McClung or Weaver? Decide by June 15

[TooLiveBrew]

If you want to talk about walks, then you can't think very highly of Suppan; as "lucky" as you say McClung has been with his walks, Suppan has been even luckier.

 

You're right; I think Suppan is a league-avg. type pitcher. I'm glad we have him, but he's expensive for what he brings. I also think Manny Parra is a better starter than Seth, fwiw. The trouble I see is that we are asked to accept 3 of 4 appearances as now 'the norm' or true talent, when Seth has turned in literally hundreds of innings of other work that doesn't match up with it. Like I said, I hope Seth can and will keep this up, so I don't know why you'd think I hate McClung. Because I'd prefer to see Villy?

[danzig6767]

In defense of Seth, he made a fairly dramatic change to his pitching mechanics, which could be playing a decent sized role in why he's having more success. He's not throwing in the high 90's since the change in his mechanics, but McClung seems to have traded that for better command.

[JJHardy7]

You're right; I think Suppan is a league-avg. type pitcher. I'm glad we have him, but he's expensive for what he brings. I also think Manny Parra is a better starter than Seth, fwiw. The trouble I see is that we are asked to accept 3 of 4 appearances as now 'the norm' or true talent, when Seth has turned in literally hundreds of innings of other work that doesn't match up with it. Like I said, I hope Seth can and will keep this up, so I don't know why you'd think I hate McClung. Because I'd prefer to see Villy?

 

I will once again point to the fact that Seth is finally feeling 100% healthy and has had a change in his mechanics as danzig mentions above. Is it that crazy to believe that after having serious surgery your mental side (i.e. trusting new mechanics etc) takes a bit? I would just look at Sarfate this year with the Orioles for another example of a pitcher that "didn't get it, couldn't find the strike zone, etc" is feeling physically and mentally healthy. Again, I don't think Seth should be a starter, but he's doing alright there. I would rather have him in the bullpen, but based on what he's done so far I'd keep him in there.

 

I know McClung won't be an all-star or Cy Young, but I took a good amount of grief on the board for supporting him last year. I'm not saying he'll pitch this way all year, but I do think it's safe to say he has what it takes to stick in the bigs. I hope that stuff stays with him. I stood by him last year and I will now. McClung isn't a waste of space or "garbage" like he was talked about last year and this year. One main question I have is his weight. To me he looks like he's lost quite a bit of weight from last year. Does anyone else think this or just me?

[TheCrew07]

They'd have no choice but to go to Villy or DiFelice, who are both superior options anyway.

I can see your argument for Villy as a better option, but the DiFelice one is a stretch. If you just look at pure stuff, I'll take McClung and his 96 mph fastball with a decent curveball. Do you have a thing for players with success in the minor leagues on the wrong side of 30 or something? (I believe I remember you being a Dillon fan as well)

What exactly is wrong with Dillon other than he got labeled as AAAA and it took him forever to get an extended stay with a big league club? It's not that the players are 30 somethings and having success, it's they are having success when other players aren't. Age has nothing to do with it at all. I don't necessarily agree with TLB's opinion on who's a better option, but at least he's not combative. I'm a stuff guy too, but I can also appreciate a pitcher who actually knows how to pitch and get people out. I'll also root for a good redemption story, I have quite a bit of admiration for people willing to relentlessly pursue their dream like a Clark, DiFelice, Balfour, Dillon... so many people will quit the first time they face a little adversity, I love guys that keep getting back up and force their dream to come true. They've done something I've only dreamed of, they got to put on a MLB uniform and be part of the team, no one can ever take that accomplishment away from them.

 

Weaver is the first player I ever rooted against (though half heartedly) and I was actually somewhat relieved yesterday when he pitched poorly.

[BrewCrewForever]

I'm actually really pumped that McClung is pitching on Sunday when I go to the game. I really have developed a man crush on Big Seth.

[Blindcheck]

Each time I watch McClung, I am gaining more and more confidence that he can become a quality starter in the big leagues...

[clancyphile]

Each time I watch McClung, I am gaining more and more confidence that he can become a quality starter in the big leagues...

Or, at least he is able to hold his own. Kinda like Ron Robinson was for the Crew for a couple of years after a midseason trade.

 

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

What exactly is wrong with Dillon other than he got labeled as AAAA and it took him forever to get an extended stay with a big league club?

I don't believe I said anything was wrong with Dillon. I was just commenting on Brawndo's love affair with the 30 year old minor leaguers having success. I really like Dillon as a pinch hitter and spot starter in the field.

 

It's great that Dillon and DeFelice "learned how to play" and it shows that you can be an effective ball player if you stick with things even if you don't have the greatest talent, but usually those players turn out to be long relievers and utility players hence Dillon and DeFelice's status with the team. They're nice to talk about, but they couldn't make the big leagues for a long time for a reason.

 

McClung is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He was the high talent guy who has been given every chance in the world because of his velocity, and since you can't teach something like that, you have to keep giving guys like chance just because they have a high ceiling hence why the Brewers gave McClung a chance over DeFelice in the starting rotation.

[lukevan]

They're nice to talk about, but they couldn't make the big leagues for a long time for a reason.

Like Dillon's back problems that just cleared up a year or two ago?

<----------- Don't mess with Crazy Joe Dillon http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[TooLiveBrew]

They're nice to talk about, but they couldn't make the big leagues for a long time for a reason.

 

That's crap. How you continue to ignore Joe Dillon's well-documented back injury makes zero sense. At this point I think it's intentional.

[TheCrew07]

Dillon was a decent ceiling guy at one point, you should probably go and check his minor league career. He went to AAA in 4 years, which is very good... as has been pointed out many times, he was very up and down, likely due to health. (I've never read a quote from him where he addressed the issue). The guy was a 7th round pick, it's not like he was drafted late in the draft.

 

He's been a monster since his back surgery, I have no idea how a guy who can put up an OPS above league average is short on talent. Apparently you haven't educated yourself on DiFelice's career much either, if you're comparing Dillon's career to DiFelice's.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Chapter 1 -- The Wild Goose

Millions and millions chase the wild goose tonight

To conquer loneliness, they'll chase it all they're lives

And when they find it they can just lay down and die

It seems the game is mostly pointless in the presence of the prize

- Bad Religion

 

In retrospect, I should have added a qualifier such as "probably" or "likely" to the phrase "superior options" when I said that Villy and DiFelice were superior options to McClung. I don't know for certain. Here is what I do know that leads me to that conclusion.

 

When you say "McClung has been great!" what I think you mean is that McClung has been great this season, or at most that McClung has been great since the Brewers got him. If you confine yourself to just McClung's 54 IP with the Brewers, it does seem to be a silly claim that a 31 year old career minor leaguer with an 89 mph fastball is a superior option.

 

But Seth McClung has another 250 IP in the majors, and nearly 600 IP in the minors. His career major league peripherals are terrible: 6.5 K/9 (not nearly enough for a strikeout pitcher) and 5.3 BB/9 (way too high for any pitcher who isn't Nolan Ryan). Those numbers are more or less in line with his minor league peripherals -- the strikeout rate is a bit lower than you'd expect based on a lifetime 8.6 rate in the minors (but not much lower), the walk rate is exactly what you'd expect given a career minor league walk rate of 4.2 per 9.

 

It is much more difficult to project pitcher performance than hitter performance. Pitching (especially relief pitching) is a higher variance proposition. Since my original opinion on McClung ("good heavens, this guy is terrible -- what are you thinking Melvin?"), was informed by 850 IP, I find it difficult to be swayed by 54 decent IP.

 

Now, I'll grant that his mechanics look vastly different this year. I'll also grant that since being added to the rotation, he seems to have finally become aware of the fact that he has to stop walking guys in order to succeed. But I am very slow to trust "looks" and "seems" over that much data. Teams always claim to have "fixed" the mechanics of "high-ceiling" pitchers that have previously struggled to succeed. The fact that Seth isn't walking as many these days could just as easily be dumb variance, a 20 IP blip on a 1000 IP journey, as evidence of a fundamental change in approach.

 

However, I have to at least acknowledge the possibility that McClung may have finally turned it around, even though I have to suspend my disbelief to do so. Ballplayers are not protons and electrons, so the strategies we use for predicting their behaviour are not as foolproof as, say, the laws of physics.

 

The Brewers wouldn't even consider pulling him from the rotation now, and I'm not suggesting they should. What I am suggesting is that if the "Seth McClung, Starting Pitcher!" experiment ends as a spectacular failure (as it did all 3 times Tampa tried it), no one should be too surprised. And everyone should be at least a little miffed that he was given an opportunity over a guy who was a better bet to be a useful member of the rotation, even if he wasn't a good bet to "emerge as a #1 starter" based on his "raw stuff".

[endaround]

I think people need to keep in mind Victor Santos was great for the first half of 2005 and people actually talked about Ruben Quevedo seriouslsy as an All Star for Milwaukee after a lights out May in 2002

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Chapter 2 -- Old Mr. Fletcher

Shut off the TV and peel off those Sunday gloves
And I'll stain the clean that you've been counting
Old Mr. Fletcher passed by here today
After 40 years of toil he just up and walked away

- also Bad Religion

First thing to say: everyone should lay of TwR. He wasn't even trying to suggest that Joe Dillon and Mark DiFelice are comparable quality players, and has said as much in the thread. I do think that the outrage in this thread that anybody would dare drag Joe Dillon's name through the mud by comparing him to Mark DiFelice is pretty revealing. There is only one real difference between those two guys -- Dillon was lucky enough to have a hot streak at the same time he had a big league opportunity, so now he has big league stats to show that he's a decent player. Many of you don't believe that there are any other meaningful statistics. Others only believe in minor league statistics when they are achieved by a "stud prospect".

TwR was trying to suggest that they have had a similar career path, and that I have a soft spot for guys who have had that career path. About those two points at least, he's right. Like a lot of stat geeks, I have a thing for "Ken Phelps all-stars" (known more generally -- and I think appallingly -- as AAAA players). The reason is pretty simple -- I believe that somewhere between the bottom 10% and bottom 20% of guys on major league rosters are worse than the top 10% to 20% of minor league vets rotting away in AAA. They aren't significantly or obviously worse (GMs couldn't get away with the bone-headed crap they pull if the difference was obvious), just worse.

The reasons that they remain on big league teams are myriad. Some are fleet-footed, cannon-armed middle infielders who look really great in a uniform (but who, unfortunately, have no ability to tell the difference between pitches they should swing at and pitches they should take). Some are company men, Proven Vets whose best days are obviously behind them (and whose best days often weren't very good to begin with), but who are generally believed to be good "clubhouse presences" with "leadership qualities". Some are 6'5'' flame-throwers who light up the radar gun, but cannot throw a strike to save their lives.

For that last type, TwR described this dynamic pretty accurately when he said this:

He was the high talent guy who has been given every chance in the world because of his velocity, and since you can't teach something like that, you have to keep giving guys like chance just because they have a high ceiling

He doesn't mind that big league teams have this habit. I find it entirely irrational (it almost never seems to work out). I also have a certain moral indignation about it, one I will readily admit prevents me from being entirely objective about situations like Mark DiFelice's.

Let's say you spend a decade in the minors. It's probably not a terrible life, but it's not fame and fortune and first class accommodations either. You have some success most everywhere you go, but you have a couple of injury setbacks and for whatever reason, scouts don't think you have "major league stuff". You're probably just about ready to give up on "your dream" when, at age 30, you add a cutter and suddenly you go from somewhat successful to pretty darn dominant. You never walked anybody (1.6 BB/9 in 1200 minor league IP), now you're striking out more than a guy an inning for the first time in your career. You post a ludicrous 9-1 K/BB ratio over 150 IP in a little more than a season, mostly at AAA, and a big league team finally has a spot for you and calls you up.

After just 6 major league IP, all of them of the mop-up variety, David Riske and/or Eric Gagne come of the DL and you're sent back down. It is reasonably likely that you will never get another opportunity. Your peripherals remained excellent in those 6 IP, but you gave up a couple of homers and as a result, your ERA was 6.35. In the minds of baseball fans everywhere, you are now a AAAA player because of those 6 IP. You were already a AAAA player to scouts because you don't light up a radar gun. Well, life isn't fair. Nobody said it would be. It is decidedly unbecoming to complain about it, and it requires an obnoxious sense of entitlement.

So, allow me to complain on your behalf. There's no earthly reason that major league teams should look at one little piece of data (radar gun readings - 95 mph for Seth McClung, 89 for Mark DiFelice), which is admittedly useful in deciding who to draft (can't use HS stats -- no competition, college stats are barely more useful), but which has almost no correlation to big league success once you cut out everybody that can't make it in AA...there is no reason why that little piece of data should give Seth McClung 4 seasons worth of failed opportunities when Mark DiFelice only gets 6 innings. Especially when DiFelice has fared better against similar competition, at least if you know which stats you should look at to get the best approximation of true-talent pitching. (Heck, even if you insist on looking at ERA, you see a highly coincidental tie at 3.54 in the minors for both guys, which still leaves you at a loss to explain 4 seasons vs. 6 innings, particularly when the bulk of those 4 seasons were gawdawful.)

Here's hoping I'm wrong. Here's hoping Mark DiFelice gets his chance somewhere, even if it isn't here. If that chance comes soon, I'm pretty certain he can succeed.

I'm not going to cheer for yet another in a long line of Seth McClung's catastrophic failures in order for DiFelice's shot to happen, because as a fan my primary interest is in the Brewers having a good season, and I'm not sure how many horrific starts would be required before the organization finally gives up on McClung, and I'm certainly not sure that they have Mark DiFelice first in line to replace him. But I think that's a shame, and I'm not going to be shy about saying so. The intent of the post that sparked this mini-controversy was merely, "phew, that cartoon anvil (labeled 1 ton) hanging above our heads (known in some parts as Jeff Weaver) has fallen somewhere other than on our heads -- ok Seth McClung, if you're going to go back to sucking, it's safe now."

The End

[TooLiveBrew]

I do think that the outrage in this thread that anybody would dare drag Joe Dillon's name through the mud by comparing him to Mark DiFelice is pretty revealing.

 

I was only responding to him (yet again) making the glib comment that Dillon 'never made an MLB club for a reason' -- like that reason was 'lack of talent', while excluding the relevant fact that he had career-ending (then) back surgery.

 

I don't mind for a second someone comparing the two or even saying, 'Hey, this Dillon guy's no star'. I just dislike when people gloss over relevant facts in order to make a neater-sounding post.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

I don't mind for a second someone comparing the two or even saying, 'Hey, this Dillon guy's no star'. I just dislike when people gloss over relevant facts in order to make a neater-sounding post.

Fair enough. My comment was a general one...I was just surprised that so much umbrage was taken when I thought the intent of Rillo's post was pretty clearly to call me out on my biases rather than to say "boy that Dillon guy is lousy."

"How dare you drag Dillon's name through the mud by comparing him to DiFelice?" was my stab in the dark at pinpointing what was motivating the general reaction.

[MadisonBrewerBlue]

mute point now that weaver has been released

[LouisEly]

or a moot point

[kramnoj]

I kinda like mute. It's not worth discussing anymore, so we can all be mute about it now.

[MadisonBrewerBlue]

i like mute also...sorry i went to catholic schools

[yfinn6]

The point has been muted. I like that.

[TheCrew07]

"How dare you drag Dillon's name through the mud by comparing him to DiFelice?" was my stab in the dark at pinpointing what was motivating the general reaction.

 

Actually I like DiFelice as well, I just learned my lesson hyping players that have struggled in the past who are tearing AAA. My point was simply that just because is a guy 30 years old, doesn't mean he stunk and finally figured out, that Dillon and DiFelice have had different paths to where they are now, and it rubbed me the wrong way when TWR basically said to TLB that he had a thing for 30 somethings (paraphrasing)... I think most of us have a "thing" for anyone that can help the Brewers win ball games. I usually default to an assumption that 30ish year old players in AAA are 4A types, but I'll go do my due dilligence and research the player before proclaiming that publicly.

 

I'm also a sucker for redemption stories as I posted before, so obvioulsy I'm rooting for both players to have success.