formerlybis

Not wanting to really do any of my own research here - could this have been a byproduct of overuse last year?

Agree, but of course, that's baseball. He allowed 4 hits and 3 walks through 4, then a 1-2-3 in the 5th - also only 47 strikes on 86 pitches. But, he did battle and induced a fair number of pop outs in RISP situations. Good enough, He'll have better days.

Shenanigans! Their preferred starting pitcher, Wacha, was scratched due to illness. Twill be mighty suspicious if he ends up in one of the games tomorrow…

I might be totally misremembering this, but didn't the Cubs pitch Horton more innings last season than what "the formula" says (like we kept hearing for Miz)? Disregard if that's not accurate, but if it is, are the chickens coming home to roost with this? Or does that only apply to the season where you exceed the innings? Just curious. Also can happen to anyone at any time, and maybe this is nothing, too.

Since this is the optimism thread. I'll suggest that the post-lockout world will - somehow - allow teams like the Brewers to be able to afford to sign players like Turang past their current contract. Then again, maybe we don't want that - we've been good at playing the roster management game as it is...

Possible? Yes. But I think it's more likely that the calculus was that we just need more multi-inning guys in a long series without a healthy Woodruff as one of the starters. Plus, Patrick can play the Mears role, and then go another inning. I do wonder how much rest some of the bullpen arms need between appearances - can Patrick go on consecutive days, for example? It's new to alot of these guys, but you can rest in the offseason.

I mean, how good a manager do you have to be with 3x the payroll and MVPs/All-Stars up and down the roster? Well, I guess the counter-argument is the Mets....

Prior to opening game 2, Ashby was arguably the best pitcher on the entire staff over the last two months of the season (with apologies to Uribe). People have micro-recency bias. And I’d think that by now, all the amateur GMs around here would just concede that these guys have a pretty good idea what they’re doing.

Now THAT was a master class in managing a bullpen/pitching staff. Someone mentioned Myers, and I think if Woodruff isn't ready (which would be surprising if he was), he should be in. I'd think Gasser out.

This goes back to my point that the players executing matters more. Here's my thoughts about these moves if we didn't know the outcome: -Ashby starting: more likely to work than not; I'll say 67% (and the 33% happened) -Mears: 80% -Miz: easily the most risky; I'd say my thoughts were 25%, but with upside reward (and the 25% hit) -Patrick: 70%, and getting him out after one undramatic inning was ideal. My faith in him is increasing with each outing. -Koenig: 80%, and starting the 8th was fully justified -Megill: 90% - Coming in with a 4-run lead, bases empty and one out was perfect (and a no-brainer). He needed the work, and this was a medium-low leverage situation. If I'm being honest, I don't fully trust he's high-leverage worthy at the moment. -Uribe: 80% - a couple of concerns for not being higher. First, rust - turned out to be unfounded. Second, we had used all the other trusted relievers, so if he did get into trouble, we'd only have Anderson or Gasser to try and salvage it. A 4-run cushion, though, so it is pretty unlikely to get into that much trouble. No way would I have used anyone else there, though. That's obviously unscientific, but if you use my probabilities, the chances of all the positive outcomes that turned out well hitting are .8*.25*.8*.9*,8 = 11.5%. Take out my 25% chance on Miz being successful and it's still 46% (roughly 50-50). The players are the ones who increase the odds

Someone made the point in the other thread that in hindsight, if you're going to do a bullpen game, it's a better idea to do it when there's an off day the next day. Everyone except probably Miz is available tomorrow (iffy on Ashby, but he could easily come in to close out an inning)

Execution matters infinitely more than strategy & tactics - not that they're meaningless, but execution flaws can't save sound strategy (e.g., pitching Ashby who's been the best pitcher on the staff over the last two months), and brilliant execution can overcome questionable strategy (e.g., pitching Miz in a postseason tie game). The players deserve the credit for performing way more than the manager does for putting them in those positions. This is the reason I'm pretty zen about all the managerial decisions - up to the players to execute.

Just for the record, Koenig did pitch the 8th game 1. Mostly agree with the sentiment, but I don't nearly care about knocking off rust more than doing whatever it takes to secure a win tonight. My guess is we'll see just about the whole gang in game 3.

Truthfully, I think Ashby is our best multi inning pitcher right now, and you can probably drop the multi inning qualifier, too. As an old school guy, I’d rather have him be a bridge to the back end of the BP, but I don’t know why it has to be that way - as long as Aarquinn Priestby gets us through the 6th, it’s a fine plan

Maybe discussing trading Peralta deserves its own thread outside the IGT. It's a good, meaty topic, but seems like a big distraction to discussing this game or the series. I'm immediately on to thinking about game 2, which seems really pivotal.

I wouldn't mind getting Megill getting in somewhere in this - he only had that one inning against Cincy

How depressed will you be if the Padres come back and sink your Cubs? I think we probably wouldn't see you post here for 6 months at least.

Yeah, I think that's basically it (and Torvik's FUN is "fortune unexplained by numbers or failure unexplained by numbers") and is very similar. I'll leave it at that - all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Since the end of the game on Sunday, I've been mentally preparing myself for the Cubs. I. like probably everyone, have been dreading all those FIBs in the stands for weeks now. But ... serenity now. Bring it on, whoever's next.

Oh you hit another favorite topic (maybe you knew that, as I do a regular recap of Badger hoops games by the analytics on one of their sites). I won't derail things too much here, only to say that KenPom and others always have a catch-all category called "luck" (or "F.U.N." on Torvik) which captures either randomness or variation that is (currently) unexplained. I think those guys are always searching for more explanatory data (and I would guess upwards of 95% of teams now use some form of PPP as a strategy from high school on up, too, so that's no longer unique). In baseball, especially before the season starts, I just can't fathom how you'd account for something like the acquisitions of Priester and Vaughn, and their subsequent effectiveness beyond their historical performance. I just don't think there *is* data. Maybe you can give some adjuster to the Dodgers and Yankees always being able to bolster themselves, but not MKE.

If I were the modeler at Fangraphs, I might look into whether the algorithm needs a Brewers/Angels tweak. It’s the consistent over and under that makes you wonder whether there’s a missing variable.

Thanks for doing all that work. What we don't know is how much pressure was put on those other teams in the last 40 games by their nearest pursuers. The Brewers had very little this year - they didn't *need* to do more. Maybe those previous playoff years they did, IIRC.

Unfortunately, I am "that guy"...Pedantically, we need 11 wins, not a "magic number" of 11. Everyone knew what you meant, though. Gonna be a long week

and now the Phillies are exposed…