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rluzinski

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Everything posted by rluzinski

  1. rluzinski
    Suppan is such a scrappy gamer. He's exactly what this team needs to get to the playoffs. Veteran leadership! MVP!!!! So sick of it.
  2. rluzinski
    Hey, maybe this will at least stop Brian and Bill from acting like SUPPAN IS ACTUALLY SOME GREAT PITCHER. It his gotten really old.
  3. rluzinski
    Once again, Weeks has a very odd looking non-play on defense that goes down as a hit. Ick.
  4. rluzinski
    This is a very minor point to an otherwise very agreeable take but it is not completely irrelevant. It does tell us that he is playing well right now and we might as well use him while he's hot since he inevitably will be so cold at some point this season that he will play to his career numbers. I've said this many times before, but a batter being "hot" or "cold" is almost 100% descriptive and has almost no predictive value. It's easy to imagine a way to test the "hot bat" theory and it has in fact been done many times (the most recent and best, IMO was in "The Book". The effect was so small (something like 5 points of OBP and 10 points) that it's basically negligible. People are just noticing the random bunching of hits and non-hits. A .250 hitter isn't going to go 1 for 4 every night. I've made spreadsheets that simulate the most consistent player in the world (one who has exactly the same probability of a hit every AB) and he's insanely streaky: http://rluzinski.blogspot.com/2006/05/jenkins-and-consistency.html And even if a guy can legitimately and significantly, raise his expected performance level for a short period of time, how the heck would you know? It's going to look exactly like the very typical normal variance all players go through. Coin flip luck. You don't make your lineup based on that.
  5. rluzinski
    No teaching moment. Just made the chart and mde some quick stabs at some observations. I wanted to see if I was missing any other interesting nuggets. One thing to point out. These numbers tell us what has happened for tirst month of the season but may not be representative of the particular batter.s general approach. It wouldn't surprise me to see some very different results for May. I wish we could see these numbers by pitch count but I'd have to use :itch fx data for that, apparently.
  6. rluzinski
    No teaching moment. Just made the chart and mde some quick stabs at some observations. I wanted to see if I was missing any other interesting nuggets. One thing to point out. These numbers tell us what has happened for tirst month of the season but may not be representative of the particular batter.s general approach. It wouldn't surprise me to see some very different results for May. I wish we could see these numbers by pitch count but I'd have to use :itch fx data for that, apparently.
  7. rluzinski
    Counsell has hit well in 37 AB this year, so let's ignore that he hit .248/.337/.351/.688 in 1232 AB over the previous 3 years? What he's done this year, offensively, is irrelevant, IMO. It tells us nothing with regard to future expections. It shouldn't even be entered into this discussion. I am getting to the point (getting to - not there yet) where I wouldnt mind seeing Counsell batting leadoff and playing 2b instead of weeks. Weeks is hitting like garbage but still has an OBP of .325 and a SLG of .330... batting .190! So, it takes Weeks batting below the Mendoza line before his numbers are worse than Counsell's and even then, it's not by much. If people want to give the regulars breaks or would like to enjoy the defensive upgrade Counsell gives once and awhile, I can't disagree. The guy has thousands of AB that prove that he can't hit and at 37 years old, that isn't changing.
  8. rluzinski
    I know that some were complaining that the Brewers weren't swinging enough, so I used some of Fangraph's data to take a quick look at restricted my study to the regulars (Kapler isn't one anymore): http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/platediscipline.jpg Explanation So, even though the Brewers have been thrown about 2% more strikes than average, they have swung less often overall. They swing at pitches outside of the zone an average amount of the time but have swung at balls in the zone 6.5% less often than league average! Perhaps those complainers were on to something. A couple quick comments about individual players. Weeks: His O-Swing% looks really pretty, until you realize it's a result of "fake plate discipline". It's not that he's been better at identifying pitches than the average batter, he's simply not swinging at pitches very often overall. Worse still, while he's swung 5.1% less often at a ball out of the zone, he's swung at a ball in the zone 11.1% less often! Braun: Among the Crew, has swung most often at balls out of the zone and is among the lead leaders in that stat. Is done a lot of swining overall, which probably surprises no one. Fielder: Teams haven't given him much to hit, which I think has more to do with stature in the league than his propensity to swing at those balls. He's actually shown some nice patience at the plate, taking what they give him. What else might these numbers suggest?
  9. rluzinski
    I know that some were complaining that the Brewers weren't swinging enough, so I used some of Fangraph's data to take a quick look at restricted my study to the regulars (Kapler isn't one anymore): http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/platediscipline.jpg Explanation So, even though the Brewers have been thrown about 2% more strikes than average, they have swung less often overall. They swing at pitches outside of the zone an average amount of the time but have swung at balls in the zone 6.5% less often than league average! Perhaps those complainers were on to something. A couple quick comments about individual players. Weeks: His O-Swing% looks really pretty, until you realize it's a result of "fake plate discipline". It's not that he's been better at identifying pitches than the average batter, he's simply not swinging at pitches very often overall. Worse still, while he's swung 5.1% less often at a ball out of the zone, he's swung at a ball in the zone 11.1% less often! Braun: Among the Crew, has swung most often at balls out of the zone and is among the lead leaders in that stat. Is done a lot of swining overall, which probably surprises no one. Fielder: Teams haven't given him much to hit, which I think has more to do with stature in the league than his propensity to swing at those balls. He's actually shown some nice patience at the plate, taking what they give him. What else might these numbers suggest?
  10. rluzinski
    What's the point of having the platoon advantage when you still can't hit with it? These samples aren't really large enough to say anything definitively but here goes: Counsell (37 years old) against RH hitters from 05'-07': .249/.337/.359/.696 Weeks (25 years old): .249/.346/.404/.750 I like Counsell's defense over Weeks' for sure but should we really expect Counsell to outhit Weeks even with the platoon advantage? Weeks is over a decade youngber, so I think the answer is no. With Hardy, you can probably make a case for it, offensively but I'd rather have Hardy's defense in there at SS, personally (I realize others aren't sold on Hardy's defense). Listen, I love Russ as much as anyone else but who's spot is he going to take? Spot of the 13th pitcher? That would be crazy not to have at least 13 pitchers! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif Seriously though, I'd be tempted to DFA Turnbow, send Gwynn down and bring up Dillon and Branyan. I don't mind Gwynn but the Brewers already have a light hitting LH hitter on the bench. Use Branyan primarily as a pinch hitter but give him a start once and awhile against a RH pitcher.
  11. rluzinski
    Well, he's showing control. You can say that it's only been 72/3rds innings, and of course, it has, but so what? He hasn't shown good control this year or any other in the majors. And even if he had shown good control for 8 IP this year, so what? It's like pointing out that a high strikeout player has lowered his strikeout rate for 2 weeks. When making personel decisions, you care about what the stats tell you about a player's true underlying skill. You don't just play a guy until he fails. With regard to Stetter, I won't pretend to have followed his minor league career. I know he's 27 years old and was brought up to give Yost another left handed pitcher in the pen. How would he rank among the options in the pen against a RH batter? 7th? Here's a sabermetric website's take on Bush being sent down: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/what_do_teams_use_to_evaluate_pitchers/#comments
  12. rluzinski
    It can never be easy, I guess. Decent shot of securing the series win tomorrow .
  13. rluzinski
    This is the crap that makes me hate baseball. Two groundballs that find a hole, an infield single and a ONE good hit and the Cubs are right back in it.
  14. rluzinski
    The Brewers have been very close to busting this wide open a number of times. Can this finally be it?
  15. rluzinski
    Tony Gwynn pinch hitting against a left hander. I can't wait! I hate our bench.
  16. rluzinski
    Weeks' below average defense makes this discussion interesting but when you compare their respective contract situations, I think it's a "no brainer" to hold onto Weeks, IMO.
  17. rluzinski
    With both Sheets and Yo going this series, a series win is closer to a 50/50 proposition than some seem to think. Look at tonight. Marquis is maybe a 4.75 ERA pitcher, Sheets is a 3.75 ( at least) ERA pitcher. And I know that the Cubs offense has destroyed the Brewers' offense so far but preseason projections put them very close. On paper, the Brewers are slightly favored tonight (and Vegas agrees).
  18. rluzinski
    So if Hart is the better hitter then wouldn't the Brewers be better served with him staying in the 5 spot? Teams will keep walking Prince till someone makes them pay for it consistently and if Hart is the better hitter then this is the spot to use him. If it's late and close, teams are going to walk Fielder when they want to no matters who's batting after him, IMO. If it's the 6th or earlier, I'd love them to walk Prince every time.
  19. rluzinski
    ZiPS projections (which are park adjusted) have Cameron with a .341 OBP to Hart's .353: http://rluzinski.blogspot.com/2008/01/2008-brewer-offensive-zips-projections.html Cameron is expected to walk more but Hart's expected BA more than makes up for it (.289 vs. .254). Even if you are skeptical of using a park factor on a single player (parks are going to effect every player differently), looking at Cameron's road split from the last 3 years, weighted by AB and year (.5/.3/.2) gives you this line: .262/.348/.461/.809 Adjusting for age gets you right around that orginal ZiPS .341 OBP projection. I think Cameron is a fine player but he isn't getting any younger and I think Hart is just the better hitter overall (getting on base and power).
  20. rluzinski
    Pitching wins games. This was what got the Brewers 7 games over .500 at the allstar break in 04. Pitching is also what gave us an historically bad second half of that same year. Actually, pitching, fielding and offense wins games.
  21. rluzinski
    I'm not trying suggest that we simply ignore the offense's recent struggles. I just don't think there is one simple explanation for it. I think better insight will be had by examining things at the player level, not the team level. We also have to keep in mind that most players are still under 100 AB, so there's a lot of uncertainty in that sample as well.
  22. rluzinski
    Projections seem to suggest that they are a legitimate .500 team but that division is going to lap them at some point.
  23. rluzinski
    So, the theory is that Skaalen might be teaching them all the right things but they've all choosen to defy him and continue using an approach that is obviously wrong to people on the internet? I just don't see it. I think much of this approach talk is kind of questionable, anyway. If the results were better they'd probably be praised for their approaches right now. For example, Braun's approach last year was to basically swing at everything and it worked so no one cared. Now, he's not crushing the ball when he does guess right, so he has a bad approach. It's good to be patient unless it results in a K. It's good to be aggressive unless it results in a first pitch pop out. Swing as hard as you can, unless you pop out. I think that each batter has a different skill set, so they need to find the approach that works best for them. The coach can only help so much. That's why batters get paid millions and batting coaches are a dime a dozen.
  24. rluzinski
    Hart is no more likely than Cameron to have a better OBP. I think if you offered even odds on that, you'd find about 95% of fans taking Hart, if only because Hart is a almost a decade younger.
  25. rluzinski
    With respect to their 2006 FIPs, .24 runs per 9 isn't really that close and that gap widened significantly in 2007. Vargas isn't even a real starter anyway, as he's averaged only about 5-1/3 IP a start over the last 3 years.
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