brewerfan82

Yeah this is getting close to "letting Yelich take a day off" crazy. 2019 Brewers before Hiura (and with really bad Shaw): 24-19 2019 Brewers with Hiura: 10-7 This is a temporary move and there are 102 games left in the season. This is a good team with or without Hiura in the majors for a few weeks, things will be okay.

Ha, alright: CF Gamel/Cain - .728/.643 OPS RF Yelich (L) - 1.018 OPS LF Braun ® - .786 OPS 2B Moustakas (L) - 1.012 OPS C Grandal (S) - 1.185 OPS 3B Shaw (L) - .548 OPS (with a chance to return to the .844 OPS he had the previous two years combined) 1B Thames (L) - .878 OPS SS Arcia ® - .892 OPS Still looks pretty okay to me.

I won't argue that Hiura hasn't been very good and Shaw thus far has been very bad, but I don't think the offense depends on Hiura either. Using stats since Hiura's callup (just to use the same sample size that we're judging Hiura on), you could put together a pretty nice lineup without him involved: CF Gamel/Cain - .728/.643 OPS RF Yelich (L) - 1.018 OPS LF Braun ® - .786 OPS 3B Moustakas (L) - 1.012 OPS C Grandal (S) - 1.185 OPS 1B Thames (L) - .878 OPS SS Arcia ® - .892 OPS 2B Perez ® - .824 OPS

The problem with the eye test in this situation is it's much easier feel like someone screwed something up that was preventable when you see a runner get thrown out at home in comparison to the next batter flying out to end the inning. But even if the runner is thrown out half the time, that's likely going to score the run more often than if you just let the next guy hit. So if guys aren't getting thrown out, you're most likely losing runs by being too conservative. As others have stated, there's a ton of chance in play when sending a guy home. So even when it looks like a guy is going to be out by 10 feet, with the chance of a bad throw/a mishandled catch/a dropped ball/a great slide, there's still a pretty good chance the run's going to score more often with the send than with the 30% or whatever chance that they'll score by letting the inning play out.

That is pretty unbelievable. Hard to believe they've been as competitive as they've been with that many misses. Here's the list for anyone interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Milwaukee_Brewers_first-round_draft_picks

Edit: Removed my own post to minimize the thread from veering off course, there are more productive ways to react to some posts anyways Go Brewers! Continue the strong start to the season!

Here's Quintana vs. the current Brewers:

Good call, not a ton of at bats, but he's faired pretty well against them.

Well so far this year, the Brewers are 5th in baseball with a .826 OPS vs. LHP, while only 16th with a .743 OPS vs. RHP. And if you go back to the start of last year, they're 6th in the MLB with a .758 OPS vs. LHP and 12th with a .748 OPS vs. RHP. So may not be the soundest of strategies to load up lefties against them.

I'm still holding onto him in my league, so his continued struggles could be my fault at this point. (although I may be immune to the curse seeing as I've had Yelich the past two years as well) From a fantasy standpoint, his ceiling is still too good for a guy that qualifies at 1B, 2B, and 3B for me to let go of yet. As a bench player he offers a ton of flexibility and is better than anyone I could grab off the scrap heap at this point.

Agreed. With teams no longer having to sacrifice draft picks, their pool of suitors will increase and the amount of money they're willing to pay will jump as well (maybe not to the point they would have paid in the offseason, but certainly more than they would at any point between now and in a few weeks when they no longer having to give up a pick). There's likely not much incentive for either pitcher to sign with a team before the draft at this point. Not sure if an increase in suitors and the fact that the value change of not giving up a pick is less for the Crew than other teams (ie. they'd currently be giving up a lesser draft pick than other teams) takes the Brewers out of the running or not. Despite the lower draft pick, the Brewers may still value that pick more than other teams. Add to that that of all the contenders, the Brewers have arguably the most to gain by improving their pitching, and they may still be in a good position to take advantage of being able to add another pitcher or two without trading away any prospects.

Well best case, one more run. Worst case, they pitch slightly differently/Yeli bats slightly differently and they get no runs. I'll take the sac fly and 2-run bomb

Looks like the Kimbrel/Jeffress connection stems from this Morosi article on 4/16: https://www.brewcrewball.com/2019/4/16/18411188/craig-kimbrel-moving-closer-to-decision-brewers-remain-in-touch-with-representatives-dallas-keuchel

Time to pour it on

Is there a Less-Than-Quality Start category for 6+ runs in 3 or fewer innings?

First of all, this post didn't age well. Second of all, how can you say they hadn't "poured it on"? They scored 2 in the first, 4 in the second, and 2 more in the third. Im pretty sure thats the definition of pouring it on. [sarcasm]Yeah, but they don't pour it on *after* they pour it on.[/sarcasm]

Not trying to call you out, I've heard this before from other posters too, but I'm just curious what's different about the Brewers that makes this true for them and not other teams? I know you didn't ask me but I think there is a viable explanation. Supposedly a lot of agents have anonymously said that Stearns is a great guy but that he's among the most strict in all of baseball in terms of having a price that he's willing to meet and sticking to it. So if Kimbrel is waiting for teams to improve their offer, that means the Brewers are probably out. We can debate the merits of that approach all we want ("they need him more now, so they should increase their offer") but there are long-term negotiating benefits that go with earning that reputation. That makes sense, I can buy that. I like the "stubborn-ness" that Stearns has shown in sticking to his valuation of players and think it definitely benefits a team like Milwaukee in their market in the long run. Losing Knebel, plus Hader getting worked a lot in 1-run games could test that patience, but I agree, I don't think we see a panic move on Stearns' side of the negotiations. Conversely, what offers Kimbrel's seen from each team, how anything the Brewers' have put out there compares, and how much more patience *he* has at this point, I have no idea.

Not trying to call you out, I've heard this before from other posters too, but I'm just curious what's different about the Brewers that makes this true for them and not other teams?

This one's on the offense at this point. Let's get some runs!

Pittsburgh back on top 5-4 on a Moran HR! Nobody out in the bottom of the 8th.

And it's tied now... 4-4, Cards batting with two outs and a man on 2nd in the top of the 8th

I think it's funny.

Kimbrel really would be the icing on the cake of an already nice, and underrated, offseason (signed the best FA catcher, re-signed a 3B bat to play 2nd until the best 2B prospect in the game comes up, added bullpen depth with Claudio/Fields/Petricka). Our bullpen is strong enough that I don't even care if Kimbrel's only used in a non-optimized, strict, closer's role. Freeing up a lefty Hader and righty Knebel to play matchups in the biggest situations getting to the 9th is sick. Throw in Jeffress, Claudio, and a slew of other guys that could easily have big roles this year to fill in the rest is pretty ridiculous.

There we go, this guy’s stats better than half our pen arms now. Feel 5% better about our pen already. I like the pickup, but I think you're letting some small sample observations really sway your opinion on some of the bullpen arms. 2017-18 Stats as a Reliever (note, I normally prefer 3 year splits, but I didn't want Fields' less than stellar '16 to pull his stats down too far):

That's an interesting idea. However, while I agree that theoretically pitchers should be able to warm up safely beforehand, it feels like there'd be a lot of pushback on that idea for safety reasons. That said, I do agree that there should be a way to get out of the 3 hitter minimum and whatever "punishment" that incurs should apply whether an injury occurs or not to avoid teams faking injuries. So at that point it's a matter of making sure 1.) the "punishment" is harsh enough to avoid teams just routinely taking the hit, and 2.) the punishment isn't unfairly harsh to pitchers that actually have an injury. With them rolling this out in the minors for a year first, it'll be interesting to see if they decide a tweak like this is needed before bringing it to the majors. Here are a couple ideas I've had or heard on the board in regards to a pitcher not reaching the 3 hitter minimum: 1.) Zurch's Goalie Rule - No mound warmup allowed for incoming pitcher. The more I think about this the more I like it. The obvious caveat is that people will be worried that managers won't have a reliever ready to go and they'll risk further injury by bringing a guy in cold. However, if the real goal of the 3 hitter minimum is to reduce down time, this accomplishes that in several ways: 1.) encourages teams to reduce pitching changes, 2.) encourages managers to make sure relievers are ready to go right away when needed, 3.) reduces commercial breaks caused by pitching changes. 2.) Forced Injury List - If you take a pitcher out early, he must go on the IL. I think this is a viable possibility as long as it's not a full IL stint, which would be too harsh in some real injury situations. Perhaps a 3-day ineligible time period would be more appropriate. If a player truly tweaked something, this would be a reasonable amount of time to let them recover anyways. 3.) Just Enforce the Rule - If you want to take a pitcher out early, too bad, you just have to walk however many batters needed to fill the minimum. This could also just be the fallback option for a manager anyways if he wants to avoid whatever punishment is in place for not meeting the minimum batter requirement. Since you don't even need to pitch to a batter to issue an intentional walk, it doesn't risk further injury to the current pitcher and it also doesn't add as much "dead" time as having him actually pitch to additional batters. Also, while this is a little bit of a stretch, I'd argue while it puts the team in a bigger jam and may increase scoring in the game, adding extra runners to the basepaths actually creates more out possibilities for the next pitcher and may actually increase the likelihood of them getting an out or a doubleplay to end the inning sooner than if the walks weren't enforced. I find it really interesting to think about, however, I also wonder if this rule is just being proposed as a future bargaining chip for negotiations in the next CBA.