coolhandluke121

Very warm here in NYC today. Think the bats come alive in a big way against the LHP. I'm buying the Mets' success if they stay healthy though. They're this year's Diamondbacks. Talented team with a potentially terrific staff coming back from a Murphy's law year.

Despite some obvious issues with WAR, I usually like it. However, it is woefully inadequate in cases like this because Ohtani breaks the whole paradigm of what WAR is based on. WAR is already an issue for versatile players because you're comparing them to guys who play only one position. The whole premise is that you would have to use that roster spot on someone else who plays the same position, but what about a guy who can fill multiple roles? How does WAR capture Perez giving Shaw 5-10 days off a year against RHP's if it compares his stats there to other 3B's? Should you compare him to SS's if Arcia gets hurt and he has to start 15 games at SS against RHP's? Clearly his defensive value varies wildly depending on position. More importantly, it doesn't even pretend to capture the value of more roster flexibility. Now with Ohtani, it deviates from the whole premise even further. It's as good as having an extra roster spot. If it was the Brewers, they wouldn't have to worry about what to do with Aguilar when everyone is healthy and they need more pitchers. Or if they keep Aguilar anyway, they could have Choi on the roster. What's the WAR of an extra roster spot? It's not designed to calculate that. So I don't think you can just add his WAR. Personally I agree with the person who said he's gotta be an MVP favorite if he does both roles well.

I don't really think there's anything wrong with it, but it might depend on the player. Some guys probably need a routine more than others. A guy with Greinke's personality could be a disaster in a situation like that, for example. It would also be hard for guys who need to have some semblance of a stable living space, at least when their team has "home" games. It could also lead to even more flights, jet lag, etc. And of course it doesn't happen when a team thinks one guy is a little better than another, which is often the case. You just keep the better player up all year in that case. But I think a real reason it doesn't happen is because it's not established as a thing you have to do to gain a competitive edge. Once teams do it a little more and milk a few extra wins out of their staff, like the Dodgers last year and hopefully the Brewers this year, it will become more common. I have to imagine there was a time when even using a reliever at all was frowned upon, but of course teams had to adapt when the strategy proved successful. (ETA: referring to shuttle service with starters)

But good options to shore up the starting pitching weren't available. You don't pass up great trades and make risky ones just because of current needs. Needs change too quickly for that. The only time you might even consider something like that is when you're clearly going to make the playoffs and be a legit contender, but you have a glaring need. And even then, ask yourself how many wins you're costing yourself in the long term.

I sort of disagree with Yelich not being a need. They needed better all-around players who can hit at the top of the order and who are young on team-friendly deals, and they needed to move Braun to 1B at least part time in order to salvage him as a potential asset for a few more years. Yelich was the best option available in all of baseball in the off season. It was a great trade. We're so lucky they saved their assets for when a guy like him became available, and I'm glad they appear to be committed to staying patient now. I wonder if Realmuto becomes available at a reasonable price soon?

who cares how many runs he gives up, look at that K/BB rate! Team-friendly deal yo.

I think changing the title my be a valid criticism, but I don't disagree with your premise at all. We spent the whole off-season hearing about how Braun is still the best hitter on this team, how he would have been a hof-er, and how he was arguably as good as Yount. That alone should have told you how this thread would go. Bottom line is this: this off-season was all about teams finally realizing you have to stop over-paying veterans so much. They end up making 8-figure salaries while being worse than young guys you can find on the waiver wire or as throw-ins in trades. They often end up being negative WAR players for the last year or two of their contracts. This is partly due to PED enforcement, which makes it harder for players to maintain their production well into their 30's, and partly about the value of draft picks and pool money and all that stuff. But it's also just teams wising up and realizing it's better for your chances of being consistently competitive. Baseball is inevitably going to be more like football, where you simply have to move on from aging veterans more often. I don't feel sorry for them no matter how good they once were. They generally got everything they deserved for what they brought to their teams (salary, endorsements, etc), and teams are under no obligation to hold themselves hostage over players like that. On the contrary, they truly owe it to their fans not to. The natural next progression in being more rational about veterans is how long you stick with them when they're clearly past their prime. Braun's bat speed is clearly not the same. He can no longer do anything with those low/outside pitches that he still chases all the time. His body has been breaking down for years. If you can't trade him, the question about whether he even deserves a roster spot over guys like Aguilar, Phillips, or even Grisham could easily come up as early as next year. The Brewers have a sordid history of sticking with guys way too long even when they're showing blatant signs of falling apart. I think the moves of this off season and the games Braun has sat, combined with his performance, is an indication that they fully understand the issues with Braun and are more than prepared to relegate him to a much less prominent role on the team, and I truly believe they're doing the right thing.

The reason we won is because they didn’t pitch. Happy? Lol That's more like it.

Not really. You just can't expect a pitching staff to keep a team to 2 runs or less every single night. They need to score more runs, and hopefully they'll have Yelich and Cain back soon. Nah. Any time a reliever gives up a run they should be dfa'ed. I thought Stearns was smart but I don't see 7 Mariano Riveras in the pen so who does he think he's fooling? Also I expect Counsell to be fired any day now.

Also I watched the game and pushed the thumbs up emoji repeatedly the whole time because it made me feel powerful. Did you guys enjoy that?

Nice win but can we work some hatred for Barnes and Drake into this thread?

My bad, I was being careless. Yeah, he was apparently okay in 13 innings with Texas in 2016. That's nothing compared to what happened last year though, especially when you consider his peripherals and lost velocity. I don't hate him despite what some people think. I just don't get all the favoritism he gets here. People acted like he was a lock for a roster spot and now some people are saying he should be the closer, when his career trajectory is similar to any of the other former busts like Axford and Turnbow at the same age.

But Jeffress is not consistent. You can't just dismiss what happened in Texas, or even his ~1.5 WHIP as a Brewer last year. You can't just exclude that data. He's been mostly awful for a year and a half. He's been very lucky to have a low e.r.a. for the Brewers recently, but it's unlikely to continue. You seem to think there's some kind of special sauce that makes Jeffress good "as a Brewer" and you conveniently ignore everything else. The only thing that makes him effective "as a Brewer" is being in his prime and having great velocity and a high K rate a few years ago, and being very lucky in a very small sample size last year and this year. That's your consistency.

Advanced stats are great. They do help tell a story. But they can, and seem to be, misleading often. I can tell you what my eyes have seen. Jeffress, as a Brewer, goes out and gets the job done. Drake, it is a crapshoot, and usually pretty scary while doing it. He might end up being a good pen guy for us but so far, he's been very hard to watch. You're basing that on what happened 2 years ago. Jeffress clearly is not that player anymore. He has a few good/lucky outings last year, without any improvement in the numbers that actually predict future performance, and everyone is ready to hand him the keys. I'm not saying Drake is as good as him, but the idea that Drake should be DFA'ed after walking two RHB's against a good team when he's a damn LOOGY in the first place (and a good one, in a pen that needs one with Boone out) while Jeffress should be the closer is blatant favoritism for a formerly successful Brewer. Jeffress is a middle of the pack guy at best and Drake is a good LOOGY. Anybody except a Brewer fan who's still nostalgic about Jeffress in 2016 and pissed off at Drake for a handful of runs at a bad time last year in this can see that.

>1 K/inning helps an awful lot with that. As far as your 6th or 7th reliever goes, he's fine. Probably even above average. Jeffress had a WHIP of about 1.6 over his last year and a third, and is over 1.4 for his career, and his K rate has consistently dipped under 7 since the trade to Texas. But Jeffress should be the closer and Drake should be dfa'ed? That's just painfully biased. I know you hate Jeffress but no, it is not. Jeffress has got the job done, over and over, in a Brewers uniform. He has been a constant producer, something that cannot be said about Drake. They aren't even comparable. Don't let the numbers fool you, and create a biased viewpoint from yourself. You're letting a few games that could have easily gone either way fool you. At least the periphals have some predictive value.

I do too. It's pretty amazing that arguably your two "worst" relievers when everyone is healthy have career FIPs around 3.5 and k rates around 10. I've always suspected that people are letting the emotions of a couple bad outings dictate what they think of the player's ability in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Everyone's knee-jerk reactions to last night's game proves it, especially given all the nuances of the situation (Barnes has been getting too much work due to injuries and Drake is a LOOGY or 1-inning guy at best, forced into multiple innings and facing 2 RHB's to start his outing because of how taxed the pen is). Not to mention all the context of Barnes' other "bad" outing this week, and the fact that St. Louis has a good lineup and you can't expect a good bullpen to hold them off forever. It's ridiculous. Honestly I don't think fans like that even deserve a good team. Thank god the front office doesn't run the team with the same knee-jerk nonsense and the emotional stability of a teenager.

>1 K/inning helps an awful lot with that. As far as your 6th or 7th reliever goes, he's fine. Probably even above average. Jeffress had a WHIP of about 1.6 over his last year and a third, and is over 1.4 for his career, and his K rate has consistently dipped under 7 since the trade to Texas. But Jeffress should be the closer and Drake should be dfa'ed? That's just painfully biased.

Suter no-hitter watch! No strikeouts for Martinez!! Baseball makes no sense!

It's extremely rare that a player as young and talented and Yelich on a bargain deal is available, and it was an equally rare set of circumstances in Miami. I very much doubt there was a pitcher available worth anywhere near what Yelich is worth over the next 5 years, and I'm so glad they are thinking about the next 5 years just as much as they're thinking about the next 2. Gray and Quintana, for example, aren't nearly worth as much as Yelich to the Brewers. Neither is Archer. I'm fine with trading for pitching if a good opportunity comes along, but let the top teams who can justify it and the delusional win-now teams be the ones to over-pay for now.

I'm not sure if WAR does enough to account for the leverage you get from having great relievers to get you out of horrible jams. It just compares relievers to other relievers based on their stats, but do analytics really have a solid grasp of the different ways in which starters and relievers are important compared to each other? Because that's the question here - comparing starters to relievers, not starters to other starters and relievers to other relievers, as WAR does.

Are you two the same poster? No. I can't imagine ever caring about what happens here so much that I'd deem it worth the trouble to make another profile.

Yep. Keep getting the best players at the best values and it will work itself out. It's reductionist thinking to say Cain and Yelich were a mistake if we didn't fix every single roster imbalance and build a contender in the season in which we acquired them. It will be fine as long as they keep pursuing really good investments and passing up bad ones.

Yelich is not even at his likely peak yet. Cain is a 5-WAR player at a premium position coming off his healthiest and 2nd most productive season ever, and as a revenue sharing recipient the Brewers only had to give up a 3rd round pick to sign him. In no way do those two acquisitions require you to be a contender right now for justification. Those were the best options for upgrading the team this year. They jumped at a chance to get 5-WAR players without giving up much, as they should. As long as they continue to wait for the right opportunities and pass on traps like Arrieta and Lynn, it will work itself out. The goal is not to have a perfect on-paper roster on opening day and laminate it and hang it on a wall. They're doing nearly everything right.

By "stumbling", I meant 85-ish wins and just missing the wild card again when people expected massive improvement. I think the big jump comes next year, assuming they're healthy. I agree about staying afloat until the ASB. The other wild card contenders will have their fair share of problems too. Everyone has to remember that. It's pretty clear the Brewers aren't going to have horrible defense and offense for the whole year. They'll probably be borderline top 5 in both when it's all said and done. But again, it's just a matter of staying in the wild card race without doing too much that could screw up 2019 and beyond. They're in a great spot IMO.

No kidding, huh? Definitely no Correa, Springer, Bregman coming up in the Brewers system. High hopes for Hiura, and there is some potential among our pitchers on the farm, but... Yeah... We ain't the Astros Which is exactly why I said they can't afford to make any impulsive mistakes, like when the Astros traded for Gomez or like how some Brewer fans want to trade for Archer. Less margin for error. I don't agree with the implication that you have to have blue-chip prospects to have a great future though. When you have as much depth and balance as the Brewers have, some prospects will surely emerge as future all-stars, even if they were never "can't-miss" prospects like some of the Astros' or Cubs' current best players.