rluzinski

Weeks probably should have peeled off sooner but damn. With Bush still having an 86 MPH fastball, the Brewers can't afford to give away runs.

Bush's fastball averaged 86 MPH during his last start. That's about 4 MPH slower than last year. He's going to need that velocity and his normal command to have a good start today. a Duh prediction - Dave Bush will give up 1-2 runs in the first inning and then pitch like Cy Young for the next 3-4 and then fall apart in the 5 or 6th. (This prediction to be applied for every Dave Bush start.) This has been mentioned many times but historically, while he's never been anything special early, Bush has had no problems going deeper into games: 2005: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=bushda01&year=2005#situa-innng 2006: http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=bushda01&year=2006#situa-innng It was only last year where he had some troubles in the 6th (he was fine in the 5th): http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/psplit.cgi?n1=bushda01&year=2007#situa-innng

Santana Career Splits: vs RHB: .220/.276/.364/.640 vs LHB: .223/.282/.371/.653 Santana destroys everyone.

DFA McClung, Bush to the pen. DFA Kapler or send Gwynn down, so he can play every day.

Unless your best guess of a reliever's true overall talent is below everyone else in your bullpen, it makes no sense to cut him. And if a guy was paid $10 mil to close, The team's best guess at his true talent level was probably very high. You are right that relievers typically get so few innings that it's very difficult to change your best guess of his true talent on simply the results of those innings. Unless something else is way off (low velocity, no command, etc...) 10-20 innings doesn't tell us much.

You bring up an interesting question. How much of a difference is needed for OBP to trump SLG pct.? Take Kendall for an example. A low slugging pct. guy on a high slugging pct. team. Might it in some ways be more beneficial to have a high OBP guy hitting in front of a bunch of SLG guys rather than just have one more SLG guy in a long line of SLG guys? On average, a point of OBP is worth somewhere between 1.3-2.0 points of SLG, depending on how you try to estimate it. For a specific batter in a specific lineup position, the value of each is very dependant on the batter before and after him, though. Much of the value of SLG is derived from the movement of players already on base. THe less base runners on, the less value a base hit has. Because Kendall is expected to have such a low SLG, it makes sense to bat him 9th, where the value of SLG is less and the value of OBP is more. From a Dan Fox article at BP: "What makes it work in this case is that Kendall's combination of an adequate OBP and a woeful slugging percentage is not that different from the typical ninth spot hitter in the order. This means that when batting eighth he won't be driving in many of the four-through-seventh place hitters who reach base, but when hitting ninth he gets on base enough to allow Fielder and Braun opportunities to drive him in, resulting in a net offensive gain. It appears the break-even for this strategy as far as the Brewers go is somewhere around Kendall delivering a .360 SLG. That is, if Kendall's slugging percentage were .360 or higher (while delivering the same OBP[he's assuming a .324 OBP...rluz)), it would essentially be a wash as to whether to bat him eighth or ninth." Now, that's not to say that Kendall's low SLG doesn't hurt the Brewers at all; it's just doesn't detract from runs scores as much there as it would somewhere else in the lineup. No matter what lineup spot you are talking about, the lower your OBP or SLG is, the less runs your team will score and the less games they will win. Unless your team wins 162 games, there's no such thing as "enough power".

Show a baseball fan a 20 page statistical study that contains strong evidence that A causes B and he'll call you a fool. But Prince goes 7 days without a HR and the guy obviously needs some beef? For my own sanity, I'll assume that it's all just a running joke. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

Looking at just the results of 3 IP doesn't tell us much. If that HR had been 2 ft shorter, we'd be glowing about Gagne getting it all back together after his dreadful first appearance. Such is baseball. His "stuff" has looked pretty good (although that HR was certainly a mistake pitch), so I'm not freaking out just yet. 93-94 MPH fastball, a change up almost 10 MPH slower.... I guess we'll see.

Now, TELL me that wasn't fun! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif 6-1. Wow.

THANK YOU! He left for the money, not to win a championship. It's the epitome of greed, IMO. If he could make more money as a carpenter, he probably would do that instead. It's what he does to make money. Winning is secondary, as it is for many other professional athletes. If you don't like that arrangement, you should stick to amateur sports.

You either have a system that tries to control who should have the right to vote or you you don't. If he wants to vote, he gets to vote. I see no problem with it.

I think fans jump to conclusions much faster than the average athlete.

According to BP, Sheets "would have" won 19 games in 2004 with average run support. But instead of recognozing how great of a season he had, some fans used his terrible run support as justification for labeling him, "not a winner." Yes, I'm still bitter. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Sheets is a gifted athlete who's found a way to dazzle with two pitches (that's not very common , from what I've noticed). He's also always good for a funny sound bite. I'll take that over cliche riddled interviews, anyday.

Now I'm not a pro pitcher or anything but just from amatuer ball I can tell you that a good catcher can make a pitcher feel good up there. I don't think anyone is disputing that, nor are they disputing the benefits of good defense behind the plate. The question is, does "calling a good game" lead to a consistent and meaningful increase in a pitcher's performance? There have been plenty of studies comparing pitcher ERA's for certain catchers and nothing conclusive (that I am aware of) has been found, so it's not as obvious as some here are suggesting. That doesn't mean that "calling a good game" doesn't have value, we just don't know what that value is.

I have a theory that people think that rookies beat up on the Brewers because they have unrealistic expectations against them. I'd love someone to do the dirty work and prove me wrong. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Prince only hit 1 HR during his first 15 starts last year. He also had stretches of 5 (twice), 7, 8, 9 and 18 games where he didn't have a HR. They'll come.

As far as I could tell, he gave it all that he had when he was under contract with the Brewers. That's all I can ask for.

I fixed the link. Fastballs tend to rise (they drop less when gravity is taken into account) and a 12-6 curve will break straight down.

Only once has he put up an OBP over .352 -- last year, .393 -- and he did that alongside a career high SLG of .419. Without looking at his specific numbers, that might not be completely fair, since an increase in OBP through BA can add to SLG. What I think we really want to compare is walk rate (BB/PA) to ISO (SLG - BA). Looking at just players who started their career in 1970 or later and accumulated at least 3,000 major league AB, I get 552 batters: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/walksvspower.jpg I think that's statistically significant (someone check my work?), although I included intentional walks. Without IBB, R^2 lowers to .108. Even if it is significant, is there a practical difference? Let's break it up into groups: Walk Rate (Without IBB) By ISO: Less than .100: 1 walk per 12.5 PA (n = 106) Between .100 and .150: 1 walk per 14.3 PA (n = 176) Between .151 and .200: 1 walk per 12.5 PA (n = 167) Over .200: 1 walk per 10 PA (n = 103) Unless you include the big boppers, it doesn't really seem to mater how much power you have in this sample. Of course, there's probably huge selection bias in my sample. Players that have a sub .100 ISO aren't even going to be allowed to rack up 3,000+ AB unless they make up for it in other areas (hit for average, walk, stolen bases). Someone should repeat this for anyone with over 1,000 AB http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif The most damning case you might be able to make against Gwynn being a long term starter is that only 2 players since 1970 with an ISO of .050 or less have been allowed to rack up 3,000 or more AB (Otis Nixon and Duane Kuiper). Only 32 players with an ISO of .075 and lower. Gwynn's probably going to need an ISO north of .075 to stick (like he got in AAA in 2006). Can he do it in the majors?

"Pfx" is the break from 40 ft away and takes out the affects of gravity. "Break" typically starts 50 ft from homeplate and includes gravity. They use different definitions of break though, so I don't think you can really compare one to the other: http://webusers.npl.uiuc.edu/~a-nathan/pob/tracking.htm

I wonder how much the LASIK surgery is going to help Kendall. It's a lot easier to hit when you can see the ball. I know Kendall says that LASIK has significnatly improved his eyesite but you'll have to pardon me for the being skeptical that it completely explains away his bad offensive performance the last few years. It's reasonable to suggest that the surgery could help his performance but let's be real here. Most likely, the primary reason why Kendall was so much better in 2000 was because he was 8 years younger. I don't expect Kendall to say or even think that but that's just the way it goes. I've never had any eye issues before so this is a geniune inquiry; should a person expect some significant benefits, going from vision corrected to 20/20 vision with contacts to 20/20 vision after LASIK surgery? I always thought that the greatest benefit was simply convenience.

The thing about Kendall is that except for 80 games last year with Oakland, he's been a really, really good hitting catcher. A more objective approach would be to simply look at what he's done from 2005-2007 as whole: Kendall, 05-08: .271/.340/.325/.665 Let's compare that to the average catcher (which includes all backups) over the same period: Ave MLB C, 05-08: .258/.320/.399/.719 I love OBP as much as the next guy but 20 points of OBP is not worth more than 74 points of SLG. Quite the opposite. It's clear that over the last 3 years, Kendall has actually hit like a below average starting catcher and at 33 years old, I don't think we should expect that to change. That's not to say it can't happen, though.

Sheets' velocity looked a lot better during his second start Fastball Velocity [MPH] 1st Start / 2nd Start: AVE: 92.4 / 94.5 MAX: 94.6 / 96.2 MIN: 87.5 / 92.4 MED: 92.6 / 94.6 http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/sheets0406.jpg If you remove those first two fastballs: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/sheetsminus20406.jpg Even if we ignore the first couple of fastballs from Sheets' first start, his fastball was still significantly slower during the early innings. Looking at pitch locations, Sheets was REALLY getting the benefit of the doubt on outside pitches to LH hitters. While that's not uncommon in the majors: http://rluzinski.blogspot.com/2007/07/size-and-shape-of-strike-zone-dependant.html ... this was very pronounced. Here are all the called strikes against LH batters: http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/calledstrikesagainstLH.jpg With a strikezone like that, it's not surprising that the Giant batters were taking so many defensive swings.

As long as we accept that rankings aren't trying to measure the true, collective talent of a team, they can update it as often as they want. Later in the season, rankings are usually just the teams ranked in order of their overall record but with the most recent games weighted more. Right now, they have no real explanation.