Early-season rotation: '08 vs. '09

[MNBrew]

Sorry if this is redundant with another thread.

 

With all the talk of the Brewers losing Sheets & Sabathia, I started wondering if they're actually in any worse shape than they were with the rotation at the start of 2008. And I'm not sure they are.

 

top 6 starters, '08:

Sheets

Gallardo

Parra

Bush

Suppan

Villanueva was in there 'til May-ish

 

top 6 starters, '09:

Gallardo

Looper

Bush

Parra

Suppan

McClung

 

Things could go a lot of directions. But I don't see a huge difference if everyone pitches at least half decently.

[Buckethead Brigade]

As long as there isn't another September collapse, and the staff doesnt get fatigued, I think we will be fine.

[monty57]

Last year, I went into the season thinking we had two legit #1 starters, and thought Bush, Suppan and Villy should be #3/4 types, with Parra a wildcard that could put up anywhere from #2 to #5 numbers.

 

This year, I think we have one legit #1, with Parra potentially putting up #2 numbers and Bush, Looper and Suppan posting #3/4 type numbers. Of course, I think most of Suppan's problems last year stemmed from his injuries, and I may be in the minority here in believing he can bounce back and put up decent numbers. I don't see us having a gaping hole anywhere, which is nice.

 

Overall, we're probably weaker going into the season than we were last year, but that was before we knew Gallardo would be out most of the season. If we compare our current lineup with Sheets, Parra, Suppan, Bush, McClung/Villy, I think we're probably pretty close to even. I'd say we have a better bullpen, so not knowing what injuries will occur this season, I'd say our pitching should be fine this season. Thanks, Melvin for signing Looper for the MLB team and Chase Wright for AAA insurance.

[LouisEly]

No, I'm in the boat that thinks that Suppan was more hurt in September than he let on to. In August he was 5-0 with an ERA around 3.00. He kept them in contention in August as much as he hurt them in September.

 

The question this year is how many innings are they going to get out of Gallardo and Parra. Bush, Looper, and Suppan barring injuries should give you 200 each.

[TheCrew07]

Suppan was up and down all year, unless he was in injured in April, I don't think it's fair to keep giving him a pass due to injury.. If he was injured all year I stand corrected, but anyway you shake it out month by month he wasn't good. He had a decent August and May, the rest of the season was pretty much garbage. For the first time in years he didn't average 6 IP per start, his K/9 was as low as it was in 2003, and his HR rate exploded with him giving up the most HR since 2002. The only good news for his year was that his K/BB ratio continued to improve. While he was within an acceptable range of variance in all of those stats, the biggest flags for me personally are the boatload of HRs and the total amount of runs he gives up (unearned runs included). Since the Brewers acquired him he's back to giving up runs at a similar pace as he did in KC, when he was a 4.8ish ERA pitcher in the AL.

 

Best case for Suppan as I see it is a 4.6ish ERA if he can keep the HRs in the low 20s, I'll be shocked if he pitches better and obviously it wouldn't surprise me if he's around 5ish again.

[bcf5575]

I think that this season depends on Gallardo and Parra stepping up. We know what we get with Bush, Suppan, and Looper. Yo and Parra have loads of potential and we need them to realize it this season.

[Ennder]

Suppan was up and down all year, unless he was in injured in April, I don't think it's fair to keep giving him a pass due to injury

 

Suppan is always like that with his ERA though. After his injury he gave up about twice as many HR as normal so my guess is it probably was something about the injury that was messing him up.

 

Also we act like Suppan was just horrible last year, going into the last 3 starts of the season he was sitting at his career ERA.

[endaround]

And going into August Suppan was right at where he ended the season. Suppan was horrible last year.

[strawbossisevil]

Have we become spoiled that a bottom of the rotation pitcher who put up a sub 5 ERA is now considered "horrible". Perhaps when you factor in his salary, but come on End, I expect more from you than that.

 

And we know for a fact that his July stats were adversely effected by his injury. That much seems to be a sure thing. The only question mark was whether his September numbers were a result of injury or not, and that much we can't be sure of.

 

Take out his injury plagued July starts, and he's right at his career numbers ERA wise. If he can stay healthy this year, I don't see how he couldn't put up better numbers than last year.

[endaround]

Suppan was below replacement level last year. Not sure what else you would call your #3 pitcher to begin the season putting up those type of numbers.

[strawbossisevil]

He was predicted to have an ERA in the mid to upper 4s last season. So it isn't like he wasn't all that different than what was expected from him. And his rotation slot is meaningless, you know that as well as anyone. I think most would have put Suppan as our #4 to begin last season after Bush. Most thought Villy would likely be better as well (he wasn't). The point is, most people expected Suppan to be a bottom of rotation starter, and he posted numbers that were very average for a bottom of the rotation type pitcher. Once again, hardly "horrible" unless you let the money he's making enter the picture.

[monty57]

Suppan was below replacement level last year. Not sure what else you would call your #3 pitcher to begin the season putting up those type of numbers.

He had an injury to his pitching arm. I'm no doctor, but that has to have some effect on your pitching. Before CC was signed, we didn't have anyone else who could start in Suppan's place. Suppan was giong out, obviously injured, throwing about an inning a start and getting shelled. As soon as CC was signed, Suppan went on the DL. When he came back, he pitched better before falling off again late in the year, possibly due to the injury flaring back up, possibly not.

 

I don't expect Suppan to be a world-beater, and I wish he wasn't getting paid as much as he is, but I think it's kind of obvious that his injury had some negative effect on his stats last year. If he is fully healthy this season, I would expect him to put up better numbers than last year.

[Ennder]

Suppan was below replacement level last year. Not sure what else you would call your #3 pitcher to begin the season putting up those type of numbers.

The only way I can imagine you believe this is if you are using FIP for your replacement level and FIP is such a simplistic stat that it is flawed to really use it. Suppan was better than replacement last year and was sitting at his career average with 3 starts to go, he really wasn't as bad as you seem to think he was.

[endaround]

And if you throw out three starts from August he should be released. He had two months with as many runs allowed as innings pitched. He lost 1 mph on his fastball. He is that bad.

[strawbossisevil]

He also had two absolutely dominant months, but don't let that get in the way of your irrational hatred. Also his 1 mph dip may have been a result of his injury. If he was a fireballer who threw in the mid 90s, I'd be much more nervous about him losing 1 mph of heat, than I am of a guy who throws in the mid 80s and relies more on location and his breaking ball.

 

But "horrible" he was certainly not last year when you factor in that all that could realistically have been expected from him was an ERA in the mid to upper 4s to begin with. Unless you factor in his fat paycheck, although that isn't his fault. We signed him to that when the market was at it's peak. If there is anything that is "horrible" about Suppan, it is the contract we gave him.

[endaround]

No he had one really good month in August. His other "dominating " month is the result of scoring decisions and not how well he pitched. Fangraphs values hmi at -400K last season.

[Invader3K]

How come other players seem to get passes for injuries (Weeks, Sheets) on this board, but Suppan gets crucified despite having injury issues this past year? He really wasn't that bad, all in all. Yeah, I'm mad he pitched in the final game of the NLDS too, but I think that bad performance has really soured a lot of people on him, more than they should be.

[strawbossisevil]

Ah, scoring decisions. So now he stinks because people committed errors behind him, got it. In that case, I say his July shouldn't count, because he was suffering from an injury throughout the innings he pitched that month. Seems fair if you can eliminate a good month on things that weren't in Suppan's control, I should be able to as well. The guy's ERA was in the high 4s, maybe a bit higher than we would have liked, but not much more than anyone ought to have expected, especially considering his injury. Does fangraphs value all pitchers who put up an era in the high 4s as having negative value? Because when we look back at what stat matters the most from last season, it isn't FIP, it isn't BABIP, it isn't any of those. It is the earned runs he gave up vs. the number of innings he pitched, and he was no where near "horrible" last season in that stat, even if he got to those "decent" numbers in a less than pretty way. Anyone who had expectations that he would be anything but a mid to high 4s ERA guy was being unrealistic of Suppan's abilities. So maybe if you were being unrealistic going into last season, then you could rightly call him horrible.

 

If we want to talk about value for next season, yes his FIP and his BABIP and his K rate matter. But so then so should the fact that he pitched through an injury the previous season.

[WisconsinSportsRule]

How come other players seem to get passes for injuries (Weeks, Sheets) on this board, but Suppan gets crucified despite having injury issues this past year? He really wasn't that bad, all in all. Yeah, I'm mad he pitched in the final game of the NLDS too, but I think that bad performance has really soured a lot of people on him, more than they should be.

I suppose I'll take a stab at this. Sheets probably gets a pass (although not much of one lately) because fans saw how good he was when he was healthy. Rickie was the team's 1st round pick and people think highly of his potenial as do I. Both guys also came up from the minors which always makes them fan favorites. The reason Suppan gets crucified is because he's the $42 million man. The expectations for him were too big because of his contract. We all knew he pitched well in the playoffs, but his career norms weren't earth shattering.

 

I really hope Soup can give us some solid inning this year and an ERA of 4 ish would be fine with me.

[BrewCrewForever]

I think if Suppan was making #5 starter type money no one would complain about the guy. But the fact he got such a big contract and he pitches like a #5 that is why a lot of people myself included can't stand the guy.

[TheCrew07]

I'm not sure how exactly Suppan's HR total can be justified by an injury plagued Sept when he gave up 8 in August (his best month), 6 in July, and 5 in April.

 

Furthermore Suppan's month to month was never as erratic as this year from 2004-2007, in years past you could see clearly defined trends in his season and a measure of consistency, this year no trend and no consistency. The last time he was this erratic was 2003 and prior when more often than not he was just not good.

 

It's easy to say he had an off year when looking at his numbers for just 2008, but when you look at the trends in his stats it would appear to me that his best seasons were 2004-2006, the apex of his career if you will, and he's starting to slide. He may very well put it back together, and put up a decent season. Earlier in his career he would follow a dismal season with a more productive season, but age and time aren't exactly on his side. Maybe he's a guy who's very defense dependent but in 2007 he gave up the lowest full season HR total of his career and still put up an ERA of 4.62. I know many of us don't exactly like ERA, but his ERA+ from 1999 on was 111, 103, 111, 96, 106, 103, 119, 108, 97, and 87.

 

You'll get no argument from me that he was largely average to slightly above average most of his career but where else in his career do we see a 3 year slide from the previous season like 2006-2008? Again, for me personally it's not so much last season as it is the negative trend in his performance that worries me. His contract kind of stinks, though it was market value at the time and the Brewers had no other way to acquire SP but through FA, so I'm not going to hate on him because of his contract. I've used him as an example many times because there are people around here that would rather sign anybody than hold the status quo (the Brewers can afford 85 mil they better spend it all), and I don't think it makes sense going forward to pay players who are in the bottom third of the team's talent pool the most money as it limits flexibility. Suppan may very well put up another averagish season which would be great, I'm not going to root for him to fail, but his trend when combined with his age don't give me much reason to be optimistic, and I'm an optimist by nature.

[RobDeer 45]

My only worry is that when we are in the middle of a losing streak and and things are tough, who is going to step up and stop the skid. I hope that Yo or Manny can get that done. That's the why you need aces, to get you wins when you need them most. Question is, do we have that guy?

[monty57]

My only worry is that when we are in the middle of a losing streak and and things are tough, who is going to step up and stop the skid.

 

Actually, I'd think anyone on our staff could do that at any time. We may not have the "one guy who will stop every skid" type of pitcher, but I think a solid pitching staff top to bottom can hep avoid those skids in the first place. In any given start, any of our current pitchers could throw 7-8 shutout innings. It may not happen often, but they're capable of it. In years past, Wes Obermueller, Wayne Franklin and the like weren't really up to the task.

 

My big worry a couple of weeks ago was that one injury would kill us. Now, we've added some depth, so I'm fine with the rotation as it is. Is it perfect? No, not by a long shot, but it is a solid major league staff.