rluzinski

In the immortal words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard , "The line must be drawn HEEE-ARRR! This far and no further!"

Seems more of an inability to do math than any knee-jerk response. 163>156, 131>110 and 187>111. It's simple when you know what the squiggly little characters mean. The first projection system I looked at basically saw Fielder and Berkman as even for 2008 but if you account for the 100 AB from this year, Berkman is slightly ahead. That said, no projection system put the Astos ahead of the Brewers before the season started: http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/comments/the_2008_diamond_mind_projection_blowout_pt_2 ... and even with Yo's injury and the Brewers bad start, I don't think the Astros are a better team overall.

He had one outlier month in June, but for most of last year, pitched like he has this year. Bush currently has a 6.48 ERA and a 5.38 FIP in 23 innings this year. To say he pitched like that for most of 2007 is just not accurate. I'm trying to remember exactly what the argument about Bush was in 2007 (and I have no idea what your position was Russ) It was the the exact same luck/sample size vs. "he's obviously getting hit hard and probably will continue to" debate we are having right now with Gagne. I love stats as much as anyone but trying to analyse small samples is a waste of time. Too much uncertainty. We'd be better off trying to look at his fastball velocity or the movement on his off speed pitches. Maybe focus on his machanics. Anything but the results of 14 innings. but I think in early 2007 there were expectations that he would be closer to a 3.50 ERA guy (as he was near the end of 2006) instead of a +5 ERA guy. I don't think anyone expected Bush to maintain the +6.00 ERA he had in April throughout 2007, but I didn't expect him to get down around 4.00 either, and he didn't. 4.0 ERA? 3.5 ERA? I don't know who those people were but it sure wasn't me. He had a Marcels projection of 4.22 ERA and he had about a 4.40 ERA over the previous 2 years. Somewhere in that ballpark would have been a realistic expectation. His bad 2007 season lowered his 2008 Marcel projection to 4.55 ERA. That's about what I expect from him, going forward. Gagne isn't an easy guy to project using a sabermetric approach because his substantial injuries have limited the innings he's pitched over the last 3 years. He had a 3.81 ERA and a 3.30 FIP in the AL last year, which is pretty decent but again, we are only talking about 52 innings. His Marcel projection is only 4.24 ERA but that's because it's so regressed to the mean so much because of lack of data. Mevlin and his scouting team must have seen something that made them conifident that Gagne would be a good bet going forward. I would have told Melvin that he probably wasn't worth the $10 mil risk and guessed at a high 3 ERA.

I think all these examples should highlight just how different these two statements are: 1. Player A IS better than Player B 2. Player A has better results than Player B over some period of time

I was assured last year that Bush's ERA would be well under 5.00 last year, and that never happened. You were assured by me (I'm certainly not speaking for that whole thread) that because of how bad Bush's start was in 2007, bad luck was almost certainly part of the culprit and as a result, he was bound to improve. Let's look at his first 10 starts and then the rest of the season: 10 Starts 3-5 RECORD 6.13 ERA 1.75 BB/9 6.71 K/9 1.17 HR/9 .304/.345/.492/.837 AGAINST 21 Starts 9-5 RECORD 4.62 ERA 2.31 BB/9 6.35 K/9 1.37 HR/9 .284/.335/.469/.804 AGAINST His core stats (K, BB and HR) were actually a bit worse but he had better results with balls in play. His ERA improved because it was bound to improve. Nothing bold about that prediction. I said this in the Bush thread last year and I'll say it again here: Look at the most unexpected performances a month or two into the season (in Bush's case, it was his ERA) and predict that it will be closer to preseason expectations going forward. You'll be right a lot more often than you'll be wrong and it's easy to prove statistically. If Gagne was giving up a ton of singles, I could really get behind the idea that Gagne would start regressing towards the mean, however I think reducing the BB rate and HR rate is a much taller order. I don't think Gagne will continue to pitch "off-the charts" bad, but he is going to have to make more than an incremental improvement, and I am not a big fan of expecting more than incremental improvements. Generally speaking, regression to the mean" isn't something you should sometimes not expect It is a fundamental law that needs to be adhered to when you are trying to extract "true skill" from a sample of results. Unless Gagne is hurt or has turned into a head case (and I don't believe either to be the case), it is much more likely that both those rates, going forward, will be closer to league average than to where they are currently. Gagne (current): 6.14 BB/9 2.45 HR/9 NL Average (2007): 3.25 BB/9 1.02 HR/9 I know where I'd put my money. Where would you put yours? What is your point? -- Clearly Gagne is not an elite closer -- however, I think there is a lot of middle ground in between "elite closer" and "leads MLB in blown saves" I was responding to eanelson4, who seemed to be linking his expectations of Gagne to his salary.

It has to be great being a GM or owner of a small market team. Fans demand that their team signs known, free agents, even if that means they have to overpay to get them. "Not my money!" they love to say. But of course, they then spend the rest of the time judging the player based off that inflated salary. Gagne is being paid like an elite closer. Gagne is not an elite closer. Didn't we already know that?

Some of those are pretty surprising but a few aren't, IMO: 1. The Brewer catchers have not hit a home run yet this season (Rivera was filling in at 1B when he hit his in Chicago). That's not surprising at all. We knew Kendall would get almost all the starts and he has 4 HRs in teh last 3 years. 2. Craig Counsell has 1 RBI in 46 ABs. He's 1 for 12 with RISP. Unless you think he's going to hit a lot of HRs, how many RBI's should the guy have in 12 AB w/RISP? 2? 3? You'd probably only expect 2 hits out of every 12 AB from him, afterall. 8. Prince Fielder has more walks than strikeouts. He had a K/BB ratio of 121/90 last year and hit 50 HRs. I don't think it's that surprising that teams have been hesitant to throw strikes to him for the first month of the season.

It's not the record I'm concerned with. The record given everything is pretty good. But playing the way they are (not hitting, below par starting pitching, spotty relief), there is no way they are going to sustain even a .500 record much less contend. Everyone knows that the Brewers have been playing poorly. The real question is, what do we expect in the future? Should we expect nothing to change and the Brewers to play exactly the same? You could make a lot of cash in Vegas if it was that simple. Forget the Cubs and the Cardinals, Houston looked much more poised to make a run than the Brewers did over the weekend. Yes, based off of 3 games, I would assume that the Astros will fall behind by 4 runs 66% of the time but win those games 100% of the time. What does 3 games tell us about anything? They have the best lineup in the division As in, offense? Either I am misunderstanding your comment or you have no way to support that claim. I swear that if people on message boards had to put money up on the bold assertions they make on a regular basis, there wouldn't be very many bold asserstions being made.

If I were hired as a consultant, I would tell all the players to never listen to consultants and just take the advice of their coaching staff. Ned Yost would get a talking to about some of his in game management strategies, though (not that he's much different than any other major league manager). I'd tell Mark A. to stop smaking Melvin sign "big name" free agents to bloated contracts (e.g. Suppan, Gagne).

IMO we should not be writing off the Cubs or the Cards as if they are going to collapse and give us our opportunity. I would expect the Cardinals to play .500 ball or slightly worse going forward, since they are playing well over their heads right now. The Cubs are a good team, though, so I can only hope for them to stumble.

To look at Gagne's walk rate and HR rate after 14 1/3 innings and expect them to hold steady would be a really bad bet. Both rates are literally off the charts: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/650_P_season_full_2_20080505.png http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/650_P_season_full_4_20080505.png Unless you think Gagne has turned ino the worst pitcher ever to pitch in the majors, it's clear that Gagne's performance so far does not match his true talents. That's not a particularily bold claim, though, when the sample in question is so small and rates in question are so extreme. Gagne has had terrible results so far. I don't see anything obvious indicating that his actual pitching has been as bad as the results, however. He has thrown 187 strikes to 117 balls, and I don't recall him being especially especially wild looking in any of his starts (even this last one). His velocity has been fine as well. Even if we just assume he's a league average reliever (around 4.0 ERA), the results are going to improve tremendously. One month of results just doesn't tell us very much with regard to performance analysis. Before the season started, my opinion of Gagne was that he was a decent but not great reliever and I still feel that way.

I just wanted to point out that I've been playing the latest Mario Kart and I love it. Just want to be fair!

I was in SABR for a year. They sent me a cool little book but overall, it wasn't my thing. It seems more about the history side of things, which really isn't my cup of tea. To be fair, I probably didn't give it a fair shake, though.

To be fair, you need to compare it to the strikezone umps actually call. http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/strike-zone-fact-vs-fiction/ FTJ, where did you find the lines on the strike zone? Remember, the top and bottom of the zone is actually set per batter, so you'd have to dig into the actually pitch f/x data to be fair up and down. I agree though, if the ball is one the line at all, it's a strike.

Those quotes are enough for me to know not to even bother reading it. Crisis mode in May and they aren't even below .500? Righttttt. I will enjoy it when the Cardinals fall apart.

Up the thread here, Russ, you surmised that the YoGa injury drops us only 3 games in the grand scheme of things. Is that the result of a Sabremetric formula, or is it a feeling you have? I'm not jumping on you, because I obviously respect you, but wouldn't you think, just watching them start games, that the difference between a shut-em-down SP like a Gallardo, one who gives us a great chance to win, say, 2/3rd's of the time or better, down to a AAA starter like Dave Bush is more profound than that? First, can Bush please not forever now be called a AAA starter, because he made one start there? I think that's probably a bit unfair. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif There's a huge difference between Bush and Gallardo. Bush is probably expected to give up an extra run per 9 innings (4.7 ERA vs. 3.7 ERA) or about 20 extra runs over 180 innings (I probably shoudl be using 200 innings?). 10 runs = 1 win (rule of thumb that holds up pretty well). so there's 2 wins. I threw in an extra win to account for the effects on the bullpen and other misc. things. I'm not trying to pretend it was some sophisticated sabermetric analysis, just a back-of-the envelope estimation. Someone could probably convince me it's closer to 4 wins when all is accounted for. 6 or 7? I can't see how, personally. People almost always overestimate the effect one player has on a team's record. I can appreciate why, as it just feels that Garrardo isn't even on same planet as Bush, performance-wise. But when you think about it, Bush give up around an extra 2 runs every 3, 6 inning starts. That's alot but it's not dramatically so.

Anyone have PitchFX data on the last Gagne outing? Did the Strike zone infact shrink? According to pitch f/x, those two outside pitches could have easily been called a strike. They could have also both easily been called a ball as well, though (they were right on the line). You just hope the calls even out and obviously, they didn't during that AB. Personally, I'm sick of games being decided by the the subjective calls of the officials. Maybe it's time to ***GASP** realize we are in the 21st century and use some actual technology to improve the accuracy of these calls? Naaaa. Basball was perfected a century ago! Gagne currently has a 6.68 FIP, which only looks at strikeouts, walks and HRs. I'm not sure that I would say that he's pitched well so far even after taking out some unlucky bounces. Andf even if those 4 HRs are flukish as well, he's walked WAY to many batters (10 in 14-1/3 innings). I think he's better than how he's pitched but he's nothing special these days.

You can basically take 3 wins away from the Brewers expected win total (about 86 wins instead of 89). Some players are going to have to exceed their projections and/or the Brewers are going to need a little (not a lot) of luck. Of course, most teams need a little luck to make the playoffs, so I'm not going to sweat that fact in May. Maybe the Brewers have a 25% of making the playoffs now. I'll take that over 0%, which is basically what they had for most of the last decade.

The problem was not that the brewers traded young prospects and acquired linebrink. the problem was that the brewers waited too long before taking any action. if the brewers had acquired Linebrink a month earlier when it was evident there was a problem, they probably would have been able to keep their lead, won 3-5 more games and won the division. 3-5 more games from an extra month of a guy like Linebrink? That's way out there, to say the least. Bush proved last month he's not an adequate starter. But rather than going out and obtaining a starter equal to Gallardo's ability, the brewers are trying to plug the dam with the available gum on hand. Gallardo has been out for less than a week. It's crazy to expect Melvin to have already traded for a sub 3.75 starting pitcher to take his place. He'd be lucky to be able to do it at all. A pitcher like that on the open market is.... well not usually on the open market. a team that always focuses on the long term will never win a pennant. I'm sure you can come up with plenty of your own examples proving that statement wrong. You don't have to trade away all your prospects to win a pennant, as much as sports radio suggests otherwise.

I don't pretend to follow the minors as closely as many here so I need a little help. Why should I be excited about Alcides Escobar right now? Why does Madtown Bomber say he is "coming and coming quick." He had a sub .300 OBP last year and currently is hitting .258/.297/.358/.655 in AA. Even with great defense, does he really have any chance of making the majors in 2009? Even with great defense, you can't just ignore offense and right now, Escobar projects as a .250/.275/.300 hitter in the majors. He doesn't even turn 22 until December. He's got a ways to go, no?

I doesn't think teams are going to care about their production in April when the trade deadline rolls around 3 months from now. I'd be surprised if either were sporting an ERA under 3 by the time the Brewers would even consider trading anyone. Why would you mention those two guys but not Ben Sheets, anyway? He's the guy the Brewers might be able to get something for. Regardless, I doubt the Brewers will be out of it by enough in July for Mark A. to start taking the team apart. They'd probably have to be 10+ games below .500.

Everyone knows that Garne wasn't worth $10 mil. It was simply what Melvin needed to pay him to play in Milwaukee.

Everything has gone wrong and the Brewers are still over .500. Frankly, they have maybe a win or 2 less than I figured they would right now.

Russ, when it's all said and done, I just think Gallardo being gone for 5 months is worth more than 3 games. I'm not going to get in to how many...let's just say more than three. I think it's most fans have a general tendency to overestimate the number of wins a great player has on a baseball team. I always do as well, until I look at the numbers. Remember, an average team wins 81 games and a playoff team wins around 90. The fact that a playoff team wins only 9 extra games more from those 25 players, suggests that any one player can't be worth THAT much over average. Bush is probably expected to give up around an extra run every 9 innings than Gallardo. That's about 20 runs and 2 wins over 180 innings. I added another win to my estimate to try and account for other effects (Bush not being available in the pen for one). That's the 3 wins. If you said it should be 4, I certainly wouldn't call you wrong. And also, let's say that the mythical number is 87...perhaps the Brewers could have exceeded that number by 3. Now, let's say the mythical number without Gallardo is 84...perhaps they'll fall short of that new number by 3. If that makes any sense. I'm just talking about their record based off of skill. A perfectly average team can still easily win 85 or 77 games, depending on how the ball bounces over 162 games. The team with the best record often isn't as good as their record suggests. the same is often true for the team with the worst. Lot's of luck involved.

OK, I probably obsess about this more than most but Pitch f/x and the stadium radar gun has sheets throwing 4, 96 MPH fastball that inning. Are both way fast or is Sheets losing his mind? Sampsons' fastballs are registering at around 88, so I'm skeptical he's really throwing 85. Weird.