Jopal78

Considering the season started with 12 straight games against teams who were in the playoffs last year (and each cumulatively have won more games than Milwaukee the last two years) it's fantastic they're sitting at 7-5. If they could manage to take 2 of 3 from the Pirates this weekend (Bucs have been outscored 52-68 on the year), they'd be in really great shape to go out west even if they end up laying an egg in San Diego.

Isn't the "Cheese Sandwiches" thread still around here for that Angels Brewers game?

Not just the Wilpon’s. I believe Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter (who last pitched in 1988) gets a 9.1 million dollar balloon payment this year as the last of the deferred money owed him for the contract he signed in 1985.

Given the level Peralta was at when he was acquired, I have no problem claiming him as homegrown. I'd even argue that Hader was homegrown as well. What the Crew does with the minor-league prospects it gets matters, even if they're at AA or AAA. When’s the last time the Brewers had four quality starting pitchers all of whom made their major league debut with Milwaukee. If they would have had these pitchers in 2011 and 2018 they’d have a couple of rings now

DFA. Seriously, if he can't even pitch mop-up innings without getting in trouble or requiring somebody to warm up behind him. What's the point? 2 innings and no runs allowed means DFA? Tough crowd. Yep, he is what he is, a 35 year old finesse pitcher who can’t hit his spots. The line score looks clean but he can in with a 7-0 lead and they had to get somebody up in the pen before he could finish it. With a guarantee this year and next he’s likely not going anywhere but the point is they must have a pitcher in the organization who can mop up and offer some scintilla of upside

DFA. Seriously, if he can't even pitch mop-up innings without getting in trouble or requiring somebody to warm up behind him. What's the point?

A four game stretch where he struck out once per game as opposed to twice per game is a "turnaround"? He already K'd in the first inning against Arrieta. Look I hope he succeeds and becomes a key hitter for a half decade. However, since coming back from the minors in 2019 he's struck out at 35% clip. It's like playing with only 26 outs.

Many Cubs players have said they don't believe it's intentional, but are calling us out for being sloppy on how we pitch inside and need to be better at it. Their whining should be treated completely as white noise. Many players on that team crowd the plate, but HBP hasn't been an issue because others like Rizzo(notorious plate crowder) aren't whiny man-babies and understand that crowding the plate results in more HBP. AND...there's plenty of evidence of Contreras actually leaning into pitches trying to get hit. My opinion is the Brewers shouldn't change their approach one iota. Keep pitching inside, try not to hit guys for strategy reasons(we don't want baserunners)...not because Contreras might get mad and have a temper tantrum. And absolutely no intentional HBP for message purposes. We aren't the Cardinals and screw the unwritten rules(though apparently the Cubs are now subscribing after that pitch by Tepera). I'd much rather one of the Brewers do a Castellanos when he gets to home plate after a HR right in Contreras face...much better message. Ballplayers are all members of the same uber wealthy fraternity. Any sort of suggestion of a feud over intentional HBPs is just journalists stirring things up to get clicks. Every ball player in the major leagues knows HBPs are part of the game, and they've probably all been hit countless times (Contreras was hit 14 times in just 57 games last year). Not a single member of the fraternity wants to intentionally do something to a fellow member that can take away their membership in the club. Contreras had a gripe where he got hit, not because he got hit. I think he even said he was upset because getting hit high and tight can end careers.

Eh, both have been bad the last few years. The comparison is that both are basically reclamation project veterans with substantially diminished stuff at this point in their careers. I didn't look up the statcast on Arrieta's "stuff", but he is without a doubt the better of the two pitchers. He's on a $6 mil. guarantee whereas Zimmermann is on a minor league deal. To be sure, Arrieta isn't the TOR arm he was in '14-'16. However, he is still a major league caliber starting pitcher when healthy. However other than his first season with the Phillies he's either been on the IL or trying to pitch through injuries.

Makes the JBJ signing that much more prudent. Less than two weeks into the season and they're already calling up the 6th outfielder on the depth chart.

Robertson’s BABIP is .133. Even if he got that up to his career norm of .303 he’d still be a .250 hitter with no power, and no real ability to draw walks. He’s probably safe only because his $900k guarantee but his skill set is 100% interchangeable with Peterson, Gordon-Strange or whatever veteran infielder is currently sitting home without a contract. Eh? The man has a 11.4% career walk rate. Whatever his other faults may be, the man at least knows how to take walks. His career walk rate is right in step with that other God of walks Jace Peterson (11.2%). They’re interchangeable freely available talent

While he likely will play most days until Wong returns; how much longer will the team roll with Hiura? He’s striking out 41% of the time, extrapolate that across 500 ABs and were looking at 230+ strikeouts. In Chicago, watching the game on Marquee, Jim Deshaies mentioned Hiura has two toe taps as he gets ready to swing, and pitchers will continue exploit these timing issues to get strikeouts until he can adjust.

Robertson’s BABIP is .133. Even if he got that up to his career norm of .303 he’d still be a .250 hitter with no power, and no real ability to draw walks. He’s probably safe only because his $900k guarantee but his skill set is 100% interchangeable with Peterson, Gordon-Strange or whatever veteran infielder is currently sitting home without a contract.

It’s not drawing a conclusion; it’s a fact. To this point the bullpen has sucked. Maybe they turn it around but maybe they don’t. Time will tell. Inconsistent hitting and a leaky bullpen are ruining what has been an unbelievable run of starting pitching to start the year

Brian and Bill said it was over 5 and that they've been the opposite of the rotation. Baseball Reference had it listed as 5.05 ERA for the bullpen entering tonight’s game: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/split.cgi?t=p&team=MIL&year=2021#sprel_extra 20 earned runs in 35.2 innings pitched. Sporting a 1.514 WHIP. Not the strength of the team so far this season. And as the 2020 Phillies will tell you: if your bullpen sucks, you suck

Did Marcum really run out of gas, or merely had three bad starts at the wrong time? I looked back at the play by play from 2011. In the NLDS he had only given up three hits and two walks in the first four innings of the game (1.25 WHIP). In the 5th inning he gave up a single to the pitcher on an 0-2 count, then a single to Aaron Hill the lead off man on a 0-1 count. He retired the next to batters. Then Roenicke intentionally walks Miguel Montero to get to Goldschmidt, who hit a 1-2 pitch for a grand slam. Against the Cardinals, Pujols the league MVP had four RBIs against him in the first game (His OPS was over 1.000 in the post season that year). In Game 6 Marcum gave up a two out, first pitch 3 run homer to David Freese who had an OPS over 1.000 in the playoffs that year with 15 extra base hits and 21 RBI. Totally off topic I know, but it’s interesting how we remember these things. Marcum didn’t really let them down with poor pitching. He made a mistake on a pitch at the wrong time against Goldschmidt, and ran into two white hot hitters on the Cardinals so his pitching line looks terrible

Doesn’t Pedromo throw in the upper 90s? Even if else fails he has the potential to blow it by opposing batters.

Maybe teams were scared about the 2021 season happening at the time of his departure. However, when the dust cleared on free agency Jake McGee got 4.8 million dollars. Alex Colome got 6.75 from the Twins, and Joakim Soria got 4.5. Certainly Knebel’s 5 million dollar salary is not out of line with comparable players and he’s certainly not overpriced. If the Brewers are dropping quality players in the 2020s because they’re concerned about how the player is going to come back from TJ surgery, I I think that’s ripe for criticism; and certainly cuts against their narrative of being a forward thinking club trying to find under appreciated value to compete against the well moneyed clubs.

I assume you mean Knebel’s “poor performance” was 2018 where he had a FIP of 3.05, WHIP of 1.08 and had a K/9 rate of 14.3. Unless you’re knocking his 2020 numbers for literally rehabbing from TJ surgery at the major league level. Also worth mentioning, Jimmy Nelson blew out his shoulder in two places during his breakout year. His numbers before 2017 were pedestrian: FIP of 4.44 and WHIP of 1.39. Despite his suffering an unprecedented shoulder injury, they threw 7.5 million dollars away retaining his rights and got bupkis. That’s the head scratcher as referenced above

I suppose Sobotka will be up sooner than later whether he replaces Yardley or McKinney or Vogelbach is out.

Yardley was a guy last year who probably benefitted from hitter all over the league struggling in 2020, making him look better than he actually pitched. He’s another deception, timing type pitcher (the type the GM loves) but deception and timing don’t work when Yardley is seemingly 2-0 on every batter

It doesn't look like anything at this time. Knebel could become an all star this year and we still won't know if it was a good or bad deal. Whatever Knebel is this season it's only part of the equation. It will take at least a year or two to see what we have in Crawford. Even then given the money we would have spent on Knebel was spent in other areas that may have been more of a need given the depth of our pitching. So we can't even evaluate the success measuring Crawford and Knebel in a vacuum. Knebel has a fastball in the mid to upper 90s. Even if his everything else fails him on the mound he still has a decent chance of throwing his swifty by a major league hitters. To add to the previous post, Leo Crawford’s top velocity is reportedly in the 88-90 mph range. For him to have a chance at getting outs in the major leagues he is going to have to have both his deception and the ability to hit spots working. That’s why he’s a PTBNL in the first place.

He’s at 28 pitches thrown; they won’t let him throw another 28 however. Here’s hoping he can get the job done and give his teammates some rest

Agree with this. Probably needs to focus on three pitches as a reliever, see which is working on a given day. There’s no need to use kid gloves on a 34 year old pitcher, with a career FIP of 4.20 and WHIP of 1.36. He’s text book mediocre, if it honestly upsets his psyche pitching out of the pen, then they should just cut their losses now and release him. Jordan Zimmermann’s stuff can’t be worse

He was the Korean Cy Young; he likely had multiple multi-year offers. But yeah, there’s a reason he was in Korea in the first place.... he can’t get major league hitters out consistently