rluzinski

I'll give him credit for taking out Ramirez to run with Gomez but what exactly was so special about the squeeze play? There were runners on 1st and 3rd with no one out. Chances are they get a run there, squeeze or not. That's the thing about the squeeze play that is so silly. We are supposed to think it's so awesome that the Brewers have 7(?) successful squeeze plays this year. You only attempt a squeeze play when you already have a high probability of scoring already! I believe the Brewers have 2 official failed squeeze plays (which I assume refers to making an out at home on the play). That ignores when a bunt is attempted that results in an out at first and no run scored. There was at at least one of those as well. Even if we do just look at 7 successes vs. 2 fails, that is a 22% failure rate. Perhaps the squeeze play is slightly underutilized in the majors but how often RR utilizes it is comical. But hey, they are fun to watch so the fans love it.

As bad as Weeks has been this year, he STILL has an OBP 21 points higher than Gomez! Also, you should not be restricting yourself to just this year's stats. Projections aren't the end all be all but they are better than just quoting half a year's worth of stats. Assuming Aoki needed a day off and Braun is staying at #3, here were the options to bat before Braun: ZiPS Updated OBP projections: Ramirez: .341 Weeks: .335 Hart: .327 Morgan: .320 (and platoon advantage) Maldonado: .300 Gomez: .292 Izturis: .275 (switch hitter) Gomez didn't have the platoon advantage, is a horrible OBP guy but he has a little bit of pop. You can argue that he would make a bad 5 or 6 hole hitter (and he does) but he makes even a worse lead off or #2 hitter. But RR see Gomez as fast, so nothing else actually matters.

Classifying pitch type really isn't that important anyway, is it? It becomes semantics at some point (e.g. slider/curve/slurve). Different pitchers will call essentially the same pitch something different at times. You want to know velocity, spin RPM and spin orientation. That's going to give you the pitch trajectory. What scouts can help with is seeing how well the particular pitcher is hiding their pitches I suppose. But again, if you are talking about an established player, how relevant is one or two scouts' opinions? The proof is in the pudding. How has that pitcher been performing against major league players? If I have a projection based on a large sample size, I'm probably going to weigh that something like 90% and scouting 10%.

It's not just the rain outs. There a lot of people 1 hour or so away who wouldn't even bother with going to a weekday game if there was even a 25% of a rain delay. I was one of them. I couldn't even finish the games as it was (Appleton and Green Bay). I don't know if people like me at the time are significant enough in numbers to matter but it is a consideration. As for AC, I have to agree with the majority. While we've all probably gone to games where we would have dies for AC, there probably aren't enough of those kind of games to justify the cost.

Fiers had some pretty decent preseason projections for him, so a sub 4 ERA isn't crazy at all. It would be nice to have 2-3 starting pitchers who are pre-arbitration for a change. It just potentially frees up a lot of money elsewhere.

I think scouts attending a major league game to watch a guy with years of major league experience is pretty pointless. I'd be surprised if what they have to say is even 1% of the discussion. I guess it doesn't cost very much in the grand scheme of things, though.

Carlos Gomez batting lead off against a RHP is what I find ridiculous. A career .291 OBP hitter with a .291 OBP OBP this year. Doesn't have the platoon advantage tonight? No problem! Gomez had a good spring training a couple of years ago, so he should be good there. RR thinks Gomez is better hitter than he really is because he looks like he should be. RR won't let something like reality get in the way of his expert ability to read talent.

I think RR constructed this lineup to see if he could get zero runners on base for Braun tonight.

Gomez batting leadoff against a RHP is about as crazy as you can get.

If Wolf can pitch another 14 innings, he can get a quality start.

Painful. Always nice when the game is effectively over after 2+.

--according to joe buck that is only the 2nd failed attempt. oops i meant joe block wowsers. Maybe two times when the runner was thrown out at home. There have been at least 2 other times where a bunt attempt with a runner at third did not result in a run scored. At at least one of those was on a safety squeeze but I was lumping the suicide and safety squeezes together. Even two failures makes it pretty much a losing strategy, though.

I only have Gameday but let me guess: RR calls for a suicide squeeze on a ball in the dirt, Ransom left to die. By my count, that is at least 4 failed squeeze attempts this year. As I've mentioned several times before, you need to have a success rate way over 90% to justify a suicide squeeze attempt. Other managers don't call a million squeezes because they know realize the break even point is usually very high. RR apparently doesn't and apparently thinks he's stumbled on something brilliant.

2nd and 3rd and no out.... come on RR, call for a suicide squeeze so you can inject yourself into the action. Then you can pat yourself on the back if they score, even though they probably would have anyway.

Wow, that's one way to make sure the heart of your order doesn't get to bat with runners on. WOW. This is why I prefer Macha over RR in terms of in game management. At least he let the guys just play.

Why are we even playing small ball with 2 on and the heart of the order coming up? And you know what, sacrifices bunt attempts fail all the time. The suggestion that fundamental baseball means your starting pitcher will never get forced out at third on a bunt attempt....

Teams chasing this second wildcard has to keep it in perspective. They are really chasing for a roughly 50% chance of making the real playoffs, with all the extra revenue it represents.

The Brewers' offense seems to be accused of this every year. The fans of most teams accuse their offense of being "inconsistent". It's just the nature of baseball. Tangotiger.net has a program that estimates the expected runs/game distribution for a team that averages 4.36 runs/game. We can combine that with what the Brewers have done this year: Runs/Game: Expected / Actual (games) 0, 6% / 8% (6) 1: 11% / 12% (9) 2: 14% / 8% (6) 3: 14% / 19% (14) 4: 13% / 7% (5) 5: 11% / 10% (7) 6: 9% / 11% (8) 7: 7% / 5% (4) 8+: 15% / 19% (14) A team that averages 4.36 runs/game is expected to score 0 or 1 run 17% of the time. The Brewers have done it in about 20% of their 73 games. To have been average, they would have had to score an extra run in two games where they actually finished with 1 run. I don't see anything here to suggest that the Brewers would have necessarily had more wins had they have an average runs/game distribution. Really, over 73 games, I would expect most teams to NOT have an average distribution of runs scored. I'm actually surprised the Brewers distribution is as close as it is to the average. If you think this kind of distribution is on the extreme end of maddening, you have to think that the average is extreme. Teams that score an above average number of runs are often relying on an above average number of HR's to do it. Hard to get around that fact. And when the average HR is worth 1.4 runs, of COURSE a team has a poor record in games when they don't hit one. Teams average about a HR/game, so they average about 1.4 runs less in games where they don't hit one. It's just a garbage stat, IMO. ] Another accusation just about every team gets accused of. And what you call good fundamental baseaball is what I call an out, so I guess it's also a matter of preference. The Brewers make a lot of dumb mistakes every year. We just don't remember them as well when they occur in games that our team won.

As a Brewer fan, I will not be feeling very good even if the Brewers win the next 2 games.

He probably had some super secret reason why both matchups were favorable for Dillard and Parra. Probably based on super-duper statistical analysis that we wouldn't understand anyway.

I just looked this up but a team that averages 4.2ish runs/game is expected to score 3 runs about half the time. I think the Brewers are a bit above that but i don't think fans realize how often even an above average offense scores less than 4 runs. We are not talking about a bell curve here. A team can't score less than 0 runs, so those 8+ runs games really skews the distribution. I've looked at run distribution a lot over the years. Some might be a little more extreme but all teams are all over the place in terms of runs scored. It's the maddening part of being a baseball fan.

I agree with most of what you said here, expect for possibly your explanation for why the Brewers have had a mediocre season so far. The starters have been average in terms of ERA, the offense in terms of runs scored have been a little better than average. The bullpen is near the bottom of the pack in terms of ERA. You called the offense, "inconsistent", which is a claim made against the Brewers pretty much every year. I don't really know the answer but has the offense really had a higher spread in runs scored per game than expected? The Brewers pythagorean record is in line with their actual record, so i think their problem is that they are just getting outscored in general.

Loved Weeks' interview after he had the game winning hit today. If he's felt stress to break out of his slump, he certainly isn't showing it. He's still not showing his normal power but he's been pretty productive for the Brewers over the last month. .186 BA... 14 more points to go!

I feel the same way I always have. The facts suggest that he MAY have used some unknown banned substance. I don't think his 2012 production is strong evidence that he wasn't guilty, nor would I have thought bad performance would have suggested the opposite.

Which means approximately a 12% chance of getting into the "real" playoffs.