Lathund

We are, but I think there's a limit to how many days you can backdate it. Not sure what the limit is, but pretty sure it's less than 6.

Please don't put much emphasis on something so subjective as DRA. DRA even takes into account someone's opinion of the umpire, the catcher calling the game and framing, temp., someone's opinion of the park, the team's defense, etc.... Because there are far too many variables based on opinion, not fact, DRA is in the eye of the beholder. And by taking all that into account, it does a better job than any publicly available stat out there in predicting future run prevention. Because those things matter, they affect how a pitchers performance translates into preventing runs. Most of what you call "opinion" has a lot of data behind it. In the statcast era, framing isn't a matter of "someone's opinion". Nor is it "someone's opinion" that Marlins Park and Coors Field have an effect on the game. I'm especially intrigued by how temperature is an "opinion". Not to mention that all those things only add up to a small part of the DRA total. It's still about about singles, doubles, HRs, walks, strikeouts etc, all these other things just add context and slightly modify the run values. No stat is perfect, but it's the best we have. Far better than using ERA over a 20 inning sample to make definitive statements.

Closer to family, and a lot more money, apparently. They also got the Dodgers' hitting coach the same way. Who knows if there was anything that could have been done to keep him here, but I hope the club tried everything. Not that I think that the struggles are entirely, or even mostly, due to a change in pitching coach; in particular, I Don't think a coach has the kind of negative effect, i.e that if DJ had the entire pitching staff at their best, that doesn't just go away in a few month, no matter what. The other way around I could see it, that a pitching staff with great stuff but flawed execution could get a lot better quickly. But yeah, so while I don't subscribe to the commonly proposed theory that DJ is worth like 3 ERA (+1.5 for us, -1.5 for the Reds), I obviously would have preferred it had he stuck around, as it clearly has *some* effect.

https://legacy.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=2811251 Today DRA (Deserved Run Average) finally became available on Baseball Prospectus; it needs to collect a few weeks of data first as it factors in quality of opposition and such things. It's noteworthy because of all the publicly available metrics it has the best predictive value, the highest consistency, and it also reaches that point based on much smaller samples than other metrics. I'd say the last one is the most important at this point. Anyway, it's not gospel or infallible or anything, just another (rather good) data set to take into account. But it's suggesting that based on how the team has been pitching, the results normally would have been better. And thus, continuing to do what they've done would see the pitching staff as an about middle of the road staff (16th) overall. Which is worse than we'd like, but take into account the following too: Brewers have used 20 pitchers, the 10 best contributors by DRA are all on the current roster. And that this isn't an old decrepit staff, there was nothing to suggest that Chacin was suddenly that 6+ ERA guy, that Jacob Barnes is suddenly 2 runs worse than in the past, or that even Alex Wilson has gone from a career 3.44 ERA to 9.53. In other words, the perfomance so far can better be described as "meh" rather than "awful". And that getting a better picture of who will or will not best help us out, adding some new blood (Gio, Jeffress, hopefully a healthy Nelson soon), and some talented guys hopefully figuring some things out (Burnes, Peralta) should see better underlying performance, and thus better run prevention, going forward. TL;DR: April stats don't tell us much of value, less than stats in any other month of the year does. DRA is better at cutting through the noise, and in doing so better at predicting the future.

Personally I couldn't be less worried about Hader. For someone with his kind of stuff, HRs are mostly just noise. Occasionally hitters will square up to his offerings, and sometimes that results in HRs. He's given up 7 hits, and 4 of them have been HRs. That kind of ratio won't continue. I think though that in part it's a matter of efficiency, he has the kind of stuff that he can just pound the strike zone and still get whiffs, which helps him go multiple innings without running up the pitch count. But living inside the zone means a bigger risk of hitters making good contact. I'm sure he could focus more on living around the edges, cutting out the HRs but at the tradeoff of higher pitch counts and a few more walks.

In the same vein, Chacin lowered his ERA by 1.11 today. A very good example of why ERA shouldn't be something to pay much attention to at this stage when it can change so rapidly.

Guerra doing hist best Josh Hader impression. And what an impression it is!

Based on the rest of the article I take the following to mean simply that he has been suspended the entirety of the 2019 season so far. Not worded very clearly. "He’s been suspended for the entirety of the 2019 season as part of a 40-game suspension under the league’s domestic violence policy that was issued last September." Starting on Thursday he'll simply be a player optioned to the minors, like any other. Well, except that he's not, but in terms of roster and service time rules etc he will be.

An effective but inefficient start from Davies to set us up nicely. 2 excellent innings from Claudio. JJ #2 gets the nervous first outing out of the way, and Hart finishes it off. Really good night by the pitching staff overall without needing to use the big guns. But Jesus Aguilar finally getting his first HR is the biggest takeaway of the night. Looked so relieved, and looked so much better afterwards. Seems to like hitting against the Rockies! Hoping that it was mainly a psychological thing, like it seems to have been for Chris Davis. Yes, he's likely not the first half 2018 guy, but I see no reason at all he wouldn't be at least an average hitter, probably slightly better.

Not a bad return to MLB after 4 years away; striking out Nolan Arenado.

Would look even better if Yelich remained where he should be, at #2. Not only because that's where you want your best hitter, but also because it alternates R-L-R-L at the top of the lineup. But yeah, I'm hoping for a relatively early callup too.

Ben Gamel broke the HR-only-scoring streak. Ben Gamel breaks the no-HR-scoring streak. He's the breaker of streaks.

His inability to steal bases at Miller Park is indeed something to worry about.

Cheap enough to carry very little risk. A left-handed starter also helps out our mainly right-handed bullpen some. The question of course is what Gio has left in the tank, but the front office should have a decent grasp on that after last year. On a sidenote, the FB/Curveball/Changeup arsenal is my preferred one for starters, in that it mixes velocity very well. The faster the fastball and, uh, curvier (slow) the curveball the better.

Yelich getting his first day off this season. I expect the fan reactions, especially on Twitter, to be calm and reasonable, just as they were last time.

5th starter isn't needed until the 30th. At which point I believe Burnes is eligible to be recalled (Optioned on the 19th), and the reports on Peralta I've seen suggested a short stint so he should be available too. Or perhaps it's Gio.

A solid but unspectacular LH starter sounds like something we could use. Gio has the advantage over Keuchel of being both cheaper and ready to step in straight away. I'd argue against the notion that he and Keuchel are equally good though, I think at this point Keuchel is still clearly better, but Gio is probably the better fit right now. I don't think it's happening though, if the Brewers really liked Gio I imagine he'd have been a Brewer before the season started.

Brewers have played at least 2 games more than every other team in the NLC. 17/23 games (And soon to be 20/26) have been against the three teams with the best run differential in the NL. We're done with the season series against the best team in the NL. Basically, it's been one of the toughest schedules to start the season of any team. In that time we've also auditioned three young starters in the rotation, with the growing pains that entails. Despite that, we're still 13-10.

Today has to be the day Jesus Aguilar rises from the dead, breaks out of his slump, and hits his first HR of the season.

Anderson Houser/Wilkerson Woodruff Davies Chacon Houser tomorrow, Anderson for Burnes, Wilkerson to pen. Surprised that Houser wasn't brought up. Instead they got Hart who is another Claudio type lefty. Last year he stunk against both LH and RH hitter (over .300 BAs and over .415 OBPs) Righties smoke him throughout his career (.313/.362). I can't see the Crew carring two LOOGYs for very long. I'm believe Hart will be sent back down ahead of Saturday, with Houser coming up to make the start.

The problem with that is that Thames can't be optioned or outrighted without his consent even though he has option years remaining. While Aguilar is out of options. So removing one of them from the 25-man roster risks losing them permanently. Which, when it comes to Thames, as much as I like him, might be worth it. He's unlikely to be claimed, but might elect free agency instead. I like the roster better with just one natural 1B, so an IF of Shaw/Aguilar-Hiura-Arcia-Moustakas looks good to me. Perez backs up the rest of the IF, Gamel backs up the OF. It's a more balanced roster than what we have tbh. As for the K rate, I'd give it some more time. He's never had a K% this high or BB% this low before, in fact he's been remarkably consistent with those numbers. And it doesn't seem like he's striking out that much due to being overmatched, he's got a .940 OPS, or a 117 wRC+. Maybe he's working on some things, being a bit more aggressive; look for instance at Yelich's walk numbers from ST compared to his approach in the regular season. Or it might just be an anomaly, a product of which pitchers he's faced so far. Or it might be an issue; but I'd wait a lot longer before giving that too much consideration.

Albers has both a very good 2.82 xFIP / 3.10 FIP as well as the 2nd lowest average exit velocity allowed in the majors, albeit with still tiny sample sizes. Either way, it's encouraging. FWIW as far as exit velocity goes, Claudio is 3rd, Guerra 11th.

Grandal is one of the best pitch framers in the league, and Davies is one of the best pitchers at getting extra strike calls. Makes for quite the combination.

He has done well, and I expect him to do so again, but honestly that still is an incredibly small sample, essentially 2 games or 3 starts worth.

79 mph EV, 72 mph (Really, really should have been caught), and then a groundball that sneaks through. Really not having any luck, or getting any help.