rluzinski

Nobody earns the right to stay in the majors based on a decent but unspectacular 136 PA's. The question is simply, what is in the best interests of the Brewers in both the short and long term. I don't think losing Kottaras would be a huge loss but I still think he is a decent option as a back up catcher pinch hitter. I don't see him having much value in the coming years, though. If Kottaras wants any kind of money next year, just let him walk. In his limited stint in the majors, Maldonado has looked great defensively and pretty good offensively. His minor league offensive numbers suggest that he's not ready to sustain it, though. I'd rather give him every day duties in the minors until at least next year. And Lucroy at 1B is a terrible idea. Lucroy is defensively adequate at a premium defensive position. Moving him to the easiest defensive position would just kill his value to the Brewers. It's all about the defensive spectrum.

Even in that scenario, they are basically screwed. They would be sitting at .500 but perhaps still 5 back with 3 teams in front of them. It's possible, sure... but they will have a heck of a lot better chance on opening day 2013 and 14 than they do now.

The result of these 9 games is irrelevent.

Saying that Hart is playing out of position is pretty crazy. Plenty of players jump back and forth from RF to 1B. Who cares? I probably take Ish over Morgan, if those are the only choices.

He has better odds of finishing with a BA over .210 than under .200.

I am skeptical that is true. Yes, you can call hotlines to get "free" gambling tips and they generally focus on all kinds of crazy trends and streaks, most of which are almost completely random. I am sure there are some gamblers that have been playing on the Greinke home record but I suspect that they aren't prevalent enough to have moved the line significantly. I would be surprised if the line moves even 5 cents because of it. There IS a significant difference between Greinke and Gallardo. You would never have known it had you been reading this message board last year but Greinke was and continues to be the superior starting pitcher. I don't hear anyone claiming this year that Gallardo is obviously the better pitcher and Greinke really has only had 3 good months in his career (yes I am exaggerating but it was all pretty silly). Here are their ZiPS projections for the rest of the year: Greinke 2.88 ERA Gallardo: 3.73 ERA That means Gallardo projects to give up about an extra .6 runs over a 6 IP start. If we assume a 6 IP start, 4.5 runs of offense and a 4 ERA from the relievers: Greinke: 4.5 RS/game, 3.25 RA/G, 64% win probability, -147 no juice line Gallardo: 4.5 RS/game, 3.82 RA/G, 57% win probability, -131 no juice line If I didn't screw that up, the difference between the two translates to around 16 cents. I don't claim projections or these kind of calculations are infallible but they are great as a gut check. I would argue that the losing team didn't really make the playoffs at all.

There's no doubt that it would have, as McDonald is having a break out year. My point was simply that I don't think Greinke's home/road splits at Miller Park is much of a factor at all.

I doubt that the Brewer's line gets much of a boost from Greinke pitching at home, above the average home field advantage. Those are the kind of mostly-random splits that most gamblers know not weigh to heavily. EDIT: Brewers at -137. subtracting the juice, that gives the them a 57% chance of winning. Average home field advantage is around 4%. If anything, that seems way lower than it should be: ZiPS updated projections: McDonald: 4.06 ERA Greinke: 2.88 ERA I don't know how you don't give the Brewers a substantial edge offensively as well.

I'm all for optimism. That doesn't need to include trying to justify your optimism with faulty logic, however. I'm happy to close my eyes to the odds and simply be optimistic that the Brewers sweep the Pirates this weekend.

"they're 6 games out of the Wild Card." Being 6 games out of the race to have a 50% of making the real playoffs doesn't sound very exciting to me. And as you pointed out, there are a million teams ahead of them. 5 times are within half a game of the first wildcard spot! If the Brewers win and the Reds, Braves, Giants, Mets and Cards lose on Friday, the Brewers will gain a full game! Coolstandings.com gives the Brewers a 5.0% chance of securing a wildcard spot and playing one game to determine whether they make the playoffs. In addition, hey give the Brewers a 1.5% chance of winning the division and making the playoffs outright. I'm OK with holding off for 9 games before selling but if the Brewers are in a similar position after that, give it up already.

I think it's very easy to approach it objectively and come up with a simple study to start the discussion. You start off with a group of starting pitchers who made a certain minimum number of starts in their first major league season. You compare that group's performance in their first x number of starts vs. the rest of their starts for the season. If there is a significant enough of a "no book on them" effect, we should be able to detect it. If we can't, it either doesn't exist, is too small to detect or is being counteracted by an opposing effect (e.g. "overcoming rookie jitters"). The study could also have a flaw (e.g. selective sample issues). Assuming every baseball cliche is factually correct is bad. Using anecdotal evidence to support them is worse.

http://jazzroc.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/straw-man.jpg

When you are dealing with such a limited data set (10-2/3 IP), pitch velocity and movement is by far the most important factor to consider. Way behind that is walks and K's. ERA is useless.

It would be awesome is Fiers could effectively take Marcum's spot in the rotation next year, although there is a good chance that he would be the second best pitcher in the rotation if he does.

Yes, there is. No book on them - hitters aren't sure what to expect. Happens all the time. As I just mentioned, it also "happens all the time" that new pitchers pitch worse than expected to start their major league career. I am not looking for anecdotal evidence, as you can use that as evidence to support any theory. I am just curious if there has ever been a comprehensive study performed regarding average performance for new starting pitchers.

Sheets averaged 90-91 MPH on his fastball during his second start: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/veteran-sheets-gets-mixed-results-in-second-double-a-start-for-mississippi-braves/2012/07/09/gJQAVLLUZW_story.html

I don't recall the studies I've read showing any negative impact on BA or SLG. I think it was just the increased walks. Of course, part of the issue is that people often assume that your slugger getting walked is a bad thing. Even if the guy batting behind him is significantly inferior, we almost always expect more average runs to be scored than if the other team just faced the elite batter. It's managing scared, not smart. Now, if you only need one run, i can see it being more of an issue but overall, wayyyy overblown.

I was surprised to see that Fiers had a pretty reasonable projections before the season even started and they obviously have only improved since then: ZiPS preseason: 4.01 ERA ZiPS updated: 3.68 ERA Lot's of uncertainty in those estimates of course (mostly based off minor league data) but he already projected to be a #3 before he threw is first pitch this year. None of that takes into account any scouting information, though. A projection that took into account his 89 MPH fastball might not be so optimistic. Is it really that unprecedented for a guy with a high 80's fastball to have a mid-3 ERA projection, though? The Brewers already have a guy like that (Marcum) Or is the question really whether Fiers is a true sub 3 ERA pitcher? If that's the question, I don't really care how hard he throws since the answer is almost certainly no. Is there any statistical evidence that pitchers new to the majors perform better than expected over their first whatever number of appearances? I appreciate the theory that batters need time to adjust to a particular pitcher but I am skeptical that it results in any meaningful difference in actual performance. My gut says it's mostly just just random variance. Most new pitchers will randomly perform better or worse then their talent level when they first start off. People assume, that the ones that start off poorly are "obviously" just having a hard time adjusting to major league hitters. Conversely, it's assumed that the ones that do better then expected will "obviously" level off as batters adjust to them. I think the majority of it is just statistical noise. I am not aware of any study that's ever looked into the matter, however, so I don't pretend that my theory is any more valid than anyone else's.

I'd like to see Weeks back in the 1 or 2 hole. Gomez and Morgan are both clearly inferior hitters to him. I think we can reasonably expect a .325/.400 line from Lucroy going forward, which makes him a reasonable option from anywhere between 6th and 8th in the order. Of course, as along as Gomez is batting at the top of the order against lefties, it would be easy to argue that Lucroy would make a better option at #2. We continue to hear about how important protection is for certain batters but the facts do not bear that out. No protection for good hitters does result in a few extra intentional bases on balls but that is about it. And more often than not, the walk results in more expected runs anyway. Late in games, when you only need 1 run, it might hurt you a little bit but it just isn't a big factor. One of the most important factors to consider when determining batting order is one that seems to be ignored by most baseball fans. The higher a batter is in the order, the more plate appearances he will get. Over the course of the season, each batting order position represents almost 20 extra PA's. Putting a bad hitter in the 2 hole just so you can offer "protection" to your 4th hitter is almost certainly a losing proposition. It results in the bad hitter getting at least an extra 80 PA over a full season and your 5 hitter getting 60 less.

Ben gained weight as he got older, just like 99% of baseball players. He was never fat though. I think it just gave fans frustrated with his injuries a means to vent. It's not as emotionally satisfying to blame bad luck so they have to attack the person. You see it over and over again in sports. "Ben's first start yesterday: Loss, 5 IP, 5 HA, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6 K" More importantly, his fastball was sitting around 90 MPH. I'm almost surprised it's that high. Now I am a little jealous that the Braves signed him. Did they ever disclose how much Sheets was signed for? His next start is tonight, where he's expected to go around 90 pitches.

I think that is all very silly. I haven't seen anything from Greinke during his time with the Brewers to suggest he's mentally fragile. He had a rough inning and then settled down. It happens.

Do we have to give other options using your faulty logic of where other players should be allowed to bat?

You really have a tendency to over-react about everything. Relievers who have a reasonable track record aren't going to be thrown aside because of a bad half season. I'll leave it up to you to decide which ones have a "reasonable track record" but to suggest all the under performing relievers will continue to under perform is silly.

I wouldn't spend more than $2-3$ mil for any reliever, personally. They don't pitch enough to be worth much more than that anyway.

I think that is a reasonable way to look at it but to compare apples to apples, you'd have to consider the context of those save opportunities. The bullpen has been bad anyway you look at it but the Brewers might also have had a lot more closer games than average so far. A context neutral way to look first at it is to simple see how many extra runs over average the relievers have given up. Looks like an average bullpen would have given up 24 less runs over the same number of innings as the Brewers: RS: 369 RA: 384 RA: 359 (with average bullpen) Pythagorean: 39 wins Pythagorean Adjusted: 42 wins So the context neutral way gives us 3 extra wins. The correct answer to how many wins the bullpen has cost is "we don't know" but an estimate of 3-4 extra wins is a decent guess. Last year, the Brewers won more games than their collective talent probably suggested and this year, the opposite might true. Unfortunately, the Brewers might have made the playoffs even without the little luck and this year, they have no chance with even a shred of bad luck. They projected to be a just a hair above average before all the injuries.