coolhandluke121

Yelich is 100 OPS points better against RHP's for his career. Only about 20 points this year, but that doesn't have nearly the same statistical significance. I don't really think you can use Braun and "always good" in the same sentence ever again, in any baseball context. Aguilar could be one of those guys who had a spike peak at prime age. That's not an unusual trajectory. He had a year that would make Eric Thames proud, though he did sustain his best hitting for longer than Thames last year. I'm down to give all of them except Schoop another chance next year (even Hernan!), but whom they replace Schoop with is going to be a huge factor like you said. And if Moustakas is gone, you also probably want an LHB middle infielder option too. Right, but when they built this plan they thought they had righties to handle this situation, that's all I was saying, that basically they were one RH IF short of being covered (and Schoop falling off that hard couldn't be foreseen). It's not like they were clueless to it all. I'm not criticizing how the team was built. Like I said, I'd give all of them except Schoop another chance. I'm just saying that whereas it once appeared they should be fine against LHP's, it now appears to be a potential weakness because we might have hoped for a little too much from certain players. ETA: I'd take a chance on Votto. That would represent a pretty reliable, consistent upgrade in the 3-hole. They're sitting on a whole bunch of 5/6 caliber hitters right now, and the consistency just isn't there.

It's not even "much ado". I merely think he should start against RHP's and PH in pretty much every game, but some people can't handle their idol being questioned in any way, shape, or form. Every good thing Braun does is magnified 3x by people desperate to cling to the notion that he's still a good player. The only issue with the eye test on defense for outfielders is that it's almost always about speed, but getting the right jump on the ball is actually more important than that. You could do the math but just think of how much faster you have to be if you lose even 4/10ths of a second not being sure which way to run. That's why Cameron was still so good well into his 30's.

But all I said was he should start against RHP's (Buehler, basically). He has 3 at-bats in the whole series and has looked far better and more on top of his you-know-what than Braun in all of them. That's kind of ridiculous. And I don't see this issue with a drop-off against LHP's. Just PH for him with Braun at that point. Not buying the horrible defense. At the time of the trade, there was some talk about how the Brewers curate their defense using the greatness of Cain and Broxton in CF and hiding guys like Santana, Thames, and Broxton, but that was nuanced and I think some people ignored it. He looks fine in RF, and certainly Yelich is a lot better than Braun in LF. He was roaming a pretty big outfield in Toronto and those dWAR stats are pretty superficial when you dig deeper. His dWAR surely was punished by a lot of fly balls that would have flown out of the park or been caught by Cain/Broxton as a Brewers.

A .798 OPS as a Blue Jay is much more impressive though. Miller Park is more hitter-friendly. But it's not just that. A big part of Milwaukee's problem is their hitters being over-aggressive and swinging at everything. Guys need to work the count more and wait for a good pitch to hit. Braun is not doing that at all. ETA: And having to pull Granderson against an LHP is fine, since Braun doesn't really have dramatic splits anyway. And career splits are misleading in Braun's case. His decline from his peak has been more dramatic than Granderson's.

If everyone "showed up" like his postseason all year they'd have won 65 games. Time for you to go toss around some blame to some other players. I blame plenty of other players so I don't see your point there. The difference is Braun's the one who's in front of a superior option against RHP's in Granderson. It's time for you to start being a little more objective about Braun. The only player to show up? You can't be serious.

Yeah, once again it's really all about refusing to trust role players. I know Cedeno isn't very good and you're kind of hoping he gets lucky, but when Guerra or JJ or Woodruff looks gassed or is otherwise struggling, aren't you kind of just hoping he gets lucky too? Arguably even luckier? It's baffling. That's what Cedeno is for. He could have faced Muncy when Woodruff was around 60 pitches and clearly starting to struggle, not to mention being his third time through the order. They've stopped bring in less talented pitchers when they need them in the post season, and I don't like it. A less talented pitcher is still often better than an over-worked pitcher. The whole season was a testament to how you can get good pitching from a less talented staff if you distribute the workload wisely, and now they refuse to do it.

If everyone "showed up" like his postseason all year they'd have won 65 games.

Eh, obviously it can be done but it wasn't a remotely smooth operation for him. His timing was awful and it's better to limit extraneous movement when you're having trouble with your swing to begin with. He was lifting the foot before his swing even started.

I wasn't suggesting they start Granderson instead of Braun against an LHP, but he should easily have more than 3 pa's. Their bullpen doesn't have many good LHP's. There's nothing wrong with benching Braun later in a game, like they often do with Aguilar. I guess they want to keep an LHB on the bench, rather than start all of them against RHP's, but I think it would be better to get Granderson 3 pa's against Buehler at the expense of not having an LHB to hit against one of their relievers once. I doubt we see Braun at 1B again. Didn't seem to work out the way anybody wanted it to, because of his back pain if nothing else.

Yelich is 100 OPS points better against RHP's for his career. Only about 20 points this year, but that doesn't have nearly the same statistical significance. I don't really think you can use Braun and "always good" in the same sentence ever again, in any baseball context. Aguilar could be one of those guys who had a spike peak at prime age. That's not an unusual trajectory. He had a year that would make Eric Thames proud, though he did sustain his best hitting for longer than Thames last year. I'm down to give all of them except Schoop another chance next year (even Hernan!), but whom they replace Schoop with is going to be a huge factor like you said. And if Moustakas is gone, you also probably want an LHB middle infielder option too.

The infuriating thing with Aguilar and Braun is that they're facing a lot of LHP's and still can't do jack. It stinks. Big difference between the way they're struggling and their terrible approach vs. Yelich, who will surely start to see dividends as long as he maintains his sound approach.

Yelich hasn't been hitting well but he's not a mess either. His K% is below his regular season level despite facing good pitching most of the series, including some very good LHP's. He's been on base 7 times (tied with Cain for the team lead) and taken 90 pitches if I added them up right. He's not making great contact but if he had half the luck of the Dodgers hitters, he'd be hitting .300 with a lot of walks on top of that. If everyone on the Brewers had the same plate approach as he did, they'd be scoring 4-5 runs per game. He is not the problem. I said before the series started I would have Granderson ahead of Braun if it came to that. Of course they were going to keep both, but Granderson needs to see more at-bats. No amount of mocking that stance can make it appear unreasonable unless you're a Braun fan. Braun has been swinging away at the first pitch at the worst possible time on a regular basis and has taken 58 pitches this series by my count. That's less than 3 per plate appearance. Granderson is a more disciplined hitter whose approach translates better to postseason baseball, and even his regular season production has been every bit as good as Braun's for 2 years now. He's taken 17 pitches in just 3 appearances, made good contact on a regular basis, and nearly came up with one of the greatest clutch HR's in Brewers history in his first at-bat. He also has a lot more experience in RF than Braun, allowing Yelich to stay in LF.

You can sure see how Aguilar and Thames were considered fringe MLB players for much of their professional careers until recently. I don't know if it's conditioning or the length of the season or PED's wearing off or just regressing to the bad habits that put their MLB careers in jeopardy in the first place, but they've been a big bag of suck an awful lot lately. I don't think the Brewers are going to get Goldschmidt but in no way are they set at 1B for the long haul. The problem is that it's easy to find a 2-3 WAR player to replace a 0-1 WAR player, but it's not so easy to find a 4-5 WAR player to replace a bunch of wannabe top of the order hitters like Thames, Aguilar, Santana, Moustakas, Shaw, Granderson, Braun, and possibly Schoop if he rebounds at all. I wish they had just kept Choi. Sucks to give away a younger player with that kind of potential. I'd be more optimistic with Choi and Aguilar, hoping that at least one of them could find sustainable success, and if not you at least have a solid platoon. But they're probably going to roll with Thames and Aguilar again next year, which is good but not quite as inspiring. Just makes you wonder how they're going to upgrade the lineup overall. I don't think Shaw's bat is much of an asset if he plays a lot of 1B either.

More confidence in him to have a respectable at-bat in a key situation than most guys on the team. Wish there had been a way to get him in there more.

Yes, when he gets the MVP trophy they should take it away. Only a .441 OBP in the playoffs? How dare he nearly match the OBP that arguably the two greatest hitters in the history of the game (Bonds and Williams) achieved consistently.

Spot on Can't forget JJ. Even if you think it was the right decision and wrong result to use him, you have to concede he crapped the bed something fierce. This was looking like 15 wins in a row and an easy trip to the World Series before the end of game 2.

Ryu is a tough match-up for them. Buehler is tough for anyone. Can we trade Jeffress to LAD right now and have him pitch the 9th for them?

So Cedeno gets Muncy after all. I honestly think he had a better chance of getting him out than a gassed Woodruff back when the Dodgers first rallied.

Is Yelich Geoff Jenkins again?

Another reliable LHP reliever = off season priority #1 IMO. Boone, Drake (LOOGY splits), Webb, Jennings, Cedeno... just a revolving door. Needed one there.

I think you gotta give Cedeno a chance there. I know he's one of the worst pitchers on the staff, but Woodruff was tired and a lot of guys are unavailable and it's not like Cedeno has been trash (some lucky ground-ball hits if I recall correctly).

Might have been a little overconfident in Woodruff there. Can't blame him, but they've relied on pulling guys before stuff like this happens, not waiting until it's too late. Still the offense's fault of course. The lack of another good LHP in the pen is a problem once again.

Let him get the double play from Machado and call it a day.

I think pitching to Barnes is the right call. He's a weak hitter. Just didn't work out.

Not me, I don't want to root for guys like him under any circumstance. I'm perfectly content with him being on other teams. Same. I wanna win but you gotta draw the line somewhere. Winning is only fun when it's inspiring, not when you sell your soul for it.