Brew crew 92

Only thing that surprises me knebel news is that it came out today and not after they finished Kimbrel negotiations. Pay what ever it takes mr stearns/mark A.!!!!

Kinda makes you wonder about Jeffress too. Like I said in earlier threads the timing of serious negotiations stunk. Hoping there closing in on a deal with Kimbrel. Knebel saying “no pain” makes him and or the brewers look silly now. Wow.

+1 But I hope your wrong.

The team's ace missed the whole season. Their #3 & #4 (Davies and Miley) missed huge chunks of the year. Tough injuries happen to every team, every year. Solidly built teams can overcome them, just as the Brewers did last year. Did they get lucky? Maybe. But I don't think luck is entirely random when it comes to baseball either. I can’t disagree with what you said,we definatly had our share of injuries, only quibble would be jimmys, his 2017. And I agree we overcame them with our depth. I would argue that Jimmy’s injury in September 2017 kept us from making the playoffs. Star players can’t miss significant time.

JosephC, I respect and appreciate the analysis that you give this board sir, but respectfully disagree with your take here. We are currently NOT a small market team anymore. Revenue wise we are closer to the middle of the pack then the end. Midmarket and isn’t that exciting. I would argue Kimbrels elite high leverage possible best relief pitcher of all time talent to help our bullpen which in my opinion needs an off a lot of help right now, especially for a team that uses their pen the way the Brewers do to be more important than an above average starting pitcher even if he is left-handed. If given the choice for the same amount of money and years I’ll take Kimbrel. Media market is smallest in MLB and Forbes estimated the Brewers revenue as ranking 24th in MLB and that's after a very successful season coming off of another successful season. For decades the closer was the most over-valued commodity in baseball. Here is a rigid role, a guy that only pitches 1 inning 90+% of the time, and takes away all matchup benefits a manager can use because "well he's the closer so he has to pitch the 9th inning." Statistical models have constantly demonstrated that lack of worth of closers for years. The top closers generally convert about 90% of their save opportunities, and the worst generally convert about 80% of their save opportunities. Kimbrel sits at 90.7% for his career, a top number. Generally the average conversion rates for guys who are in the closer role is around 85%. If using 2018 numbers, there were 33 players that had 14 saves or more. I wanted to just take the top 30, but players 30, 31, 32, 33 all had 14 saves so all were included. Top 33 in saves last year combined for 836 saves and 134 blown saves, an 86.2 conversion rate. Kimbrel has averaged 45.75 opportunities over his full 8 MLB seasons, and that's a reasonable number to use for the amount of save opportunities a closer sees over the course of an average season. Edwin Diaz had 61 opportunities last year, but the second highest was Wade Davis and he was at 49. 10 players had 32+ saves last year, average number of opportunities for those 10 players was 43.5. So lets just use some numbers from above. Good closer = 90% conversion rate. Average closer = 85% conversion rate. Bad closer = 80% conversion rate. Expect 45 save opportunities per season. So the great closer is good for 40.5 saves. Worst closers are good for 36 saves. A full 4.5 game difference. But taking an elite closer like Kimbrel, and comparing him to the league average closer, the difference is only 2.25 saves. And here is the big thing that can't be overlooked, every time a closer blows a save, it does not mean a loss for the team. Plenty of times the closer allows for a game to be tied, and his team still goes on to win later in the game. I've seen stats that indicate around 35% of the time a team blows a ninth inning save, that the team who lost the lead still does go on to win the game later. When making that adjustment, the difference in the best closer in the game versus a bottom-of-the-barrel closer would be 3 wins...and the difference between a top closer and an average closer would only be about 1.5 wins. Kimbrel has been a dominating closer, but there is a reason his average bWAR/fWAR over the last 3 years is only 2.1. Closers are an over-rated commodity and have been for decades now. Just think, Knebel was the Brewers closer last year and flat out stunk it up for nearly four months. 5.08 ERA on August 21 and was so bad that he got a ticket to AAA. And despite all that, even though the Brewers had a player stinking it up in such a critical role, they still went on to finish with the best record in the National League. I'd go as far to say that a 76 million dollars in Kimbrel would be a pretty ridiculous investment for any team in baseball, especially the Brewers. I wouldn't really have been opposed to something like 1 year, 15 million, but would even start questioning that after having typed this post. Yes we are the smallest market in every way except revenue.i couldn’t find 2018 team revenues but 2017 forbes had them at 255 which put them 23rd in baseball. Last year brewers drew 300,000 more fans AND made 10-20 mil just in playoff revenue. Puts us closer to 300. This year brewers conservatively Will draw over 3 million fans. Fangraphs estimates a playoff appearance to be worth between 20-30 million to a team. Even with the smallest media market our contract is up after this year and the Brewers should get a bump with that. National TV revenue is also up merchandise sales are also up. At worst the Brewers are a lower end mid-market team.

I sure hope I’m wrong and “overreacting” to all this dead arm and shoulder weakness talk with Knebel and jeffress respectfully. And I’ve always believed in stearns word and have total confidence in his stewardship of the Milwaukee Brewers. Injury’s happen in baseball, and that’s the one thing stearns CANT control. He can build overwhelming depth, which he has, but when injury’s happen to star players that can devistate a teams fortune’s. I admit I’m gunshy when it comes to brewer injuries. From Larry Hisle to Rollie fingers to teddy higuera on and on I could go. Last year we were fortunate injury wise,I hope we are this year too.

One man’s litter is another’s opinion, but I’ll take it under advisement, good sir.

JosephC, I respect and appreciate the analysis that you give this board sir, but respectfully disagree with your take here. We are currently NOT a small market team anymore. Revenue wise we are closer to the middle of the pack then the end. Midmarket and isn’t that exciting. I would argue Kimbrels elite high leverage possible best relief pitcher of all time talent to help our bullpen which in my opinion needs an off a lot of help right now, especially for a team that uses their pen the way the Brewers do to be more important than an above average starting pitcher even if he is left-handed. If given the choice for the same amount of money and years I’ll take Kimbrel.

I understand what you’re saying IF it’s only a couple of dead arms. But I just happen to think it’s more than that, I think one or more of Jeffress and Knebel are more seriously injured then we’re led to believe.the timing of “ serious negotiations “coincides nicely with Knebel. Maybe it’s just Stearns covering the bases, or maybe he sees a potential World Series slipping away and Kimbrel is the only pen arm available to him to help save our season.

He’s not signed yet. His agent has the same news about jeffress and Knebel we do if not more, how could this NOT affect stearns bargaining position. Here’s my new guess IF we sign him: 4 years 76 mil with mutual option at 20 mil with 4 mil buy-out. Shattering the Aav Record for a relief pitcher. hope I’m wrong I prefer 3 years.

There, I took a deep breath. I’ll feel better when they sign Kimbrel.

Knebel has some dead arm. It happens to pretty all pitchers at some point. Disagree, doesn’t happen to all pitchers at some point. It’s in the Brewers best interest to downplay the possible injuries to jeffress AND Knebel.The Brewers NEED Kimbrel and his agent not stupid. Brewers in trouble here, even if they get Kimbrel. He won’t make up for not having TWO of our best high leverage pen arms. I’m more than concerned, I’m scared. Sign Kimbrel and I’ll just be concerned.

Ennder it’s close, you can have Smith, Lopez, Richards, and Alcantara since they’re probably going to go with the six man rotation at least to start the year. I’ll take our three and let’s just see who performs better. Marlins better than some think, going to surprise some people this year.

Hoping it’s 3 years and I don’t care for how much. We can use his talents to win a World Series or two.

It’s just bad timing on knebel with stearns trying to sign Kimbrel for as low a deal as possible, apparently.

Knebel has some dead arm. It happens to pretty all pitchers at some point. Let’s hope that’s all it is

With Knebel possible “Dead arm” he’ll probably be pitching in brewers big league pen sooner rather than later.

Guys need to read markedman post in pitching staff thread.

Who would have thought that the Brewers even if they sign Kimbrel will have a pen not as strong as they did 2 weeks ago. The last time Knebel pitched was on mlb channel and he sat 94 and I remember thinking well maybe it’s just spring training, not surprised.

Expect the signing very soon. With knebel now “not throwing” better be imminent or the price going way up.

What’s goin on with “no pain” but can’t throw? What if jeffress and knebel told to say that till Kimbrel signed so not held hostage? Well there goes the strong pen.

Yes, thought it odd too. My favorite was stearns “no comment “. I’m sure he’s boiling over all the talk. With all the players comments, I think it puts extra pressure to get a deal done, for fear of disappointment and letdown.

IMHO the jeffress “shoulder weakness” is troublesome. Am I the only one that finds a drop of 13 mph with the FB scary concerning, especially with the way Jeffress pitched to end last year? I think the brewers are way more concerned than there letting on. What if jeffress doesn’t come back or is not effective when he does? Is our pen still strong without arguably our best high leverage reliever from last year, not to mention no Burnes, no woodruff, no Soria. That’s potentially 4 of our top 6 pen arms missing from last year, at least missing the 4 games against cards in March and all of April which arguably is our toughest month schedule wise. Aren’t some of us overrating our early season pen?

I can't confidently say we have two above average starters. The range of outcomes of this rotation are from replacement level to well above average. The Youngs guys had success last year but they all have big time warts too. Are we talking about the same team? I’m talking about the brewers. Are you talking about the Marlins?

I don’t understand how some people think our starting pitching isn’t a massive strength THIS year. 5 starters better than Davies a strength.