Lathund

Some players with a worse ERA than Peralta right now: Carrasco, Porcello, Sale, Happ, Eovaldi, Buehler, Nola, Quintana. ERA over 10-20 inning samples is an OK way to measure results, it's a poor way to measure performance, a horrible way to measure ability and a truly awful way to predict the future. Pitchers have runs like these all the time, it's just not as noticable when it happens in the middle of the season. Until DRA is ready and available, SIERA is the best predictive stat available. SIERA, and the basic K%-BB%, has the Brewers rotation 12th. BABIP is above average, and HR/FB rate is almost 10% above the league average, 6% above the highest rate any team had last year (Reds, playing in a launching pad). Those numbers won't last. They just won't. If it was an inability to strike batters out, or giving up a ton of walks, I'd be more concerned. Point is, there is absolutely no need to panic. The rotation has seen poor results so far, but the underlying metrics and predictive stats suggests it has been and will be (on current performance) a roughly league average rotation. Now, as a team with the ambition to go to the World Series, we want more than an average rotation, so considering how to improve on that is a more legitimate issue. It's not, however, one that requires hyperbole, hyperventilation or panic moves. Despite pitching struggles so far, the team is 11-6. Run prevention will get better even on current performance levels with the current staff. There are internal reinforcements to be considered too, and I would think the Brewers have reason to expect better performances from the incumbents too. And with regards to signings/trades, the criteria should still be based more on preseason needs than current performance. If a signing didn't make sense before the season, it still shouldn't. While if they wanted Keuchel/Kimbrel/(trade target x) beforehand, but it was a matter of cost, then they should go for it if that drops to an acceptable level. Or the budget increases to meet it while maintaining some spending room for the deadline.

Batting the pitcher 8th becomes advantageous the better the 9 hitter is, or rather the bigger the difference between the 8 and 9 hitter. If your pitchers are better hitters than your worst position player, they should keep batting 9th. Or move up further than 8.

Would be great if not every ball hit by the Brewers would go straight to a fielder, and if not every single ball the Dodgers hit would be a bloop hit or a seeing eye grounder.

Hader gave up more baserunners in one inning than he did in his previous 7 2/3. Says something about how dominant he has been to start the season.

Albies is 22 years old, he was close to a 4-WAR player and was an allstar in his age-21 season. He currently has a little over 1 full year of service time. The moeny for the arbitration years isn't too out of the ordinary, but he's giving up 2 free agent years, with a team option for another two. And those are his age 27-31 years, with the latter two options, so the team isn't taking on much risk at all. And that's where the deal gets odd; the free agent years are extremely cheap. The options even more so. It's not taking the extension and getting the security and the earlier payday from it that's bad, it's that it's hard to fathom how he couldn't have gotten a lot more. The same amount of money but giving up fewer years, more expensive team options, or straight up more money for the same amount of years, whatever it was he preferred. Look at what Jimenez or Kingery got before even making their MLB debuts. Christian Yelich had a similar amount of service time, plate appearances and WAR when he signed his deal, a deal that would've been a very team-friendly one even if he hadn't had the MVP breakout. That deal was 7 years, $49m. With one team option, at $15m. That's either $14m more over the guaranteed years, or $22m more after 8 years and hitting FA a year sooner. And that deal was signed 4 years ago. As always in sports, things are relative. Compared to 99.9% of people, he's done extremely well and set himself up for life. Compared to what he's worth to an MLB team, compared to his peers, the deal is awful.

There's always a reason to make a trade, every day of the season, as you can always get better and there will always be a player out there better than the worst player on your roster who can be had for a price you can afford. So yeah, in that sense there's a reason. But specific to the current situation? Honestly, I'd argue not really. Not yet. Unless the kind of opportunity shows up that you'd take any day, even with a good bullpen. Only 13 games into the season, bullpen pitchers have between 1 and 7 IP. 2/3 of the bullpen have ERAs way, way above their career numbers. Brewers bullpen currently has a 5.45 ERA. The 9 guys who have so far pitched out of the pen have a 3.66 ERA between them (equally weighted), which for Anderson and Guerra is mostly as starters. That would put them ~12th in the majors as thing stand now. Which isn't amazing, but it's slightly better than average. So you have to ask yourself, is there anything that suggests they won't pitch more in line with their career norms going forward? xFIP (4.18, 91 xFIP-) and SIERA (4.01), the two best publicly available predictive metrics of the kind until DRA is up and running would suggest that improvements are to be expected. It's early days with small sample sizes for those metrics too, but at this point they're still much, much, much better than using current ERA. I don't know what their internal metrics show, but unless they're alarmingly bad I'd have patience. There are still internal replacements to be evaluated, whether in the form of JJ, Nelson, Burnes/Woodruff, Fields, Hart or younger guys like Olczak, Sanchez, Brown. Give it some time to filter out the worst noise, and to try the options that can be used without having to release/waiver anyone or give up any prospects. Another reason to do that is that the market in April is bad. Yes, trades can be made. But it's very much a sellers market; only the teams that have already given up on the season will be shopping relievers. Others will have to be absolutely blown away by the offer, and that's something we shouldn't be doing. Even the teams perfectly willing to sell will be hesistant, as there will be greater demand later in the season. There will also be an increased supply eventually, as teams drop out of the playoff hunt, but demand will increase earlier than supply does. It's not that wins in April matters less than at any other point of the year. It's that with these small sample sizes, and the factors unique to March/April (Weather, offseason rust, adjusting to new environments etc) it's much harder to know what's what. Stats and wins and losses are so heavily influenced by individual blowup outings, by the quality and handedness of hitters and pitchers faced, by whether fly balls hit just above or just below a yellow line on a wall, by umpire performance (Could you really read much into the numbers for a pitcher, in either direction, if he'd made his debut with last night's Phil Cuzzi strike zone?), by weather, by which ballparks played in, by not being in the right place mentally after a breakup or the loss of a pet or whatever. Or by many, many other reasons that can be classified as luck or chance or temporary circumstances. Any money or prospects spent now, is money and prospects not available to use later. None of us knows how much budget room there is, but with an already record payroll I think it's safer to lean towards the lower part of the spectrum than the top end. The later in the season a trade is made, the smaller the prorated part of the salary taken on is. At that point you also know your needs better. While one can argue about whether farm system rankings are too low on the Brewers, it's still not exactly a top system after recent trades and graduations. That needs to be managed properly. A reliever acquired at this point needs to be a "sure thing". It needs to be someone who will frequently see high-leverage situations even when/if the likes of JJ, Nelson, Burnes join the bullpen; improving the performance in low-leverage situations does very little to get more wins. There aren't many of those available out there. And for those who are, thier teams hold all the cards. I would certainly put up a high asking price and not waiver one bit on that until at least June if I was them. Overall I'd argue that we need to wait a couple of weeks at least before making any moves involving actual prospects or any real money. 1 month is still a very small sample, 1 month of March/April baseball even more so, but at least you can glean *something* from that. At that point we'll have a better idea of where JJ and Nelson are, if some of the early-season struggles are just that or indicative of something else, of which teams might be willing to trade, and about many other things.

Woodruff was fine tonight. With 4 hits and 6 baserunners total you'd normally see less than 4 runs. Sometimes all (most) of those just happen to be in the same inning. Unlucky, but bounced back from that and looked good. Outhit the Angels for the series, so not the kind of sweep worth panicking about even though it sucks to be swept by a mediocre team like that. Glad to see Grandal and even Arcia start to hit. Now we just need Shaw and especially Aguilar to wake up...

Yeah, I think that's where many of the worst takes in sports (and life in general tbh) comes from. As far as baseball goes, everyone, or almost everyone, knows about the perils of small sample sizes. But hardly anyone actually takes it into account. And even those who do tend to underestimate the sample sizes needed for something to be significant.

Wilkersons very good numbers in AAA/AA are why he's still around. Those numbers are as a starter with a 4-pitch mix, albeit without overpowering stuff. If he can hack it in the majors remains to be seen (No, 19 innings over two years, without any consistent role, is not enough to say either way), but a guy who has done that well in the upper minors, who still has two option years remaining is a lot better than what you regularly see on the waiver wire, which is mostly relievers and/or guys with no options remaining. He'd get snapped up almost immediately if waived, as there's literally no downside to it for any team with a 40-man spot open or easily created, which is nearly every rebuilding team and several of the others too. That start in St. Louis was very encouraging as well. You need a lot of starters to get through a full season, and if he's your 8th/9th starter you've got excellent depth; he'd be a lot higher on the depth chart on many teams.

Most of Woodruffs SP innings came in 2017, his first year in the league while the relief innings were a year later. He throws harder, gets more swinging strikes (And thus strikeouts) now than he did then, he's simply a better pitcher now. And the sample is still very small. In other words, I wouldn't pay much attention to those splits. Woodruff is probably the last of the three young guys I'd move out of the rotation at this point. I don't think he has the highest ceiling, but he's currently the most polished starter among them. For one thing he throws 4 pitches, or 5 if you want to count the two fastballs separately. And not that it should be the primary or even secondary thing to consider, but he's also the best hitter among them. And I for one enjoy pitchers who rake. I believe in Burnes as a starter, but I also think he's the one who'd play up the most as a reliever compared to a starter, at least for now. Simply because he has the best raw stuff. For me though this is a discussion to have when Jimmy is ready to step into the rotation, or if Keuchel should lower his demands enough to make a lot of sense. In other words, at least (in the former case) several weeks. They all have the talent and stuff to start, let's see if they show signs of being able to put it all together more consistently. In the mean time, to quote a wise philosopher: C H I L L.

I'm not overly concerned about the bullpen, but I guess it's also a matter of expectations and what the plan is. It's not the kind of super 'pen it ended up being last year, so if that's the yardstick then yeah it'll fall short. But I also expect more from the offense and rotation compared to last year, so unlike last year an elite bullpen isn't a must to get to the postseason. So far, with the small sample size available, it's the stats with the worst predictive value that looks bad, while the ones with better predictive value are the ones pointing to an average to above-average bullpen. The bullpen guys have ~5 IP each, and all of them at Miller Park and GABP, so I wouldn't read much into noisy stats like ERA or HR rates. Bullpens are also somewhat unique in that they're the one area of the team that doesn't need to be great overall as long as the high leverage unit is. With Hader (And hopefully/probably) JJ it is. Use the split-heavy guys like Barnes and Claudio (Who people keep underrating) correctly and they'll put up very good numbers too. We're nowhere near panic time yet.

Since we'd be giving up another draft pick, I would rather pay a somewhat lower AAV over 2-3 years than a higher one for 1 year. For me the worry about Keuchel hasn't been that he wouldn't produce this year or next, simply that the 5-6 years he was looking for was far too big a risk to take. I still prefer Keuchel over Kimbrel, with Woodruff/Burnes moving to the pen temporarily. I believe in them as starters, but I think that a LHP who can eat a lot of innings with above-average results helps us more than what Kimbrel does. In what he does himself, through the effect lineups might be different when our primarily RH relief corps come into the game, and through the lesser strain on the bullpen, meaning more flexibility and ability to deploy the high-leverage guys accordingly. I don't really think either one is really on the radar though, unless the price drops substantially.

As you say yourself, tiny sample size. Even someone who would consistently get hit that hard wouldn't give up anywhere near as many homeruns over the long haul. Now of course even with a normal HR rate 1/4 to 1/5 of his current one some of those hard hit balls would be singles and doubles so it's not as if they disappear completely, but that naturally has far less of an impact on ERA. Anyway, it's hard to really get anywhere here, time will have to tell. My original point was about the HRs being a "fundamental issue" with his game, which I don't believe they are. They weren't in 47 (Regular + postseason) MLB innings in 2018, they weren't in 260 minor league innings before that. 10 innings this season doesn't change that.

If I had assumed the K rate to stay the same I would have said sub 3 ERA. Watching him pitch, and looking at the numbers I went with a conservative 4. I don't see any "fundamental issues" that would prevent him from being a solid starter right now.

Good thing I'm not saying that then. I'm saying he can do exactly what he's been doing so far and that will see good results over time. There isn't really a fundamental issue the way I see it. 75% of the fly balls he gave up left the park. That's a fluke. Even 1/5th of that would be an above-average HR/FB rate, and that's where he'll end up going forward. You can ignore the "signifcantly" to score cheap points if you want to, I'm obviously not talking about a drop to 9.89. Corbin Burnes will have a sub-4 ERA from now on, without changing a single thing. If he "figures things out" he can be even better.

That's quite extreme. And it's also why I'm not worried about him. Among the 76 starters with 10 IP that makes him 3rd in xFIP, just ahead of Scherzer and Cole. A 75% HR/FB rate is not sustainable to say the least; last year the highest among qualified starters was 18%. Burnes has a HR/9 of 5.40. In 2018, the highest was 2.15, and even that was quite a bit ahead of the 2nd highest at 1.67. I also wouldn't think a BABIP of .333 is likely to continue. What we're seeing early this season is a small sample of a notoriously noisy stat. K/BB numbers stabilize a lot sooner, and are much, much better indicators of future run prevention than ERA, HR rate or almost anything else. I know what I'll trust going forward. Except if he can't keep the ball in the park, or find a pitch he can get out LH hitters with, he's going to continue to have outings like his first two. Lefties are crushing him. His K/BB ration vs. LH hitters is 1 to 4. That won't work. Point is he can keep the ball in the park. Even if he changes absolutely nothing you're going to see that HR rate go way, way down. Pretty much every fly ball has left the park, that won't continue. If you want to overreact to a small sample size of a noisy stat, feel free to do so. Just watch the ERA steadily and significantly go down over the coming weeks.

That's quite extreme. And it's also why I'm not worried about him. Among the 76 starters with 10 IP that makes him 3rd in xFIP, just ahead of Scherzer and Cole. A 75% HR/FB rate is not sustainable to say the least; last year the highest among qualified starters was 18%. Burnes has a HR/9 of 5.40. In 2018, the highest was 2.15, and even that was quite a bit ahead of the 2nd highest at 1.67. I also wouldn't think a BABIP of .333 is likely to continue. What we're seeing early this season is a small sample of a notoriously noisy stat. K/BB numbers stabilize a lot sooner, and are much, much better indicators of future run prevention than ERA, HR rate or almost anything else. I know what I'll trust going forward.

He was rather the opposite. His stuff certainly suggests it's noise. He'll have a normal HR rate soon enough.

3.28 xFIP, 6th best in the majors. 3rd in K-BB%. That kind of ability to get strikeouts and limit walks is a lot more predictive than ERA when it comes to future run prevention. High BABIP and a high HR/FB rate will revert back to the norm, and with that so will the run prevention.

For a short-term stint (To cover a minor injury or some such) it'll likely be Taylor (Or less likely Stokes) since they're on the 40-man already. For a longer term thing probably still Taylor, but Ray would at least be a possibility if he starts really well in AAA. I wouldn't discount the possibility of Spangenberg/Saladino/Dubon either and going with a combination of one of them plus Perez/Thames sharing the backup OF duties, even if that isn't my preferred option.

I love the 2019 Chicago Cubs.

32 pitches through the first. Likely means seeing that bullpen early(ish) in the game. Now that bullpen isn't as bad as they've been so far, but certainly not very good either.

What a performance by Peralta. So happy for him after his first start. Offense wasn't eactly great, but Castillo did have that filthy changeup.

There have been a couple high strikes that were called ball, but overall I wouldn't say so. If anything it has been a wide zone. I'd argue Peralta has benefited more from it than the Reds pitchers, but that may also be thanks to Manuel Pineapple.

Yeah he'd be a decent option. Probably won't come all that cheaply though, they might want to wait until the deadline to have more potential bidders and likely a better return. Having another year of control is attractive too, even if that does bring up the price. But a career 2.78/2.36/2.83 ERA/FIP/xFIP is certainly an excellent record. It would depend on how they view his issues last year, if they think it's temporary or not. Underlying numbers were still pretty good so I wouldn't be too worried.