rluzinski

With a win tomorrow, the Brewers will be 6 games over .500 for the first time this year.

3 games out of the wildcard! Things are starting to heat up.

We have two of our weakest hitters batting 1st and 2nd in this game. Very odd.

Torres has been a savior so far.

Now the fans are booing Mota as well. I guess he was asking for it as well. As a Brewer fan, I think we kinda suck.

Mota is just not a very good pitcher, IMO. Thank gosh for that DP. The fact that he's our 8th inning guy is not good. I can only hope that Gagne can come back and earn the right to be pitching in either the 8th or 9th at some point. As for whether hall "deserves" to be booed, I don't even get that far. I care a lot more about the Brewers getting the win than anything else. I don't see how booing hall helps the Brewers win.

Our classy fans are booing the crap out of Hall. So proud to be a Brewer fan these days.

I can't describe how much better than insurance run makes me feel.

Braun still struggling with that low-outside pitch way out of the strike zone.

And KC just tied their game against Cardinals in the 8th, 2-2. 3 games back and in second place in the WC race after tonight?

I think some (including myself) get a little too hung up on pitch counts but 120+ pitches every outing is just asking for trouble. 108 pitches is nothing to sneeze at.

90 pitches for Sheets through 5 IP. Hopefully, the Brewers can get 2 more innings out of him.

Wow, other teams give up little league runs as well, I guess. Sheets with 3 RBIs on the year!

Wow, Brewers really lucky to have scored on that little nub hit. He could have been called out, for sure. I'll take it.

That's amazing! It still begs the question, what's the winning pct. for a team when the starter goes 6ip, 3ER? The greatest toy ever: Baseball-Reference: PI From 2004-2007, there were 906 "perfect quality starts". Of those, 449 ended in a win for the pitcher, 49%. It makes sense that it's a bit worse than 50%, since 3 earned runs can translate into 4+ total runs. win% for games with 3 runs (not ER) in 6 IP is 52.2%. Again, I appreciate someone objecting to calling a performance that giives your team a coin flip chance of winning a "quality start" but let's not get hung up on the name and just accept it for what it is. It's very slightly above average. And I don't really believe that Bush is even an average starting pitcher anymore. I just thought I'd take a little closer look at the quality start. That's all.

Regarding the Cubs' division lead, circumstances are a bit different than 2007, but the gap between the Cubs and Brewers is essentially the same now as it was last year. I think there's a very large difference, though: June 21st, 2007 Brewers: 41 - 31, GB: 0, run differential: +18 Cubs: 32 - 39, GB: 8.5, run differential: +17 Those numbers suggest what we all now know; the Brewers were slightly overperforming early and the Cubs were seriously underperforming. Don't get me wrong, the Cubs were still serious underdogs at that point but they were at least the Brewers' equal. This year, the Cubs have the best record in baseball and have more than earned that record (+ 107 run diff. in June!!). The Brewers, on the other hand, are probably a little lucky to be 4 games over .500 right now. The Cubs are clearly the superior team.

I personally am shocked with the amount of venom that objectivity is being met with here. Frankly, I'm not anymore. Trying to have rationale discussions on this board is becoming very difficult. I spend a lot of time writing up what I hope to be a good explanation for the opinions that I hold and they continue to be shot down with one sentence, staw-man counter arguments that make little or no sense. I don't expect to be able to sway many with my arguments but I doubt most arguing so strongly against me even take the time to even read and understand what I'm trying to say. I'm wasting my time. It seems like "He doesn't walk enough" is the ultimate cookie cutter argument when someone wants to criticize a player for his offense. Yes, that explains my motivation perfectly. I simply don't like Ryan Braun and will do anything in my power to destroy him. You have exposed me as the fraud that I am. Well played. Exit, stage right.

Wait a minute there, it's people like you that are using OBP as "the deciding factor". Read the thread and stop wasting my time.

Tell me how many fans are looking to watch McClouth walk to first vs Braun hitting a monster homerun to any field? McClouth and his crappy .560 SLG should stay home! BooOOooOO! On pace for 35 HR? You suck! HAHA OMG! According to the OBP factor, Ric K Weeks is a better choice for the All-Star game over Braun then? Sheesh. Either you are purposely distorting the argument to make an easy target or you aren't grasping what's even being argued here. Either way, you can do better.

Also, I can see people objecting to looking at the value of someone's perfomance based on the "average situation". For All Star voting, many fans want to know the context and direct result of a player's performance for a given season and that's not unreasonable. In that case, I might use something like runs produced (R + RBI - HR). Here are the leaders this year: PLAYER TEAM runs Prod Carlos Beltran NYM 88 Nate McLouth PIT 87 Ryan Ludwick STL 83 Ryan Braun MIL 77 Xavier Nady PIT 75 Jason Bay PIT 74 Carlos Lee HOU 72 Kosuke Fukudome CHC 70 Pat Burrell PHI 69 Jeff Francoeur ATL 69 Close but no cigar. But as fans, we really don't care about runs, we are about wins, right? Braun hitting that 2 run shot last night in the 8th was nearly valueless, correct? So maybe we shoudl be using smething like WPA (win probability added). You just find the diffierence between the odds of a team winning their game before and after a player's AB. Add up all those little differences for each PA and you get WPA. Here you go: Fangraphs Link Name Team WPA Pat Burrell Phillies 4.40 Jason Bay Pirates 2.81 Matt Holliday Rockies 2.49 Ryan Ludwick Cardinals 2.33 Kosuke Fukudome Cubs 1.87 Nate McLouth Pirates 1.76 Adam Dunn Reds 1.56 Xavier Nady Pirates 1.54 Jeremy Hermida Marlins 1.40 Fred Lewis Giants 1.37 Ryan Braun Brewers 1.34 Carlos Lee Astros 1.26 Wow, Braun only 11th. All those outs probably hurts him here. It's tough to make Braun among the 3 most valuable NL outfielders by any objective measure. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want you guys to vote for him anyway.

I was looking at those projections Russ...and again, not a stathead, but aren't the Brewers the favorite right now to WIN the wild card? at 23% ?? Or is that just that way because they have to deduct points from the wild card slot for STL to put them into the division slot for STL? They are the "favorites" sure but you are right that winning the division kind of muddies the water a little bit. I like to just looks at the expected win total for each team and adjust for how many teams will win the division. BP's playoff odds bother me... the Brewers jumped 9% after last night's win. Did we really improve our odds from 1 in 5 to nearly 1 in 3 by beating the Blue Jays while a few teams ahead of us lost? It was a perfect night for the Brewers, as they won and every single team with a reasonable chance of standing in the way the post season lost: Brewers win Cubs lost Cards lost Mets lost Braves lost Philli lost Florida lost Reds lost Assuming each game was a coin flip, there was only a 1 in 256 chance of that happening. When very unlikely things happen, the odds can change quickly, even in June. I agree that it seems "too " large but that's just how it works.

You did not really answer the question that the gentlemen posed. How many runs would actually score if Ryan Braun walked 20 more times as opposed to swinging at pitches in the zone and making an out / hitting an extra base hit and scoring that way? Because seemingly, while it may be 28 extra at bats, if they are unproductive at-bats by Fielder, Branyan, etc, then all those extra at-bats did was tire my hitters for the ability to hit and field later in the game? I forgot my time machine at home, so I can't go back and see what the players would have done with those extra AB. Everything I've said is based on "average situation" production. To give some kind of comparison between the average value of different batting events, let's compare Braun to his walk-happy twin brother, Brain,and see what I have to do to make their production equal. If I take 6 Braun HRs and turn them into walks, then take 14 Braun outs and turn them into walks: Player AB H D T HR BB HBP SF SH BA OBP SLG OPS wOBA Braun 285 83 18 3 20 12 2 2 0 .291 .322 .586 .908 .379 Brain 285 83 18 3 14 32 2 2 0 .291 .364 .523 .887 .380 wOBA is "weighted on base average". It just looks at the average run value of each batting event (linear weights) and divides by total PA. The version I used: wOBA = (0.72 BB + 0.75 HBP + 0.90 1B + 1.24 2B + 1.56 3B + 1.95 HR) / PA Brain has a SLG 63 points lower but by virtue of 42 extra points of OBP, has equal offensive value, in terms of expected runs scored. Would Brain have really scored as many runs for the team as Braun has so far? That depends on when Brain walked instead of HRd, when Brain walked instead of made an out and what the batters after Brain did. This is just a best-guess. With Fielder and Hart batting after Braun, it's fair to say that Braun is in a good situation to get the best value for his OBP-buck.

If Braun would walk 20 more times this year, how many times would he actually come around and score? The Brewers would have had 20 extra base runners AND about 28 extra ABs on the season. That's not irrelevant.

You have to wonder if the old man gambled it away....

BP says about a 29% chance: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/ps_oddspec.php The main teams the Brewers have to worry about for the wildcard are the Cardinals, Mets and Braves. That's not to say another team wouldn't win it but those are the teams I'm still worried about. You'd really like to think that the Cardinals are destined to fade, however.