but that's not one of them.

The time to worry for me is if he has a mostly normal offseason and spring training and is still struggling like this a couple of months into 2021. It's also worth pointing out that it's not been all bad. He had an awful start, 1-27 and 3-34. Had a wRC+ of -4 I think it was before that inside the park HR. Over the next couple of weeks he got that up to at most a 115 wRC+, and had a 29 game on-base streak going, before struggling again over the last couple of weeks. You can even find a 1 month stretch in there where he had a 150 wRC+. He has issues; seemingly with timing up pitches and with swings and misses on pitches he'd make hard contact with previously. But Statcast data can tell us a thing or two as well. He's still 97th percentile in exit velocity, 94th in hard hit rate. xwOBA, which weighs quality of contact together with strikeouts and walks, has him at .366. That's lower than the ~.425 he averaged over the last two years, but right in line with two of the three Miami seasons in the Statcast era. Or for the sake of comparison, it's .002 on either side of AL rookie of the year candidates Luis Robert and Kyle Lewis, just below Mike Yastrzemski. Again, I am concerned with the extra swings and misses. But I'm also not overly concerned, despite those swings and misses he hasn't been quite as bad as results suggest. He hasn't just suddenly forgotten how to hit. He still hits the ball extremely hard when he connects. Seems like he's having some mechanical issues, issues that are probably made worse by the mental aspect of it, that he's pressing so hard. It's fixable. It's also worth keeping in mind that was this a normal season, we'd by now be in mid-late May. Being a roughly league-average hitter (98 wRC+) at that stage of the season is not the time to panic. There are many worse 6-7 week slumps out there by great hitters. Perhaps this isn't something he'll get through in the middle of the season, but he will in the offseason. He's actually swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone than he has at any other season, significantly less than in 2018 or 2019. He's got issues, but that's not one of them.

The time to worry for me is if he has a mostly normal offseason and spring training and is still struggling like this a couple of months into 2021. It's also worth pointing out that it's not been all bad. He had an awful start, 1-27 and 3-34. Had a wRC+ of -4 I think it was before that inside the park HR. Over the next couple of weeks he got that up to at most a 115 wRC+, and had a 29 game on-base streak going, before struggling again over the last couple of weeks. You can even find a 1 month stretch in there where he had a 150 wRC+. He has issues; seemingly with timing up pitches and with swings and misses on pitches he'd make hard contact with previously. But Statcast data can tell us a thing or two as well. He's still 97th percentile in exit velocity, 94th in hard hit rate. xwOBA, which weighs quality of contact together with strikeouts and walks, has him at .366. That's lower than the ~.425 he averaged over the last two years, but right in line with two of the three Miami seasons in the Statcast era. Or for the sake of comparison, it's .002 on either side of AL rookie of the year candidates Luis Robert and Kyle Lewis, just below Mike Yastrzemski. Again, I am concerned with the extra swings and misses. But I'm also not overly concerned, despite those swings and misses he hasn't been quite as bad as results suggest. He hasn't just suddenly forgotten how to hit. He still hits the ball extremely hard when he connects. Seems like he's having some mechanical issues, issues that are probably made worse by the mental aspect of it, that he's pressing so hard. It's fixable. It's also worth keeping in mind that was this a normal season, we'd by now be in mid-late May. Being a roughly league-average hitter (98 wRC+) at that stage of the season is not the time to panic. There are many worse 6-7 week slumps out there by great hitters. Perhaps this isn't something he'll get through in the middle of the season, but he will in the offseason. He's actually swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone than he has at any other season, significantly less than in 2018 or 2019. He's got issues, but that's not one of them.

That was a perfectly located throw to get Bader.

Supak DFA surprised me. He has an option next year so you'd think they'd give him a chance still. And since he still has an option, there's no chance he doesn't get claimed by someone.

With Anderson out and Suter starting I think it's fairly likely we'll see a Suter-Peralta piggyback type of deal tonight.

I never feel optimistic facing Hendricks, Brewers rarely do well against him. But at the same time this Cubs offense doesn't scare me either, so should have a decent chance if they can just avoid having to face Hendricks for 9 innings again...

Cutter moves the same direction as a slider. It just harder and with less vertical movement.

Not quite, but went from 85 wRC+ to 92 wRC+. Looking at only the players on the roster (So without Smoak, Holt, Morrison mainly) Brewers are a 95 wRC+ team.

Keston Hiura is now the MLB HBP leader after his earlier HBP.

It's about separating results from performance, and to an extent performance from talent. Good results and good performance (especially if there's a good track record, indicative of taletn) and you believe in it. Good performance but poor results and you should have some patience. Burnes is both pitching well and getting results, so believe in him. Whereas you shouldn't have believed in Jon Lester after his first 3-4 starts; his ERA was good, literally everything else was a red flag. Some stats you can trust more than others in small sample sizes, so trust in them.

Houser is generating low exit velocities (47th of 349 qualified pitchers), gets the highest groundball rates in the league and puts up OK (but not great) K/BB numbers. It seems like he leaves a few too many hangers up which needs to improve. But even so, a big part of what he struggles from is a .331 BABIP and close to a 30% HR/FB rate. When he struggles it's mostly all singles. He's better than this, and to me is still a starter. But even so, it would be good if they could figure some kind of role out where he perhaps goes all-out for 3-4 innings while working some kinks out. Like the early-season Anderson/Burnes piggyback or something.