rluzinski

I really don't care how the runs they give up score - aside from the obvious fielding errors that can lead to unearned runs I just can't see how a fan can accept the use of the "earned runs" adjustment as logical and fair, yet blast others for trying to make their own adjustments. It's a noble effort to try and account for below average defense when assessing a pitcher's performance but the way earned runs is calculated is terribly subjective and illogical, IMO. We should either look at just "runs scored" or conced that defense plays a huge part of a pitcher's success and failure and look for a better way to adjust for it. I can't see anything really thinking it's perfect the way it is. The good pitchers seem to be able to minimize the number of big innings they give up, unearned runs or not, by making quality pitches in tough situations. They have their hicups too, which no one seems to notice after the fact.

LINK Good attitude.

I really am perplexed at the argument that a month of 7 ERA could possibly be a great month. We really are talking about two things here. What level of talent Capuano has pitched with recently and what was the in-game result of that talent. The results are easy; we should just see how many runs a team has scored against Capuano (why even used earned runs, if we aren't concerned with anything but the results on the field?) and whether the Brewers won. Those are the concrete results and they can't be disputed. The much harder question is that whole "true talent" thing and that's where ERA can be misleading. My guess is that ERA is about as "good" as batting average (not awful, but not optimum). How far off is that assumption? ERA is just so volatile over the short term. Two walks and bomb over 6 IP can be 3 earned runs; 8 hits and 4 walks over 6 can be 0 earned runs. A hit is always a hit, so situation has little effect on BA.

If you read his disclaimer on the bottom, it's pretty clear he's conceding that they are nothing more than his educated guess.

I'm glad Endder cleared that one up for me. I was unaware that MLB had changed their rules and made the penultimate stats BB , K and OPS against determine game outcome instead of runs scored and runs allowed. He's saying ERA is useless for projecting future performance, especially over half a season. While I wouldn't go that far (hard to find a completely useless metric), what you wrote above is just way off base. Of course, I'm probably not telling you anything you don't already know. It's a lot more entertaining to simply take snippets of people's posts and distort their message. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

They are going to be hard pressed to find a replacement for Cabrera this late. I think Prince might press a bit and wear himself out early. I don't see him getting past the second round.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/hdr_hrd_581.gif MLB.com Home Run Derby Coverage CONTESTANTS: [b]NL[/b] [b]Player Team HR [url=http://www.bodog.com/sports-betting/mlb-baseball-player-props.jsp]Odds[/url] R1 SEM FIN[/b] [b]<span style="color:blue;">Prince Fielder Brewers 29 3/1 3</span>[/b] Ryan Howard Phillies 21 2/1 3 Albert Pujols Cardinals 16 7/2 <span style="color:red;">4*</span> 9 Matt Holliday Rockies 15 9/1 <span style="color:red;">5</span> 8 [b]AL[/b] [b]Player Team HR Odds R1 SEM FIN[/b] Justin Morneau Twins 24 6/1 4 Alex Rios Blue Jays 17 12/1 <span style="color:red;">5 12</span> 2 Vlad Guerrero Angels 14 6/1 <span style="color:red;">5 9 3</span> Magglio Ordonez Tigers 13 10/1 2 * Won swing off to advance RULES: Opening Round ? Each player gets 10 outs to hit as many home runs as possible. ? The four players with the most home runs hit in the Opening Round advance to the Semi-Final Round. Semi-Final Round ? Home runs totals from the first round will carry over to the second round. ? Each player gets 10 outs to hit as many home runs as possible per at bat. ? The two players with the most home runs in the Semi-Final Round advance to the Championship Round. Championship Round ? Home runs from the first two rounds do not carry over to the Championship Round; Opening and Semi-Final Round totals are cleared from the board. ? Each player gets 10 outs to hit as many home runs as possible. ? The player who hits the most home runs in the Championship Round is declared the CENTURY 21 Home Run Derby champion. Note ? An out is registered when a player swings at a pitch and does not hit a home run. ? A ball hit over the fence must be fair to count as a home run. ? If two or more players are tied for advancement into the next round, or for the Derby championship, a swing-off will determine who advances. Each player will get five swings; if they are still tied after five swings, they will hit again but get only three swings. Process will be repeated if necessary with three swings each until one player wins the swing-off. http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a345/rluzinski/fielder.jpg Good luck, Prince!

I'm not sure Capuano is a true 4.00 pitcher Neither am I but I also don't think he's a true 5.0 ERA pitcher either. A safe estimate might be 4.25.

first off, today's Journal Sentinal mentions that Shouse has the same average against for righties and lefties All that tells us is what has happened this year so far, not what's expected to happen (not to mention that BA is a poor choice of a metric) . Here's Shouse's splits from 04'-06': [b] AVG OBP SLG OPS[/b] vs. Left .210 .274 .340 .615 vs. Right .311 .399 .493 .893We can either assume that Shouse,at age 38, has all of a sudden finally learned how to pitch to righties or we can conclude that the results of 38 AB don't accurately reflect Shouse's true ability against right handers. RHers have a .307 BA against Shouse over his career. I hope Yost realizes that.

MS just upped their warranty to three years as well.

I have long felt that Capuano is a "fine line" pitcher. In other words, it doesn't take much for him to cross from being effective to very mediocre. In terms of ERA, that's certainly true, although it also is for many starting pitchers. If you are a true 4.0 ERA pitcher, it doesn't take much to end a year with a 4.25 or 3.75 ERA. Ultimately though (and perhaps soon), I think he'll end up as a reliever though "don't rock the boat" Ned isn't likely to make that move. I don't think it would be Yost who makes that decision.

He is currently on pace for 54 homeruns this season. Let's say he gets there If you looked at the ML top 5 HR leaders at the half for a random year, you'd probably find that the majority don't keep up their first half pace (regression to the mean, for all you statistics fans). That doesn't mean Prince can't hit 54 or even 60 HRs this year but the odds are probably against it. Now if you asked me if Prince will hit 50+ at some point in his career, I'd answer an emphatic yes. It wouldn't surprise me if he does it 4 or 5 times before all is said and done. But to try and project 700+ career HRs for any 23 year old player is a tall order, to say the least. I'll make the easy guess and say no.

The Brewers are already well ahead of what I thought they were capable of this year. Lot's of work left but it's hard to be disappointed so far. The good news is that some of the biggest problems on this team (Cappy, Soup, Bush, Weeks) will probably tend to fix themselves in the second half.

ERA over a month or two isn't completely useless but it certainly has the capacity to be very misleading. If you want to analyze half a seasons' worth of a pitcher's starts, you are better off starting with a pitcher's secondary numbers than his ERA. Look at his K rate and walk rate before anything else. Those generally jump around much less, so a significant change in them (even over a short period) can indicate injury, mechanical issues, etc.. much better than ERA. And to call Cappy a one year wonder is to admit that you are using a pitcher's record are your primary tool to measure performance. Despite his below .500 record in 2006, he almost halved his walk rate while keeping the same K rate. This year, his walk rate is back up but at least his K rate is where it "should" be. Perhaps injuries have hurt Cappy's performance this year but the stats don't demand that explanation. No one should ever be surprised if a true 4.0-4.25 ERA pitcher (which Cappy appears to be) has an ERA in the high 4's at mid season. ERA is just too course of a measure of performance. And it's easy to poke fun at the uncertainty of small samples but an explanation for the principles that govern them could be found on dozens of websites on the web. Anyone who ever wants an answer to the apparently rhetorical question, "When is the sample large enough?" could find it themselves if they wanted to. I appreciate that most aren't interested in that kind of stuff but those statistical laws govern the stats we as baseball fans look at everyday, whether we want them too or not! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Didn't calculate that. The Cubs will go 10-7, so I guess we'll still have one game on them. People have been predicting the Brewers' fall out of first for about two months now. It appears that many of those predictions have been fueled more by emotion than reason, however. While the frustrations are understandable (and shared by most at brewerfan.net), if a person isn't going to take the time to see if their prognostication is physically possible, doesn't it belong more in the vent thread than anywhere else?

Not projecting him as an MLB starter = hate? Also, there's already about 64 other threads discussing this.

I can handle gwynn at the bottom of the order. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

Yeh, I just don't think the Pirates are that bad of a team. The Brewers had to face arguably their two best pitchers and the offense is better than they have shown. That's not to shay they "should" have won 3 out of 4 but it's not that surprising of an outcome.

Wow, Weeks. That was a bullet of a throw. Would have been based loaded and 1 out. Brian Shouse against a righty, with Turnbow warmed up. HUH!? EDIT: Shouse flashes the leather to knock down a lazar beam. You lucky...

May 5th: Vargas: 2.89 ERA Bush: 6.03 ERA July 6th: Vargas: 4.52 ERA Bush: 4.86 ERA I'm hoping that Vargas can sustain that ERA and Bush can continue improving his.

Aren't we supposed to assume a 'league average' split when samples are small? How would we determine that? You might be tempted to look at the league splits. Here they are for 2006: [b] PA BA OBP SLG OPS[/b] vs RHP as RH 74473 .264 .322 .419 .741 vs RHP as LH 62692 .277 .352 .449 .801 vs LHP as RH 37975 .275 .346 .442 .788 vs LHP as LH 12931 .248 .319 .392 .711 ML Batting Splits: 2006 Looks like the league average split is around .060 - .070 OPS? Nope? There's a selection bias because of platoons and pinch hitting. The actual platoon advantage is greater. "The Book" compensates for this in their platoon chapter: The Book: Platoons Casey, you really need to just buy the book. It's a goldmind of information. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

A bloop double and an infield single to start the inning. Damn you, luck! EDIT: Fixed!

Gwynn can get on base, and when someone is on base, those home runs mean more. I am just tired of the "he's no good because he doesnt have any power" argument....its weak. There is no power "quota" for a team. The object of an offense is to score as many runs as possible. If people were confident that Gwynn could generate a .370+ OBP, I don't think they'd mind a .350 SLG. It remains to be seen whether he can get on base enough in the bigs to to justify his lack of power, though. If you are going to have a .330 OBP, you better have a little power or you are hurting your offense.

Well it took only a year but Mench is finally heating up. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Better late than never!

I don't have much of a problem with him being brought up. When he's starting every game and leading off, I might cry, however.