How long of a leash would you give Suppan?

[jeffy]

At some point the fact he has a jersey that is twice the size it should be has to come into play and the spirit of the rule has to be enforced not the exact wording. At least that is my opinion.

As far as I am concerned the rule should be you do not get a base if the ball clearly hits nothing but your loose clothing.

[Fatter than Joey]

In the big picture I wouldn't worry about a single start if I were Macha and Suppan threw the ball well in general so this game wouldn't make me even start to think about making a change.

 

Some of you are not doing a good job of answering DJ43's question. The question isn't "Should we panic and pull the plug after one start?". The question is "How long of a leash do you give Suppan?"

 

Here is a recap of the legit responses:

 

trwi7: -- 7 or 8 starts

DJ43: -- 10 starts 5.00+ ERA

JoeHova: -- End of May.

Endaround -- No plug, Suppan pitches the whole season.

DonMoney4manager -- No plug.

Brewtown82 -- Loss of consciousness due to strangulation.

 

I think this is an interesting question to speculate about. My first inclination is that Suppan will pitch all season long, regardless of ERA. I looked at the list of pitchers last year who pitched 160+ innings and maintained an ERA of over 5.00 -- and generally you have young pitchers on bad teams that are trying to find their potential, or Barry Zito.

 

You don't see a lot of guys with substantially higher ERAs than 5.00 on teams trying to get into the playoffs.

 

I think Suppan (assuming he is healthy) would lose his spot in the rotation only if he had a 5.75-6.00 ERA going into the AS break. A lot probably depends on where the Brewers are in the standings. The scary thing is, is if Suppan gets pulled, insert McClung. I think Suppan would have to pitch really bad for almost half the season to lose his spot in the rotation.

[Nottso]

As far as I am concerned the rule should be you do not get a base if the ball clearly hits nothing but your loose clothing.

I agree. I also think no base should be awarded if the ball is clearly over the plate and the hitter leans into it.

[Fatter than Joey]

The problem with that is you'd be pulling the plug on pretty much every 5th starter, and a bunch of #4's, in the game.

 

False -- If you look at any season, there are not a lot of pitchers that make 30+ starts and have an ERA substantially over 5.00.

 

If the average 5th starter has an ERA of 6.24 -- that includes a lot of guys that made an emergency start got shelled and then sent down for another option, lather, rinse, repeat.

[Thurston Fluff]

I think Suppan has until early June and then the plug will be pulled to give a AAA guy or McClung a chance while Suppan is healing some "injury"

 

How does making up an injury help anything? If he gets replaced I would much rather they put him in mop up duty to help in some way. At least then his $12 million would be saving better pitchers for more important situations. If he is so bad that he is useless then just DFA him and eat the contract. i do not think he is worthless enough for that but if he's so bad that making up an injury is the only way then just get rid of him entirely.

 

As far as how long he goes I think Macha sort of answered that indirectly with his comments on the staff realignment after the all star break. If at that point Macha sees a better option than Soup he will put that option in the rotation he plans on realigning after the all star break anyway.

[joepepsi]

I wouldn't judge it by his ERA. It's 13.50 right now. He could go out and have two quality starts next, and his ERA will still be 6.75. Then he could blow up his 4th start and his ERA might be 8. My point is, he might turn 2 out 3 QS's over his next 12 starts and his ERA will still be high.

 

So I think you have to look at his progress and if he's keeping the team in the game half the time. If after a dozen starts he's getting blown away most of the time, then I have no problem with "resting" him for a while in the bullpen and see if Seth or DiFelice can grab the 5th spot. That would probably be sometime in early June before you make that more.

[Ennder]

Some of you are not doing a good job of answering DJ43's question. The question isn't "Should we panic and pull the plug after one start?". The question is "How long of a leash do you give Suppan?"

 

I answered it just fine~ You can't judge a pitcher by a single game of results. Suppan's leash hasn't 'started' yet because he pitched fine yesterday. If he keeps throwing the ball like yesterday then he'll be in the rotation all year. If he starts walking a lot of guys or his location is just bad in general then they can start worrying about it and he probably gets like 9 or 10 starts from that point.

[Gobias Industries]

I think Suppan has until early June and then the plug will be pulled to give a AAA guy or McClung a chance while Suppan is healing some "injury". If that guy doesn't earn the spot than Suppan will be back in the rotation for another month, until they are ready to experiment again.

 

My only hope is that if the Brewers are down 5-0 early that Macha makes Suppan keep pitching until he gets his 110 pitches in, even if he gives up 9 runs doing it. Might as well save the pen as much as possible and let Suppan eat the ERA.

We better be out of the race by then, or I'd be kind of ticked off. Replacing Soup with McClung or an AAA guy like Green or Wright is a downgrade.

 

I definitely agree with your second statement.

[endaround]

I'm not sure its a downgrade, just not a significant upgrade to ignore the fact that Suppan is making $12.5m. Suppan is likely about 0-1 win above replacement. The Brewers have no one better. Unless theres something like a significant loss of velocity Suppan might as well pitch.

[Fatter than Joey]

My point is, he might turn 2 out 3 QS's over his next 12 starts and his ERA will still be high.

 

This is a good point, however, for the sake of discussion, I suspect that DJ43 was implying that Suppan's ERA would be based on somewhat "consistent" performances.

 

If you look at 2008 -- there are 11 pitchers that had ERAs substantially over 5.00 heading into the AS break.

 

Some got shut down as a starter -- Andrew Miller, Francis, Eaton, Penny, Gorzelanny, Hendrickson

 

Some got better -- Unit, Arroyo, Randy Myers

 

Some remained sucky -- Zito, Snell

 

Most of the guys that got shut down were not making big bucks (except for Penny who went on the DL for the rest of the season) and Eaton who was owed $8.5 for 2009, and the Phillies ate it -- Eaton was horrible though, and the Phillies let him make 30 starts at a 6.29 ERA in 2007.

 

My guess is that if Suppan went into the AS-Break with a 5.50+ ERA the Brewers would bank on him turning it around like Unit, Myers or Arroyo.

[JonnyLungs]

If Suppan's fastball is only coming in at 83-84, I don't feel there is enough difference from his offspeed stuff to fool hitters. He doesn't have good enough control to get away with that type of repertoire either.

 

I didn't see any MPH readings yesterday or in spring training. Does anybody know what his fastball has been sitting at? 86-87 is probably what I'd be looking for. If he can't consistently hit that, I'd look for him to hit a wall this year and be worse than he has been historically.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

I agree with FtJ. It would be would be June (10-12 starts) at the earliest and the ERA would have to be in the 6 range to make the switch. The other options are not obvious upgrades so the gap would have to be substantial. My guess is he'll stick all year, even with the type of numbers he put up last year. Is he overpaid? Yes....get over it, the contract is a sunk cost and guaranteed. Can he outperform the league average #5 starter? Absolutely...and if he can get the ERA closer to his career averages or even sub-5.00, he will be perfectly serviceable and probably our best option.

[lukevan]

Brewcrewball has Suppan's pitch f/x numbers up and they say he has not dropped velocity from last year.

[Fatter than Joey]

You can't judge a pitcher by a single game of results.

 

This is irrelevant to this discussion. No one remotely suggested doing so. I think we have plenty of data to guess a somewhat decent range of ERA where Suppan will end up at if he makes 30+ starts. The original poster was looking for a number of starts, or spot on the calender, and some sort of statistical benchmark, at which point you would pull the plug on Suppan in the rotation.

 

Suppan's leash hasn't 'started' yet because he pitched fine yesterday.

 

This is strictly your opinion. I agree that Suppan's performance was not horrible, but I don't consider not getting past 4 IP "fine".

 

If he starts walking a lot of guys or his location is just bad in general then they can start worrying about it and he probably gets like 9 or 10 starts from that point.

 

This is a better answer. Thanks.

[JohnBriggs12]

I'm actually just as concerned with Looper as I am with Suppan. I think either would have to be still hovering around a 6 ERA in mid June before any move is made. I disagree with the notion that they wouldn't give DeFelice a shot at some point as an alternative. He gave a good impression this spring. I think they will closely be monitoring Wright down at Nashville too.

 

I expect Suppan to throw in the occasional 6 inning, 2 run, start that will keep him in the rotation most if not all year. But the days where he's going to be a .500 pitcher may be gone. His bad outings are just to frequent and he doesn't seem as capable of minimizing the damage.

 

Speaking of leashes, how long before we start discussing the leash on Kendall especially if Salome is tearing up AAA? Too early to tell but as many know on here, my confidence in Jason is rather low and this team looks like it needs offense everywhere to help the pitching staff.

[Ennder]

This is strictly your opinion. I agree that Suppan's performance was not horrible, but I don't consider not getting past 4 IP "fine".

 

He was taken out after something like 67 pitches, I'm sure he could have pitched longer but we have 2 long men and no reason to be worried about using them early so they made a change. My point is Macha is not going to look at ERA when evaluating things, he is going to watch the game and see how the pitchers are actually throwing. Suppan mostly hit his spots yesterday even with a small strike zone, I'm sure Macha isn't really concerned about Suppan after yesterday.

[Fatter than Joey]

Suppan mostly hit his spots yesterday even with a small strike zone, I'm sure Macha isn't really concerned about Suppan after yesterday.

 

Fair enough, and I would agree with you. I think though that this discussion stems from people's overall expectations or opinions on Suppan's pitching as a Brewer overall, and that this thread really didn't pop up because of what happened yesterday (for the most part).

 

My point is Macha is not going to look at ERA when evaluating things, he is going to watch the game and see how the pitchers are actually throwing

 

I agree here as well -- and like you I think it will take at least 10-15, and probably 20 starts for them to even consider removing Soup from the rotation.

 

ERA is a sloppy stat, but serves in this discussion as a benchmark. Once you get over 5.25 or so for ERA, historically speaking, you don't have a lot of pitchers getting to make 30 starts and maintaining that 5.25 ERA unless you are Barry Zito (overpaid and on a non-contender) or Ian Snell (young pitcher on a non-contender trying to hit his "potential").

[bklynbrewcrew]

Unless we are willing to give Defilice a shot I dont see any better alternatives and that is flat out pitiful. As hard as it is to watch Suppan throw BP much of the time it is just as difficult if not more so to watch McClung struggle to throw the ball anywhere near the plate. At least Suppan has the potential to give us innings since he doesnt walk a ton; McClung on the other hand will never be able to consistently give us more than 5 innings per start.

 

Hopefully some of our minor league pitchers start developing in the next year or two so we dont have to overspend on mediocre veterans like Suppan again.

[giffted1]

Suppan and McClung kill you in different ways leading to the same result. Suppan allows too many balls in play and has become home run vulnerable. McClung walks tons of batters and will be at 100 pitches by the 5th inning.

I don't see how you can make that assumption. McClung went over 100 pitches once last year, in the seventh inning.

 

I expect Suppan's leash to last at least to the All-Star break. Macha seems to put a lot of stock in that veteran mentality (evidenced by his reasoning for starting Suppan in the opener), and I'm sure he'll give Suppan a long leash as a result. And really, I don't think he was a bad as the numbers would suggest yesterday.

[TooLiveBrew]

If Weeks has actually turned the corner on D like he flashed yesterday, Suppan might post significantly better results than he has in the past couple seasons. It looked like working with Randolph so far has resulted in refreshed mechanics & fundamentals for Rickie.

 

 

I'm pretty sure it hit the jersey, but that same angle showed that the ball probably could have been a good 4 more inches inside and not actually hit Pablo. At some point the fact he has a jersey that is twice the size it should be has to come into play and the spirit of the rule has to be enforced not the exact wording. At least that is my opinion.

I agree completely that the jersey sizes need to be regulated, and if they already are, then replace 'regulated' with 'enforced'

 

 

Yup. I was watching the SF telecast at it did hit the jersey. And yes, it's crap that it counts as an HBP. My dad decided that it shouldn't count as an HBP unless the ball hits skin. Therefore, you only get to go to first if the ball hits you in the face, wrist, or forearm.

 

Your dad sounds old-school. I wouldn't want to bat with him as an ump... I would want to pitch, though http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Tbadder]

That's really the point. There's no viable alternative to Suppan. AAA is awash in mediocrity, unless Wright or Green find their way and I kinda doubt that will happen. Sometimes you just reap what you sow and the Crew are stuck with Suppan. I personally think he's fine as a number 5 pitcher. I like Macha's idea of sacrificing him against the other team's number 1 and would do that as much as possible. And don't forget every once in a while Soup will give up one run in seven innings.

[Fatter than Joey]

I like Macha's idea of sacrificing him against the other team's number 1 and would do that as much as possible.

 

2 Things:

 

1.) I don't think Macha started Suppan for any reason other than he is a veteran and he didn't want Parra or Yo dealing with that pressure.

 

2.) If Macha sent his worst starter out as a sacrifice -- that was a bad idea, as our #1 or #2 probably would have easily won that game yesterday.

[nsimps]

I don't think Suppan's leash has anything to do with his personal performance. If the pitching staff as a whole is struggling, there is no reason to remove Suppan because he has been remarkably durable (save last season). If he's the week spot in the rotation in Mid-May to Mid-June the Brewers might make a move to get another starter.

[logan82]

As to Hall being off the line, I didn't see that play but its important to remember defensive positioning is based upon the pitcher pitching a hitter a certain way. If the pitcher misses his spots the defense will be out of position.

 

Hall was playing almost on the edge of the grass. If he is a couple steps back, I think he at least gets a glove on the ball. As it was, he just missed it.

[DougJones43]

I wouldn't judge it by his ERA. It's 13.50 right now. He could go out and have two quality starts next, and his ERA will still be 6.75. Then he could blow up his 4th start and his ERA might be 8. My point is, he might turn 2 out 3 QS's over his next 12 starts and his ERA will still be high.

 

That's a very good point. I guess I should clarify that I meant to use his ERA as a quick indicator of performance, not an end-all stat. If he is consistently pitching poorly enough to legitimately sport an ERA above 5 after ten or so games, I'd like to see somebody else given a chance. If Soup is pitching well, and his ERA is skewed by one or two bad starts and/or some bad luck, then it wouldn't apply.

 

Perhaps quality starts would be a good indicator to look at too? Giving him a mulligan for yesterday's performance, I'm hoping that over his next ten starts, Suppan is able to give the team at least four quality starts. If he can't do that, time for somebody else to get a chance -- so that is my revised leash.