How do you feel about the rotation (as presently constituted)?

[dpapo]

I am worried about our starting rotation. Gallardo is coming off an injury and has never pitcher 200 innings. I think he will be okay, but I don't want to have him pitch too many innings because the rest of the rotation isn't pitching enough innings. Parra looks good, but was inconsistent, he probably will do better this year, then again he still has to prove he can be consistent for a full year. Bush is really more of a 4 or 5 pitcher at the moment. His numbers suggest he can do better, but he still has to show it over a full season. Suppan is getting older and has been declining. Plus, are his injuries problems from a year ago a sign of what is to come to come or not.

Melvin has already made it pretty clear that Villanueva is going to be in the bullpen and doesn't view him as a starter, go back to the interview he did on Homer's show a few weeks ago. So, we can take Villanueva out of the discussion. That leads McClung as the fifth starter for now and he has never been able to have a successful, full year as a starter. After that, yikes, there isn't much.

So, I am pretty worried about the rotation as it now stands.

[Ennder]

I have many concerns over this rotation but Parra stands out. He had just 10 quality starts last year mainly because he didn't go deep into games. That's not good for a 5th starter and he's talked about as if he's a number 2.

 

He'll be 26 this season. Youth can no longer be an excuse. He's got something like 740 professional innings. He needs to be a mature pitcher now, not down the road. I'm not sure he is and that worries me.

1) Parra should have been on a pretty strict innings limit and many people said he would break down after about 120 innings. You always pick out the goofiest stats when trying to defend or attack someone, QS is about the 30th most useful stat to discuss a pitcher. I'm not saying you are wrong though, he has to go deeper into games but that is normal for any developing pticher. He wore down after about 120 IP as expected, he had a sub 4 ERA at that point with pretty good peripherals and had a very strong stretch after a shaky start to the season.

 

2) Parra has 192.3 major league innings which makes him young from an experience standpoint. Injury issues obviously slowed down his development as he pitched 545 minor league innings in 6 years as a starter or less than 100 IP a year. Lefties also generally mature slower as pitchers. There really is no extra reason to be worried about Parra. He would have been in the majors going through the learning curve 2 years earlier without the injuries.

 

Parra is acceptable as a #2, he isn't a strong #2 largely because he will struggle to go 200 IP this year. That is my largest concern with the rotation as a whole. Bush is the only pitcher I expect 200 IP out of in the entire rotation which means we need at least 6 starters if not 7. We have 4 starters and McClung and that won't cut it. If nothing else we need at least one above replacement level arm that is a safe bet to throw 180+ IP. Thing is a team with 5 pitchers of #3 quality is as good as one with a #1, #2 and a bunch of #5's. Good pitching is about depth not about top of the rotation guys. Top of the rotation guys are just a nice bonus.

[Tbadder]

The rotation right now looks like a 70 win rotation. I'd like to get that up to an 80 win rotation. 80 wins would be a nice win-total for the Crew next year. It shouldn't alienate new fans too much; it should give us hope for the future. Going to the ballpark should still be enjoyable competitive-wise. It's just very important that the Brewers stay away from any big ticket free agents because revenues could dry up very quickly in this economy. Corporate sponsorship etc. will diminish once the commercial property crisis takes hold (it could end up being worse than the mortgage crisis, but that's probably overstating somewhat).

 

Parra of course is the key. To me he is weak of body and mind. The body part is pretty obvious. The mind part is speculation on my part, but he just never seems to command the mound or the action. Talent? For sure. I think he'll get between 100 and 150 innings max, and my guess is that he'll always have to be babied through a season. I look at him more as a dynamite #3 starter than just a fair #2.

 

I think Gallardo will be alright. He has force of will, and I expect he'll develop into a #1 type pitcher in a year or two. The rest are fill-ins unless Bush figures it out, but most here have pointed out that he is what he is and to expect more or less would be silly at this point.

[Ennder]

So losing Sheets and Sabathia is going to cost us 20 games? There is no way that we have a 70 win team right now and to add 10 wins from pitchers we would basically have to sign Sheets and Sabathia again, very few pitchers are worth 5 wins a year.

 

I'm sorry but the extreme pessimism on this site is just getting to me lately. Last year we had the same basic team plus Sheets going into the year and people thought 85-90 wins. We lose Sheets and now we are a 70 win team. I just don't get it.

[bklynbrewcrew]

The rotation as currently constituted is scary bad and clearly not good enough to contend with. The only starter I am confident about is Gallardo who has the potential to be a number 1.

 

Parra could go in any number of directions. He has the stuff to be a solid number two but his high walk rate and inconsistency will probably limit his upside to that of a solid number 3 for 2009. Bush is basically a solid number 4 who gives you innings but is maddingly inconsistent. Suppan at this point is really a number 6 but with his contract he is entrenched in the rotation. As for McClung he has great stuff but is way too wild to pitch enough innings as a starter so he is essentially a number 6 as well.

 

Melvin really needs to get himself a top of the rotation starter cough Sheets cough so we can contend next season or sign a couple of guys to minor league deals like Mulder and garcia and hope for the best. If all Melvin can do is add Looper at a cost of 5 mil or more over 2 or 3 years he should just pass since Looper is not good enough to allow us to contend.

[MJLiverock]

I think part of the optimism of last season's 85-90 win total at the beginning of the year rested with the rotation being Sheets, Cappy, Gallardo, Bush, Suppan with Parra as a back up 6th starter swing man. Expectations were still fairly high on Bush, a healhty Sheets, and Cappy being more like 2006 than 2007. Call it irrational exhuberance for offensive expectations if you will given Prince's 50 HR season, and Brauns' rookie year, JJ's break out, Weeks finish and Hart and Hall with more expectations. Expectations for Gagne and Turnbow were probably a little inflated as well.

 

As we enter the 2009 season, people's expectations are tempered by the slight pull back in Prince's numbers, Hart regressing for half the season, Hall seriously regressing vs. RH pitching, Weeks inconsistencies and failure to really break out. The current pitching staff is probably below averge when you factor in Bullpen as well. 70 wins is probably a little pessimistic but 78-81 is my expectations unless some guys have career years.

 

Kinda like the stock market, when things are going well everyone is happy and thinks they can only continue to go up, and when things are bad everyone wants to sell and thinks they will never go up again, hence the irrational exhuberance and irrational pessimism.

[JohnBriggs12]

So losing Sheets and Sabathia is going to cost us 20 games? There is no way that we have a 70 win team right now and to add 10 wins from pitchers we would basically have to sign Sheets and Sabathia again, very few pitchers are worth 5 wins a year.

 

I'm sorry but the extreme pessimism on this site is just getting to me lately. Last year we had the same basic team plus Sheets going into the year and people thought 85-90 wins. We lose Sheets and now we are a 70 win team. I just don't get it.

 

Losing Bosio in 1993 cost them 23 games. Granted they also lost Molitor off that 92 team but they did upgrade with Jaha replacing Stubbs at 1B. Sabathia and Sheets (when healthy) saved tons of wear and tear on the bullpen.

 

Not only are people concerned about the starting pitching Ender, they are more concerned about the offense going into this season than they were last year. Hall is one more year removed from his big season. Fielder, Hart and Weeks regressed in 08 as did Braun to an extent. Cameron is 36 and we've seen his shortcomings. We've also seen that little offense is likely to come from Kendall. Last year many of us (me included) thought Kendall could still hit .270 or .280. What did hit after a hot April, .220 or so?

 

I didn't even mention the bullpen that has lost 4 veterans.

 

Plus last year at this time the Cubs had Rich Hill and Jason Marquis and an unknown quanitity in Ryan Dempster in their rotation. Now they have Rich Harden, and Dempster who was much better than anyone thought he would be.

 

The good news is Melvin still has time to shore up some things. But when he's proclaiming Trot Nixon as a possible answer, it's hard to be positive that he can do anything significant.

[Ennder]

Losing Bosio in 1993 cost them 23 games. Granted they also lost Molitor off that 92 team but they did upgrade with Jaha replacing Stubbs at 1B. Sabathia and Sheets (when healthy) saved tons of wear and tear on the bullpen.

 

The 92 team was more lucky than good though, just an entire pitching staff having career years at the same time. Kind of like the year the White Sox won the world series a few years back. They are very different situations.

[brewers4eric]

As it is currently constituted, I am nervous about the starting rotation.

 

While I believe there is talent among the candidates, my basic philosophy as a pseudo general manager is to assemble 5 guys that can throw 200 consistent innings. Injury and ineffectiveness will most likely require at least 3 additional starters for the big league roster over the 162 game long haul.

 

I think we've got 5 decent candidates, but it is doubtful that any of them are a lock for 200 innings. We are likely to need 3 plus innings of bullpen work for 60% of our games with Parra, Suppan, and McClung in the rotation. My guess is that this means that we'll need about 15-20 candidates for the bullpen for 162 games.

 

We've got the market cornered on left handed relievers with funky deliveries and a couple of solid 8th inning guys. Doug Melvin has his work cut out for him from now until the end of spring training. The Baseball Reference.com page won't be as long as it was in 2002, but I think that we are going to burn through a bunch of arms.

[lithium75]

I agree with Ennder on this one. Yes, losing CC and Sheets on paper is a hugh loss, but claiming a 20 win loss for losing a guy who only started one game before the all star game, and another who was injured for stretches of the season? We lose 1/2 a year from Sabathia and 3/4 a year from Sheets, and gain (hopefully) a whole year of Gallardo. That doesn't equate to 20 games to me. It wouldn't take THAT much for Gallardo alone to match at least what we lost from Sheets, and if we are still in it, we have the resources to make another deadline deal. We are not that far from what we had last year. If Parra takesa step foreward, we are evn closer. If Suppan has even a mildly good year for him, and Bush gets just a little bit more consisent, we may not even need a CC sized acquisition at the deadline to make the playoffs.

[bcf5575]

I have some concerns about the rotation as it stands now:
1. we are asking really a lot of 2 young pitchers. Yo missed almost all of last year and he has to come back this year and be the ace of the staff. We have to hope that he is up to the challenge. Parra made it thru his first season injury free last year, but faded badly at the end. Can he get past his poor finish and be a solid #2 like this team needs him to be?
Maybe they are both up for it, but I don't think it can be taken for granted that they both make these strides this year.

2. There is no depth. An injury to Yo, Parra, Suppan, or Bush is devastating. If one of these 4 goes down, I think any hopes for the playoffs go down with them...

[liveforoctober]

In my opinion, the situation isn't as shoddy as some here are saying, but we do have some work to do. I would love another bruiser starter or two. Suppan and Bush are the only locks to hit around 200 innings... and if we are sending Gallardo, Parra, and our 5th starter out there (currently Villa, McClung, etc...) and they are throwing only 5 innings regularly... our bullpen (which looks like it will be young and inexperienced largely) will be taxed and toasted by the all-star break.

 

This is mainly why I am not at all opposed to Braden Looper joining the ranks... He isn't a world beater, but he at least has shown these past few years he will win you 12 games and will eat innings. If we can't get a top flight #1 or #2 (Sheets... come back my friend) this offseason... then we need to protect the bullpen, and a back end of Bush, Looper, and Suppan will do that. If we can get Looper for a favorable contract... I say absolutely sign him up. Of course, he does have terrible numbers in Milwaukee... but I am going to credit that to facing our lineup and nothing more. *closes eyes*

 

I also echo what someone else said above. We need AAA pitching depth. The worst case scenario at this point is if we don't add depth and lose any one of our starters early and have to pull Villa or McClung out of the pen to start extensively. We cannot afford to tax that bullpen more than necessary. We need some replacement starters in Nashville... and pronto.

 

Also... for the informed on this board... I know Luis Pena took a small step back this past year. What is his ETA? If he shows up well the first half is he a July call up? Is it possible with a strong spring he breaks camp with the club? I wish he was ready to go right now... he would help. Thanks.

[endaround]

Sheets pitched 198 innings lat year. That's a full season by any measure. Gallardo will have a tough time breaking 180. To pretend Sheets missed a huge amount of time is just wrong. He made 31 starts. Meaning he missed what really? 2? 3?

[BADGERJOBOB]

I look at our entire pitching staff and other than Yo and Parra nothing else excites me. The key last year was that for much of the year you could count on Sheeter giving you 7 plus innings and CC gave you 7 plus every time out for half the year. That was huge for our bullpen. The year before it was over used, last year it was not.

 

Now we are banking on Yo and Parra who have yet to go a full season of starts in the majors. Yo can go deep but Parra does not. We need quality innings eaters and we go into the season with maybe 1 we can bank on.

 

I really wanted one of each this off-season. A quality bullpen guy and a quality starter. If we don't sign Sheeter, we will not be signing a quality starter and its looking real grim that we get a quality bullpen arm as well. That will spell huge problems as we get into the dog days of summer.

 

And for the poster who said look at the Phils with Hamels and a bunch of scrap, unfortunately we don't have a 1 who is on par with Hamels (Hamels > Yo). We don't have a 2 who has Meyers ability (Myers > Parra). I know Myers had his problems early on but he does have a great arm and we don't have a closer in Lidge that won't blow any games (Lidge >>>>>>>anyone in our bullpen). The Phils got a bit lucky last year with Lidge not blowing any games. They would have been on the outside looking in with a Torres/Villanueva/McClung.

 

We can sugar coat this horrendous off-season any way you want but the bottom line is that everyone around us has already made moves to get better and we are going in the opposite direction.

[BADGERJOBOB]

So losing Sheets and Sabathia is going to cost us 20 games? There is no way that we have a 70 win team right now and to add 10 wins from pitchers we would basically have to sign Sheets and Sabathia again, very few pitchers are worth 5 wins a year.

 

I'm sorry but the extreme pessimism on this site is just getting to me lately. Last year we had the same basic team plus Sheets going into the year and people thought 85-90 wins. We lose Sheets and now we are a 70 win team. I just don't get it.

 

I think you are undervaluing the number of innings that Sheets and CC pitched. The year before last, none of our starters could get through the 6 inning and our bullpen falterd badly from overuse. We go into this season where based on past performance only Bush and Suppan can be viewed as pitchers who could consistently get us into the 7th inning and we are talking about Bush and Suppan. We can't bank on Yo and Parra but unfortunately we are. Thats a huge risk especially since we haven't upgraded our relief pitching either. There is a better chance for 70 wins this year than 85 in my opinion if we just go out and overspend on a Looper and some project closers.

[Ennder]

I don't disagree that the rotation could be a mess, I just think people are overreacting. If we add someone like Looper this rotation is as good as the one we had in 2007 most likely and that was an 83 win team. For this to turn into a 70 win team the pitching has to suffer a complete collapse. It is hard to only win 70 games with an average to above average offense.

[Sixtofan]

The pitching as a whole still needs a bit of help. Honestly, if they signed Looper as some speculate and are able to pick up Fuentes for the bullpen as cheap as some think (3/$18) I would feel pretty good about things. Icing on the cake - Sheets for 2/$30 which is where I think he will end up. If we keep Cameron probably won't be able to get all three, but I would be happy with any 2.

[Crewin06]

I don't like this staff as presently constructed but it could look damn good if we add another arm like Looper and we have 3 long arms in the pen in McClung, Villanueva, and DiFelice that could give you 120 innings if needed. If Sheets does comes back this staff could look very impressive in my opinion.


The reason for the Brewers slip a bit last season IMO is because Fielder and Braun regressed from 1.000 OPS hitters to about .880, Hart regressed from a .890 OPS hitter to about a .760, and Weeks regressed from .800 to .740.

When you lose .370 OPS points from what is supposed to be the 3 in the middle of your lineup that are all under 26 you are probably going to lose a couple more games than what was projected. If Fielder, Braun, Hart and Weeks can perform like we thought they would after 2007 this could be a very good team in spite of losing some pretty good pitchers

[DuWayne Steurer]

If the rotation stays as is, it's basically the same rotation we had for the first half last year, minus Sheets, but plus Gallardo. Gallardo has the potential to be close to Sheets' level of performance. If, as other posters suggest, the offensive players perform up to the standards that they're capable of, the rotation should at least be competitive. Another arm would surely be nice, but I don't think the situation is exactly dire either.

There are a lot of 4 types amongst the group, but if they add a Looper or the like (or Sheets), the depth can only help.

[TooLiveBrew]

The R.A. Dickey thread made me think of DiFelice -- would he be a fallback (cheap) option for the starting rotation in 2009?

 

And just so his performance doesn't have to be re-hashed... no, LHB have not feasted on him since he added his cut-fastball. His reasonable splits are one reason why I thought of him as a possibility. I really don't think he's the AAAA player that some are quick to label him.

[clancyphile]

If the Brewers add Looper, I think they're going to be above .500, but there is a good chance they will miss the playoffs. Dunno about anyone else, but the Brewers in the playoffs is a very addictive feeling for me, at least.

 

If they get Sheets back, that gives the team a very fair shot, with Villanueva, McClung, Dillard, and DiFelice in the pen. Ideally, I'd try to get Dillard, Villanueva, and McClung stretched out some in case someone gets hurt (which, as we all know, happens all too often with the Brewers).

[strawbossisevil]

Suppan at this point is really a number 6 but with his contract he is entrenched in the rotation.

How, in any way, is Suppan a number 6? The guy has pitched two seasons for the Brewers, one with an ERA in the mid 4s, and the other where he struggled with injuries and ended with an ERA in the high 4s. The guy hasn't had a season with the Brewers where his ERA has been over 5. If you look at the numbers instead of merely ranting, you'll see that Suppan has been an average #4 pitcher or a very good #5. We all don't like Suppan not because he doesn't belong in the rotation, but because of his bloated contract.

[mothershipconnection]

you'll see that Suppan has been an average #4 pitcher or a very good #5. We all don't like Suppan not because he doesn't belong in the rotation, but because of his bloated contract.

 

I hate the guy as much as anybody, but agree that you can't argue that Suppan's not worthy of a spot in the majority of MLB rotations. Even the reigning world champs had to trot out Kendrick and Eaton for a total of 49 starts.

His career ERA+ is right at 100 while he's a lock for 30 starts. The problem is that he's a decent #4/5 pitcher who's being paid to be a quality starter. If Suppan were signed for $9MM over 2 years, nobody would be that upset about him because he'd have been paid appropriately.

[logan82]

The problem is that he's a decent #4/5 pitcher who's being paid to be a quality starter. If Suppan were signed for $9MM over 2 years, nobody would be that upset about him because he'd have been paid appropriately.

He was paid market value. Unfortunately we shouldn't be paying market value for mediocrity.

[mothershipconnection]

Unfortunately we shouldn't be paying market value for mediocrity.

 

Agreed. "The Market" is set largely by impulsive GM's with big payrolls who've still fielded crap teams (Mariners-Silva, Batista; Giants-Zito; Rockies-Hampton, Neagle; Rangers-Park, Padilla; Dodgers-Schmidt, Brown, Dreifort; Yankees-a substantial list) .