rluzinski

I think they felt he was going to be better than that but now are willing to live with average for the remainder year. I'd guess that they were expecting something like: League Average: 30% chance Above Average: 50% chance Old Gagne: 20% chance If it was, it wasn't very reasonable, IMO.

I think in football, to retaliate for a cheap shot, they should purposely fumble the ball, so they can cheap shot the opponent back when he recovers it. That would make about as much sense.

I guess it boils down to whether or not you think you're getting Gagne prior to 2005 or the one that blew up in Boston. Do you think the possibility I suggested (league average Gagne) is so ridiculous that you refuse to even acknowledge its existence? I just don't know about rolling the dice with him for one year at $10 million. I sort of understand the logic, but he was just so far removed from his prime, both in terms of time elapsed and injuries suffered. They must have thought there was a reasonable chance of Gagne returning to form based on scouting information. I think it's pretty clear that Milwaukee paid a premium for the 1 year deal, though, so it's probably not fair to say that the Brewers ever expected $10 mil worth of performance out of him. $7 mil, maybe? What does that usually buy you?

It could be all sorts of different things. I'm guessing moving from the NL to the AL "bought" Gagne some time since hitters were as familiar with him. Once they were more familiar with him (i.e. more video tape of him to scout after his injuries) they knew what he was all about. And being "figured out" adds 4+ runs to a pitcher's ERA? I don't even think the "changing leagues" factor is even real to begin with. If it easy, it's probably much more subtle than you are suggesting. Gagne pitched 18.2 innings with Boston, so it's hard to take it too seriously. Heck, his Texas stint was only 33 innings. Add that to him basically being out of the league for the previous 2 years and it's impossible to use his recent performance to come up with any firm expectations. I don't think expecting league average relief performance (4ish ERA) is unrealistic, though. He still has the raw tools to compete in the majors (he's not throwing 85 MPH, or anything like that).

Gagne is pitching like he was in Boston so it's not a big shock. If it's not a shock to you, what do you think is the explanation of the performance difference between Texas and Boston last year?

This is exactly the kind of analysis you get if you ignore everything except the results of the current year. It's pretty silly to write off Cameron after 135 AB. And despite that embarrassing play yesterday, Cam's defense has been everything we could have hoped for. To expect Kapler to outperform Cameron over the balance of the year is pretty hard to justify... well, unless you only look at the results of this year. Gagne was never worth $10 to begin with but Melvin and Mark A. were gambling that he would regain his old form, apparently. I don't think he'll ever be anything close to what he was in the past but you'd expect him to at least come back and earn some of that $10 mil. When you look at the backend of the bullpen, the bar isn't exactly set high.

I agree that arguing against the result of a move is silly. I complained about the bean ball war, Hernan AB and Tavares being called in BEFORE the results of those moves, however. I complained about them because I thought they were the wrong moves, IMO, irrespective of their outcome. Does Yost get 100% of the loss tonight? Of course not. He only gets a small percentage of it. But when he gets a small percentage of a loss 50 times in a year, it adds up pretty quick. That ball Cameron misplayed was just awful. How does a gold glove CF not make that play. I guess I can't bash Yost for not putting him in for Kapler in Colorado. Unless you think that great defenders never make mistakes, this comment makes little sense.

Vent thread is going to be hot tonight. Yost goes with his worst pinch hitter and worst reliever in the biggest key spots of the game. Niiiiiiiicccccccccceee!!!!!!!! Yost: "Well, he's been great in 4 IP with us, so I thought I would ignore the previous 300 innings over the last 3 years."

HA! Tavarez getting crazy with some leg whippin' side arm craziness. >|

I'm still trying to figure out why Tavarez is in there after a day off in a close game. Did it really only take those couple of appearances to fool Yost? Does he know anything about the history of his players?

Ack. Tavarez? Isn't he the guy you throw in when the game is mostly over?

We have to save Counsell for when they need a HR... ?

Sheets pitched in Rookie ball in 2006 if you remember. Maybe they were sending him a message as well.

So do you think hitting Braun for Fielder with two on is any better? I think it's stupid in both situations but at least the Astros were setting up the dp. O yeh.... also Oswalt is a good pitcher and McClung is not.

Seeing the Tejada play again, I don't know if that was on purpose... The first pitch to him was middle in, that caused Tejada to scoot back. The second one was same location, just inside enough so that Tejada had no chacne to get out of the way. Pretty obvious. Only in baseball would a team try to punish another by helping them. Just asinine.

Ned Yost and everyone who called for that HBP just look stupid right now. I don't care if that's PC or not to say.

Baseball is so stupid.

Yeh, I can only hope McClung starts hitting guys as well. It will go well with all his walks. Screw winning, this is about being a man!

Why does everyone keep pretending that hardy did so well in the #2 spot last year: http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/splits?playerId=5908&type=batting&year=2007 That was an interesting HBP.

Wow, that's a pretty good lineup. Not a big fan of Hardy over Cameron at #2 but overall, looks great.

I think that the sample-wide uptick after pitch 100 has more to do with the selection bias issues, though. O, I agree. The sample of pitchers in the 1-10 pitch bucket are not the same guys in the 100-110 bucket. Just seeing how varied the graphs are from hte guys Josh looked at, I wouldn't be comfortable assuming any "standard" curve for a starting pitcher.

Keep in mind that sample size issues are even more prevelant with defensive metrics than with offensive ones. This would be like 75 AB, or something along those lines. So we just have to be careful assuming that these numbers represeent "true skill". He gave the rest of the Brewers infield: Branyan is +3 runs at 3B in 10 "games." Counsell is -2 runs in 22 odd games at various positions. Dillon is -1 in 10 games at various positions. Fielder is -6 runs in 58 games. Hall is -6 runs in 46 games. Hardy is -7 in 66 games. Rivera is -1 run in 1 game. Weeks is -4 in 69 games. TOTAL: -24 runs Wow. That's bad. The offense was +9, although Cameron might be all of the that.

Ask yourself this, what kind of pitcher is routinely allowed to throw more pitches than 100? Is this pitcher less or more likely than a pitcher who is pulled by pitch 100 in virtually all his starts to maintain more of his fastball velocity throughout his start? I was specifically thinking of Sheets when I made that comment. I took a look at his first 3 starts and got 3 diferent velocity curves: It took him a long time to get up his velocity in his first start (not too surprising): http://bp1.blogger.com/_6re9ICYATiE/R_ROQUaWHtI/AAAAAAAAACU/DUat1cJa7E0/s400/sheets_small.jpg (NOTE: I'm only looking at fastball pitches, which I don't think is the right way to look at it, in retrospect) It took a little less time to get his velocity up there in his second start: http://bp0.blogger.com/_6re9ICYATiE/R_rS9kaWHuI/AAAAAAAAACc/4j7-xIFeAyw/s400/sheets0406.jpg Those starts are pretty representative of what Josh found in the aggregate: http://baseball.bornbybits.com/THT/Sheets.gif What about that uptick? Well Sheets (and I assume other starting pitchers) are willing and/or able to add a couple miles an hour to their fastball if they need to. That's what I think we saw during Sheet's third start:: http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20080412&content_id=2519819&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&team=away&c_id=mil The last fastball Sheets through was also one of his fastest (On his 115th pitch in the 8th, he was trying to strikeout Beltran to get the final out of the inning): http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/fastball_vel_0412.jpg He did the same thing thing trying to finish the complete game against the Astros a couple starts back. He threw a 96 MPH fastball to Berkman on his 116th pitch of the evening. I don't think he always does that though. Just when he wants to.

There is private flood insurance but it's expensive and not everyone can get it.

If you filled an entire music store with these, I'm not sure if any of them would catch your eye as being fake. Bravo.