Another Baseball Blog

BP 2009 Team Projections

2009-02-11T21:56:00.004-05:00

The Looper signing pushes a replacement level pitcher out of the rotation and puts the Brewers at 85 wins, according to Baseball Prospectus:

BP 2009 Team Projections

A quick and dirty estimate says that based on that projection, the Brewers have around a 25% chance of winning 90+ games. Assuming 90 wins gets you into the playoffs 75% of the time (don't know the real number), the Brewers might have a 1:5 or 1:6 chance making the playoffs in 2009.

Hey, it's been much worse than that for the Brewers in recent years and I won't let one playoff birth let me forget that!

NLDS Odds: Phillies vs. Brewers

2008-09-30T21:01:00.008-04:00

I've always been fond of trying to estimate series odds for the regular season, as flawed as they are. They've always carried the major disclaimer of not considering pitching matchups, among many other things. In honor of the Brewers' first post season appearance since the personal computer was invented, I decided to take a stab at at least adjusting for pitching matchups this time around.

Now, the right way to do something like this is to plug in starting rotations and lineups for each game and simulate them, PA by PA. The simulation should account for lefty/righty matchups, pitcher flyball/groundball tendencies, defense, likely bullpen moves, etc... My estimate does none of that, so if you want to call these numbers an educated guess, I'll thank you for being kind.

Basically, I used the last 2 years of each starter's FIP to come up with a reasonable projection for each, used each teams's regular season average runs/game and and made up some bullpen RA numbers. It's quick, dirty and the results may even be slightly reasonable. My biggest sin, I think, is not adjusting for the handedness of the starting pitchers. The Phillies' starting lineup is lefty heavy, and the Brewers' is righty heavy, so that omission is a big one. Here are the pitching matchups I assumed:

Game 1: Gallardo vs. Hamels
Game 2: Sabathia vs. Myers
Game 3: Bush vs. Moyer
Game 4: Suppan vs. Blanton
Game 5: Sabathia vs. Hamels

Blanton is just a guess for game 4. They would probably have Hamels pitch on short rest if they are down in the series. I also assumed that Bush would get game 3 and Suppan game 4 for the Brewers but that is far from decided, yet. Although Bush had a decent year in terms of ERA, he's had a pretty subpar FIP the last two year. Suppan has been even worse, unfortunately. And since they are both righties, I'm not very optimistic that they'd do even as well as their projections, against the Phillies offense. I'd be tempted to give Parra a shot for game 4 but I don't think that's going to happen. They way I have it, game 2 is almost a must win, as it's probably going to be the best pitching matchup the Brewers are going to get this series.

Anyway, here are the resulting odds:

I'm giving the Brewers a 42% chance of winning game 1, while Vegas is calling it closer to 35%. They are probably less optimistic about Gallardo chances on Wednesday than my estimates are. Overall, I estimate the Brewers as having a 46% chance of winning this series. Vegas says it's only about 40%. This guy agrees with me, so maybe the wisdom of the crowds is biased toward the larger market. There might be some money to be made on the Brewers! :)

I also get a 75% chance of this series going at least 4 games, for all you people holding tickets to the second Brewer home game.

EDIT: THT estimates the run production for all the NL playoff teams. I assumed that the Phillies average .3 runs/game more than the Brewers, while these numbers say .25. Not a huge difference but it might raise those Brewer odds ever so slightly.

Why I Didn't Sell My Tickets to Cub Fans

2008-09-28T23:28:00.001-04:00

How Big is The Phillies Series?

2008-09-11T18:42:00.003-04:00

146 games down, 16 to go.

While the Brewers are still 4.5 games behind the Cubs in the divisional race, the Crew is currently in the driver's seat of the wildcard race. With a 4 game lead on the Astros and the Phillies and a 4.5 game lead on the Cardinals, even a mediocre finish should be enough propel the Brewers to their first post season birth in 26 years. But the schedule gets pretty rough for the Brewers here on out, as they start a four game series with Philadelphia tonight.

How important is this series? As it turns out, pretty darn important. First, here are my estimates of the Brewer post season odds as they currently stand:

Division: 7.5%
Wildcard: 73.8%
Total: 81.3%

If those look suspiciously similar to Baseball Prospectus's odds, they should, as I used their WP3 for each team's true collective talent. It's not the best stat but it's the best publicly available one that I am aware of. Now, here are the odds of Brewers reaching the post season, based on every possible outcome of this series:

Brewer Wins DIV/WC/TOT
4 Wins: 19.6/78.8/98.4
3 Wins: 12.0/83.4/95.4
2 Wins: 6.8/80.6/87.4
1 Win: 3.7/64.8/68.5
0 Wins: 1.6/38.7/40.3

A sweep either way and things dramatically change! The chance of either team sweeping is pretty low, though, so let's concentrate on the middle three possibilities. The most likely scenario is that the Brewers and the Phillies simply split the series, where the Brewers would enjoy a 6% bump in their playoff odds. The Brewers win only one and they still have a 2 in 3 shot at the playoffs. How about the Brewers win 3 and just about lock up that playoff birth? Please?

Alright, I won't be greedy. A split would be just fine with me. With only 12 games to go, it would be tough for the other wildcard hopefuls to catch the Crew in that scenario.

Let's go, Benny!

Strength of Schedule and Catching the Cubs

2008-08-06T18:22:00.004-04:00

With the Brewers sitting five games back of the Cubs in the NL central and with all signs pointing to the Cubs being the best team in the National League, it's time for Brewer fans to set their sites on the wildcard, right? According to some, if you consider the strength of schedules difference between the Cubs and Brewers, we might actually expect the Brewers to catch the Cubs. Could strength of schedule over 47 games really make that big of a difference? I can't imagine it but let's run the numbers and find out.

When people refer to strength of schedule, they are usually talking about the cumulative win percentage of a team's opponents. Even after 120+ games, a team's record might still not represent their true collective talent very well but let's just roll with it for this excercise:

The first column is the win percentage of each opponent. The second column is the probability of the Brewers or Cubs beating that opponent, using the log5 method ( illustrated here).

The cumulative win percentage for the Brewers' remaining opponents is .475. For the Cubs, it's .502. How many wins does that strength of schedule advantage translate into? Both teams have 47 games remaining, so roughly:

47 x (.502 - .475) = 1.3 extra wins than the Cubs

While the Brewers are on pace for about 90 wins, their relatively easy schedule might allow them to get about 91 or 92 wins. That's not going to make up a five game lead, but to make sure my back-of-the-envelope calculations are reasonable, let's simulate the rest of the season using those win probabilities from the previous graph:

All that easier strength of schedule does let the Brewers keep pace with the Cubs. The Cubs are simply the better team according to their overall record and just about any other metric you can dig up. That 1.3 game advantage in SOS is basically eaten up by their respective talent differences.

Just from luck alone, the Brewers still have around a 16% chance of catching the Cubs (11.6% + 4.4%) but that's not much to hang your hopes on. For me, if the Brewers catch the Cubs, great. But the playoffs are the playoffs, so the wild card would be just fine.

The Cubs and Cardinals start a three game series on Friday. Go Cubbies! :)

Brewers Struggle Against Bad Pitchers?

2008-07-16T21:23:00.011-04:00

Miller Park. The local watering hole. Brewerfan.net. My brother-in-law's house. No matter where I've been lately, it's always the same. If a conversation is struck up about the Brewers' chances of a post season appearance this year, it never seems to take long before someone says, "Yeh, if they can just figure out how to hit bad pitchers." So ingrained in Brewers lore is this belief that evidence supporting it isn't even necessary. Everyone knows it's true, right?

Well, as the resident skeptic of all things assumed in baseball, you'll have to excuse me if I want to see if the facts support the theory. But how do we do that? The first thing we need to do is define what exactly a "bad pitcher" is. Is it a starting pitcher with a bad ERA at the time of his start? Not necessarily, as a pitcher with a 6+ ERA in June may not really be that bad of a pitcher. ERA just can't be trusted over a short period of time. We need something better.

What we really need to use is an updated ERA projection for each pitcher, which is our best guess at their true ERA (their ERA without the sample error). Now, I could use this method to update each of the pitcher's 2008 Marcel projected ERA to account for their performance this year but that's a little too much work. I'm going to do it a bit more crudely. I'll simply take a weighted averaged of their 2008 Marcel projection and their 2008 ERA. The exact weight I used is dependent on the number of innings each pitcher has worked this year but it works out to roughly to a 70/30 split for most pitchers. Not perfect but good enough for the task at hand.

Now, all all we have to do is find the worst projected starting pitchers from the first half of the season and see how the Brewer batters did against them. Here's every start against a pitcher with a projected ERA over 4.75:

In 19 games, the opposing starters had an updated projected ERA of over 4.75. Their average projected ERA (weighted by the IP of their appearances) was 5.12. Brewer batters hit them for a 5.42 ERA. The Brewers batters feasted on bad pitching!

But hold on a second. Of those 19 starts, the Brewers only beat the projected ERA in 8 of them. That's terrible, right? Not really. When a bad pitcher gets tagged for 5+ earned runs (as they invariably do at least a few times a year), it doesn't take many of those kind of starts to kill their ERA. Bad pitchers still have plenty of good starts. Let's look at a couple of the worst pitchers on that list. Josh Fogg? 5.01 career ERA. Despite that, in 42% of his career starts, he gave up 2 or less runs (min. of 5 IP). Mark Redman? Career ERA of 4.85. 2 or less earned runs in 5+ IP in 43% of his starts. A quality start, 48% of the time. That shouldn't be surprising, though. That's just how baseball works.

And for anyone who thinks that projections are the work of the devil, the Brewers have done fine against pitchers who have a bad 2008 ERA as well:

It's frustrating to watch a starting pitcher with a bad ERA do well against the Brewers but it happens to every team fairly often. That fact may not make it easier to watch but it's certainly not unexpected. So the next time you hear that Brewer batters stink against bad pitchers, send them this link!

How Much Did Aquiring CC Raise the Chances of a Playoff Appearance?

2008-07-09T23:18:00.004-04:00

According to MGL:

"MIL (Increased their chances of making post by 16%, by acquiring CC.)"

The Book Blog: With all the talk of parity in baseball this year…

Dixieflatline estimated the post season appearance improvement at 10%, but I think the 1.5 win improvement he used was a tad low. I had it at about 2.5 wins and MGL pegged it at between 2.0 - 2.5 wins. 16% sounds right to me. Slightly better than a coin flip chance at this point.

Does 16% justify the move? There's a lot of factors to consider and this article considers most of them but leaves one important one out. How much did adding Sabathia improve the chances of the Brewers succeeding in the post season? I'll try and tackle that question soon.

How Much Will Sabathia be Worth in Wins?

2008-07-07T21:42:00.010-04:00

Here's my guess:

Pretty straight forward stuff. I assumed a 3.25 ERA for Sabathia in the NL and a 4.75 ERA for Bush, going forward. I also assumed that the offense would continue scoring at the same rate they have through 88 games (4.6 runs/game). To calculate the win percentage, I just used James' Pythagorean (with a 1.82 exponent).

It might be McClung who is ultimately taken out of the lineup, which may or may not have a larger impact, depending on who you ask. The addition of Bush or McClung to the bullpen will be a net gain, though, so this trade may be worth closer to 2.5 wins when all is said and done. That may not sound like much but going from 89 wins to 91 or 92 wins is definitely the sweet spot when it comes to making the playoffs.

And please, don't tell me I'm not accounting for the positive psychological impact this trade will have on the whole team. It may or may not have a significant impact but I doubt it will and there will be no way to prove it, regardless. As a result, I'm assuming (as I have to), that the psychological impact is zero wins.

The trade is a huge gamble but one with a potentially huge payoff. Heck if I know if it was the right move. Only time will tell.

Infield Defense Sucks; Best Defender Benched

2008-06-09T22:24:00.006-04:00

So much for putting more focus on defense this year. According to Michael Lichtman's UZR metric, things are not working out:

The Book Blog: How well can we project team defense and other UZR data…

MGL projects the Brewers's defense to be 12 runs below average after 62 games. The Brewer's defense called his -12 runs and raised it to -15! The major culprit? The infield. Both Hall and Fielder make the "worst list" and Hardy wasn't far behind. Weeks isn't mentioned but it's hard for me to picture his performance as above average, even if it has been better this year.

It's one thing to sacrifice infield defense for offense. It's quite another when your 1B has hit a little above average and the rest of your infield has been bad to worse. I still consider Hardy at least an average defender but the rest of those guys ...

But at least the Brewers have benched the best defensive CF (admittedly, in limited action) in the league to make room for 32 year old bench player with a career line of .272/.332/.422/.754. Gotta play the hot hand!

I'm starting to lose faith in Melvin's plan.

EDIT: After a little prodding, MGL was kind enough to give the UZR ratings for all the Brewer infielders:

LINK

Weeks has been below average, as I suspected. So far, much improved over last year, though. Both Hardy and Hall should be doing better, so hopefully they both improve as the year goes on.

Sheets Can't Hit

2008-05-31T14:59:00.003-04:00

I know, tell you something you don't already know. I knew Sheets was bad but I didn't realize that he might the worst hitting pitcher in the league, though. According to Nate Silver at Baseball Prospectus, Sheets is just that:

Lies, Damned Lies: Evaluating Pitcher Hitting

Assuming about 80 PA (what an average starter racks up over 32 or 33 starts, Sheets costs his team 2.2 runs, compared to the average hitting pitcher. Showing up on the "best hitters" list is Yovani Gallardo, at 4.9 runs above average. That's good for 4th best in the league. Roughly speaking, that 7.1 run difference in hitting talent between Yo and Sheets equates to around .30 ERA points. Wow!

You can find some addition discussion here on this topic.

No More SOS, Please.

2008-05-27T22:12:00.003-04:00

20 home games, 31 road games; against eams with great records. Even Yost is using it as an excuse. Is there merit to it?

Not really.

While it's true that, through 5/26, the Brewers have faced teams with an average win percentage of .526, when you aren't even a quarter of the way through the season, that's just not a very good estimator of a team's actual strength. The average pythagorean win percentage of their opponent has been .516, suggesting that the straight win percentage might be inflated somewhat. What else can we look at at?

Only 50 games into the season, we know that preseason projections still tell us a lot about a team's true collective talent. Looking at the average preseason projections from here, the average projected win percentage of their opponents so far has been only .487. So, let's weigh that 75% and the 50-odd games 25%. Using the log5 method for each game and adding in the average 4% advantage to the home team, for a perfectly average team, we get the following average win expectancy for the season so far:

Actual win/loss record: 49.4%
Pythagorean Record: 49.7%

Even with all those road games, the Brewers have basically had an average strength of schedule.

Brewer Batters: Projected vs. Actual

2008-05-08T23:08:00.005-04:00

Through yesterday's game:

The only batter with a significant number of ABs (Cameron has only 34) doing better than his projection is Kendall. Unfortunately, the majority of that production occurred over the first 8 games of the season. Since then (79 AB): .203/.292/.266/.588. Amazingly, the remaining 6 starters are all hitting over .100 OPS points less than projected! Wow.

What they are doing is pretty amazing. You have to expect some significant improvement from this offense if only by accident.

Right?

This is What Three Wins Looks Like

2008-05-02T21:34:00.003-04:00

And it doesn't look good:

Brewers Assume Gallardo Out For Year

ZiPS says Bush is about a run per 9 innings worse than Gallardo. That's going to work out to around 2 or 3 less wins. BP projected 90.4 wins and a coin flip chance at the playoffs before the injury. I'd change that to about 88 wins and a 25% chance at this point.

One injury away from Jeff Weaver. Not good.

Ben Sheets' 3rd Start: Changeup Edition

2008-04-15T21:00:00.016-04:00

Ben Sheets is a new Pitch f/x analyzer's dream. The vast majority of the time, he throws a 93-94 MPH fastball and a hard, 12-6 curve. No fancy algorithm is needed to identify either. Well, he had to go and mess that all up by throwing a bunch of changeups during Saturday's 5-3 win.

Sheets has always dabbled with the changeup but this is the first time that I'm aware of that he's ever used it so prominently in a start. It made me actually have to dig into the pitch f/x data and not just rely on Pitch f/x's new pitch identification algorithm. That's probably a good thing, since it's apparently not quite ready for prime time, anyway. As it turns out, even with the changeups, Sheets is a pretty easy pitcher to analyze.

First things first. Let's look at that fastball velocity once again:

Two steps forward, one step back. The average velocity was down and the trend was.... well, there really wasn't one. His velocity usually takes an inning or two to max out but it's odd to see it also spike at the end. Did Sheets decide to give a little extra that last inning? Pace yourself, Ben. It's a long season!

Now, let's look at his velocity for every one of his 116 pitches (click for a larger image):

Sheets threw nine changeups in 7-2/3 innings of work. In contrast, I'd be surprised if he's ever thrown more than two or three in any other start in his career. Here's a summary of the velocities by pitch:

                 MPH    #
Fastball        91.2   70
Curveball       78.4   37
Changeup        86.0    9

A 5 MPH difference between a pitcher's fastball and changeup isn't anything to boast about but how were the results? Let's take a look:

P# CNT MPH  RESULT
1: 1-0 84.9 Ball to Delgado (could have been called a strike)
2: 0-0 86.8 Flyout by Church
3: 1-2 86.8 Swinging Strikeout of Beltran
4: 1-0 85.6 Groundout by Delgado
5: 1-0 83.4 Foul ball by Church
6: 1-2 87.7 Ball to Church
7: 2-2 85.6 Flyout by Church
8: 1-1 87.5 Ball to Schneider
9: 2-2 85.5 Swinging Strikeout of Anderson

Hard to argue with those results. The nine changeups resulted in four outs, including two swinging strikeouts. Hopefully, this won't be the last time Sheets has this much success with his 3rd best pitch.

For each pitch, Pitch f/x shows you the distance the ball deviates from the path that it would have traveled with no spin. Using that, it was relatively easy to figure out which pitch was which. There was a total of seven pitches that were misidentified by Pitch f/x by my calculations. Two of Sheets' more mediocre changeups were identified as fastballs (honest mistake) and five of his changeups were identified as curveballs (not so honest). Here is the deviation chart with my pitch identifications:

The view is from behind the catcher, so this chart is showing us that Sheets' changeup rides in on a right handed hitter a bit more than his fastball does, which is typical. Each of Sheet's pitches has a very distinct movement. For other pitchers,it's not quite that simple, though. I guess I lucked out that my favorite pitcher likes to keep things simple, even if he did just make it a little less simple.

I haven't even touched on Sheets' release point yet, which he's supposedly adjusted this year. I have to save something for next time!

Pitch f/x and Sheets' Second Start

2008-04-07T21:46:00.006-04:00

Another start, another great perfomance. But you don't come here for recaps, you come here for silly graphs, right?

In my previous post, I looked at Sheets' fastball velocity from his first start of the season and how it changed as the game went on. Let's repeat the exercise for his second start. Fist, the basics:

Fastball Velocity [MPH]
1st Start / 2nd Start:
AVE: 92.4 / 94.5
MAX: 94.6 / 96.2
MIN: 87.5 / 92.4
MED: 92.6 / 94.6

Significantly more velocity in his second start, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Let's see how his velocity changed as the game went on:

What if we remove those first two, offensive fastballs?

A marked improvement over his first start, where it took him two full innings to really get warmed up. As the season goes on, which will be the exception and which the rule? I guess we'll see.

Looking at pitch locations, Sheets was REALLY getting the benefit of the doubt on outside pitches to LH hitters. While that's not uncommon, it seemed especially pronounced on TV. Here are all the called strikes against LH batters:

More than a couple of those called strikes occurred in the first inning, so it's not like the Giants didn't have chance to adjust. :)

Sheets' Fastball Velocity

2008-04-02T23:24:00.006-04:00

I was curious where Sheet's fastball was during his first start and how it might have been affected by the rain delay. I am using what Pitch f/x (the company that provided pitch information for MLB) calls the starting velocity, which is really the velocity of the ball when it's 50 ft from homeplate. I don't know how that compares to what a radar gun typically picks up. It seems to be in the same ballpark (the ending velocity is significantly lower).

Sheets threw 62 fastballs over 6+ innings on Monday. Here are the basics:

Ave: 92.4 MPH
Max: 94.6 MPH (third pitch after rain delay)
Min: 87.5 MPH (first pitch of the game)
Median: 92.6 MPH

Here's his fastball velocity over the course of the game. The white vertical lines show the start of a new inning. The yellow line is the rain delay (click for a larger picture):

Everyone knows that it usually takes a little while for Sheets to get his velocity up and this game was no different. I wonder if that's typical for starting pitchers or just Sheets?

Brewers Chances of Winning the Central?

2008-03-26T23:02:00.003-04:00

Take some of the better projection systems, throw them into Diamond Mind and this is what you get:

The 2008 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout Pt 1

The 2008 Diamond Mind Projection Blowout Pt 2

The Hardball Times projections give the Brewers the most average wins (87.9) and ZiPS gives them the least (82.6). The average final win totals for the NL Central:

Cubs: 88.2
Brewers: 85.0
Cardinals: 78.3
Reds: 76.9
Astros: 74.6
Pirates: 69.8

It's basically the Cubs, Brewers and everyone else. These projections try to use past playing time to project future playing time, which likely means that Sheets only has around 150 IP in that 85 win total. Another 50 innings might add an extra 1.5 wins, substantially cutting into that Cubs lead. I wouldn't count on it but a fan can hope!

Corey Hart is the NL Rightfield MVP for 2007?

2008-03-22T00:44:00.003-04:00

That's what they tell me:

BBTF: The 2007 National League MVP

The bar might not have been set high but it's still not bad for an 11th rounder.

Sample Size Matters!

2008-03-13T22:20:00.002-04:00

A wonderful introduction to sample size and uncertainty:

Athletics Nation:Staturday: Small sample size

Anyone worried about Rickie Weeks right now needs to read that.

Sheets: Expected Performance and Playing Time

2008-02-29T18:49:00.002-05:00

This is nothing a Baseball Prospectus subscriber hasn't seen before but as part of a free article, BP published a graph showing a projection of Sheets' playing time and performance for 2008:

"Here, there is not much of a diagonal pattern; the Brewers have a pretty good idea of what Sheets’ performance level is likely to be, it’s just a question of how long he actually stays healthy to turn in that performance, reflected in a lot of variance along the playing time axis."

BP: The New-Look PECOTA Cards

Priorities

2008-02-17T13:00:00.002-05:00

The Brewers were down 3-2 in the top of the 8th to the Cardinals very late in the 2007 season. There was one out and no one on when Yost called Seth McClung in to relieve King. The Cubs had already lost to the Marlins by the time Pujols settled into the batters box. If the Brewers could find a way to win this game, they would be only one game behind the Cubs and first place in the NL Central.

Time for the Brewers to set their sites on the singular goal of winning their first division title in over two decades? Nope. Time for Yost to continue a bean ball war with a manager who's team was playing for nothing and he's not afraid to admit it.

If that's really the only way to stop the opposition from throwing fastballs at your batters, I don't even want to watch baseball anymore.

Brian Bannister Likes Stats

2008-01-29T23:03:00.000-05:00

And he's not afraid to use them:

MLBTradeRumors: Brian Bannister Q&A, Part 3

Brawn and brains? If I wasn't married...

2008 Brewer Offensive ZiPS Projections

2008-01-15T21:45:00.000-05:00

With the signing of Mike Cameron, the starting lineup is set (at least after the first 25 games). In the near future, I'll be playing around with different ways to estimate runs/game and I'll be using ZiPS projections as the foundation:

                  BA    OBP    SLG    OPS    GPA
Prince Fielder  .282   .380   .571   .951   .314
Corey Hart      .289   .353   .518   .871   .288
Ryan Braun      .294   .332   .554   .886   .288
Bill Hall       .270   .336   .475   .811   .270
Rickie Weeks    .254   .363   .422   .785   .269
Mike Cameron    .254   .341   .447   .788   .265
J.J. Hardy      .262   .318   .421   .739   .248
Jason Kendall   .257   .332   .313   .645   .228
AVERAGE         .270   .344   .465   .810   .271

                  BA    OBP    SLG    OPS    GPA
Gabe Gross      .264   .358   .426   .784   .268
Joe Dillon      .280   .338   .449   .787   .264
Anthony Gwynn   .260   .325   .328   .653   .228
Michael Rivera  .209   .288   .355   .643   .218
Craig Counsell  .232   .307   .315   .622   .217
AVERAGE         .249   .323   .375   .698   .239

Most of these projections can be found here.

GPA stands for "Gross Production Average" and it weights OBP and SLG in terms of run production better than OPS.

Brewers Sign Mike Cameron to One year Deal

2008-01-11T20:35:00.000-05:00

Is this the final piece to the Brewers first playoff appearance in over 25 years?

Brewers Sign Cameron

The suspension sucks but I'm starting to warm up to this deal. A one year deal at $6.2 mil guaranteed is nothing these days. Cameron's Marcel projection for 2008:

.252/.334/.439/.773

Keep in mind, that projection does not account for Cameron having to play half his games the last two years in a pitcher's park, so that projection should be a tad conservative. At 35 years old, I fear that Cameron's defense might be a tad over rated these days but he should still be above average in CF. Couple that with the move of Hall back to 3B and Braun to LF and the Brewers' defense should be much improved. Is it a sexy move? No. It's simply a short term fix to one of the Brewers' greatest weaknesses of 2007, defense.

What about the 25 game suspension and how it will be handled? Hall and Braun will have to be moved right away, so they can get as much practice in at their new/old positions as possible. I assume Braun will start everyday in LF and Hart will get the majority of the starts in CF, with Gross, Dillon and Gwynn sharing the rest of the outfield load.

Tangotiger seems to think this was a great signing:

"In post 66, I have Cameron very high. I love that guy. Everyone should. Way above average.

Signing him to a 2/15 deal is a steal for the Brewers. Sending Hall to 3B, and moving Braun to LF is exactly what I called for.

Brilliant."

The previous post he was referring to said:

"Mike Cameron:

A slightly above average hitter.
An above average fielder
A CF.

Fielding: From 2006-2007, Dewan has him as +16 runs total. From 2003-mid07, MGL has him as +13 runs per 150 G. The Fans have him as a “76” (CF avg is “60"), which makes him +11 runs. All agree: he’s +1 win.

Dude plays in a killer pitcher’s park. He’s probably +0.5 wins as a hitter (maybe someone can help me out here).

He gets his 0.5 win bonus for being a CF, and loses it for aging.

Add it up, and we get: +1.5 WAA, or +3.5 WAR.

He’s in the same class as Posada and Lowell."

Good enough for me.

EDIT:

There's some nice analysis of this transaction at Skyking162.

I'm Not Dead

2007-12-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

For my three regular readers, fear not! I haven't forgotten this blog. I've simply had a baby and have been working day and night on finishing my basement. If anyone is curious about my opinion on the recent moves, I'm not excited by the Kendell signing and I'm not upset that Melvin didn't outbid the Reds for Coco's services(Melvin needs to work on that bullpen, however).

To be honest, I've enjoyed the break from the Brewers but I just paid for my season tickets and the winter meetings are underway. Time to get back on that horse!

The Race is Getting Interesting

2007-09-18T23:24:00.001-04:00

Because they have the easier remaining schedule, the Cubs are still statistically favored but a Brewers' win and a Cubs' loss tomorrow will erase that edge. Meaningful baseball in September!

Simulating The Rest of The Season

2007-09-07T16:01:00.000-04:00

Normally, I'd include a bunch of uneeded charts and graphs to a post like this but time is short, so I'll get to the point. I used the teams' pythagorean record to simulate the rest of the season 100,000 times to see how the NL Central might end up. I was specifically interested in the chances of a two or three way tie occuring. I have no time to check my work, so take these numbers with a grain of salt:

Cubs win outright: 48.2%
Brewers win outright: 27.9%
Cards win outright: 9.6%

And for the tie scenarios:

Two-way Tie:			13.3%
Crew/Cubs			8.4%
Crew/Cards			2.0%
Cards/Cubs			2.8%
Three-Way Tie:			1.0%

So, the Brewers have about a 39% chance of at least tieing the NL Central. Assuming a 50% chance of winning a two way tie and a 33% chance of winning a three way tie, that gives the Crew about a 33% chance of making the playoffs.The Cubs have about a 54% chance; the Cardinals a 13% chance.

Here are the odds for the final win total for the Brewers (83 wins is the average):

Wins	Prob
87+	6%
86	7%
85	11%
84	15%
83	16%
82	16%
81	12%
80	8%
79-	8%

A Long Slide

2007-08-30T19:39:00.000-04:00

From Baseball Prospect's PECOTA adjusted playoff odds report:

The crazy thing is how much the last two games against the Cubs have affected the Brewers' odds of making the playoffs:

Before Game 1: 24.7%
After Game 1: 17.5%
After Game 2: 25.7%

With the Cardinals having already lost today, the difference between a win and a lose for the Brewers tonight will be something like 15% on the the their playoff odds.

Must win?

Series Probabilties: 8/28

2007-08-28T22:06:00.000-04:00

We are at that point in the year when it's fair to say that a particular series is huge. This is one of them...

Percentage of Fastballs By Lineup Position

2007-08-21T23:46:00.000-04:00

Compliments of Dewan's "Stat of the Week":

Which batting slot gets the most fastballs?

There's a difference but not a big one. In the NL, the difference between the percentage of fastballs a lead off hitter gets compared to the #4 hitter is 6%, or about an extra fastball every 5 AB.

Playoffs!? Are You Kidding Me!?

2007-08-20T20:20:00.000-04:00

The Brewers aren't:

$1,600 for two terrace level tickets to each playoff game at Miller Park? Sold! And while it might not feel like it, a win tonight puts the Brewers back into first place (they'd be tied with the Cubs but I wouldn't complain). One game at a time.

Joe Dillon Called Up

2007-08-01T20:43:00.000-04:00

The Brewers send down Weeks and call up an intriguing career minor leaguer:

Brewers send Weeks to Class AAA Nashville

Here's what Dillon has done over his last three AAA seasons:

Not bad for a guy who retired five years ago. At almost 32 years of age, a prospect he is not but he might be that right handed pinch hitter the Brewers have been needing. He'll probably also get the occasional start in LF, 3B and 1B.

As for Weeks, let's hope he can figure things out in AAA and get back by September.

Tough Home Stand

2007-07-31T17:25:00.000-04:00

Brewer fans may have to settle for 3-3 as a "sucessful" home stand.

Road Trip Probabilities

2007-07-23T17:29:00.000-04:00

I'm being lazy again and just using Baseball Prospectus's AEQR and AEQRA from their adjusted standings page:

While the Cardinals have 4 more wins and 8 less losses than the Reds, their raw stats suggest that they are pretty close in overall talent. It might be tempting to think that the Crew should beat these guys up, but a 4-4 or 5-3 road trip would be about what's expected.

Hardball Times: First Half Brewer Review

2007-07-23T00:31:00.000-04:00

"The Brewers, like many teams, have their share of underachieving and overachieving players. Still, enough of their success looks legitimate that there's no obvious reason to expect them to decline dramatically, provided they can stay mostly healthy. They seem unlikely to top 95 wins this season, but 88-90 wins are very much within their capabilities. It will likely be up to the rest of the NL Central to catch up to them—and are any of the other NL Central teams capable of 90 wins?"

Link

At this point, the Cubs would have to finish 39-26 for 90 wins. That's a .600 winning percentage. I wouldn't expect it but it wouldn't be impossible, either.

It's going to be an interesting race for the NL Central, in my opinion.

Nate Silver Likes the Brewers Over the Cubs

2007-07-17T09:03:00.000-04:00

With every talking head screaming about the resurgent Cubs, it's nice to see an objective analysis still giving the nod to the Crew:

"Although this sort of point-by-point comparision can inherently be misleading, it’s surprisingly hard to construct an argument that the Cubs have more talent top-to-bottom than the Brewers. Couple that with the three-and-a-half games that the Brewers have in hand, and I would rate them as perhaps 5:2 favorites to hold onto the Central..."

BP: Cubs versus Brewers

Of course, this probably presumes that Sheets doesn't miss more than two or three starts. Let's hope that is the case.

Who Doesn't Love Come From behind Wins?

2007-07-14T22:36:00.000-04:00

It looks like Prince sure does!

Sheets left tonight's game with a strained finger. He watched the rest of the game on the bench, so you have to think it's not too serious. I'd expect him to miss maybe one start, with Yo working on a normal four day's rest.

Ten games up and a 3.5 lead in the Central. Sounds good to me.

Here's the video of Prince enjoying the win by interrupting Graffy's post game interview:

Series Probabilities: Rockies @ Brewers

2007-07-13T16:35:00.000-04:00

Pitching Match ups:

Friday: J. Francis (L) vs C. Capuano (L)
Saturday: R. Lopez (R) vs. B. Sheets (R)
Sunday: A. Cook (R) vs. J. Suppan (R)

Let's start the second half on the right foot.

Ichiro Worth the Cash?

2007-07-12T16:07:00.001-04:00

Dave Cameron's analysis of Ichiro's pending deal with the Mariners:

U.S.S. Mariner: Ichiro, $20 million a year

CFer Ichiro is tons more valuable than RFer Ichiro (provided his defense is up to it).

The Brewers' REAL Problem

2007-07-12T10:28:00.000-04:00

You just have to know where to look:

If they could simply play all week like they have on Monday and Tuesday, instead of being only 10 games over .500 and holding onto a slim 4.5 game lead in the NL Central, the Crew would be 59 - 29 and running away with the division.

I don't know if it's late-week fatigue or lack of focus and desire, but Yost and Melvin need to get to the bottom of this. If the Brewers keep playing like a mediocre team for the majority of the week, it won't be long before they are one.

Size and Shape of Strike Zone Dependant on Batter Handedness

2007-07-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

A very interesting article from John Walsh at the Hardball Times:

"Are [umpires] now calling the strike zone according to the rulebook? We can try to answer this question by actually measuring the strike zone as called by major league umpires and compare that to the rulebook strike zone. This is of more than purely academic interest: one of the reasons given for the huge increase in offensive production in the 1990s is the ever-shrinking strike zone. We can't now go back and see if that claim is accurate or not, but we can measure the strike zone today and in the future and see how it changes and how it affects offense."

Hardball Times: Strike Zone: Fact vs. Fiction

A summary of his findings:

The view is from behind the batter, so umpires appear to be calling the outside pitch against lefties as strikes, among other inconsistencies. The end result is that right handed hitters have a larger strike zone to defend than lefties.

As the author notes, there's still some problems with the data itself, so I consider this an interesting work in progress.

Series Probabilities: Brewers @ Nationals

2007-07-06T15:39:00.000-04:00

Pitching Probables:
Game 1: Bush (R) vs. Bacsik (L)
Game 2: Suppan (R) vs. Simontacchi (R)
Game 3: Capuano (L) vs. Redding (R)

ERA Broken Down By Starts

2007-06-27T13:40:00.001-04:00

Below are the 2007 ERA's for the Brewer starting pitchers, broken into blocks of starts. Column one and two comprise of their first and second set of five starts. The "final column includes the balance of their starts, though June 26th (number of starts are in parenthesis):

           FIRST   SECOND      FINAL   TOTAL
Sheets      4.50     3.06    2.04(6)    3.09
Capuano     3.21     5.18    5.00(3)    4.35
Suppan      2.97     4.01    7.43(6)    4.90
Bush        6.23     6.03    3.23(5)    5.17
Vargas      2.08     4.94    5.24(5)    4.29

Probably not a good idea to formulate an opinion on a pitcher based on only a handful of starts?

Pitches Per Plate Appearance

2007-06-27T11:02:00.000-04:00

2007 Highest P/PA, min 150 PA:

PLAYER          TEAM    TPA    P/PA
Jason Giambi    NYY     179    4.43
Reggie Willits  LAA     251    4.38
Troy Glaus      TOR     224    4.37
Nick Swisher    OAK     310    4.36
Jack Cust       OAK     166    4.33
Todd Helton     COL     326    4.31
Ryan Shealy     KAN     189    4.31
Brandon Inge    DET     278    4.31
Johnny Damon    NYY     263    4.30
Casey Blake     CLE     324    4.30

2007 Lowest P/PA, min 150 PA:

PLAYER          TEAM    TPA    P/PA
PLAYER          TEAM    TPA    P/PA
Johnny Estrada  MIL     255    3.00
Kevin Mench     MIL     161    3.08
Miguel Olivo    FLA     261    3.13
Howie Kendrick  LAA     177    3.14
Corey Patterson BAL     244    3.20
Kenji Johjima   SEA     241    3.20
Vladimir GuerrerLAA     326    3.21
Jay Payton      BAL     215    3.21
Mike Sweeney    KAN     225    3.27
Aaron Boone     FLA     228    3.32

Here's a little bit about pitches per plate appearance:

Hardball Times: And Here’s the Pitch...

"That said, the players in the bottom 20% of P/PA have an average on-base plus slugging (OPS) of 719 while those in the top 20% have an OPS of 797. Since OPS correlates very well with run production, it is therefore a good proxy, and because going deep into counts forces opposing pitchers to throw more pitches and tire sooner, it's safe to say that on average, players who see more pitches end up contributing more to their teams."

Someone, let Estrada and Mench know, please.

Two Strike Approach

2007-06-26T12:34:00.001-04:00

When Carlos Lee was here, he was always praised for changing his approach at the plate with 2 strikes, especially when there was a runner in scoring position. This probably isn't news to anyone but Geoff Jenkins is not a fan of that philosophy:

ACTA Sports: How well do hitters protect the plate with two strikes?

With Vlad and Cabrera making the cut, Jenkins is actually in some pretty good company, however. Of course, it's not automatically bad for a batter to keep the same approach with two strikes. What really matters is the result of the approach. Batters are putting up a combined .550 OPS with two strikes this year, so the bar isn't exactly set very high.

A Little Run Support Goes a Long Way

2007-06-20T13:12:00.001-04:00

Qualified NL Pitchers, 2007

A starting pitcher's record is largely a function of the runs he gives up (whether through the fault of him or his defense) and the runs his offense scores for him.

Why was I looking at this? Sheet's victory last night pushed his record to 8-3 and I wanted to see how much his run support as helped. In a word, lots. While the Brewers offense has average 4.6 runs per game this year, Sheets has averaged 5.25 runs of support so far. Combine that with his current 3.19 ERA and you get a pitcher with an outside shot at his first 20 win year. I don't think he'll do it (the run support probably won't hold up) but as a Sheets' fan, it's nice to enjoy a little help from the offense once in awhile.

Tango's Offense Simulator

2007-06-20T09:38:00.000-04:00

Tangotiger was nice enough to make a simple runs created simulator available to all:

The Runs Created,Run Expectancy,Run Frequency,Linear Weights Generator

Check out the link to the blog discussion on it.

Strength of Remaining Schedule

2007-06-19T17:15:00.000-04:00

I was just wondering about the strength of the Brewers' remaining schedule and "Bucco Blog" was nice enough to read my mind:

NLCD Remaining Schedule Breakdown

As it stands, it looks like the Brewers have a very easy schedule remaining. When you are trying to judge team strength on 70 games, SOS can sometimes be pretty misleading, however. Still, all things considered, the NL Central looks like a two team race to me, with the Brewers pretty heavy favorites right now.

Home Stand Probabilities

2007-06-18T09:05:00.000-04:00

After a nice 5-4 road trip, the Brewers come home for a nine game home stand and their prospects look great on paper. To calculate my probabilities, I'll be lazy again and just use Baseball Prospectus' AEQR and AEQRA from their Adjusted Standings page:

It's not hard to eyeball those odds and see that the average expected home stand record is about 5-4 or 6-3. Let's look at the the chances for all possible outcomes:

That works out to about a 75% chance of 5-4 or better and 50% of 6-3 or better. Time to take advantage and make the "on paper" a reality!

Playoff Odds Calculations

2007-06-14T12:57:00.000-04:00

A thread about the kind of projections I am addicted to:

"Inside The Book" Blog: Odd of Making the Playoffs

Someone needs to explain to me what's a reasonable way of estimating the amount of regression that should be performed.

What's the Cause of This Slide?

2007-06-13T13:19:00.000-04:00

After a great 24-10 start, the Brewers have seemingly fallen apart, going 10-20 and causing Brewer fans everywhere to seriously question the talent level of the current club. Let's look at what might be causing the slide and try to determine if we should expect more of the same.

30 games, 17 on the road and 13 at home. Some very tough opponents sprinkled in there but the SOS for those 30 games was still only a hair over .500 (thanks, Texas). As a rough guess, I'd say a fair expectation (assuming the Brewers really are a 85 win team) might have been about 14 or 15 wins. They missed the mark by maybe 4 or 5 wins. Just bad luck? Let's look at the run distributions:

The NL average RPG (runs per game) has been about 4.5 runs. It looks like the Crew's offense has been as below average as the pitching staff. The pythagorean suggests a 11-19 record but those 12 runs scored early accounts for most of the discrepancy. The Brewers have earned that 10-20 record.

This is where I was supposed to look at which players have over performing during the slump and which have under performing. But as I type this, the Brewers have just won a tough game against the Tigers on the road. Stay tuned for my next post, where I write about what factors contributed to the Brewers resurgence. :)

Brewer MVP So Far?

2007-06-08T14:58:00.000-04:00

If you consider defense, Hardy has been the MVP so far:

Statistically Speaking: Why Bill Stoneman is smarter than I am

The "LWT" column shows the run value of each player's contribution at the plate ( using linear weights). The "UZR" column shows their defensive contribution. The position adjustment (a big hitting SS is more valuable than an equally gifted DH) is shown in the "Pos" column.

Finding Hardy and Fielder in the one and two spot is probably no surprise to anyone. While Prince has easily been the MVP with the bat, he's really hurt his value on the defensive side of things. The big surprise, though, is Craig Counsell being 4th on the list. It's hard to believe that a guy with a .227 BA and a .291 SLG could rank anywhere near the top but Counsell has had value in other areas. With a .353 OBP, Counsell has kept his offensive production at least reasonable by limiting his outs. His main contribution has been his SS level defense at 3B, however. 8 runs over average in 40-some games is monstrous. While he wouldn't have kept that up all year, I think it's fair to suggest that Counsell hasn't hurt the Brewers as much as many thought (yes, including me).

On the slip side, according to UZR, Weeks and Hall have really hurt their value with some shoddy defense. Halls' troubles have been pretty evident, as he's made a number of obviously bad plays. Weeks, on the other hand, is a bit of a surprise. He's limited his errors but perhaps his range isn't where it should be?

Because of the small small samples involved, it would be foolish to simply extrapolate any of these numbers but they do give you an interesting snapshot of the Brewer's season so far. My money is on Hall to make the biggest positive jump on the list. Hopefully, Sean Smith will update this in a couple months.

9 Game Road Trip Probabilities

2007-06-07T13:28:00.000-04:00

The Brewers have a nine game road trip against the Rangers, Tigers and Twins coming up and I thought I'd take a peak at their chances. I used Baseball Prospectus's "Third-Order Wins" as an estimate of each team's true talent. For instance, BP calculates that based on the Brewers raw stats and strength of schedule, they "should" have a 30.7 - 29.3 record. While 60 games isn't enough of a sample to get a very accurate gauge of a team's talent (not to mention, personnel and ability isn't static), it's a decent ballpark guess.

Here are the results:

Looks like the Brewers have a decent shot of a winning road trip. Brewer fans everywhere could sure use that.

Dave Bush is Not A Six Inning Pitcher

2007-06-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

It seems that every year, Brewer fans grab hold of an observation based on a small sample and than declare it as fact for the rest of the year. A recent example is the new myth that Dave Bush should be pulled at the earliest signs of trouble after the 6th inning. It's based on the fact that Bush has run into some serious trouble late in games this year. The irony is that the exact opposite has been true in years past.

From 2004-2006 (his entire ML career, prior to 07'), the deeper he went into the games, the better he got:

             BA   OBP   SLG   OPS
Inning 1-3  .275  .331 .462  .793
Inning 4-6  .250  .288 .407  .695
Inning 7-9  .199  .244 .306  .550

Bush was an absolute work horse for the Brewers in 2006. Of his 32 starts, half went for 7 or more innings, including 3 complete games. That's about as good as it gets for a #4 starting pitcher.

Unfortunately, he's run into some serious trouble in the 7th this year and fans have started to notice. But while he's given up an eye opening 1.677 OPS to batters after the 6th inning so far, that's been over a paltry 18 AB. Why should we pay attention to a sample like that, when 186 AB from the previous 3 years paints a completely different picture? The answer is, we shouldn't. The sample is simply too small to draw any meaningful conclusions from it.

It's human nature to search for patterns from the most recent events but in baseball, if you start making personnel decisions based on those observations, you are running the risk of making some serious mistakes.

Justifying The Best Record in Baseball

2007-05-11T08:39:00.000-04:00

While the Brewers currently own the best record in Major League baseball (34-10), it wasn't that long ago when they were 15-9, despite having been outscored by their opponents, 110 to 113.

"Frauds!" was the cry from opponent message boards.

"Likely to regress" was the prediction from many sabermetric websites.

You see, amateur sabermetricians, such as myself, just love looking at pythagorean records. The theory is that a few close games all falling either for or against a team can skew a team's record (a very high low record in one run games, for instance). So, if you want a better feel for a team's true talent, you might be better off simply looking at a team's runs scored and given up. The Brewers -3 run differential suggested the Brewers had been a mediocre playing team that were simply blessed with some early luck.

What a difference a great ten game home stand can make.

Apparently undeterred by those dire predictions, the Brewers went 9 - 1 on the home stand, outscoring their opponents over that period, 59 to 19. Let's look at that pythagorean record now! We'll look at two different kinds. The first is the raw pythagorean, which simply uses Brewers' actual runs scored and runs given up. The second is the BaseRun pythagorean, which uses the team's raw stats to calculate their expected runs scored and runs given up:

According to the straight pythagorean, the Brewers "should" be about 21-13. At 20-14, their BaseRun pythagorean record is about one game lower (they've scored less runs than expected but also have given up less than expected runs). There are many factors that can cause the difference between a team's pythagorean and actual record and luck is only one of them. Perhaps Yost is a better in-game strategist than the average skipper. Having Turnbow and Cordero dominating the 8th and 9th innings may also give the Brewers an above average advantage. Whatever the exact reason, it's possible that the makeup of the team simply allows them to use their runs more efficiently than the average team.

If we want to be conservative and attribute the entire difference to good luck that isn't likely to continue, an expected record of 20-14 is still damn good, though. Extrapolate that over the rest of the season and Brewer fans should expect a 95 win season, right? Well, not quite. That assumes that the Brewers' raw stats from the first 34 games of the season perfectly echos their true talent. While 1173 AB and 308 IP seems like a decent sample, MGL at "The Book" blog guards against underestimating statistical uncertainty at the team level:

For example, when we see a team bat .290 in 1000 AB’s, the equivalent of a little more than a month into the season, does that mean that this team is likely a great hitting team (assuming we know little else about them)? Well, even though we are talking about 1000 AB’s, it is likely that the regression toward the mean on that .290 is pretty substantial. For an individual player, it might be only 37% or so. For a team, it is probably closer to 70 or 80% (I don’t really know off the top of my head), maybe more.

"The Book" Blog: Groups of Players and Regression Toward the Mean

OK, so even the Brewer BaseRun pythagorian record may not represent the team's true talent very well yet. If we want an even more conservative estimate for the Brewers final record, we might regress their current expected record 90% towards the mean. If we knew nothing about the Brewers' actual talent, we'd regress 90% from .588 (winning percentage from our 20-14 expected record) towards .500. That gives us a regressed expected winning percentage of .509. If the Brewer played at that level for the rest of the year, they'd end up with about 89 wins.

But we do know something about the Brewers' true talent. They've all played professional baseball before, so we have some idea of their expected level of performance. Regressing towards a reasonable preseason expected winning percentage might make more sense. Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA based 2007 projections pegged the Brewers for an 85 win season (.525 winning percentage). Regressing 90% from .588 to .525 gives us a .531 regressed expected winning percentage. If the Brewers played at that level for the rest of the season, their final record would be 92-60. Sold!

While it might be tempting to assume that the Brewers will "fall apart, like they always do", that's not what the facts say. As conservative as I've tried to be with my estimates, this is a legitimate playoff contending team, no matter how you slice it.

50K Visitors

2007-05-01T09:33:00.000-04:00

30,000 came to see my Halloween costume from last year, but I'll take it! Thanks for visiting.

10 Game Home Stand Probabilities

2007-04-30T10:41:00.000-04:00

The Brewers are starting a ten game home stand tonight against the Cardinals, Pirates and Nationals. The Brewers have done well so far this year, sitting atop the NL Central with a 15-9 record. In contrast, the Cards, Bucs and Nats have combined for a 29-42 record. While it's hard not to be optimistic, what exactly should Brewer fans expect the Crew to do over these next 10 games? Let's calculate some rough probabilities.

It's far too early to expect a teams record or run differential to accurately represent their true talent. For this exercise, I'll simply ballpark their true talent in the form of how many wins I think each team should win over the course of a season. Obviously, that's pretty subjective but I'll try to keep it reasonable. From that, I can come up with the probability the Brewers have of beating each team:

90 wins might be a bit optimistic for the Brewers (I predicted 85 wins before the season) but not unreasonable. Using those probabilities, I simulated the 10 game home stand 10,000 times with these results:

The most likely result is a 7-3 home stand, although anywhere between 5-5 and 8-2 has a reasonable chance of occurring. It's also worth noting that despite the weaker opposition at home, there's still a 13% chance of "only" going 5-5 on the home stand. While I'm sure that would disappoint many a Brewer fan (including myself!), that's simply the nature of the game. It's why there's 162 games in a season and why a 7 game playoff series is basically a crap shoot. Anything can happen in a handful of games.

And if that 6% chance of four or less wins becomes a reality, I suggest steering clear of Brewer message boards for a while. :)

Enjoy the Moment

2007-04-25T08:57:00.000-04:00

And yes, I enjoy seeing the Cubs and Cardinals at the bottom almost as much as I do seeing the Brewers on top.

It's also worth noting that Baseball Prospectus's PECOTA version of their Postseason Odds Report puts the Brewers' odds of making the playoffs at 56% (that doesn't consider last night's win). I use the PECOTA version because it considers both the performance of the team so far and the perceived talent of the club before the season started (based on their PECOTA projections). Being only 20 games in, it would be silly to expect the current team stats of a club to closely mirror the actual talent yet. Since BP projects the Brewers to win 85 games this year, it doesn't drag their playoff odds down very much. In contrast, even if the Royals were 13-7 right now, they wouldn't have very good odds to make the playoffs since they were projected to lose 96 games.

If only it were September...

What Could Have Been (CF)

2007-04-24T16:02:00.000-04:00

Juan Pierre
Age: 29
Contract: 5 year, $44 mil deal with Dodgers
87 PA: .280 / 302 / .329 / .631

Dave Roberts
Age: 34
Contract: 3 year, $18 mil deal with Giants
62 PA: .214 / .279 / .321 / .600

What the Brewers currently have....

Bill Hall
Age: 27
Contract: 4 years, $24 mil (bought out 2 years of arb.)
76 PA: .261 / .329 / .507 / .836

I can't say I'm upset so far, even with Hall's uneven play in CF. His defense will only improve.

Is Suppan a "Winner"?

2007-04-04T12:03:00.000-04:00

Runs allowed + run support = win/loss record.

There's nothing magical about it. Unfortunately, there's little chance of the Brewers matching the run support Suppan received while with St. Louis. Suppan will still be a very valuable pitcher if he can keep his ERA around 4.0 but you won't see him flirting with 20 wins as a Brewer any time soon.

Brewers Have One in Three Chance at the Post Season?

2007-04-03T12:24:00.000-04:00

To be exact, it's a 33.86115% chance, says Baseball Prospectus:

Postseason Odds

After yesterday's win, that must have increased to at least 33.86116%.

Clark Traded to Dodgers For Dessens

2007-03-27T10:31:00.000-04:00

It looks like Doug Melvin finally cleaned up that pesky "too many outfielders" problem yesterday and I like how he did it:

Brewers aquire Dessens for Clark (MB.com)

The Royals are paying all of Elmer Dessens' $1.7 mil salary this year, so Melvin had to kick in $2.1 mil in the trade to help defray Clark's $3.8 mil (mistake) salary and balance out the trade. Basically, Melvin is getting a serviceable reliever and $1.7 mil for his #6 outfielder. Hard to complain about that.

Elmer Dessens is 36 years old but appears to still have some value. Over the last three years, he's compiled a 4.25 ERA, including a 3.28 ERA and 1.24 WHIP as a reliever (thanks, Ennder). That compares favorably to the NL average reliever ERA of 4.21 last year. Good enough for a long reliever and Melvin has indicated that Dessens will be just that.

The team payroll is now pretty much set:

Villanueva may very well take Capellan's spot in the bullpen but that won't have any effect on that $67 mil price tag. And to think, the Brewers' payroll was $27.5 mil only 3 seasons ago.

Baseball Prospectus Projects the Brewers To Win Division

2007-03-20T10:24:00.000-04:00

Using their PECOTA projection system, Baseball Prospectus simulated the 2007 season and guess who came out on top in the NL Central? That's right, our beloved Brewers:

BP 2007 MLB Standings Projection

The actual win/loss standings are "insider" information but a brewerfan.net poster was kind enough to paste the NL Central results:

          W  L  RS  RA   AVG  OBP  SLG
Brewers   85 77 789 748 .266 .335 .446 
Cubs      84 78 828 792 .275 .337 .460 
Cardinals 81 81 731 735 .261 .331 .417 
Astros    79 83 760 783 .260 .332 .434 
Pirates   76 86 752 804 .271 .331 .432 
Reds      72 90 744 829 .259 .331 .424

The Brewers project to be about an 85 win team (as most of us guessed already) but, because of the state of the NL Central this year, that just might be enough to squeak out a division title. Of course, four or five NL Central teams have a realistic shot at the division this year but if some of the young Brewer positional player hit like we think they can, this might be an interesting year, however.

What Will Ben Sheets be Worth?

2007-03-07T09:36:00.000-05:00

The Brewers have Ben Sheets signed for two more years but what would it take if Melvin wanted to extend him? While injuries have limited Sheets to only 262.2 IP in the last two years, his injuries are not expected to linger and he's apparently as healthy as ever right now. Still, Melvin needs to at least consider the risk or reinjury and adjust his offer accordingly.

So, what should the offer be? What would be a fair market offer considering his talent and age? I don't really know but I know someone who does. Tom Tango, proprietor of the excellent Tangotiger.net and co-author of "The Book", has done some research on estimating free agent contract values. All off season, he's been looking at the free agent signings and comparing them to his own estimates. I wanted to hear his take on this hypothetical so I sent him this email:

"Sheets has had a couple injury issues the last couple of years but nothing that's expected to give him issues going forward. Assuming good health, what is his worth? What kind of contract could he expect as a free agent?"

His reply:

"This guy would be the best 30-and-under pitcher to hit the free agent market since.... I don't know when. The injury factor is huge. He's basically a +.25 WAR [wins above reserve]per 9IP pitcher. Multiply that by something between 14 and 22 "full games", making him between +3.5 and +5.5 WAR .

In 2 years, the free agent dollars will be 4.8MM per win, making him between 17 and 26MM in 2009. You can use the salary chart to see how much to pay for him (just multiply all the numbers by 1.2)."

Tom

The salary chart he's referring to can be found HERE.

If Sheets continues to be banged up and can only be counted on for about 125 IP a year (14 "full game" starts), we look at the 3.5 WAR row and get $27 mil for two years or $39 mil for a 3 years. As Tango points out, the extension wouldn't come into play for 2 more years, so we multiply those numbers by 1.2 (assuming 10% league inflation a year). $32 mil for a 2 year extension or $47 mil for a 3 year extension. What if Sheets is healthy and can be counted on for 200 IP a year (14 "full game" starts)? 5.5 WAR works out to $53 mil for 2 years or $79 mil for 3 years. Wow.

These are free agent dollars, though. Let's assume Melvin should expect a 20% discount for extending Sheets' current contract by two years. Let's also assume that Sheets' injury risks (above an average player) justifies Melvin assuming only 175 IP per year. Melvin might have to offer Sheets about $36 mil for a two year extension. I would Melvin had done that than sign Suppan but it's a little late for that. :)

Bill Hall Signs Long Term Deal

2007-02-06T08:24:00.000-05:00

I couldn't have been more wrong. After turning down Melvin's overtures for a long term deal last, I was convinced that Bill Hall was content to play out his three arbitration years and wait for the big pay day of free agency. Heck, I didn't blame him. So, you'll appreciate my surprise when I heard that the Brewers and Hall agreed to a four year deal yesterday for what appears to be under market value. Better still, there's a club option for a fifth year, which is almost certainly going to be picked up by the Brewers. This signing alone turns a mediocre off season by Melvin into a good one, in my opinion.

Here are the salary terms of the contract:

2007: $3.50 MIL
2008: $4.80 MIL
2009: $6.80 MIL
2010: $8.40 MIL
2011: $9.25 MIL (Club Option)

Hall has had two very good years in a row (.280/.344/.525/.869, combined), can play almost anywhere defensively and is now signed through his peak years (ages 27 - 31). Looking at the dollar figures, it's difficult to imagine that he would have made less money in arbitration for 07' through 09' than the numbers above. That leaves 2010 and 2011, which (assuming yearly league payroll inflation of 10%) has a present value of $6.3 MIL for both years. That's peanuts in today’s market!

Hall has been very good the last couple of years and long term prospects look very good as well. 2007, ZiPS projects .268/.334/.496/.830 and Marcels projects about the same. That's for his age 27 year. He was an average defensive SS but I suspect he'll be above average in CF. He seems to be a stand up guy and he’s also a fan favorite. I can't figure out what not to like about this deal.

Congratulations Hall, Melvin and the fans. The Brewers might have finally turned a corner. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reread this thread from brewerfan.net.

EDIT:

Here's what Tangotiger (One of the authors of "THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball") thinks about the signing:

"Hall: 5/33, backloaded, paying for +11.5 WAR total.

Definitely an interesting case.

His 5-yr contract works out to the equivalent of 5/32, if paid the same amount each year. So, no big difference. He is being paid for +2.8 WAR this year, and I gave him a small decline of 0.25 wins each year.

He is an above average hitter, a +1 win above average. Dewan loves him as a fielder, while Fans think he’s an average fielding SS. Let’s call him a +0.5 wins as a SS. SS also gets a +0.5 positional value, making his fielding +1.0 wins. Overall, he’s +2 wins above average, making him a +4 WAR.

As a CF, he’ll probably be an average fielding CF, plus he gets the +0.5 positional adjustment, for +0.5 wins. Total WAR as a CF is +3.5.

Considering his arbitration-eligibility, he should have signed a 5/44, backloaded deal, as a CF and 5/51, backloaded, as a SS.

This was definitely another steal for the team. Not as Utley-stupid, but Bill Hall should have definitely asked for more.

I may have to rethink my arbitration model of the salary calculator, seeing how these two high profile players didn’t fit the paradigm.

Or, it’s simply the case that these two are examples of how poorly agents value premium positions with good to great fielding talent."

And the answers to a couple of my follow-up questions:

"On Opening Day, he will be around 27.3 years old. The average player will peak right around there.

Yes, conservative estimate about the position switch. In any case, I provided both numbers.

For arbitration: I put in a 20 cents on the dollar for the 1st year, 40 cents for the 2nd year, 60 cents for the 3rd year and 80 cents for the 4th year (you can quibble about each one, but it doesn’t matter much). So, I’ve captured the value of the arbitration year, relative to the free agent year.

However, this is based on single-year signings. A multiple-year arbitration signing may have additional discounts, that I’m not capturing. And it’s possible the player will give a larger discount at the beginning of the arb cycle than the end, simply because he’s earned less than a million dollars in his career at that point."

LINK

Doug Melvin Chat at Bullfrogs Event: Part 2

2007-02-01T09:05:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to finish up recapping some of the questions Melvin took during the Bullfrog's event last week. Not too much left to cover but a couple interesting points.

One questioner asked who Melvin considered the leader or leaders of the team, suggesting Geoff Jenkins as a possible leader. Melvin's answer was short and sweet. "Prince Fielder will be the leader of this team." Hard for me to argue with that. Fielder appears poised for a breakout season this year. He also seems to be a nice guy and a fierce competitor. Sounds like a perfect leader to me.

Another question prompted Melvin to talk about "confidence" for quite some time. The questioner asked if Yovani Gallardo was ready for the big leagues. Melvin said that while he feels Yo could compete, he'd probably also take some lumps. For that reason, Melvin said that he'd rather him build up confidence in the minors before being brought up. He went on to stress how important confidence is for younger players. He explained that he didn't have to worry about Prince, since he felt Fielder was prepared from being around major league parks and players his whole life. He mentioned Ryan Braun as a guy who has a lot of confidence, to the point of being "a little cocky." Based on that and other comments he made during the talk, I think it’s a forgone conclusion that Braun will be up sometime this year (just not right away).

He used Ben Hendrickson as an example of a guy who he feels currently lacks confidence. He pointed out that while Hendrickson has dominated AAA, that hasn't yet translated into any kind of success in the majors. Melvin stated, "He lacks confidence.... he can't get over the hump." Not exactly a ringing endorsement but it does suggest that Melvin might be willing to give him another shot in the near future? Perhaps as the longman/mop up guy this year? Personally, I'd like to see it but he also might be a candidate to be traded before spring training. Time will tell.

I’d recommend to any Brewer fan to go see Melvin speak in public sometime. He’s a knowledgeable guy (duh) who’s more than willing to interact with the fans. I know I look forward to the next time I can see him. Maybe next time I’ll have the nerve to strike up a sabermetric conversation with him. :)

Doug Melvin Chat at Bullfrogs Event: Part 1

2007-01-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

The Green Bay Bullfrogs, a 2007 expansion team of the Northwoods League, had their Winter “Hot Stove” baseball event at Stadium View Banquet Hall in Green Bay yesterday. I was lucky enough to be in attendance. It featured presentations by Green Bay Bullfrogs Owner/President Jeff Royle and Brewers GM Doug Melvin. The Northwoods League is a summer developmental league for college players and the Bullfrogs will be playing only a few minutes away from my house. It looks like a fun time and I'll most likely end up going to at least a few games there this summer.

I'd be lying, however, if I didn't admit to being there primarily to hear Doug Melvin speak. I was able to record Melvin's presentation with my digital camera but dead batteries kept me from recording most of the Q & A section that followed. I took notes from the most interesting questions, though (including a couple of my own), so no information was really lost.

Without further delay, here are the videos:

Doug Melvin Presentation: Part 1

Doug Melvin Presentation: Part 2

That's when my stupid rechargeable batteries failed me. Regardless, I was suprised by how many questions Melvin was willing to take. Considering that it was his third public appearance of the day, it was very impressive. His generosity allowed me to get two of my own questions in.

My first question surrounded the situation at 3B. I wanted to know if Koskie would still be platooned this year, provided he was healthy enough to play. I mentioned Graffinino as the most obvious platoon candidate. If Koskie wasn't healthy by opening day, I asked if Melvin would consider moving Hall back to third or if Braun would be considered. I didn't especially like Melvin's answer. He said that Hall was now the Brewers' center fielder and he wouldn't be moving him anymore. He explained that Braun could very well end up in the majors this year but implied that he'd be spending at least a few more months in the minors first.

If Koskie isn’t ready to go, he said Counsell and Graffy would most likely platoon at 3B (he said they weren't signed to just sit on the bench). Yuck. Did he misspeak when he said "platoon"? What's the point? In the last 3 years, Graffy has hit lefties and righties about equally. His .745 OPS against righties blows away Counsell's .697 OPS over that same period. Maybe Melvin just meant Counsell would spell Graffy on occasion, which would make a lot more sense.

My second question came from a suggestion by "endaround", a poster at Brewerfan.net. He wanted to know if Weeks would be eligible for arbitration after the upcoming season (he will most likely have enough service time to qualify as a Super 2). He thought the contract Weeks signed after he was drafted might take precedence (although mlb4u.com seems to show that Weeks is only signed through 2007).

Melvin indicated that Weeks would most likely be eligible for arbitration after the 2007 season. He went on to explain that while some teams might have been tempted to send Weeks down for a few weeks to put off his eligibility, it wasn't Melvin's style. He joked that it wasn't his money anyway, it was Mark A's. Joking aside, if Weeks becomes anything close to the expectations people have for him, he'll be gone after his arbitration years.

After answering my second question, Melvin pointed to me and said, "You know a lot about baseball. You know baseball." For a Brewer geek like myself, that was quite the honor. :)

There were a few other interesting tidbits that I'll post about soon. Until then, let me leave you all with a picture of what I won:

I would have rather won the Hall or Suppan signed baseball but I'm not complaining!

Very Early Season Projections

2007-01-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

Take these for what they are worth:

RLY Projections

No idea what he used for a Brewer lineup and rotation but it projects 80 wins for them. With as many young kids that the Brewers will have in their lineup, the offense is going to be very hard to project.

Packers 2007 Strength of Schedule

2007-01-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to take a quick look at the 2007 SOS for the Packers (based on the final standings of the 2006 season):

Considering how low the Packers'2006 preseason strength of schedule was, it's suprising that the 2007 season ends up lower. The NFC is so weak right now that just about any of those teams could fairly aspire for the 2007 playoffs.

Park Factors: 2006

2006-12-28T09:06:00.000-05:00

USPatriot has updated his park factors for 2006. I like to use his park factors because, when possible, he uses 5 years of data (regressed) and also includes a HR park factor. Here you go:

TEAM       PF-R    PF-HR
ARI        1.06     1.06
ATL        0.99     0.98
BAL        0.98     1.03
BOS        1.02     0.94
CHA        1.02     1.13
CHN        1.01     1.07
CIN        1.01     1.08
CLE        0.97     0.93
COL        1.12     1.12
DET        0.97     0.94
FLA        0.96     0.93
HOU        1.01     1.05
KC         1.00     0.93
LA         0.96     1.04
LAA        0.97     0.94
MIL        1.00     1.03
MIN        1.00     0.95
NYA        0.98     1.01
NYN        0.97     0.95
OAK        0.99     1.00
PHI        1.03     1.08
PIT        1.00     0.95
SD         0.94     0.93
SEA        0.96     0.96
SF         0.99     0.90
STL        0.99     0.97
TB         0.99     0.98
TEX        1.07     1.08
TOR        1.03     1.07
WAS        0.97     0.94

A link to his park factor page:

LINK

Miller Park still plays as a perfectly neutral park, run wise. It still also gives up an above average amount of HRs, but the factor has reduced from 1.04 in 2005 to 1.03 when 2006 is included. That means that a Brewers batter will hit about 1.5% more HRs over the course of the year than he would had he played at a neutral HR park the whole year (assuming he plays half his games on the road).

Fangraphs on plate Discipline

2006-12-25T18:01:00.000-05:00

Interesting article here:

Fangraphs: More on Plate Discipline

A number of Brewers are mentioned.

Comments to follow...

Packer Playoff Chances

2006-12-20T14:28:00.000-05:00

It doesn't take a very smart man to figure out that the Packers have a very small chance of reaching the post season this year. It does take a man with mediocre intelligence to estimate just how bad those odds are, however! According to JSOnline, this is the "clearest and most likely way" the Packers can grab one of the two NFC wildcard spots:

• Packers win twice (MIN and @ CHI)
• Giants lose twice (NO and @ WAS)
• Rams lose once (WAS and @ MIN)
• Falcons lose once (CAR and @ PHI)
• Seattle wins once (SD and @ TB) or SF loses once (ARI and @ DEN)

I made some guestimations for individual game probabilities and then crunched the numbers:

Assuming the Packers take care of business by winning out (huge assumption, obviously), the biggest obstacle is needing the Giants to lose their remaining two games. The Giants probably have a better chance of winning their remaining games than losing them both, so Packer fans shouldn't be holding their breath. Still, it's insane to think that if the Packers win and the Giants lose this week, the Packers still have a shot going into the final week of the season. It won't be good odds but anything greater than zero will exceed most Packer fan's pre-season estimates.

Any of my individual game predictions way off? Any better scenarios that allow the Packers to squeak in?

2007 Brewer projections - ZiPS

2006-12-20T12:35:00.000-05:00

These came out almost a month ago but better late than never:

2007 ZiPS Projections - Milwaukee Brewers

Here are some of the hitter projections:

Name                 AVG     OBP     SLG     OPS
Prince Fielder     0.280   0.358   0.513   0.871
Bill Hall          0.268   0.334   0.496   0.830
Corey Hart         0.263   0.333   0.462   0.795
Kevin Mench        0.272   0.330   0.464   0.794
Rickie Weeks       0.262   0.343   0.433   0.776
Geoff Jenkins      0.260   0.338   0.434   0.772
Corey Koskie       0.246   0.340   0.431   0.771
Ryan Braun         0.262   0.321   0.440   0.761
Gabe Gross         0.266   0.348   0.411   0.759
Johnny Estrada     0.277   0.323   0.404   0.727
Brady Clark        0.272   0.364   0.361   0.725
J.J. Hardy         0.248   0.326   0.392   0.718
Tony Graffanino    0.256   0.338   0.372   0.710
Damian Miller      0.247   0.319   0.369   0.688
Anthony Gwynn      0.246   0.310   0.320   0.630

I'd be certainly happy with that Fielder projection but there's no way Hall's projection is anywhere close to right. If the rest of those projections are fair, the offense is going to struggle to put up runs.

Pitcher projections:

Name                 ERA    WHIP    K/BB    HR/9
Ben Sheets          2.88    1.02    7.25    0.99
Francisco Cordero   3.33    1.26    2.48    0.62
Matt Wise           3.51    1.25    2.10    0.92
David Bush          3.79    1.19    3.40    1.02
Chris Capuano       4.11    1.29    2.61    1.22
Jose Capellan       4.16    1.39    1.73    0.87
Brian Shouse        4.40    1.40    1.60    0.96
Carlos Villanuev    4.59    1.36    2.13    1.43
Greg Aquino         4.98    1.43    1.89    1.13
Claudio Vargas      5.03    1.38    2.30    1.52
Derrick Turnbow     5.12    1.55    1.41    1.25

Sheets, Cappy and Bush are a great 1,2,3. If the Brewers can fill the #4 and #5 spots with anythinng decent, that is going to be an excellant rotation. It will have to be to make up for that offense.

Updated Roster and Projected Payroll

2006-12-12T09:50:00.000-05:00

Last night, Melvin indicated that he'd be offering arbitration to all eligible players on the roster. Here's what the roster and projected payroll looks like right now:

A $16 mil bench? Wow! I'm sorry but there's something wrong when 25% of your payroll doesn't start. For those appreciating having nice backups in case of injury, I just can't get very excited about that. If the Brewers have any chance at a post season run next year, everything is going to have to be almost perfect. Significant injuries to any of the starters will probably boom the team anyway. What's the point of having a good plan B when it won't matter anyway? I'd rather strengthen plan A.

Before I get too crazy, you'll probably notice that there are 6 outfielders and 11 pitchers on the projected 25 man roster, so something obviously has to give. Frankly, I have no idea what Melvin is up to at this point, so I can offer up nothing more than general guesses.

In a chat last week, Melvin indicated that he doesn't see Mench or Jenkins being part of a platoon next year, so (if we can believe Melvin) something obviously has to give there. Some serious bridges were apparently burned between Jenkins and Brewer management last year. I'm not sure if they can be mended at this point. It wouldn't surprise me if Jenkins is unloaded for next to nothing in return, with Melvin still having to take on some of Jenkins' contract. That would clear the way for Mench to **SIGH** become the everyday starter. I don't think Mench is horrible but his offensive ceiling appears to be slightly above average and his defense last year was underwhelming, to say the least.

Right now, I'm very unhappy with this off season but a couple moves could change that very quickly. Let's hope Melvin has a couple tricks left up his sleeve.

Quiet Winter Meetings

2006-12-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

The winter meetings came and went with nothing on the Brewer front. While the names of Jenkins, Mench and Turnbow came up in multiple rumors, either no team was willing to commit or Melvin is holding out for something better. I assume the prior. I decision about Mench will need to be made soon, as the non-tender date is fast approaching (Dec. 12th).

The only recent news has been that Graffy was offered and accepted arbitration. Melvin insists that the Brewers want to bring back Cirillo as well, which would put the Brewers in the odd position of having 8 infielders on the 25 man roster (Hall will most likely end up in the outfield, as it stands). My guess is that Graffy will be traded before the season started, or at least that's what Melvin is banking on. I guess we'll see.

I've been pretty underwelmed by the off season moves so far but there's still a long way to go....

Craig Friggin' Counsell?

2006-11-29T15:03:00.000-05:00

What is Melvin thinking:

LINK

2 years and a guaranteed 6 $ mil for a 37 year old backup infielder, who has had the following batting line over the last 3 seasons:

.251/.337/.348/.685

A post in a brewerfan.net thread about this trade sums up my thoughts perfectly. From JohnBriggs12:

"For those that say they needed a backup infielder and they got one, I say by the
end of spring training I could find 10 that are better than Counsell, all
costing less than $1 million per year, that could be had with waiver claims
or for a mid level or lower prospect."

It's not that Melvin chose Counsell to be the backup middle infielder next year, since they all generally stink. It's that he apparently thinks Counsell has more to offer than any other nameless, cheap, backup middle infielder. There's no other reason to guarantee the guy $6 mil. What this suggests is that Melvin must be value those wonderful "intangibles" that Yost is always talking about and that crappy old white guys like Counsell apparently have an abundance of.

In the end, spending $6 mil over 2 years for any player isn't a big deal. Having a GM that values the wrong things is, however. I'm starting to not be able to give Melvin the automatic benefit of the doubt.

Trade: Davis, Eveland & Krynzel for Estrada, Vargas, & Aquino

2006-11-29T09:08:00.000-05:00

Just the facts...

Doug Davis

Age: 31
Contract Status: Made $4.75M in 2006; 2007 is last year of arbitration.
2006 Stats: 203.1 IP, 1.51 WHIP, .755 OPS against, 4.43 FIP, 92 ERA+, 4.91 ERA
Links:

Dana Eveland

Age: 23
Contract Status: Pre-arbitration
2006 Stats (MLB): 27.2 IP, 1.99 WHIP, .926 OPS against, 4.84 FIP, 55 ERA+, 8.13 ERA
2006 Stats (AAA): 105 IP, 1.07 WHIP, 2.68 K/BB, 2.74 ERA
Links:

Dave Krynzel

Age: 25
Contract Status: Out of minor league options
2006 Stats (AAA): 359 AB, .231/.314/.359/.673, 23 SB/4 CS
Links:

Claudio Vargas

Age: 28
Contract Status: Made $1.275M in 2006. Second year of arbitration in 2007
2006 Stats: 167.6 IP, 1.41 WHIP, .801 OPS against, 4.88 FIP, 99 OPS+, 4.83 ERA
Links:

Johnny Estrada

Age: 30
Contract Status: Made $2.0M in 2006. Last year of arbitration in 2007
2006 Stats: 414 AB, .302/.328/.444/.772
Links:

Greg Aquino

Age: 28
Contract Status: Pre-arbitration
2006 Stats: 48.1 IP, 1.61 WHIP, .839 OPS against, 4.87 FIP, 107 ERA+, 4.47 ERA
Links:

I'll give my opinion on this trade after giving my self a little time to look it over.

Gears of War Review Roundup

2006-11-07T10:29:00.000-05:00

TeamXbox      9.6  
OXM (print)  10.0  
GameSpot      9.6  
1UP          10.0  
IGN           9.4  
YahooGames    9.0
XPlay (TV)   10.0
 

GameRankings (composite score)

Packer Final Season Record Prediction

2006-11-03T08:43:00.000-05:00

Ask an individual to predict the outcome of a sporting event and he can be pretty stupid. Ask a whole bunch of people and the group prediction can be amazingly accurate. This is proven in Vegas all the time. In that vain, I wanted people to give me the estimated probabilities for the Packers winning each of their final 9 games:

@ Buffalo (2-5)
@ Minnesota (4-3)
New England (6-1)
NY Jets (4-4)
@ Seattle (4-3)
@ San Francisco (2-5)
Detroit (1-6)
Minnesota (4-3)
@ Chicago (7-0)

I asked the fine folks at Lambeauleapforum.net to do just that and received 20, probably biased results. See, for this to completely "work", I would have needed to ask that question to non-biased football fans. Quite honestly, that's something a Packer fan would never be accused of. Packer fans seem to fall into two camps these days; the unrelenting optimists and perpetual pessimists. Despite that, I think those opposing forces will have a tendency to balance itself out in the long run. The resulting predictions seem to support that:

While some of those individual predictions might be unrealistic, the average of those predictions seem pretty reasonable. Let's see what final season records result from those probabilities:

Cumulatively, Lambeauleap figures about a one in two chance of the Packers finishing with 6 or 7 wins, and about a one in four chance of them finishing at .500. Again, that sounds very reasonable to me. After all, even bad teams have some chance of winning every game. While the Packers might not have the talent of a .500 team, the luck of the draw might allow them to finish with a .500 record.

The 3% chance of finishing 10-6 (and probably making the playoffs) unfortunately sounds reasonable as well. The Packers simply don't have anywhere near the talent of a 10-6 team. All the balls would have to bounce the Packer's way for them to make the post season, which only means that the Packers would most likely be extremely overmatched by whomever they would play there. Not a pretty picture.

I guess I've been right to focus on the goal of the Packers finishing at .500 this year. Hey, it's something...

Pacman Arcade Costume

2006-10-30T23:48:00.000-05:00

After being invited to an 80's themed Halloween Party, I spent weeks (OK, minutes) trying to come up with a cool idea for a costume. Sure, I could go as He-man or Punky Brewster, but I wanted to make it something that had to be built, incorporated some technology and might be a bit of a challenge. What the heck was going to scratch my geek-itch?

Since I've been toying with the idea of making a MAME arcade cabinet, why not make one I could wear? Provided I could shoehorn my laptop into a mini arcade cabinet and still have room for my growing belly, I figured it would be pretty straight forward. And if I'm going to have to pick an arcade game from the 1980's, why not pick the one that really started the arcade craze? I'm referring to Pacman, of course (not that hack-job of a game, Mrs. Pacman). While the original and basically identical Japanese version (Puck-man) came out in 1979, the American version lists 1980 on it's attract screen. That was good enough for me.

While the project took me much longer to complete than expected, it really was a pretty straight forward build. For those interested, what follows is a quick "how to" guide. Of course, you can also just skip to the bottom to see some pictures.

MAIN SUPPLIES:

3/4" x 1-1/2" Ferring Strips
1" and 1-1/2" Long Drywall Screws
1/8" Thick Plywood
Plastic Bathroom Corner Trim (slides on to the end of paneling)
1/2" Long Finishing Nails
Spray Paint
Plexiglas

Step 1: Frame

I started off by measuring and cutting the side plywood panels. I did this so that I could use them as a template during the construction of the frame. I'm not going to bore you with the dimensions. Just make it to whatever size you feel looks good.

I next made the 2 square parts that would make the top and the bottom of the frame. The entire frame was assembled with the drywall screws (make sure to pre-drill the holes or else the wood will split). This thing was going to be nice and strong.

Using the plywood templates, I measured and cut the 4 main vertical frame supports. The 2 front supports were angled to line up with the angle of the soon-to-be screen. A few more drywall screws later and the frame was beginning to take shape.

After framing up most of the control panel area, it was time to figure out how the laptop would actually be secured to the frame. If I planned to run around a packed bar and drink beers all night, that thing needed to stay in place. I first made a little ledge for the laptop to sit on and then added a horizontal piece just above that and behind the laptop. This allowed me to lock the laptop into place by sliding the laptop down into the newly made slot. You can see in the picture that by this point, I'm already running the necessary software to play Pacman. A simple google of "MAME" will point you in the right direction.

With that done, it was time to finish the frame. That included making the marquee and finishing the pocket that the "Gravis Gamepad Pro" joystick would sit in. I decided to make the joystick removable, so people didn't need to be an inch away from me to play. The directional pad on the Gravis gamepad included a removable joystick ball but I replaced that with a larger wooden ball that I found at a craft store.

Step 2: Paneling and Trim

It was time to assemble the plywood panels and trim to the frame. The trim slid onto the edges of the paneling, which made the whole process pretty forgiving (I could hide my uneven cuts). I just had to make sure all the corners came together when I was done. I used the small finishing nails to secure the paneling and trim directly to the frame. In this picture, most of the panels and trim have already been installed.

Here's a close up of the pocket I made for the joystick. It was small enough so that the joystick could be wedged in pretty securely, yet allow for it to still be removed. It worked well enough but I would have used some kind of latch to lock the joystick in place had I had enough time to make one.

Step 3: Painting and Finishing Touches

The home stretch. It was time to paint the whole thing. I gave it a quick sand down and then put a nice layer of primer down. Next up was two and a half cans of sunshine yellow enamel paint. I learned the hard way why people generally wear masks when spray painting larger objects. Let's just say that I was blowing out yellow for a couple of days afterward. Three coats did the trick. It was time to install the plexiglas for the screen and marquee. I used a utility knife to cut the plexiglas and screws with washers to hold the pieces in place. The picture shows the marquee and screen installed, along with the screen's bezel. You can also see the yellow bungee chords I used for shoulder straps.

Only a few steps left. I found some Pacman cabinet art online and printed them off on a nice color laser printer. I also printed out a picture of a generic arcade machine coin door (no time to buy a real one, unfortunately). Some clear plastic laminate was used to cover the art, while double sided tape held them in place. I added a small, battery powered light for the marquee (it cost $5 at Walmart) and this job was done.

Here I am wearing the beast. While I tried to make it light as possible, the costume still pushes 30 lbs. Part of the problem was my cheapo 500 lb laptop but what are you going to do. I added some cloth around the bungee chords for additional padding. That helped to make wearing the contraption at least bearable but the straps were pretty ugly (Exposed duct tape? Boo!). It wouldn't have taken much effort to make the straps more presentable but it was already time to show the world...

We hit the North Avenue bars (in Milwaukee), where most were already bar-hopping with their costumes. There sure were a lot of mullets this year. Here I am outside the first bar, Vitucci's. While I didn't win any prizes, people seemed to like my costume. I had to sit (stand actually, since I couldn't sit) there while person after person "played me" but I didn't mind. That was the whole point of this whole thing, after all! And yes, there were many jokes made about people playing with my stick.

For those interested, you can find more pictures at the link below:

Pacman Costume Album

All in all, it was a fun project. With the Halloween parties complete, I'll be converting the costume over to a bar-top MAME machine, so this guy still has a lot of life left in him. If anyone has any questions, just leave them in the comment section and I'll be sure to answer them.

Gears of War Trailer Set to "Mad World"

2006-10-26T10:41:00.000-04:00

That's the same song featured in the cult-favorite, "Donnie Darko". You'd normally hear some macho, generic heavymetal song in a trailer like that but "Mad World" is a nice fit, in my opinion.

You can find a high def. version of the trailer here:

LINK

Here's a nice video of the multiplayer action. It looks very polished.

2006 The Scouting Report, By the Fans, For the Fans

2006-10-19T13:09:00.000-04:00

This has been out for awhile now but I just got around to looking at this years results of Tango's Fan defensive scouting report for the Crew. Tango has shown in the past that collectively, a fan's opinion of a player's defensive abilities matches up pretty well with many of the best defensive metrics out there. Here's the Brewer team page:

2006 Brewers

Hardy is hands down considered the best defender on the team, although he really wasn't given much chance to prove that this year. Fans consider Hall the faster of the two, and he also gets the nod in arm strength. Carlos Lee is voted the human statue. No suprise there. Mench was supposed to be at least an OK outfielder but he sure didn't show it during his short stint with the Brewers this year.

It's hard for me to really disagree with any of these ratings. Fans sure are smart when their opinion is given as an average. :)

A Good Sabermetric Forum

2006-10-17T09:47:00.000-04:00

I added Baseball Fever's "Statistics, Analysis, & Sabermetrics" Forum to the links at the right of this page. It's a nice, active forum and is frequented by some of the big names in baseball statistical research.

The Brewers Can Afford Schmidt?

2006-10-12T14:51:00.000-04:00

I was just playing around with some numbers, to see if I could get Schmidt on the team without trading Clark or Jenkins (I'm skeptical they'd be able to), while still keeping the payroll at or below $60 mil:

I'm assuming Schmidt could be had for 4 years and $52 mil. Whether the Brewers would even want to do that, I have no idea :)

The Twins are Dead

2006-10-05T09:51:00.000-04:00

The Twins are down 0-2 to Oakland but some Twins fans are consoling themselves by this fact:

2000: Oak leads NY 2-1; Oak blows it
"2001: Oak leads NY 2-0; Oak blows it
2002: Oak leads Min 2-1; Oak blows it
2003: Oak leads Bos 2-0; Oak blows it"

LINK

As I said there...

"If you guys think Oakland's history of coughing up playoff series somehow improves the Twins' chances of winning the next three games, you are fooling yourselves. While it's certainly possible, the probability is both small and independent of what Oakland did in the playoffs in 2000.

Using the log5 equation (with each team’s regular season win%) and giving the home team a 4% bonus in win probability, here's what I get for the probability that the Twins will win each game and all three:

Game 3: 48%
Game 4: 48%
Game 5: 56%
--------------
All 3: 13%

Now, that completely ignores pitching match ups, so it's a rough estimation at best but it certainly gets you in the ballpark. The Twins are about 8 to 1 dogs to advance to the ALCS."

On paper, the Twins are the better team overall but down 0-2, it's probably too late for that to matter anymore.

Once, and For All (Jenkins)

2006-10-03T12:40:00.000-04:00

My response to a comment on brewerfan.net:

"and he[Jenkins] has been terrible when we needed him most the last two years."

Most of us were around here during the 2005 season and know exactly how it played out. It certainly doesn't fit your claim.

By July 1st of 2005, the Brewers were 37-42, 6.5 games back of the wildcard race and on the verge of another losing season and falling out of the playoff race completely. Carlos Lee had been great and Jenkins poor up to that point. Six weeks and a 19-14 run later, the Brewers were 56-56 and only 4.5 games back (August 8th). I'd be willing to bet you were one of the many Brewer fans that were excited by that fact, weren't you? What offensive player was the key during that run? You know the answer:

July, 2005
           BA  OBP  SLG   OPS
Lee      .243 .313 .398  .711
Jenkins  .379 .459 .653 1.112

While Lee had just begun his second half slide, Jenkins caught fire and helped propel the team into at least a modest hope of their first post season play in over 2 decades. It was still a long shot but it was the best position the Brewers had found themselves in so late in the season in years.

We know the rest of the story:


          --------Lee--------   ------Jenkins-------
            BA  OBP  SLG  OPS     BA  OBP  SLG   OPS
August    .264 .310 .434 .744   .310 .371 .575  .946
September .276 .319 .439 .758   .315 .388 .630 1.018

Despite Jenkins doing above and beyond what could have been expected of him, Lee and the rest of the team didn't deliver and the Brewers slowly drifted out of the playoff race. If that proves anything, it's that baseball is a team sport and one player can't do it all. It looks to me like the much heralded Carlos Lee wasn't there for his team when he was needed most.

You can pretend there weren't a dozen playoff threads around here in August of 2005 but there were. But that doesn't fit into the "Jenkins always pads his stats when it doesn't matter" bologna, so people pretend it never happened.

Sheets vs. Capuano

2006-09-14T17:11:00.000-04:00

I just wanted a quick to do a quick comparison of what Sheets and Capuano have done the last two years:

Capuano has been closing the gap the last couple of years but he's still not in Sheets' league.

The First Loser

2006-09-14T12:05:00.000-04:00

No matter how hard I cheer, while she makes a nice push at the end, she can't ever seem to catch the front runner.

LINK

Maybe if I run it one final time...

The Brewers and September

2006-09-11T15:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of weeks but I went on vacation and the Brewers collapsed .I promise to get back on the horse soon. I certainly won't have to worry about being distracted by any Packer success.

The Brewers Home/Road Split

2006-08-31T09:31:00.000-04:00

The Brewers have a pretty extreme home/road split this year. Despite sitting 9 games under .500, the Brewers have the third most home wins in the NL. Of course, that has the nasty side effect of giving the Brewers the 2nd least wins on the road. All teams are expected to win more games at home than on the road but what's causing the Brewers' extreme home/road split?

I thought I'd take a peak at the RS and RA splits for home and away and see how their pythagorean record compares to the expected:

What I'm trying to show is that the distribution of runs scored and given up at home and on the road are exactly as expected. They simply exceeded their pythagorean record at home while falling short on the road. Their overall record is still much better than their pythagorean record.

If this all has to do with mental touchness, than their toughness allowed them to win 7.6 more games than expected at home, while their mental wimpiness cost them 4 runs on the road. That's a net mental toughness value of 3.6!

Another Thing The Brewers Aren't Good At

2006-08-29T16:07:00.000-04:00

I'd like to pretend this suprises me but it doesn't:

LINK

Batting Order Protection & The Value of Speed on the Basepaths

2006-08-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

This slideshow is from Mark Pankin's presentation at the the 1993 SABR Convention (PDF):

Subtle Aspects of the Game

His conclusions on lineup protection:

STRENGTH OF FOLLOWING HITTER HAS ONLY SLIGHT EFFECT ON BATTING PERFORMANCE

• BATTING AND SLUGGING AVERAGES NOT AFFECTED
• SLIGHTLY MORE WALKS WHEN WEAKER HITTERS NEXT
• HIGHER BATTING AVERAGES AND MORE NON-INTENTIONAL WALKS WHEN PITCHER FOLLOWS

And having speed on the basepaths:

FASTER BATTERS AND RUNNERS HAVE STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT ADVANTAGES

• MORE LIKELY TO ADVANCE FURTHER ON HITS
• AVOID SOME DOUBLE PLAYS
• REACH BASE MORE OFTEN ON ERRORS

Nothing that's not considered common knowlege these days but it's presented clearly and simply. Good linking material.

NL Wildcard Race

2006-08-19T14:53:00.000-04:00

With about a quarter of the season remaining, the NL Wildcard race is completely up in the air:

When you see that the Brewers are only 4 games back, it's hard not to get excited but what are their real chances? The part of the equation that is often ignored by playoff hopeful fans is just how many teams are actually in the running. In this case, an astounding 10 NL teams could still claim to be in the wildcard race at this time. How do we sort the Brewers wild card chances out of that mess?

Baseball Prospectus calculates playoff odds by running a monte carlo simulation for the remainder of the season and finding the probability of each team winning their division or the wild card. They calculate the "true skill" of each team by looking at their raw stats to determine how many runs they "should" have scored and given up so far. From that, they can simulate all the remaining games of the season. How do the Brewers fair?

BP's Playoff Odds Report

Not so good. The Brewers have been heavily outscored this year and their raw stats indicate that that was no fluke. They give the Crew a 2.7% at winning the NL Central and a 1.9% chance at winning the wild card. That's a 4.6% chance to make the post season.

Not so good.

But wait. Those raw stats were compiled in part by players not even on the team anymore. Furthermore, players like Sheets, Ohka and Cordero have hardly even played for the Brewers this year. The major flaw of this approach is that it might tell you how a team has done so far but it isn't adjusted for injuries and trades. For a team like the Crew, this can substantially distort the team's true skill level. Perhaps we can take another approach.

What I'm going to do it run a poor man's monte carlo. I'll simply choose a reasonable skill level for each team and estimate what the resulting average record each team would finish with. If I think a team has a .500 winning % skill level, they'll have a 50% of winning each of the remainder of their games. No home/road considerations. No strength of schedule. No wildcard team playing wildcard team. Like I said, poor man's monte carlo.

The next assumption I'll make is that all the teams in the wildcard race (except the Brewers) are perfectly mediocre (.500 winning %). When you look at it, that's really not a huge assumption to make. No wild card hopeful team has outscored their opponents by much if at all. BP doesn't have any of those teams finishing with more than an average of 82 wins! I think this “mediocre” assumption models reality pretty well.

This is where we diverge from reality, however. The only team that has been outscored significantly is our very own Milwaukee Brewers. But since I'm doing the simulation, let's see how the Brewers would do if their true skill level is higher. I'll adjust their "true" winning % skill level and see how often that results in the Brewers being at least tied for the wildcard crown at the end of the season.

I ran each season 10,000 times. That should be enough to at least get in the correct ball park. I also listed the number of wins that winning % would give a team over a 162 game season, just to put the winning % in perspective:

-SKILL--     WC
.500  81   5.0%
.525  85   9.2%
.550  89  14.6%
.575  93  21.9%
.600  97  29.9%

According to my approach, if the Brewers have a .500 skill level the rest of the way, they have a one in 20 shot of winning the wildcard. That's really not too bad, all things considered. While the offense probably isn't very good, I think the Brewers pitching staff and defense are pretty decent right now. If we really want to be optimistic and call this a .525 skill level team, their WC chances go up to 9.2%. Couple that with the Crew’s small chance at the NL Central and they have a reasonable outside shot at the post season. Hey, I’m a Brewer fan. Even a 10% chance is a lot!

What's important to note is that even if we pretend the Brewers are a 97 win season type team right now, they would still only have about a 30% chance of winning the wildcard. There are simply too many teams currently in the running to give the Brewers anymore than around a 10% or 15% chance right now. I'll still be watching those wild card standings but it's going to be an up hill battle, to say the least.

Payroll vs. Winning Percentage

2006-08-18T16:30:00.000-04:00

Guess what team is that dot on the far right. Anyway, assuming all teams keep their same winning % for the rest of the year, let's rank them in terms of how many million per win they spent:

Team            Win%      Payroll  Mil/Win
Florida         0.467        15.0     0.20
Colorado        0.488        41.2     0.52
Tampa Bay       0.397        35.4     0.55
Minnesota       0.583        63.4     0.67
Oakland         0.567        62.2     0.68
Arizon          0.504        59.7     0.73
Cincinnati      0.512        60.9     0.73
Milwaukee       0.471        57.6     0.75
Pittsburgh      0.380        46.7     0.76
Cleveland       0.450        56.0     0.77
Detroit         0.653        82.6     0.78
Toronto         0.537        71.9     0.83
Texas           0.508        68.2     0.83
Kansas City     0.352        47.3     0.83
San Diego       0.496        69.9     0.87
Washington      0.438        63.1     0.89
Baltimore       0.438        72.6     1.02
St. Louis       0.533        88.9     1.03
NY Mets         0.600       101.1     1.04
Chicago Sox     0.600       102.8     1.06
Philadelphia    0.492        88.3     1.11
LA Dodgers      0.529        98.4     1.15
San Francisco   0.479        90.1     1.16
Seattle         0.463        88.0     1.17
Atlanta         0.467        90.2     1.19
Houston         0.479        92.6     1.19
LA Angels       0.516       103.5     1.24
Boston          0.580       120.1     1.28
Chicago Cubs    0.433        94.4     1.35
NY Yankees      0.593       194.7     2.03

The Twins and A's seem to know what they are doing, don't they?

Series Win Probabilities - HOU @ MIL

2006-08-17T13:54:00.000-04:00

After a thrilling road series win over the worst team in the NL, I found the strength to muster up some series probabilities for the upcoming Houston/Milwaukee series:

Pitching Matchups:

Thursday:
RHP Ben Sheets; 4.98 ERA, 1.79 FIP
vs.
RHP Jason Hirsh; 9.00 ERA, 12.34 FIP (2nd MLB Start)

Friday:
RHP Tomo Ohka; 4.30 ERA, 4.56 FIP
vs.
RHP Brandon Backe; 3.93 ERA, 4.70 FIP

Saturday
RHP Dave Bush; 4.69 ERA, 4.21 FIP
vs.
RHP Roy Oswalt; 3.24, 3.45 FIP

Sunday:
LHP Doug Davis; 4.97 ERA, 4.54 FIP
vs.
RHP Roger Clemens; 2.71 ERA, 3.18 FIP

"The Book" Blog & The Lee Trade

2006-08-16T10:23:00.000-04:00

"The Book" Blog has quickly turned into a must read. Contributing to the blog are the three authors of "The Book: Playing the percentages of Baseball". They are Tangotiger, Michael Lichtman (MGL) and Andrew Dolphin. There's just so much great information there, including the discussions that follow in the comment sections. Check it out.

One post that caught my eye was a discussion on the Carlos Lee trade. Here's MGL's take:

The Tex/Mil trade is an interesting one. “Trades” mostly have to be considered in the context of the contracts that come with them, which is the one thing that is mostly and usually overlooked. If I “trade” for Jeter, A-Rod, Konerko, and Bonds, and give up some young decent players and prospects, have I made a great trade, or have I simply acquired a bunch of very good players with bloated contracts? If you would not sign a FA for a certain salary/contract, you certainly shouldn’t give up something of value for the opportunity to acquire that player and that contract. There are very few FA’s who are actually worth their contracts. Of course it depends on the team and the value of a marginal win for that team at any point in time. Lee is definitely not one of them (FA’s who are worth their contracts), even though he is underpaid compared to his current reputation. But I’ll get to him later.

Cordero is NOT a good, or even very good, reliever. He is a premier/elite reliever, along the lines of Wagner, Rivera, Ryan, and K-Rod. He is one of the best relievers in baseball. He never was a big name, and fell out of favor with Texas after pitching badly for like one month, typical of a bad organization, which TEX is. The guy has posted these NERC’s (SSRATES), or normalized component ERA’s, (the average pitcher is defined as 4.00, the average reliever is 3.90 and the average closer is 3.30) over the last 4 years:

2.54
2.27
2.06
2.83

The guy is an absolute stud. I don’t normally advocate spending a lot of money for a reliever, even a great one like Cordero, but he is worth a lot as a closer and is vastly underpaid, especially by closer standards. Tex is NOT a sabermetrically oriented team, never has been as far as I can recall, and is and has been generally terrible at evaluating player talent, sabermetrically speaking. Cordero should not have been traded. Period. It is a joke. Let’s look at the other personnel in this trade.

Nix is in fact a very good defender in CF, which is worth a lot in and of itself. His hitting is a little below average for a CF’er, which means that he is a little above average overall for a CF’er. That is worth 5-6 mil in the FA market! The guy is making 345,000 this year. He is an absolute steal! He is one of those good, young players that you want to hold onto until his arb or FA years, assuming that he is going to command big money in those markets. These kind of players are gold and the only reason to trade them
is to get better or more gold in return (other good, young players or prospects or the very occasional underpaid FA).

Carlos Lee is the classic (way) overrated player. A big, slow, 30 year-old, below average on defense, corner outfielder, who is having a great current season. His Superlwts projection is less than 1.5 wins above replacement! He is making 8.5 mil this year, which is about 5 mil more than he is worth! Who the hell would want his contract? I don’t! Lots of stupid teams would. He is similar to Konerko. ALL first baseman and corner outfielders hit well. If you are a corner outfielder and hit REALLY well, like Lee and Konerko, unless you are good on the bases and very good on defense (which neither one of these guys are), you are simply a win or so above average - maybe.

And after this season, in order to get those draft picks (and it is not clear how much they are worth anyway), they have to offer Lee arb of course. If he takes the arb, he is going to be vastly, vastly overpaid by Tex, making the whole deal even worse than it is! They’ll probably end up signing him to some bloated long-term contract anyway. They are a BAD organization!

Mench meanwhile is a BETTER player overall, and a much underrated one. He does not hit as well, but he is better defensively, has a better arm, runs the bases better, and is 2 years younger! Add everything up and he is actually worth more (in Superlwts projection for 06 and beyond) than Lee for 1/3 the price!

You are 100% wrong for all the above reasons about this trade. It was absolutely horrible for the Rangers. They traded away a better player for a worse one who is making almost 5 mil more per season (and both are FA in 07). In addition, they gave away a way underrated good, young, cheap player in Nix, and one of the best relievers in baseball who is vastly underpaid.

This is one of the most misunderstood trades in baseball history by almost everyone and I am here to set the record straight!

— MGL, 08/02 @ 11:47 PM

But later...

I forgot about Cruz. I don’t know anything about him, but his MLE’s over the last 3 years are excellent, especially for a CF’er. If he is of average defense in CF, or even a little worse, he is in fact gold. If he is a corner OF’er, then he is not worth all that much given his MLE’s and at his age. But you are right. He must be included in the equation.

My main point was the assumption that Lee was much better than Mench, which is patently false, and that people seem to forget or ignore how great Cordero is and has been. Thinking Lee is so good is a perfect microcosm for what is wrong with player evaluation in baseball.

LINK

The stuff on Lee being overrated is not suprising. I think many Brewer fans already knew that. He's certainly not worth 5 years, $60 mil, which is apparently what teams will be willing to offer him.

Considering the huge defensive upgrade Gwynn or Nix would be to Gross or Clark, perhaps the Brewers would be better off going to a new option in CF soon? I'm not convinced Gwynn's stick is ready yet but Nix is tearing up AAA right now and may very well get a chance to show his stuff next year.

Finally, Cordero being considered an elite reliever by MGL certainly makes me feel better about him making $5 mil next year. If MGL is correct, Cordero is worth a lot more than. Considering he has 7 saves in 9 appearances while giving up no earned runs with the Brewers, he's certainly walked the walk so far.

Giving up Cruz hurts but I'm liking the trade more and more.

2007 Projected Lineup

2006-08-15T15:20:00.000-04:00

I threw together a projected lineup and performance for 2007. I had to make some assumptions, obviously. I'm approaching this as trying to find the low end of reasonable, so my assumptions keep that in mind:

1. Koskie is done. At this point, who knows but it at least needs to be planned for if it does. Hall gets handed the everyday 3B position. Hardy gets SS.

2. Melvin comes to his senses regarding Mench. He's not a #4 hitter. He's probably not even an everyday player.

3. Melvin can't deal Jenkins. I'm sure he'll try but I just can't see it happening. This sets up a Jenkins/Mench platoon in RF. Hart is given LF full time.

4. Melvin decides Gwynn needs some more development time in AAA and hands the everyday CF job to Gross. He'll have to sink or swing against lefties, which is going to bring his overall numbers down some.

4. Miller's option is picked up but his best days are behind him and Rivera will have to start 3 times a week. I just can't see Melvin being able to upgrade at this position.

I could be wrong with many of those assumptions but here's the resulting lineup:

                     BA   OBP   SLG   OPS
CF Gross           .260  .340  .450  .790
LF Hart            .270  .350  .450  .800
2B Weeks           .290  .350  .460  .810
1B Fielder         .290  .360  .510  .870
3B Hall            .270  .330  .510  .840
RF Jenkins/Mench   .260  .340  .470  .810
SS Hardy           .270  .320  .430  .760
C  Miller/Rivera   .250  .320  .400  .720

None of those projections are unreasonable (IMO) and I think that still results in a solid lineup. There's also alot of potential there for players to substantially beat those projections (Hall especially). That's the beauty of a young team. This isn't 2002, where you had to worry about most of the lineup regressing.

What kind of payroll might we be looking at?

For pitching, I assumed Ohka would be signed to a 2 or 3 year deal at $6 mil per but it's really hard to guess at this point. I also assumed that Davis would be offered arbitration and I'm more confident of that prediction. I didn't add any free agent signings to the bullpen (although I have Melvin resigning Shouse) but since Mark A. is on record with a $70 mil payroll for next year, there's certainly money to upgrade there are somewhere else.

What's your vote? Bullpen? Corner outfielder? Starting pitcher?

What's Wrong With This Picture?

2006-08-11T12:36:00.000-04:00

Vs. Righties

                  AB   AB  OBP  SLG  OPS
Mench, Career   1331 .261 .319 .439 .758
Jenkins, 2006    303 .291 .354 .450 .805

Meanwhile, Jenkins has been terrible against lefties all year while Mench has torn them up.

How do you utilize the talents of these two players? Easy. You sit Jenkins against a righty and start Mench in his place!

Yost and Melvin have convinced themselves that Mench is the real deal but I simply don't see it. I see a guy who's put up mediocre numbers in a hitter's park. That's cleanup material, apparently.

Some discussion of this at Brewerfan.net here.

Clutch Hitting on BTF

2006-08-08T14:59:00.000-04:00

As is often the case, the discussion about an article on Baseball Think Factory is better than the article itself:

From Mike Emeigh:

The typical hitter (non-pitcher), in a situation with a leverage index less than 2, hit .269/.335/.428 in 2005. In a situation with a leverage index of 2 or greater, the typical hitter hit .264/.337/.413. The reason for the increase in OBP is that more hitters are intentionally walked in high-leverage situations; if you remove IBB from the mix, the adjusted OBP is .331 for leverage index situation less than 2, .326 for LI 2 or greater. If you look only at such situations from the seventh inning on in 2005, hitters batted .257/.327 (.322 w/out IBB)/.401 in lower-leverage situations, .256/.338 (.323 w/out IBB)/.393 in higher-leverage situations.

One could therefore argue that a hitter who performs as well in high-leverage situations as he does in lower-leverage situations has actually done "better" than expected.

FTM: Mnookin: David Ortiz is not a clutch hitter: A primer in how to lie with statistics

Jenkins Being Aggressively Shopped?

2006-07-31T11:14:00.000-04:00

I've been told by a little birdie that Melvin is aggressively trying to trade Jenkins before the trade deadline. Considering we are 5 hours away from it, he better hurry up. 620 AM just reported about rumors of Jenkins to Boston, so this may be more than just hopeful thinking. Jenkins takes way more flak than he deserves (mostly because of his free swinging ways) but the fact remains that he’s had a very poor year and is still owed $8 million next year. Couple that with Corey Hart being a worthy successor and it’s no surprise Melvin would be trying to unload Jenkins.

Why would Boston want Jenkins? Trot Nixon strained his biceps on Sunday and could be out for some time. Despite poor overall numbers, Jenkins has still done just fine against righties this year:

            AB   BA  OBP  SLG  OPS
vs. Left    82 .122 .247 .183 .430 
vs. Right  288 .295 .357 .455 .812 
Total      370 .257 .332 .395 .726

Even if Jenkins didn’t revert back to his career numbers, he would still be OK in a platoon. That probably wouldn’t be worth $8 mil to anyone but for a team willing to roll the dice, (and have the pockets to do it) Jenkins might be a nice gamble. With Boston fighting to stay atop the AL East, they may be willing to give it a shot.