How long of a leash would you give Suppan?

[Roscoe Chill]

Well internet bets are silly anyway. On 2007 draft day, I bet someone that Randy Moss would score more than 10 Tds in '07 with the Patriots...he doubled that total, and instead of what the bet was, the loser donated some money to a charity in the name of NDOG44 (yeah right). But at least FTJ's proposal had some consequences. Agreeing with someone for a "whole month" would just give me incentive not to comment on anything I didn't agree with, that's not creative.

[Ennder]

The fantasy baseball site I post on a lot handles bets with signatures. The loser has to live with a signature of the winners choice for a full year. That seems appropriate in this case.

[strawbossisevil]

Yeah, but let's be honest. Even if you were pretty confident (like 90% confident) that you would win, would you honestly take that bet? Especially in a sports where one injury could sway the likely results.

 

I suppose I would be up for a month long "leaving of town" for the loser (for a 31 day period chosen by the winner, redeemable at any time the winner desires).

 

Agreed, Ender. That would probably be the best option.

[Fatter than Joey]

Here is what I propose.

 

I am really not looking for a counter-proposal.

 

And even if I thought I was 90% likely to win this bet, I still value the ability to participate on this site that I'm not willing to take the 10% risk of not being able to post.

 

I am not even 90% sure, and I would risk it.

 

The fantasy baseball site I post on a lot handles bets with signatures. The loser has to live with a signature of the winners choice for a full year. That seems appropriate in this case.

 

I appreciate this -- however, my signature is awesome, and is not going anywhere.

 

C'mon Strawboss -- I am giving you the opportunity to run me out of town..., that's got to be something that will help your resume or get you a little extra sugar in your coffee from the ladies...

 

But at least FTJ's proposal had some consequences.

 

Exactly, and it is enforceable as well -- that's all I am really looking for. Given the authoritative manner in which you present your arguments, I would have never guessed you would not want to put your money (so to speak) where your mouth is. If you win, you get rid of me, and you perhaps legitimize the manner in which you handle yourself in arguments -- if you lose you are only being held accountable. I don't see where you are getting a bad deal in this.

[DuWayne Steurer]

How about this, if Joey wins, Straw has to change his user name to Suppansucks (or something to that effect). If straw wins, Joey has to change his username to IheartSuppan or Suppan4CyYoung (or something to that effect).

 

I would also say for fun, until Suppan is no longer a Brewer, FTJ would not be able to post a negative comment about Suppan, only posts expounding on his virtues.

 

In Straws' case, the opposite of course.

 

On a 5.25 ERA? My money's on FTJ's horse here.

[greeg35]

one of my favorite bet results ever involved the losing bet participant having to write Brady Poppinga a personal letter. One would be a letter of apology for not believing in him or, if the other guy won, a letter berating Poppinga for letting him down. I don't think this bet is complete yet (involved him staying healthy for a certain period of time).

[topper09er]

The way I see this discussion everyone agrees that after 2 starts this year he is horrible and gives the brewers zero chance to ever win when he starts. The different sides of the arguement are 1)historically he is better than this, his career ERA is lower and over the course of the season his ERA will approach his career ERA and he will finish with a win% near .500, or 2) at some point late in a players career they keep playing when they shouldnt be and perform much worse than their career numbers because they are old and just dont have it anymore and this is where Suppan is right now this year.

 

It is pointless to throw out numbers from his past, the question is do people think he can perform at his career numbers over the entire season or is he done as an effective major league pitcher. Based on what I have seen the end of last year and this year is that he is done, we can expect an ERA near 6 and more walks than Ks. 2 of his last 3 starts he has allowed a HR to the leadoff man (Rollins and Soriano), he NEVER gets ahead of hitters and the only possible way he can get consistant outs is if hitters get themselves out. UNfortunetly, it looks like the whole NL knows this and everyone is just waiting for him to get behind and walk them or serve up 86 MPH fastballs with no movement.

 

Every start he has this year is just a missed oppurtunity to get someone with real major league stuff in there (DiFileice, McClung, anyone else..)

[mothershipconnection]

I'm not aware of any scrubs who should be counted on to have a 4.5 ERA, are you? Futhermore, I don't see why you are comparing this to a an ERA of 6. This seems to fit the definition of a strawman argument.

 

Perhaps you misunderstand what "strawman" means. The point is simply that it doesn't matter if aggregate production comes from a single person or 8. All that matters is the product. A better aggregate product is a better aggregate product.

 

"Counted on" doesn't matter, outcomes do, and the hypothetical example was of a small sample bum who did well. Bums get lucky, and yeah, 4.50 isn't a regular occurrence, but 5.00 is. Look at 2005 when we got a 3.84 ERA over 35 starts by Davis, 4.57 over 24 by Santos, 4.35 over 20 by Ohka, 5.57 over 11 by Glover, and a good and mediocre ERA out of Helling and Obermueller over mixed appearances. None of them were name pitchers counted on to do anything and came to us for very little.

 

If you want to compare the Suppan to pitchers who do better in fewer IP, you also need to look at the other IP that had to be thrown because the better pitcher didn't pitch a full season worth of IP.

 

See the final 2 sentences of my previous post.

[kramnoj]

Perhaps you misunderstand what "strawman" means.

 

What makes you think so? Where did an ERA of 6 come from? Suppan hasn't had a 6 ERA in anything close to a full season. If the question is do you pitch Suppan with a 6 ERA or use someone else, the answer is someone else. That's not an interesting question. Suppan hasn't had an ERA over 5 since 2002, and before then has only had higher ERAs in less than full seasons.

 

Bums get lucky, and yeah, 4.50 isn't a regular occurrence, but 5.00 is. Look at 2005 when we got a 3.84 ERA over 35 starts by Davis, 4.57 over 24 by Santos, 4.35 over 20 by Ohka, 5.57 over 11 by Glover, and a good and mediocre ERA out of Helling and Obermueller over mixed appearances.

 

If your definition of bum includes Davis and Ohka, there's no point in us discussing this further. Those were established major league pitchers. These Brewers don't have anybody like that who is an option to replace Suppan if he is pulled.

[WisconsinSportsRule]

I would really like to know why DiFelice can't be a starter on this team. How many scoreless innings does he have to throw? It's not like he can't be stretched out to be a starter.

[mothershipconnection]

If your definition of bum includes Davis and Ohka, there's no point in us discussing this further.

 

Obviously, both turned out well, but we acquired them for bum prices: free and Spivey. One team's trash became our treasure.

[nate82]

Maybe Melvin can trade Suppan for Wang? Suppan is obviously a better pitcher than Wang is.

 

 

Wang

2009 Season Stats
SPLITS	G	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	W	L	P/GS	WHIP	BAA	ERA
Season	3	3	0	0	6.0	23	23	23	2	6	2	0	3	44.7	4.83	.622	34.50

 

Suppan

2009 Season Stats
SPLITS	G	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	W	L	P/GS	WHIP	BAA	ERA
Season	2	2	0	0	7.2	8	11	11	2	7	2	0	2	70.0	1.96	.276	12.91

[untuckem]

I really wanted to read all 12 pages on this but I couldn't. Suppan pitched scared last time out, you could see it. The guy was afraid to put one over the plate. You can't have that.

[rluzinski]

Going forward, I'd probably put the over/under for Suppan's ERA right at 5.25. Of course, his 2009 would still end up substantially higher when you include his bad start.

 

If Suppan's velocity is about where it's been over the last few years; it'hard for me to see why I should expect a 6+ ERA from him.

[bjkrautk]

One quality start would go a long way in changing perspectives on the guy.

[liveforoctober]

Well... he looked good today against a good lineup. I think his confidence was tested a little after his last start... so today was much needed for him. Hopefully he can role off a few more starts just like this and help this team back to .500.

[strawbossisevil]

Suppan for MVP!

 

Ok, maybe not. But I think he showed something today. He showed that he can still be counted on to throw a decent game.

 

He fell behind hitters quite a bit in his first couple starts, which happens to quite a few pitchers to start out a season. Today he had much better control, leading to a 60/39 strikes to balls.

 

Suppan is going to have a lot more games like today, then he is going to have games like his previous start (which I´d probably guess will be one of his worst, if not THE worst of the year for him).

[Ennder]

I still think the best game he pitched was opening day~. He was getting ahead of people and hitting his spots, just when he got in trouble that day they got hits instead of outs. The park helped him out quite a bit today.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

He did pitch ok on Opening Day, but he also pithed well today. Citi is certainly a pitcher's park, but I thought he showed good location and movement today. For a 5th starter, hopefully he'll be adequate. If today is any indication, he's at least capable of that.

 

That's 5 straight quality starts from the starters...in late May last year when the starters started pitching better, the team got cooking. If 3-4-5 start hitting close to normal and Hoffman stabilizes the pen...things may get better.

[Diskono]

Suppan improved over his poor start to the season and his season performance moved toward his career averages, how shocking. If those two starts weren't at the start of the season, we probably wouldn't have even noticed how horrible he was for more than a day or two. Gagne has shown us that the Brewers are not afraid to remove a high-salary player from the spot he was originally signed to fill, so if there are better options, they will play.

[TooLiveBrew]

I agree with you on the timing of the starts, Diskono. It was great to see Suppan get back on track. I liked that he delivered roughly what should be expected from him.

[TheCrew07]

He gave up 8 hits, 5 of which were for extra bases, 3 2B, and 2 3B. I have a hard time saying he "pitched well" when he's giving up so many rockets. He didn't give up many runs which was a plus, and he managed to spread the extra base hits around some to limit the damage, instead of giving them up in a single inning or 2 with BBs in front of them for good measure. I just don't get a warm and fuzzy from him when he's giving up so many line drive hits, extra base hits, and so many "loud" outs. I felt he was more lucky than good yesterday... I'm on record that I expect his downward trend from the 3 seasons to continue, I just don't feel good about him and I admit to some bias.

 

He did do a better job limiting walks which was a definite plus and a big reason why he only gave up the 2 runs getting hit as hard as he did. If he's going to have success this season BBs will be the key for him, if he puts people on in front of those hits he's going to give up runs. He won't have many clean innings, but he can limit the damage if he limits the BBs.

[logan82]

One of those triples should have been an error except they don't give out errors for any reason on outfielders.

[GormanHarvey]

I hear what you are saying TheCrew07, but to be fair you do have to keep in mind that one of those triples was a routine pop up that Hart lost in the sun. But yes, more often than not Soup is going to need to have some thing go his way to pitch into the 7th and give up 2 runs or less. But I do think he threw some very nicely located pitches yesterday. The pitch Delgado hit for a double in the 1st was not a bad pitch - he's just a great hitter and goes to left as good as any LH around. And Murphy got hits on some great pitches too. That guy is going to be one heckuva hitter

[brewcrew00]

It was nice to see Suppan make a few pitches when he needed to last night. I know it wasn't the best start around, but two back to back encouraging games nonetheless.