rluzinski

If you look at Greinke's career as a whole, what year is the outlier? I see two. His 2009 season and his 2011 season so far. He has a ZiPS rest-of-season ERA projection of 3.25. That sounds about right to me. I've only skimmed your posts in this thread (they tend to be very long) but have you offered up your opinion on what Greinke's 2011 performance so far suggests about what our expectations should be going forward? If people refuse to believe that pitching is all about location (which includes pitch selection), then there really isn't anything to discuss ever. No one will argue that location isn't a huge part of the equation but speed and movement are very important as well, obviously. Are you confusing the opinion that a pitcher's BABIP over a small sample is not generally representative of pitcher skill with the notion that pitch location isn't overly important? The game isn't played in metrics, there is no "cause" in any metric, they only measure results. What a peculiar stance to take. In the most general sense, there are two type of baseball metrics: 1. Raw Metrics 2. Derived Metrics A raw metric is simply an (hopefully but not always) unbiased record of what happened. It could be compiled by observers watching a game or a series of cameras being fed into a computer. Anything that can be observed by a human being can be considered a raw metric. It is a record of what happened from the moment the game started to the instant it ended. A derived metric takes that raw data and and attempts to manipulate it to answer certain questions. There are literally millions of questions you can ask. Some only care about results, some attempt to infer the cause of good or bad performance, so attempt to estimate future performance. Anything a person asks a derived metric can attempt to answer (with varying degrees of success). The difference between a good and bad derived metric is the quality of the methodology and if it's a predictive metric, whether its been tested. It's easy for someone to go on a message board and share their theories but the proof is in the pudding. In baseball the power lies with the pitchers and by extension the cause mostly rests in their ability to execute a given pitch. If I were the coach of a little league team, that's exactly what I would tell little Johnny but the reality is not so simple. The pitcher, the batter, defense, luck and the umpire all have some power in determining the outcome of a pitch. I think it is obvious that the combination of the batter, defense and luck play a larger role in determining the result of a pitch than the pitcher. For that reason, it becomes very difficult to separate the pitcher's performance from the results. No human or metric can do it perfectly. Anyone who says they are certain of anything should be ignored. What I would really like to see is the spray chart of balls in play by location, and by result... that's where you would find some meaning. Google it, there are a number of publicly available studies that you will find. There are some good discussions on insidethebook.com blog on the topic as well. Location is important and I hope you haven't gotten the impression that anyone is suggesting otherwise.

Teams are hot and then they aren't and then they are again. Unless there are corresponding roster changes that contributed to a hot and cold streak, I don't worry about that kind of stuff. I also am not concerned about team vs team records, except for what it implies regarding the relative strength of AL vs. NL (the AL has been much better for quite some time). So far this year, the twins have scored 3.8 runs/game and have given up 4.5 runs/game. They are probably probably closer to a .500 team than that suggests but despite their recent hot streak, they have still have had a very poor 2011 so far. Anything can happen in 6 games but I am more concerned about games against the Cards and Reds than anyone else.

Adding a little more pressure on Greinke is the torrid stretch that Alcides Escobar is on. I can just picture Greinke looking up Escobar's hitting stats every night on the net, shivering with dread. "His OPS is six-TEN now!? I need to step it up!" I think there is a better chance that Greinke can't spell Escobar's full name than he knows how well Escobar is hitting in June.

It's getting to the point where one of them has to go. I'm at the point where I don't care which one it is. Sounds exactly what he was saying about Gomez in spring training. He saw SOMETHING! He apparently really overestimates his ability to judge talent.

Don't forget that he let a handful of spring training AB's to convince him that Gomez was a good hitter and stubbornly let him bat 2nd while he hit like we all knew he was going to.

Broken forearm. Out 4-6 weeks: LINK

No question they have gotten some great performances from unexpected places over the years (hell, starting with Pujols really)but they have missed on a number of players as well.

I'm scared of non-established closers in general. Axford has a great season last year but we are talking about 58 IP. That's not much to go by.

This handling of the Wolf/Lucroy fiasco.......that brings him to a D--. This didn't bother me until a lefty catcher started against a lefty SP.

At the time, I thought Wolf would be a bit overpaid during his final year but that was assuming an average aging curve. Wolf's velocity has remained pretty consistent over the last few years, however, so I'm not sure if that assumption was correct. He had a slow start in 2010, which resulted in many hastily forming their opinion of him after 2 months. So despite finishing last season with a 4.17 ERA, he was still Soup II to many. This year, I'm sure his ERA is going no where but up (3.15) but it will probably be below 4 at the end of the year. The odds of him being worth his current contract are pretty good I think.

Man this Boston offense is good. Think how many runs they would score if they were sacrificing and squeezing all the time? As for the DH thing, the fact that the Brewers added Kotsay, Wilson and Gomez's bat to the lineup is sad.

Nothing translates directly to anything. We have little pieces of evidence that we can assemble in different ways to come up with theories. The data we have, the stronger our evidence is. With 50+ IP, we don't have much. Probably some combination of bad luck and bad performance but how much of each is impossible to know.

He might be falling behind more often than usual, prompting him to throw more hitable pitches later in the count. Can't really prove anything, either way.

And opposing fans say the same thing about their team when guys like Suppan, Parra, Capuano, Narveson, Bush, Estrada, etc..have/had a great start against them. The problem is that fans expect the Brewers offense to do well against every mediocre starting pitcher they face. That's simply not a realistic expectation. Furthermore, it's not like Lackey is even a bad pitcher! Sure, he's gotten knocked around in 51 IP this year but he still has an updated ZiPS ERA projection of 4.55. Unless he's lost velocity or has some other sign of injury, I would bet on his projection more than what his current stats suggest. Against an average NL offense (like the Brewers?), he might have an expected ERA of 4.25. An average offense vs. an average defense/pitching is going to score 2 or less runs something like a quarter of the time and 3 or less runs nearly half the time. So if Lackey gives up 2 or less runs in 6 innings, that's nothing extraordinary.

Does anyone have evidence that his location has been off or are they just assuming it based off the results? I have no ideas, since I haven't looked up any of his pitch f/x data nor can I accurately aggregate all his pitch locations based off memory to compare it to the average pitcher. I could just look at his SLG (.484) and assume that since it's high, he's had poor location but that would be a results-based observation. Whenever I read a guy trying to analyze why a pitcher has had poor results, I always very concerned that his observations are results-biased. Everyone else should be as well. It could be any combination of poor location, speed, movement or bad luck. At 53 IP and when talking about ball-in-play results, there is a high potential for lots of good OR bad luck. I want solid evidence that Greinke's location has been poor (relative to the average starting pitcher) or else I My conclusion would be, "I don't know". And when we start talking about the time for the excuses to stop after 53 IP for a pitcher, that's sounds more like an emotional response to poor results more than anything else.

The players like him but I think that has a very small effect on overall player performance. Over 70 games, no manager is going to have a huge effect on team record so I am not even considering that. He might have influence on who's on the roster but that's Melvin's job so I won't fault RR for it. R's in game strategies sucks, which isn't surprising based off the kind of logic he uses to develop them. He also seems to be poor evaluating talent (Gomez, Kotsay). D

The guy tops out at 84 MPH. I shouldn't be had to figure out his odds are bad when the batter has a platoon advantage.

Wow, great play by Weeks.

I think it's 5. BTW, Weeks can hit balls really far.

Did no one mention RR's explanation for the Hart batting 6th and not 5th?

last night's game didn't bug me much, considering the sweep of the Cardinals. These two losses taken together are pretty annoying, however.

If RR is going to keep warming up Axford, you might as well just pitch him for an inning, IMO. And I will always be happy with a sacrifice attempt on a 2-0 count.

This is getting so painful. It's going to be hilarious to see our supposedly best option for DH sporting a .640 OPS. Bill will be thrilled.

Because a walk can then score a run, I don't think the IBB is necessarily the right call there. Hard to say without taking a closer look but it's not a no brainer.

I agree that ultimately, who's on the roster is Melvin's responsibly.