How long of a leash would you give Suppan?

[hauser42]

Where would this team be without Suppan on the roster?? C-Vill has yet to show he can be a starter, since he doesn't have enought pitches to get threw the lineup multiple times. McClung would be another option but he is better suited for the pen and has been a plus there.

 

Another year of Suppan eating innings up so the Brewers dont have to rush a young SP to the big leagues when they are not ready. IMO Suppan is not going to pitch this good all year, but some other starter will step up there game by then so there will not be a fall off with the team.

[DougJones43]

It´s really nice to see this thread brought up again to show just how much of an overreaction it was (as were many of the other early season threads)

Small sample overreaction is indeed quite funny. Thank goodness Doug is in charge, and not a "sky is falling", shortsighted fella.

As always, the condescension is much appreciated. To be fair though, Suppan has met the standards I laid out for remaining in the rotation, so in some ways I feel the thread premise has actually been justified. I'm glad he's pitched well recently, and I still don't think simply posing the question of "how well does he need to perform to keep his job" was as much of a crazy overreaction as some of you want to make it out to be. Carry on though. Don't let the reality of what the thread was actually about get in the way of your need to gloat.

[RockCoCougars]

To be fair, this stretch of Suppan pitching well is a "small sample" as well. As I've said before, I hope I'm wrong and this keeps going.

[Ennder]

Well if you expect suppan to pitch like he has over the past 8 starts or whatever you are headed for a let down~. His body of work on the entire season is roughly what I expect out of him on the year. He is going to have patches where he is terrible though. He is the Jason Kendall of pitchers, when things are going right for him he can put up effective stats but if balls don't bounce his way he gives you a month of terrible stats.

[homer]

Well if you expect suppan to pitch like he has over the past 8 starts or whatever you are headed for a let down~. His body of work on the entire season is roughly what I expect out of him on the year. He is going to have patches where he is terrible though. He is the Jason Kendall of pitchers, when things are going right for him he can put up effective stats but if balls don't bounce his way he gives you a month of terrible stats.

Although without looking it up, it seems the Brewers are putting a better defense out there than in year's past. Given Suppan's non strike out tendencies that can only help him.

[logan82]

homer wrote:

Although without looking it up, it seems the Brewers are putting a better defense out there than in year's past. Given Suppan's non strike out tendencies that can only help him.

They are playing some good defense. They also played good defense last year as well. Suppan is pretty reliant on his defense and some days balls are going to fall bad for him. Not necessarily the fault of the defense. As pointed out about his first game, he had a couple bloopers that fell and made his start look much worse than it was in reality. He also is reliant on having a favorable home plate umpire, or at the very least one who isn't going to squeeze the pitchers.

[DougJones43]

Well, as we near the end of the year, Suppan's numbers aren't looking too good. ERA of 5.38. WHIP of 1.75. Almost as many BB as strikeouts. He's also on pace for only about 150 IP, so he hasn't even been able to live up to his billing as an inning-eater.

 

With regard to the original topic, it turns out that the alternatives (McClung, Villanueva, Burns, Dillard, etc) are actually even worse than Suppan, so the posters who said that were pretty much right on the money. However at the same time, I think that the putrid results Suppan has turned in this year has shown that the concerns about him were legitimate -- and the accusations that some of us thought the "sky was falling based on a couple starts" were off the mark. Suppan has completely lost it, and there were signs of it before this year. He's terrible.

[bklynbrewcrew]

There is no doubt whatsoever that Suppan is flat out terrible. Unfortunately his contract dictates that he will be back in the rotation next year and this is one of the reasons why we will most likely not contend again in 2010.

[RobertR]

I'm can deal with Suppan as 5th starter until something better comes along. As long as management is honest with what he actually is and doesn't pull out the "veteran presence" propaganda.

 

It's not like there's a lot of better alternatives out there. Heck, there are plenty of problems with the staff with no relation to Suppan. Parra has underachieved. Bush scuffled/was hurt. McClung, Villanueva, Burns, and Dillard didn't do anything with the opportunity. Looper has been inconsistent. Jeffres picked up another strike against a career. No one emerged at the upper levels. DM couldn't pull off a trade for help. Other than Gallardo, Hoffman and a couple of others, there's a lot of blame to go around.

 

Robert

[Invader3K]

That is also true RobertR. If the rest of the staff, Gallardo aside, had been more consistent, Suppan's unreliability wouldn't have been such a deal this season.

[TheCrew07]

I don't think it's wise to pin the failures of the team on one starter, but Suppan's been in steady decline for 3 years. I went through all of the trends & numbers in earlier posts, I still feel it should have been fairly obvious what kind of pitcher we were going to get.

 

Unfortunately we have too many pitchers that don't have a whole lot of margain for error because their stuff isn't all that good. Looper, Bush, and Suppan all have very average stuff and when they make mistakes they get hit hard.

 

I've always taken issue with the idea of an "average" pitching staff and still do. I didn't think the staff would be as horrible as it had been, I thought Bush would be a 4.5, Looper a high 4, and Suppan a 5+ ERA coming into the year.

 

In the end it's not Suppan's fault he got the money he did, I never liked him as a pitcher, but if I were him I would have signed that contract.

[JonnyLungs]

My biggest problem with Suppan was the he at least used to eat up plenty of innings. Now he's not even doing that.

[Ennder]

Suppan and Bush were pitching about as expected before the injuries so I'd really take any numbers you throw out right now with a grain of salt. But ERA is such a cruddy stat over a single season that it can jump between 4.50 and 5.50 without a pitcher actually changing in skill in any way. I'd use something like xFIP or some other composite stat to really judge a player(FIP isn't a very good one imo since it doesn't do anything to correct for HR/FB which is highly random year to year~).

 

Bush xFIP over the past 6 years has been 4.88, 4.64, 4.02, 4.43, 4.91, 4.88. He is what he is and this year is about the same as always just with an ERA jump.

Looper xFIP as a starter has been 4.93, 4.59, 4.84. Again he is pitching just about the same as always

Suppan xFIP over the past 6 years has been 4.73, 4.55, 4.86, 4.85, 4.91, 5.35. I don't know how to isolate for pre injury but I'm going to guess he was sitting around 4.90-5.00 most likely, right around what should have been expected out of him.

 

My big problem with Suppan is we ignored the stats that mattered and payed him according to ERA/Clutch which is a recipe for disaster.

[MNBrew]

Whether or not Suppan's pitching "as expected," he's just flat-out terrible. In the event that he's still on the Brewers' roster (or DL) by the All-Star break AND pitching anything like he has most of this year, I hope they'd DFA him and cut their losses (metaphorically and literally) if no other team would pick him up.

 

Heck, if he's still this bad by then and if it came down to it, it's worth paying him NOT to pitch.

[MJLiverock]

Ender do you happen to know what the starter's league average is for xFIP? I am curious to see just to get a better picture of where these three are in relation to "average". I look at those numbers and given ages and declines see three guys in the rotation who will likely put up xFIP's of 4.8 to 5.2, probably averaging around 5.0 combined. That can't be good for a rotation unless the other two guys are studs, especially when these 3 are likely going to only 6 innings or less on average. A team almost has to have two horses to offset these three if they want to contend.

 

I still remember ranking the playoff teams pitching last year and seeing the Brewers as near the bottom in almost every metric, i.e. worst pitching staff in the playoffs even with C.C. on the team.

 

Realistically, I think the Brewers need to find 1 above average pitcher and 1 at least average pitcher to think about contending next year. This will push Suppan/Looper out of the rotation. Gallardo is above average but not at ace level yet, an above average guy, an average guy, Bush, and Parra to round out the five. Suppan can be gone or long relief/depth. It is wishful thinking and I have no idea how they do it yet but anything short of that and I see the Brewers as a .500 team that won't really be a contender for the playoffs.

[Ennder]

I don't know the league average but I'm guessing it is right around the league average for ERA. Yes having a bunch of guys who talent sits in the 4.50-5.00 range isn't good for a staff, especially when you add a complete lack of depth behind them. I don't see the Brewers competing next year and by 2011 we'll lose Fielder and the picture gets cloudier.

[RockCoCougars]

Sorry, but I don't buy the "there's no better alternative" argument. To me that's settling for mediocrity. Good teams don't become complacent with what they have just because they are making big salary (Red Sox with Smoltz and Penny for example). My guess is there are dozens of pitchers down in AAA (many with big league experience) that would be more effective than Suppan. Look what the former Brewer reject Lehr did today, there are lots of guys like that out there - that can actually break 88 mph with their fastball. The major problem is that for whatever reason, except for Looper, Melvin didn't pursue any depth in the pitching staff whatsoever in the offseason. I'm talking 'AAAA' type guys to build organizational depth. He foolishly depended on two young guys with about 40 combined career starts, neither of which had ever really pitched a full MLB season.

 

Suppan was never very good to begin with, and at this point, he's done. Let's be real here, if he was making $1 million instead of $8 million, he would have been gone a long time ago. The Brewers need to realize that the Suppan issue isn't going away, most fans want him gone. Ignoring things isn't going to make him magically get any better than he has been. 'Can the Soup' (sounds like a t-shirt idea) and move on.

[jackalope02ca]

There is no leash. Given the contract he has he is on the team to start the year. The reality of it is he is still a fine option for a 5th starter. Look around the league there are a lot worse. The problem we have is after Gallardo there is no one to fill in the #2-#4 roles. I have no faith in Parra, Bush, Looper, Villaneuva, Mlclung or anyone else we currently have in the system. The reality of it is we might get one starter to fill in the #4 role from the rest of the guys we are currently roling out there but we need to sign or trade for a true #2 and #3 starter. It wouldn't hurt to sign a 3rd starter as well. While that isn't likely to happen this team won't win anything next year unless it does. There are a lot of Parra and Bush supporters out there but I'm not one of them. Neither has shown any consistency or that they really deserve to be starters in the majors over their careers. This is going to prove to be an interesting offseason.

[endaround]

Sorry, but I don't buy the "there's no better alternative" argument. To me that's settling for mediocrity. Good teams don't become complacent with what they have just because they are making big salary (Red Sox with Smoltz and Penny for example). My guess is there are dozens of pitchers down in AAA (many with big league experience) that would be more effective than Suppan. Look what the former Brewer reject Lehr did today, there are lots of guys like that out there - that can actually break 88 mph with their fastball. The major problem is that for whatever reason, except for Looper, Melvin didn't pursue any depth in the pitching staff whatsoever in the offseason. I'm talking 'AAAA' type guys to build organizational depth. He foolishly depended on two young guys with about 40 combined career starts, neither of which had ever really pitched a full MLB season.

 

Suppan was never very good to begin with, and at this point, he's done. Let's be real here, if he was making $1 million instead of $8 million, he would have been gone a long time ago. The Brewers need to realize that the Suppan issue isn't going away, most fans want him gone. Ignoring things isn't going to make him magically get any better than he has been. 'Can the Soup' (sounds like a t-shirt idea) and move on.

 

Why is this myth constantly brought up? The Brewers did look for pitchers. They wanted Lowe but he wanted nothing to do with Milwaukee. They wanted Johnson but he wanted to stay out west if possible. Now this also should be a big red flag about getting pitchers in FA. Despite having a incredibly deep FA market last season with a ton of top arms the Brewers ended up with Looper.

[jeffy]

Good teams don't become complacent with what they have just because they are making big salary (Red Sox with Smoltz and Penny for example).

 

My guess is there are dozens of pitchers down in AAA (many with big league experience) that would be more effective than Suppan.

 

Suppan was never very good to begin with, and at this point, he's done. Let's be real here, if he was making $1 million instead of $8 million, he would have been gone a long time ago. The Brewers need to realize that the Suppan issue isn't going away, most fans want him gone. Ignoring things isn't going to make him magically get any better than he has been. 'Can the Soup' (sounds like a t-shirt idea) and move on.

The Brewers can not afford to operate in the way teams like the Red Sox do.

 

Where are these dozens of better options? They sure are not in the Brewer's system.

 

He is making $12 million. If they release him and hire someone at, say, $1 million, then they will be devoting $13 million to that position. Do you think there is a certain upgrade available for even $1 million? Besides even if there is, it would still make sense to retain Suppan, since they have to pay him anyway. As you point out yourself the lack of depth is a problem.

 

The money has nothing to do with the decision to keep him or not, the available payroll is reduced by $12 million whether they keep him or not. Essentially all of that money is spent either way.

 

Let's say the Brewers target a $90 million payroll for 2010. About $35 million of that is already spent on Suppan, Hall, Fielder, Braun, Riske and a few guys that are at MLB minimum and pretty sure to be desireable to keep. So the question is what is the best use of the remaining $55 million. Even if they can afford 11 pitchers that are better options than Suppan and fill out the rest of the roster for that $55 million, Suppan still makes sense as the 12th best pitcher at no additional cost.

 

More precisely they could deal Suppan and another team would presumably pay a portion of his salary that equals his current true worth. This would mean they would have an amount that is equal to Suppan's true worth to go and get someone else. What reason is there to think that the money would buy anyone better?

[RightFieldCoder]

My biggest problem with Suppan was the he at least used to eat up plenty of innings. Now he's not even doing that.

Suppan was always mediocre at best. Losing productivity = more pitches per batter + more batters per inning. That leads to less innings per outing with more 4 and 5 inning starts. That leads to less innings at the end of the year. We should have seen this coming also.

[TheCrew07]

It doesn't matter what stat you use, Bush, Looper, and Suppan don't have any margin for error. It's not a stat thing, it's a stuff thing. I thought Bush was clearly the best pitcher of the 3, while Suppan was clearly the worst.

 

As for Suppan, here's his 5 year run on ERA+

 

119

108

97

87

79

 

I don't need to be a mathematician to see where this is going... I've also pointed out this trend numerous times.

[Ennder]

The problem with that is ERA+ is just a terrible stat for actually judging how good a pitcher is. He could have that same ERA+ trend but be getting better every single season. That isn't the case though, he is getting slightly worse, just not as fast as that suggests. He was never as good as those first two seasons suggest and he isn't as bad as that last one suggest either. The 87-97 is probably around where his talent lies and it hasn't really changed very much. He was a bad pitcher for the Cardinals too, he just happened to have ok ERAs probably because of how strong those teams were defensively.

[TheCrew07]

Enough with the terrible stat argument, I chose ERA+ because it's simple and everyone can understand it without having to go look it up to see how it's calculated. It also perfectly illustrates the point I'm trying to make without having to go through and break down peripherals year by year which is how I really make my evaluations on pitchers.

 

Suppan has been on a steady decline as a pitcher since his peak season. I'm not going to debate the degree of decline because that's completely subjective. Whatever path he took to get here, he stinks, he's below replacement level by any measure or metric anyone would choose to use. The problem has been everyone else who's pitched in his stead has actually been worse, which is exactly why I was critical of the Wright trade, the Looper signing, and Green waiver claim. Hopefully if they need depth next season the system will be able to provide some adequate replacement pitching.

[Invader3K]

I would agree it's obvious Suppan has been declining for the past couple years. I just hope the Brewers take an honest assessment of him (and their starting pitching in general) this off-season. While it's clear they probably won't be dumping him, I see no reason why they shouldn't consider converting him to a reliever. If he doesn't like it, too bad...it's not like he'll be paid any less.