How long of a leash would you give Suppan?

[rluzinski]

If he isn't giving the team a chance to win on a regular basis would be enough for me to try other options

 

I guess I'm not sure what that even means, so you get your wish of not getting your comment refuted. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

f I guess my threshold for Suppan is a lot less than yours, to me a 5+ ERA after 5 starts is enough to demote Suppan to the bullpen. I hope the Brewers give Suppan a short leash.

 

So he could give up 3 runs in 7 IP in his next 4 starts and you would advocate taking him out of the starting rotation? 5.06 ERA.

[tigerbrew]

So he could give up 3 runs in 7 IP in his next 4 starts and you would advocate taking him out of the starting rotation? 5.06 ERA.

He should be pitching a lot more than 7 innings over his next 4 starts. The bullpen would be seriously overtaxed if Suppan pitches only one or two innings per start, not to mention the potential disastrous effects to the Brewers 09 season.

 

Edit: My bad, I think you meant 3 runs in 7IP in each of his next 4 starts. My answer is yes.

[endaround]

There are no better options. I'd be all for taking out Suppan if the Brewers had something the was better. But DiFelice isn't an option for some reason(s) and he's the only one who would appear to be an upgrade. Even come July and Suppan has an ERA above 6 its hard to say it still isn't a coin flip going forward. There needs to be something that says last year is his new level of performance or Green or Wright need to break out for this to be anything more than dealing with frustration of Suppan not pitching well.

[Ennder]

Edit: My bad, I think you meant 3 runs in 7IP in each of his next 4 starts. My answer is yes.

 

If Macha took Suppan out of the rotation for going 7 IP, 3 ER in each of his next 4 starts(assuming he is hitting his spot and velocity doesn't drop etc) I think I'd fire him on the spot if I were running the team. I still think people are missing the boat here, Suppan didn't pitch poorly in the first game so this isn't even starting to be an issue yet. On top of that pitchers are all over the place the first month of a season, just look at all of the 'aces' that got smashed around so far this week.

 

His leash hasn't even started yet.

[Oldcity]

What bugs me is what most here are debating, which is Suppan vs. McClung. If Suppan needs to be removed (or when we first need another starter), the replacement should be DiFelice. Yet you know McClung would get the chance, and maybe even someone like Chase Wright before DiFelice would.

[Invader3K]

The reality is that we don't have any realistically better options. If we had some young buck pitching the heck out at AAA, then you start to consider it. We don't, at least yet, though. I just don't believe that Suppan would be that useful in the pen, or that McClung, Villy, DiFelice, or whoever will be that much better than Suppan, in order to make it worth disrupting the whole pitching staff. Especially this early in the season.

 

Also for those advocating "cutting" Suppan if he is pitching badly in a month or two, you understand we'd be on the hook for his whole contract, right? The Brewers just can't afford to throw away money like that. We're not the Dodgers or Yankees here, and this isn't the NFL. Even if he is just used as a mop up guy, that is at least something you get back for your substantial investment.

[brewcrew00]

Just a random thought, and yes I know it's only been 3 games, but the pitching issues this team has are probably greater than what anyone would have guessed before the season started. It's going to be an awfully long season if something doesn't change, which leaves the sad reality of the fact DM dropped the ball Grande style on this one.

[Invader3K]

I don't know what he realistically could have done differently. I don't know of any other decent pitchers out there we could have realisticaly gotten.

 

But yeah, it's going to be a long year if Gallardo is going to be the only pitcher who can consistently go on the mound without giving up multiple runs.

[Fatter than Joey]

Also for those advocating "cutting" Suppan if he is pitching badly in a month or two, you understand we'd be on the hook for his whole contract, right? The Brewers just can't afford to throw away money like that.

 

I think most people understand that we are on the hook for 2009, 2010, and some sort of buyout for 2011. That is the predicament. -- I agree that Suppan is going to get a lot more chances that others because of his salary.

[Thurston Fluff]

He may get more time as a member of the Brewers because of his contract but that doesn't mean he will get it as a starter. The money is already spent. The only real question is in what capacity is that money best used. If all he's worth is mop up that is still a better way to spend the money than just getting rid of him.

 

Just a random thought, and yes I know it's only been 3 games, but the pitching issues this team has are probably greater than what anyone would have guessed before the season started. It's going to be an awfully long season if something doesn't change, which leaves the sad reality of the fact DM dropped the ball Grande style on this one.

 

You can't make something out of nothing so I find it hard to believe Doug could drop the ball. After three games it is hard to say the staff is going to be worse than anyone predicted. Of the five starters the only two without much of a history of success in the majors happen to be the two most talented pitchers on the staff. The pen less so but even there we have enough guys with enough time in to think it can be at least serviceable. It won't be great but we already knew that going in. This team is supposed to win with offense and adequate pitching. So far it is the offense that has let us down. The 8 position players combined for two runs in two games.

[Ennder]

but the pitching issues this team has are probably greater than what anyone would have guessed before the season started

 

Or you are freaking out over 3 starts one of which was a good start. I mean seriously every single team in baseball is probably going to have a worse 3 game series pitching wise than we had this week. It is very unlikely that it is the worst 3 game series we have pitching wise this season. We gave up all of 19 runs over a 3 run series and it was the first series of the year so I worry even less about it.

 

Last year we tied for the 2nd best ERA in the NL and we gave up 18 runs in a series vs the Reds, 29 runs in a series vs the Cubs, 21 runs in a series vs the Astros, 23 runs in a series vs the Red Sox, 18 runs in a series vs the Astros, 18 runs i na series vs the Astros (they sure did hit us last year!), 19 runs in a series vs the Mets, 26 runs in a 4 game series vs the Phillies.

[TheCrew07]

The difference between Gallardo and Parra was Coffey... if Coffey gives up runs Yo's like nearly identical to Parra. DeFilice just didn't get it done.

[strawbossisevil]

Just a random thought, and yes I know it's only been 3 games, but the pitching issues this team has are probably greater than what anyone would have guessed before the season started. It's going to be an awfully long season if something doesn't change, which leaves the sad reality of the fact DM dropped the ball Grande style on this one.

[TooLiveBrew]

Every season there's something that folks overreact to just because it happens right out of the gate. Last year it was 'Prince is too fat OMG!' & 'Kendall is awesome!'... by the end of the season we were still hearing how Prince was so fat & needed to eat meat & had such a down season (when really it was just one down month), and heard next to nothing nothing about Kendall absolutely killing our offense in 3 of the 6 months of the season.

 

Funny how that first month basically sets the tone for how many people perceive players' production for the entirety of a season.

[DougJones43]

Last year it was 'Prince is too fat OMG!'

 

Prince was too fat last year. He must have even thought so himself, because he worked all off-season to slim down.

[TooLiveBrew]

No, the point is that he wasn't too fat to still be a very good hitter. He just had a bad month

[DougJones43]

No, the point is that he wasn't too fat to still be a very good hitter. He just had a bad month

 

That bad month counts as much as any other month. Just because he was still a good hitter doesn't excuse the fact that he played all season out of shape. Also, don't discount the effect that his enormous girth probably had on his already poor defense.

 

The bottom line is that his obesity more than likely diminished his performance, on offense and defense. Even if his numbers were still good, his weight could have been keeping him from being even better.

 

In other words, he was too fat.

[TooLiveBrew]

That bad month counts as much as any other month. Just because he was still a good hitter doesn't excuse the fact that he played all season out of shape. Also, don't discount the effect that his enormous girth probably had on his already poor defense.

 

Agreed on all counts. My point was more to just find an example of fans overreacting to something that happened out of the gates in a season (like Soup's bad outing).

[Ennder]

4 games, 22 runs now or 5.5 runs against a game. Certainly not great but also not anything I'm going to worry about considering 10 of the runs were opening day.

[valpocrewsader]

No, the point is that he wasn't too fat to still be a very good hitter. He just had a bad month

 

His one bad month was right out of the gate in April? Easily his worst stretch was about a month-long period of time late in the season, wasn't it? When he went about 23 games hitting .150-ish with zero or one extra base hits. Any fan comments made at any point of 2008 about Prince being overweight were accurate and not an overreaction.

And why do all your posts of disagreement require putting "OMG" in someone's mouth? It's unfair and obnoxious.

 

[Ennder]

His one bad month was right out of the gate in April? Easily his worst stretch was about a month-long period of time late in the season, wasn't it? When he went about 23 games hitting .150-ish with zero or one extra base hits. Any fan comments made at any point of 2008 about Prince being overweight were accurate and not an overreaction.

And why do all your posts of disagreement require putting "OMG" in someone's mouth? It's unfair and obnoxious.

 

Fielder had a .998 OPS in the final month so no any comment about Fielders weight being the reason for his slow start were just foolishness. He quite obviously was trying to pull everything for a HR to start the season if you watched the games, he admits he was trying to hit 50 HR in april, everything about the rest of his season suggests he was having his biggest issues early but a few people still have to cling to the false idea that it was his weight or his meat preference that caused the issue for some reason.

 

I'm sorry but Fielders weight is a huge straw hat at this time, it will cause him problems in the future but the biggest issue with his production last year was unrealistic expectations and him pressing early in the season.

[DougJones43]

Are you honestly trying to claim that carrying a lot of extra/unnecessary fatty weight for an entire season isn't going to hurt a player's production?

 

If that's the case, why does anybody even bother to work out? They could all show up weighing 400 lbs, and there is no way we could prove that the extra weight is hurting their performance, right? Please...

[Ennder]

Are you honestly trying to claim that carrying a lot of extra/unnecessary fatty weight for an entire season isn't going to hurt a player's production?

 

If that's the case, why does anybody even bother to work out? They could all show up weighing 400 lbs, and there is no way we could prove that the extra weight is hurting their performance, right? Please...

This is a straw man argument. Do you honestly think that going from 280 to 290 is going to completely destroy a players production? The fact that he had a poor start and a strong finish suggests that the weight wasn't the issue, it is as simple as that. If the weight were the problem he'd either just suck all year or he'd have extra problems as the season went on and he wore out faster than he should. But no 2 of his 3 worst months were straight out of the gate while he was quite obviosuly pulling everything which has nothing to do with the weight.

 

This is a case of a player having an off year and fans trying to assign blame based on absolutely no proof.

[DougJones43]

This is a straw man argument. Do you honestly think that going from 280 to 290 is going to completely destroy a players production?

 

First of all, nobody ever said it "destroyed" his production. Talk about a strawman argument. Maybe it cost him 25 OPS points over the season. Maybe 50 OPS points. I guess it's possible that it didn't hurt him at all, or maybe made him better, although that would certainly go against common sense. You're right that nobody really knows, and it can't be proven either way. That doesn't stop conventional wisdom from telling us that playing while overweight is not generally good for results.

 

That said, the point is Prince's obesity very likely hurt his production on offense and defense. How much will forever be unknown and unprovable, but that doesn't make it any less likely.

 

How do you know that the first month wasn't difficult for him because his balance was off-kilter due to the excess weight? Oh right, because you've decided you know the true reason for his struggles, and everybody else is just foolish...

 

I also think it was much more then 10 extra pounds, but again, I don't have access to his weigh-ins. Therefore I can't know for sure, and I guess that means the entire argument should be thrown out.

[Ennder]

So what you are saying is your statement that "Prince was too fat last year. He must have even thought so himself, because he worked all off-season to slim down." could be wrong?

 

I'd love to see Fielder lower his weight to a more normal level but there is absolutely no proof at all that it hurt him last year and that was my point. I will agree that it most certainly could but people talking about it like it is fact are just trying to place blame with no proof to back it up. I would be much more willing to believe it if he had a fast start and wore down to finish the season instead of the other way around.

 

To be honest I don't think he lost much more than 15 pounds this year, it is pretty hard to tell because his uniform is so baggy but while can notice he lost weight it isn't extreme at all.