Lathund

With Moustakas it's more helpful to look at him like 2 different players in a way. 2011-2014 was one player, and then in 2015 he figured something out and has been a much different (and better) hitter. 82 wRC+ before, 114 wRC+ since.

I would have expected Freitas to come up tbh, as this seems more like a short call-up where the backup catcher won't play much. But I would also assume that Nottingham's familiarity with the pitching staff plays a part in him getting the call.

It's a mutual option. They're almost never exercised, and tend to serve as a mechanism of deferring a bit of money. It's just such a narrow range of performance that'll result in a situation where both player and team will want to opt in. If the team considers the option to be well worth their money, Moose will likely think he can get a bigger guarantee either through a multi-year deal, or something similar to what he signed this year. And if his performance in relation to the market looks bleak enough that $8m (The difference between the 2020 $11m salary and $3m buyout) looks tempting to Moose, the Brewers wouldn't be too keen on it. I mean it's not at all out of the question that Moose is a Brewer in 2020, but I think it's more likely to be a result of a new contract. Whether it's through becoming a FA and re-signing, or working out some kind of extension.

Having two 1B only players without options hasn't been an ideal situation over the last two years (Well, before September that it, at that point it's an advantage), so having one of your 1B options be a more versatile player is a very good thing. And while I certainly think Shaw is better than he has been so far and will rebound (To what degree remains to be seen) I also wouldn't want to bet too much on it right now. I think it's still too early in the season to lose players permanently, especially when there is not much of a return. Shaw and Hiura can be optioned, and the team could go with a 12-man pitching staff when/if the schedule and pitching performance allows it. All three things more likely than trading Thames at this point.

I thought this board didn't allow porn?

May 31st seems to be the last day that Jimmy can be optioned, as he'll reach 5 years of service time the next day. This ended up lining up almost exactly with the end of the rehab assignment. So they could, and I guess they will if he's obviously not ready and looks awful, but I agree that I don't believe they will. Breaking stuff looks great, velo is fine, give him a chance to prove that he's back. There's a good chance he makes this team better. So on those grounds alone he should be on the MLB roster. In addition to that, it also doesn't look great to option a player on the last day where you can do so. Even more true for a popular guy (With both fans and players) like Jimmy. Are those the only two options? Couldn't they put him on the 10 day DL if they don't feel he's ready? Not suggesting this is the case, just asking the question. With the "not ready" I was thinking more along the lines of healthy but rusty, lacking command, having the yips or something along those lines. Teams do use the IL with dubious "injuries", but someone throwing 80+ pitches per start going on the DL and then immediately continues to do so seems like a bit much. Anyway, I don't know exactly how it works either. I think that it would indeed have to count as a new IL stint (Or else the 30-day maximum length of a rehab assigment would feel pretty meaningless), meaning they'd have to activate him (And create a 40-man spot for him) before putting him on the IL again, but this time on the 10-day one. But if he's still actually injuried, of course they'd do that.

May 31st seems to be the last day that Jimmy can be optioned, as he'll reach 5 years of service time the next day. This ended up lining up almost exactly with the end of the rehab assignment. So they could, and I guess they will if he's obviously not ready and looks awful, but I agree that I don't believe they will. Breaking stuff looks great, velo is fine, give him a chance to prove that he's back. There's a good chance he makes this team better. So on those grounds alone he should be on the MLB roster. In addition to that, it also doesn't look great to option a player on the last day where you can do so. Even more true for a popular guy (With both fans and players) like Jimmy.

8 pitches, including a double play. It's very early and anything could still happen, but it starts of right where yesterday finished...

Will be interesting to see what the Cubs do when/if Chatwood gets tired. Montgomery pitched 5 innings (71 pitches) on Thursday. I'm guessing they go to a starter, but I'm sure they don't really want to do that...

I love extra innings. I also very much hate extra innings. Please win.

Davies is one of the best, if not the best in the league at getting those calls on the edge. I suppose it's the movement on the two-seamer that does it, but even so I find it fascinating how he can be so consistently good at it.

I recall reports about his defense being that it's truly elite, one of the best defensive players in the minors. Don't know if that's the consensus or not, but I haven't heard anything negative. You'll give those guys every chance to develop as decent hitters, because the payoff is massive if that happens. Besides, while he hits for no power he still gets on base at an above-average rate. I'd also imagine that having elite defensive catchers in your system will help out with pitcher development, and likely help out fellow catching prospects. Might want to turn them into coaches down the road as well.

If only 14 days of a baseball season predicted future performance too.... Of course they don't, but they also don't need to. After a tough schedule, a lot of bad luck, and some roster moves, the run prevention is simply getting more and more in line with what the underlying performance says it "should" be. The metrics that even when the staff ERA was in the mid 5s and the HR rate was on a record setting pace suggested that this staff was in fact a roughly average to above average one. That, and the peripherals, would have lead a reasonable person to that conclusion, yes. Playing 20/26 games against the Cardinals, Dodgers and Cubs isn't ideal. But that wasn't exactly the prevailing opinion here. There was quite a lot of doom and gloom; sell at the deadline, sign Kimbrel now or we'd be out of the race by mid May etc.

Over the last 14 days, the Brewers pitching staff has the 7th best ERA (3.31) in the majors, and the 2nd best xFIP (3.57). Pitching staff coming around nicely, run prevention steadily approaching the peripherals. Almost as if past results, projections and certain advanced metrics all, separately, are better than March/April ERA and HR rates at judging the actual talent level and future performance.

No Yes (And stay up if the roster allows for it)

I'm not a fan of the LOOGY concept, but I think your thinking is backwards here. It's the regular season where the true benefits of an extra multi-inning relief arm shine. Not because they necessarily give you the best chance in any individual game, but because they help give you a shot at the best 162-game record. In the playoffs that's less of a concern, with the many off days and the limited scope, there you can afford to use more specialists and 1-inning guys. I'd still want to have several multi-inning arms, but there is absolutely room for a lefty specialist. Especially one of the best in the business, which Claudio is.

Anyone know when BA is back in the booth? Matt Lepay is about as good a standin as you can get, but I miss BA.

What I find a bit worrysome with Shaw is that so much of the decline comes from swinging and missing on pitches in the zone. In his past 4 seasons in the majors, he's consistently made contact on 85-88% of swings on pitches in the zone, so far this year this is down to 71%. Overall contact % is down from 80 and 81 the past two years to 68% now. Swinging strike % has rocketed from 8 and 9% previously as a Brewer to 14% now. The swing rate basically hasn't changed at all, the strike zone discipline is as good as ever, he's simply missing pitches he should be hitting. A quick look at the heatmaps would suggest that it's mainly up in the zone that the misses come, but it's down overall except low and inside. And it seems to mainly be fastballs he performs worse against; the pitch mix against him hasn't changed more than a few % here and there. Now why this is happening, and how to fix it, I couldn't tell you. Loss of bat speed? Different stance? Not picking up the ball as well? (Though that would likely impact swing % too, and it hasn't). Whatever it is, we can't have this many players slumping at the plate. And we probably won't, but I'd rather see it pick up soon.

It's noon CT. Keston Hiura has already homered and walked today. Really hoping to see him up sooner rather than later.

There isn't one, there's no way to know at the time. "Super two" means that among players with between two and three years of service time, the 22% with the most service time will be arbitration eligible that year. All we know is when that usually ends up being, but a lot could change in 2½ years. Some guys called up before the usual Super 2 deadline might spend a lot of time optioned and not accrue service time , meaning that some called up after might in fact qualify. Guys coming back from abroad (like if Thames had signed a standard contract) can impact it too etc. Anyway, between 2009 and 2016, the cutoff has been between 37 and 61 days into the season, or between 122 and 146 days of service time.

The effects of temperature and ballparks still isn't a matter of opinion. They're derived from differences in scoring and batted ball results over large samples. They're not perfect, but treating raw slash lines from a Marlins player and a Rockies player the exact same is far less useful and more flawed. The thing about ERA though is that it is in fact subjective; it's subject to the judgement of the official scorer. An error can mean that a barrage of hits and walks after that are treated as unearned runs. Which is fair in the sense that those plate appearances shouldn't have happened, but as a measure of performance it's not very useful because they did happen. A different scorer (Home vs away, or if the batter has a hitting streak going or w/e) can judge plays differently. But in addition to subjectiveness, it's also lacking. ERA also does a poor job when it comes to relievers and inherited runners. Reliever inherits a runner at 1st with 2 outs. He proceeds to walk three straight batters before recording the final out. Starter gets docked for 1 ER, reliever for 0, which hardly reflects their performance that inning. It shouldn't be dismissed, but it's very important to not treat it as gospel, especially over small sample sizes. Because it is subjective, and in the short term can be very volatile and not really be reflective of performance, and even less so of talent. WHIP is better in some ways, and it is more objective, but it's very limited. It doesn't say anything about whether the hits were XBH or not. Nor does it take into account, for example, strikeouts or double plays; pitchers who generate a lot of both, or either, don't get punished as much for allowing baseunners. And over small samples, even hits allowed carries a lot of randomness and luck. The reason I like DRA better than some other metrics is that it's based on what happens at the plate. At its heart it's essentially the inverse of wOBA/wRC (And thus very similar in results to OPS), i.e it adds up all the outcomes of plate appearances; 1B, HR, BB, HBP, GIDP etc and their effect on run scoring. Using DRA (or wOBA/OPS against, though they don't include controlling the running game, or double plays) to judge pitching performance is similar to using wOBA/wRC+/OPS (i.e essentially the triple slash) to judge a players offense. Whereas ERA (or RA9) is like using RBI + runs to judge a players offense. The latter does tell you something, it tells you the eventual result of the players performance once his teammates performance is added onto it. And over the long run, they will line up pretty well with things like OPS (+ baserunning). But runs scored and runs allowed are still a product of singles and doubles and HRs and walks. So in looking to, in any way shape or form, try to evaluate which player will do better in the future it's better to look at stats based of inputs rather than results. People vastly underestimate the variance in baseball, and the effects of sequencing, that in turn affects run scoring. And just how big a sample you need to draw any conclusions from things like ERA. Anyway, regardless of ones view of what's relevant, what's objective or not, the methodology behind it etc, I'd like to return to my original point: To predict the future run prevention of this (or any) pitching staff, DRA is a much, much better metric than one month of ERA. Or two. Or three. That much is fact. For that matter, so are SIERA, xFIP, FIP and K%-BB%. Haven't seen any data on it, but I'd imagine that even WHIP beats ERA at this point. Use ERA for awards season, or for hall of fame voting, or to evaluate large chunks of time. But not for this.

To add to that, early on in the season SA, like the major league club, played a lot against the Dodgers and Cardinals affiliates. Two organizations pretty good at developing pitching which might have played into things. I think the K/BB numbers will continue to move towards his career levels. Up to .343/.386/.762 now. Hoping to see him in the majors soon, but I think it might be a while still. Lucas Erceg also doing well, mainly he's walking a lot more. Also striking out more and hitting for a lot more power. Without having watched him, I'd guess from the stats that he's being more patient and selective at the plate.

Actually, a simpler move: Cain to DL Recall Hiura Shaw to LF (he's played some in the majors) Yelich to CF Braun to RF IF of Moustakas, Arcia, Hiura, Thames You've out-clancied yourself there.

CC wanted to get Davies enough IP so he wouldn't drop below the range for qualifying for the ERA title before his next start. Good guy Craig. Seriously though, what a game for Davies. Exactly what we needed.

I believe he does. I'd say that there are three ways to get Hiura to the majors: 1. As you suggest, Shaw optioned. 2. Takes Thames/Aguilar roster spot. Which would be ideal from a roster composition point of view if either had options, but they don't. Not (yet) worth losing either one of them just to audition Hiura. 3. Go with a 12-man pitching staff for a while. If there are a bunch of off days coming up, or starters go long allowing bullpen to rest. There are other ways to do it of course, like optioning Gamel, but none of them make any real sense. Would love to see him up here to see what he can do.