HarveysWBs

Hmm, deal fell through? This all sounds like people wanting to see something that wasn’t quite there. As a previous poster mentioned, I would think O scouts would want a look at him tonight.

Edged me out on the scoop about Brown—nice work.

Brown is pitching tonight after all—false alarm.

I get being excited, but let's think about this rationally for a second. Who are these "sources?" If respected journalists are trusting what they're saying, then they are probably club sources with knowledge of negotiations. If that is the case, then they have a motive. You can also be pretty sure it isn't coming from Stearns' office, unless he has a leaky staff, which if I were him, I'd try like crazy to prevent. If we can assume it isn't from the Brewers' team, then that leaves the Orioles, and if they liked any of these players being leaked, we'd probably have a deal already. So, logically, the safe read here is that the Orioles are not terribly impressed with what we've been offering thus far (or at least are hoping for a bit better) and are leaking the Brewers' potential pieces (and possibly the Dodgers' too, based on what has been floated so far) to increase the bidding war. I like Machado and what he could mean for the club, but if what has been floated thus far is not enough to get this done, I'm starting to get nervous about what it would take to close this deal. I have little reason to think Stearns is betting the farm on this year only, so I'm not terrified yet, but this is starting to sound like an expensive proposition.

Just going to leave this here: http://research.sabr.org/journals/the-statistical-mirage-of-clutch-hitting

[sarcasm]Hader for the 9th[/sarcasm]

Albers is as advertised inducing ground balls. Good show.

Yeah, that was highly questionable. But the strike zone broke our way for Braun, and against us for Santana. Fair.

Braun had a pitch to drive.

*small sample size **Clayton Richard on the mound Caveats aside, I'd say I'm at least mildly encouraged by the hitting so far.

I have always hated the DH, but if I'm being honest with myself, seeing Jimmy and Chase try and slide is seriously testing my convictions.

What I said was in reply to the suggestion (no doubt facetious) that the Brewers have some kind of "magic" (your words). Of course, they don't, just like teams don't really throw darts at the waiver wire. You seemed in your post to ask why they couldn't just turn any old "#2" or "#3" into an ace, and of course, that is not what I was suggesting at all (and, indeed, was probably a facetious point again). To your more serious points, however: -Are the Brewers deploying a technique or philosophy as of yet unidentified? I'd be shocked if they weren't. There is a reason that each team has their own metrics and proprietary formulas for evaluating talent, and why hacking incidents (Houston-St. Louis being the most prominent example) are such a big deal. Everyone is trying to do the same thing in the sense that they would like to make a dumpster-dive investment that turns into a stud, or at least a serviceable big-league regular. Call this idea identifying market inefficiencies/moneyball/whatever you like. However, contra Moneyball, I don't think there is anything approaching a league-wide consensus on what those inefficiencies even are, or how best to exploit them. So, yes, I think it is highly likely the Brewers are looking for some things which are in some ways unique from most other teams, and if they're doing their jobs correctly, that will be something of an organizational secret for a short term, until they identify some other "inefficiency" to look for or hit it big like the Astros and nerdy publications start parsing their success and other clubs copy them, etc. -Are most of these investments pebbles of sand on the beach? Yep, completely agree, which is why I'm not worried about the odd blowup by Miley, for instance. Maybe he doesn't pan out. But this experiment is a volume play, and I'm more confident in the group than in any one individual. The Brewers are even considering operating with a four-man rotation to start the year, which could (barring the odd injury, of course) mean the pebbles only have to be polished (or the lipstick has to stay on the pig, if you prefer) for a shorter amount of time, which is a bit more likely. I guess my biggest problem with this is that I don't feel so certain about Cobb. I think he may be an improvement over in-house options (almost certainly Miley, for instance, and also probably Chacin), but at what price? We don't know the asking price, and we don't have first-hand perspectives on what Cobb is like as a player and a teammate. The people that do (Matt Arnold, Stearns, etc.) have rather pointedly not shown much aggressive interest, unless they have heretofore been very good at keeping it a secret. That, to me, speaks volumes. According to your projections and estimates, Cobb may get our staff to the ratios and averages we should be targeting. Maybe Stearns and company has a different projection of him, or a different set of ratios and averages they are targeting. Having laid out what I think the brass thinks, let me tell you what I think. I think, without any particular expertise, that Cobb is likely to be good this year, but I doubt he is ever going to be what he was pre-injury, and is unlikely to get more durable as he ages. Cobb does not seem willing to go short-term, or else it stands to reason that he would be signed by now, so I don't think he is a fit. You suggested elsewhere that Cobb is still a good long-term investment because he can be flipped in the event we don't contend this year or next. I am skeptical of this, considering he is drawing pitiful interest now when he only costs money and a compensatory pick. I can't imagine an older Cobb would bring a meaningful haul of players unless he becomes what he was pre-injury, which, again, I think is unlikely.

Because it isn’t really magic, or alchemy, or transmutation. Nobody is turning lead into gold. It is about “finding diamonds in the rough” or the “island of misfit toys” or whatever cliche is most apt. One cannot just throw a dart at the waiver wire, find any old schmuck, wave a computer algorithm at him, and poof, he’s Collin McHugh. The Brewers are undoubtedly looking for particular pitchers with very specific underlying technical flaws and metrics that could conceivably fit with their overall organizational approach. I happen to find the fact that they intentionally chose these pitchers with that strategy in mind makes me want to give them the benefit of the doubt. By mid-May, perhaps they’ve fallen on their face, or maybe they’ve given us some useful turns in the rotation but the league has figured them out. In that case, Woodruff and maybe even Burnes are only a phone call away. I don’t see any reason to be too agitated, at least until we see some actual results.

On Chacin, Mikey, et al: I think for all the consternation here about stats from the last two years, we’re losing sight of something obvious. Stearns and Attanasio can see those stats, too. They know who those pitchers have been. They have stated this team is ready to contend now, and have adjusted their approach to player acquisition accordingly. So does it seem logical that they would sign those players, tell them to show up for spring training, simply pat them on the butt when they take the mound and say “just give us what you had last year” on the way to handing them a rotation spot? I think there are three ways to look at this situation. 1) The Brewers brass is lying to everyone to generate hype, sell tickets, and fleece the fans, and does not intend to compete. 2) They think these new pitchers, if they perform as they were last year will still enable the Crew to compete. Or 3) they think can get these new pitchers to use their skills in a more efficient and effective way this year which will outperform their recent results. In short 1) they’re hucksters, 2) they’re morons, 3) they have a plan. Based on all the vitriol, it seems most posters in the last 24 hours are leaning towards camps 1 and 2. I think 3 is far more likely the case, which, as I’ve suggested before, does not necessarily mean the plan works, but there is a precedent. If you want to look at another organization’s example for how to get the most out of “scrap-heap” pitchers, your newly crowned world champions are not a bad place to start (http://grantland.com/the-triangle/2015-mlb-houston-astros-10-stats-to-explain-first-place-start/). Now where did David Stearns come from, again...?

TJ--I've been doing some reading around here for a couple months before I became active, and have enjoyed reading your posts. I think your perspective on ERA targets is really enlightening, and do highlight the risks of the Brewers' plan in light of Nelson's injury. I think the biggest potential pitfall for the club is just what you describe: that Nelson's absence and potential ineffectiveness upon return will wipe out any potential gains made by improved performance by the back end/fill-in starters, even after strategic and technical improvements by the analytics and coaching departments for Miley, Chacin, et al. For the plan to work, they need Nelson to break back close to last year's level and Anderson to, if not necessarily be his peak self from last year, but settle into a near plateau. I agree that if those two things don't break right, we probably fail, but every plan has its weakness. Brewmann's post about what else could be going on is instructive, I think. Matt Arnold was head of pro personnel for the Rays very recently, and according to reports in the Journal Sentinel (http://archive.jsonline.com/sports/brewers/from-behind-the-scenes-matt-arnold-swinging-for-greatness-b99721241z1-378532515.html), sees eye to eye with Stearns to the point where he is considered "more of a partner than a subordinate." If anyone is in a position to know what Cobb could be, you'd think it is Arnold and a reclamation artist like Derek Johnson, and if there seems to be no solid indication that the Brewers at any point have seriously pursued Cobb this offseason (Twitter rabbit holes to the obvious, and regrettable, contrary), then that probably says all we need to know about how the front office views him. As others have said, it seems that we need to take them at their word, in the sense that they truly believe that the options they have in-house are equal or better than what Cobb is or even could be. What is more, they're all far cheaper, don't leave the organization's hands tied, and in the case of the prospects, are considerably younger and more controllable. Maybe they're all wrong and this rotation will blow up and drag the whole team down this year. I will readily concede that that is a very real possibility (and, really, what do I know? My baseball CV is that I quit playing baseball in 7th grade, have been a beer-league softball player for the last six years, and a crummy fantasy manager for twice as long as that). What I do know is that if their plan fails in 2018, they will have lost at most a year of their contention window, which they have publicly stated is expected to be at least 4-5 years. By signing Cobb/Arietta/Darvish to a longer deal, and if that blows up in a Suppan/Garza-esque way, they will have seriously hampered their ability to change course and improve going forward. I generally think these front office people are in the best position to know if, how, and at what price all these players can help them meet their goals, and if they felt that these options were not good bets even on historically team-friendly terms, then I can live with that. As I said originally, we have to be a bit more careful with our dollars than our competition does, so if we're going to spend them, I hope we spend it on players our brain trust really likes. When they have pulled the trigger, they have been right quite a bit more often than wrong, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

Oh, I can guarantee that "these five" (Anderson, Davies, Chacin, Suter, Woodruff--or sub Miley in if you wish) will not "carry us into a wildcard spot." In fact, I'd even bet dollars to doughnuts that Stearns himself doesn't believe that, either. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the whole point of this rotation experiment. But wait, you might say, didn't Stearns express confidence in this current group of starters? Sure did. Or, didn't Attanasio say late in the offseason that money was available to add a new piece? Yep (and more on that in a minute). Others have noted this already, so I won't belabor the point too much, but our Brewers, as an organization, cannot get trapped into two fallacious modes of thought: 1) we must go tit for tat with the big-spending organizations on every single acquisition and 2) the way teams have been constructed in the past is the way they must always be constructed in saecula saeculorum and is The Only Right Way to Build a Champion ©. Many of the problems with this should be obvious, but in short: 1) We do not have the money to make the kind of mistakes the Cubs and Yankees can make and still field an above-average ball club. Guaranteed contracts and the difficulty we will always seem to have in luring people to spend much of their lives in Milwaukee mean we need to make all our dollars count as much as we can. Now, granted, I love Milwaukee as a town, although I've never really lived there, and sure, some people like Lorenzo Cain seem to like it a lot, too, but he seems more of an exception, not the rule. So we have to play a slightly different game. But, consider, the big-ticket FA route is still risky: if Darvish goes down, or Lester and Hendricks regress, all of which are serious possibilities, and the Cubs are in trouble, even if their offensive struggles last year were an aberration and the bullpen is improved (which, I will note, are still ifs and will have to be proven on the field this year). 2) Roster construction and deployment of pitching is changing. Relief aces are becoming more valuable all the time. In a sort of renaissance of the old fireman principle, people like Andrew Miller and his imitations (Josh Hader, anyone?) are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how teams are rethinking what it takes to build a successful pitching staff. It is about survival as much as it is about anything else. Your biggest threat to lose a game might not be in the 5/6 innings your starter happens to pitch, and it might not be in the 9th inning, either. If it comes after your starter leaves with two on and one out in the 5th inning, having multiple solid options to come into the game and take care of that situation is invaluable. Maybe that is a Hader who can go two and a third wipeout innings against the top-7 hitters of a squad like Chicago or New York. Maybe its a swingman like Guerra who can get you through an otherwise nightmare game without taxing the bullpen. And, in the biggest rethink of all, teams seem to be finally appreciating the fact that "those five" guys you start the season with are not the only ones you will ever hand the ball to at the start of ballgames, and those fill-in starts still count, too. A few years ago, Fangraphs (https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/so-how-many-starters-does-a-team-need-then/) estimated that on average, baseball teams have a 65% chance of two of their "preferred" starters will be hurt at the same time, and 32% chance of it happening to three of those starters at the same time. Most crucially, if a baseball team sees only average rates of attrition (6 DL stints for their starting staff throughout the year, totaling as many as 360 days), then that team will have it's preferred starters together for only 22% of the season. Even excluding year-long DL stints, that could still account for 32 starts made by starters 6-??. I don't have to tell you in a two-team wildcard scenario, those 32 games could more than make or break reaching the play-in game, or even winning a division. So how do the Brewers look on that front? Baseball Prospectus Milwaukee (http://milwaukee.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2018/03/12/the-rotation-is-good/) has a good rundown, but TL;DR--"While the Brewers’ overall rotation may have an 'average' outlook, once replacement rotations begin to appear in the 2018 MLB, the Milwaukee replacements will have a runs prevented advantage of at least 30 runs (assessed against other teams’ replacements)." That means our rotation is in position to save 30 runs above average just because of our fill-in starters when compared to the fill-in starters of most other clubs. Teams like the Cubs, Dodgers, National, and Yankees have invested a lot of resources in fielding great "top of the rotation" talent, and, sure, when all those pitchers take the field, advantage those teams. But they won't all take the field every 5th day, what's more, the Brewers know this, and have prepared enough above-average replacements to claw back the difference once attrition rears its ugly head. That is the plan for competing with the big wallets. Finally, however, what about Attanasio's quote mentioned above? Maybe he was feeling good and was only telling an energetic crowd what they wanted to hear. Cynics might say its all a ploy by hucksters and cheapskates to sell more tickets and improve the bottom line without ever spending enough to field a real winner. That is possible, I suppose. Or, perhaps Attanasio and Stearns know something else: while what we might call the "defend against attrition" strategy is a great way to win games over a long season, it can all quickly go for nothing in a 5 or 7-game series during the playoffs. You don't have time to just play the averages when there might be no tomorrow. That is when you really need your aces. And having the prospect capital and financial wiggle room to go get a guy like that (and whatever Cobb is, I feel pretty confident in saying he isn't "TOR") when the season is nearing its second half is how you put an otherwise good team over the top for a championship run. That is how the Astros did it last year, and not trading for an Archer or signing a Cobb/Lynn/Darvish/Arrieta now means we can still do that when we absolutely need to and know our time is at hand. So I say, forget about Cobb (although I wish him well), and let's realize we're looking at the bleeding edge of how to make a small-market club competitive. I don't have a crystal ball, so maybe this all doesn't work. Round balls and round bats lead to some pretty random results, and all the planning in the world won't guarantee you a championship sometimes. But I am confident in saying that Stearns and Attanasio really do want to build a winner, and really do think this roster as constructed is the best way available to them to do it. I can't wait to see what happens.

Thanks. I’ve just been a lurker, primarily for the offseason transaction news and rumors, but I hope to make some contributions going forward. Being in Illinois does not afford me the opportunity to constructively discuss the Crew (most Brewers conversations I begin around here end with a response of “Yah, but CUBZ!!!”), so I’ve greatly enjoyed everyone’s good work the last couple months. To keep this post mildly on-topic, though, I like the idea of a Cobb addition, and with all the various smoke around these rumors, I’m cautiously allowing myself to get a little excited. I’m really just hopeful that this offseason indicates the start of a new organization-wide strategy that charts a middle course between the Bust/All-In cycle we’ve endured lately.

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