rluzinski

My point is, there's a big difference between trying to support a .500 team and one that is 20 games under. It gets embarrassing to blindly root for a bad team. A lot of fans disowned the team in early June. The Brewers getting back to .500 will get many of them to at least flip on the game and check the score again. We miss Hernandez, Lee, and Oswalt in the upcoming series with Seattle and Houston. I don't think it's unreasonable to say the Brewers could sweep the whole homestand considering our fortunate pitching matchups, and opponents. Let's be optimistic and say that the Brewers have a 60% chance of winning every one of those games (the average won't be that high). .6^6 = 4.6% chance of going 6-0. Possible but not really a scenario i would personally root for because I'll be disappointed 19 out 20 times. But again, that's just me.

If the Brewers win 11 games, they probably at least split the Cardinals. The Reds are nothing special, so I think they may fade over the next few months. Really though, this thread is more about the odds of the Brewers keeping fans interested. An 11-6 run isn't going to magically jettison the Brewers into the middle of a playoff race. It might let the fans take their paper bags off though, which would be nice.

"While a agree in that it is logical in a vacuum I think sometimes a good manager has to remember he is working with people not a computer program." Well, If Gallardo is a rational person, I think he'd get over it. Managers pull their starters all the time in that situation, anyway. It wouldn't be some unprecidented move.

I think the 4-2 record against the Twins this year clearly proves who the superior team is. Hey, the numbers don't lie.

I hate the phrase "we are still in it" because every team is still technically still in it. BP estimates the Brewers odds for a postseason appearance at 2.7% Assuming that is correct, I'm curious how many would call that being in it?

As baseball fans, we are always going to root for the improbable to occur. After all, even the best teams in baseball significantly less than a 50% chance of winning the World Series on any given year. Even the playoffs are improbable for most teams. And get off to a bad start? Fogetaboutit, right? The Brewers currently sit 8 games under .500. For them to even flirt with the playoffs this year, they'll probably have to be at least close to .500 by the all star break. There are 17 games before then. They are against below average talent on average and 14 of those games are at home. If the Brewers are going to make any kind of run, it's going to be now. I'm willing to at least entertain the notion of an improbable run but I'm not going to emotionally invest myself in some pie in the sky, stars perfectly aligned, one in a million shot scenarios. I'll dream but I won't completely ignore reality (so no, I don't play the lottery). So what is a reasonable, unreasonable expectation I can have for these 17 games? Let's run the numbers first. I used Baseball Prosectus's postseason odds page to get an estimate of "true skill" for the Brewers and their opponents. It's the pct3 column. I'm not a big fan of that estimate, as it only considers stats from this year but I'm lazy. They have the Brewers as a true .464 WP team. That's 75 wins over 162. Unfortunately, that sounds reasonable. Take those expected WP's, adjust for home field advantage and use the LOG5 equation to come up with the odds of the Brewers winning for each of the next 17 games: MIL .464 GM WP Odds Wins SEA 3 .470 53.4% 1.6 HOU 3 .466 53.8% 1.6 @ STL 4 .540 38.4% 1.5 SF 4 .518 48.6% 1.9 PIT 3 .354 65.2% 2.0 17 .477 8.7 We can then run a monte carlo on those odds to come up with the odds of whatever record we want to root for: 9 or more wins: 53% 10 or more: 34% 11 or more: 18% 12 or more: 8% 13 or more: 3% 14 or more: .7% "Reasonable, unreasonable expectations" is different for each person. If you want to root for more than 13 wins, be my guest. For me, 1:5 odds is about as far as I'm willing to call reasonable, though. 11-6 run and 3 games under, here we come!

With a 5 run lead, I don't see the point of pushing it. If there's a 1% chance that 10 less pitches thrown in 5 games makes Yo 1% more fresh in September, I take it. I don't give a crap about a complete game shutout, though.

Batting 3rd:11 BB in 77 PA = .143 BB/PA Batting 4th: 37 BB in 239 PA = .155 BB/PA It doesn't really apply here since Prince has actually done better in his normal position but this stuff always comes up. Take a veteran lead off guy who projects to have a .800 OPS and watch him struggle for a month to the tune of a .650 OPS. What is your projection for him going forward? Pretty much still .800. A manager who knows better than to be reactionary will let the player continue. A manager that feel like he has to do something(!) might move him to 7th for the next month. When the guy predictably hits close to his projected OPS the next month, the level headed manager can point to his non-move as evidence not to overreact. The reactionary manager can puff his chest up and say something about how the vet was just putting too much pressure on himself and needed a break leading off to get his stroke back. Geoff Jenkins effect.

But often what you are getting more of is potential worth, not actual worth. So if you want to win, at some point you need to stick with a player. Otherwise you are constantly rebuilding; fielding teams that are "almost" good, but never "actually" good.I completely agree. Measure worth any way you want. If good performance projects to be worth more now toa team than in 2011, so be it. My issue is just when people say a certain player should be traded without even mentioning what should be the minimum return for that player. Sure you can identify players who's skills you think are somewhat redundant or who's current production could be worth more to another team than your own, but it's not like he has NO value on your team. It all depends on the possible return.

I'm not saying Parra is fixed yet, but what I am saying is that I don't believe he was unlucky for a season and a half and now he's suddenly lucky which is leading to better results. There's nothing wrong with your assertion that it wasn't luck. It might actually be more likely that Parra's true BABIP (or SLg against or whatever you want to use to measure effectiveness) trully is well above average. The thing about statistical uncertainty is that you just can't PROVE it conclusively, using sample based statistics. A true .320 BABIP pitcher could pretty easily have a .360 BABIP for a season and half ONLY because the coinflips went against him. Or it could be because his location stunk. Now, if you KNOW that Parra is consistently thowing his pitches in a location that on average, causes a worse than average results, that's altogether different. More than a couple of studies have verified the pretty obvious connection between location and pitch effectiveness. Here's one: http://baseballanalysts.c...9/07/can_pitchers_co.php Like cwolf, I am quiet skeptical that you have accurately kept track of Parra's pitch locations, though. I don't know how anyone could, just by watching games. Here is Parra's pitch f/x data by starts: http://www.fangraphs.com/...010&date=2010-06-18&dh=0 Even having all the data in front of me at one time, it's hard to make any objective observations. I would need to dump all the raw data intoa spreadsheet and do a study. But apparently, you've apparently stored all that in your head and came to a definitive conclusion? I think you are WAY overestimating your observational abilities. Thousands of pitches! Thousands of results! The notion that "all you have to do is watch him pitch and you know" HAS to be just starting with the results and working your way backwards. That or you are Rainman. Also, I think it's a lot more complicated than just looking at pitch location, anyway. Pitch velocity, break, location, sequence, deception, etc... I don't think anyone has claimed to be able to understand everything that goes into understanding the art of pitching. "Basically, luck is garbage, the end." To apparently completely reject the whole concept of luck in sports is pretty silly. It's like rejecting that that water is wet and the sky is blue. I think you just don't find the non-deterministic nature of sports to be emotionally satisfying so you try to dismiss it. If you flip heads, it's because you were supposed to flip heads?

Generally speaking, shouldn't any player be traded if you can get more for them than you think they are worth?

With the exception of picking the guy whose last name starts with G-a-l-l-a-r-d-o I don't know that ANY method of detemining the starter for tonight would have made much difference. I don't mean to suggest that Bush is an exciting pick over Narv-dog. I'm just HATE when the manager of the team I root for starts talking nonsense.

"I wish Gomez could hit his way out of a wet paper bag so we wouldn't be subjected to Edmonds in CF." What I don't understand is how you trade for a guy who get's benched for a guy with a sub .800 OPS who can't play defense. What was the point in trading for him if you thought he was less valuable than that!?

Using team splits to determine your starting pitcher? Just great. If Macha would have just said that he wanted a lefty to face the Twins lefties, I guess I can understand that.

Of course the quality of the product influences how sought after it is. So yes, the team's success influences market size. Lot's of things influence a teams' capacity to make money. Population, quality of team, appetite for baseball in the city in question. Isn't that what we care about when we are talking market size? You can put a successful baseball team in Moscow and they aren't going to make money. If you want to insist that Moscow is a large market for a baseball team, be my guest. I don't understand why this subject always seems to insight rants. It's like I suggested that poorly run teams in large cities should be financially rewarded for sucking.

Or the Pirates could just have made up the "prior" so they don't look like complete tools. I actually think the Pirates are headed in the right direction, but their MLB club doesn't reflect that just yet. It's not like they are claiming he recieved some undocumented verbal warning. he was suspended. The pirates are not going to fabricate a suspension. And if I choose to publicly declare that my employer's product is bad and will continue to be bad, why shouldn't I get fired?

The market that really matters is the one that cares about professional baseball, though. Total market size is just part of the equation. As a baseball owener, it doesn't matter if you have a billion people within 50 miles of you if none of them are willing to spend money on your product. Here is how the Brewers over the last decade against the Twins: 2010: 1-2 2009: 1-5 2008: 2-4 2007: 3-3 2006: 1-5 2005: 3-3 2004: 4-2 2003: 3-3 2002: 2-4 2001: 1-2 2000: 2-1 I'm sure that "proves" something.

A good manager can and does minimize those mental mistakes. How do you know he hasn't? Pure speculation.

I find the theory that Hart was so lazy that he was only willing to run at 80% speed while chasing balls down, unbelievable. I think the accusation is a result of Hart's long strides giving an illusion of not hustling. Hell, Cam never looked like he was hustling. Hart also isn't the best at reading balls off the bat, so he's not going to look very hardworking when he doesn't know where to run. So I think this is mostly just based on faulty observation. There also seems to be more motivation for the fans to criticize a struggling player for not giving enough effort. But that is another subjectg...

Now Macha is the reason why Braun and Hart are below average outfielders? I'm not a big fan of the guy but he seems to get's blamed for everything.

rluz, you are the opposite of philosophers. they search for reason, you try and prove no reason exists. I use stats to search for reason all the time. That doesn't mean I always find it. Some things are just unprovable.

I assume that's just regular old DER. Unlike UZR, DER doesn't try to seperate fielding and pitching. Any way you slice it, though, it's clear that the Brewers as a franchise place little value on fielding. I thought the Gomez signing represented a shift in philosophy but boy was I wrong.

Bush was there in plenty of time, so Counsell should only be mad at himself for airmailing it.

Or down by 6..... WOW!

i haven't read a study in awhile but lack of protection gets you a few more walks. That's probably not a bad thing though. That's the thing people don't appreciate. if anyone can dig up the relevant studies, though...