Six games in, what do we know?

[Fear The Chorizo]

six games is far from enough to make any solid conclusions, but from what little we've seen so far:

1. Weeks looks to have benefited from reducing his bat waggle - he almost seems surprised at times at how easy making solid contact can be when he's got his hands in the right spot to swing. He seems to be reacting to the pitch more than relying on perfect timing and pitch recognition...that can all change but I'm encouraged so far.

2. Suppan is really starting to look like the black hole in the rotation many worried that he would become after signing that contract. It's only two starts, but he got hit pretty hard by a mediocre-at-best Giants offense and appeared determined to nibble at a shoebox-sized strike zone against the Cubs last night. His stuff isn't good enough to get guys out when an ump squeezes him. He was signed as an innings-eater, but he's turning into more of a bullpen-killer. He can just as easily bounce back and string solid starts together, but he needs to throw strikes to have any prayer of being above replacement level...at 10+ million a year, that's unacceptable.

3. The bullpen needs to be protected - it's early in the season and there have been some bright spots, but there are too many guys in the pen who walk hitters and get themselves in trouble. There doesn't appear to be anyone out there who could be a good "stopper", someone who can get out of jams the starter created. I think that's part of the reason why Macha's had a slow hook so far this season. Getting Hoffman back will improve the pen a bit, but the starting pitching needs to do well enough to limit the # of outs the pen needs to get game in-game out.

4. Braun's timing appears to be out of whack - could be the injury thing (thumb or torso), could just as easily be rust from limited AB's in the spring - he's been late on hittable fastballs and early on offspeed...I think another week of AB's will get him back on track, as long as he's healthy enough to benefit from seeing more pitching.

5. The bench is questionable - way too early to say the bench is weak, but I'm hoping to see better results from the guys who aren't every day players

6. The Brewers need another front line starter if they want to contend - again, too early to base this off only 6 games, but I think going into this season many of us already felt like in order for the Brewers to be legit playoff contenders in 09, they need to acquire another ace to take the strain off their young starters, keep their bullpen fresh, and take some run-scoring pressure of the offense. If the Brewers are close enough in late May, I can see Melvin making a play for a starting pitcher who could fill that role.

7. Teams are going to force the Brewers to hit righties as much as possible - in only the second series of the season, a team adjusted its rotation to keep a lefty from starting against them.

[RobertR]

1. Suppan is very worrying. I'm not bothered by him being the first guy in the rotation. Heck, there's game theory that indicates that sacrificing your #5 against another team's #1, will give you an advantage in the next 4 starts, but his total ineffectiveness, and inability to eat innings can carryover to the bullpen and affect more than just his starts.

 

2. Kendall looks old. I'm sure he'll pick it up to a degree, but given his history his slow start sends up all sorts of warning signs.

 

3. Spring training means not a whole lot. We learn this every year, but I'd rather have the lefty option of Lamb than McGehee. Chris Duffy looks like the Chris Duffy that was released by the Pirates, not that I think Gwynn would be any better.

 

4. Todd Coffey looks promising. The bullpen looks like it will need him.

 

5. Weeks has obviously looked good. Cutting down that bat waggle certainly looks like a simple solution that could pay big dividends. The team as a whole has looked a bit more patient. We'll see if they can sustain that over the course of a year, but there seems to be some progress underway.

 

6. Macha isn't really different from the majority of managers. They're a conservative bunch and Macha certainly doesn't look like any type of innovator. The biggest improvement he could make would be pinchhitting for Kendall though.

 

7. Prince is still Prince in the field. His inability to scoop balls out of the dirt is going to be an issue.

 

Robert

[CheezWizHed]

Things I have learned so far:

1) BF.net is in midseason panic form.

2) Since I dumped the DISH, I miss watching the games, but Gameday+Ueker is almost as good.

3) I hate runs walked in. I despise walking in 4 straight!

4) Even though we lost 2 of 3 to Cubs, they were toe-to-toe matchups. First two games decided in the ninth. And with the score 8-5, Prince had two on for the final out. It was a good series despite the pain of losing the last two.

5) Too early to tell much else.

[topper09er]

Speaking of Macha I am curious to see 1) how fast of a learner is he and 2) does he have the brains/guts to make the correct decisions. There are people here who know the team better than Macha probably and it will take him some time to figure everything out.

 

Everyone here knows that every time you send Suppan out you can expect a garbage performance that will require many runs + good defense + luck to win, which he has demonstrated now 2 straight starts, so how long will it take Macha to figure this out. Then, will be be like Yost and just "stick with my guys" or say if we have a better option than Suppan in the pen we are going with him.

 

Same thing with Kendall, he is an automatic out, his slugging % will be less than .300 this year. All he does is chop out weakly and he will throw in the occasional bloop single, although I wouldnt be suprised to see some little league outfield depth for Kendall soon, especially from smart managers like La Russa. Will Macha give Rivera more starts or AT LEAST allow him to pinch hit late when we are losing, or will he just go with the verteran.

 

I will say things I have liked so far from Macha:

1) bunting in the first innings on Friday, Weeks on 2nd, 0 outs, Hart moved him over. Braun did get a hit but a SF/groundout would have also worked. We ended up winning the game by 1 run and it proved to be the difference.

 

2) Piching CV in the 9th on Friday even though we were losing. I like when managers throw everything they have at winning games, I feel like Yost would have throw in Julio for mop-up duty and already given up on the game.

[logan82]

We know that Doug Eddings is still a terrible umpire.

 

We don't know much about the Brewers at this point that we didn't know before spring training.

 

We are beginning to see that Macha is just another manager. We swapped out one set of mistakes for another.

[Jofis11ep]

I think it's too early to be too worried about anything. We have the same record as the Boston Red Sox, there is a lot of baseball to be played.

 

-Our offense has been hitting very well even withouth the best hitter (Braun) not producing much of anything.

-We have yet to face a "mediocre" pitcher (some may argue Randy Johnson is mediocre but we beat him), yet we have been in every game.

-Our pitching, as expected, has been our weakness. But I think we've seen some good things from Looper, Bush, Coffey, Gallardo (minus one inning tonight) that we can build upon. I think our bullpen problems will begin to work themselves out once Hoffman comes off the DL. Everyone will be back in their true bullpen positions and it will have a trickle down effect.

 

My point is, the season is still young. There are some alarming things, but I think they will work themselves out and this team will be competing by the end of the year... at least I hope so.

[DougJones43]

I'm with Ennder on being concerned about Ryan Braun. He just hasn't been the same since the strained intercosta muscle. I don't think he ever fully recovered, and the fact that he aggravated it this spring supports that. After (prematurely) returning from the injury last season, Braun hit .238/.321/.449/.770 in 165 plate appearances. Not horrible, but definitely not the type of monster numbers Braun had been putting up. With a lackluster spring, re-injury, and now slow start, it seems very likely that it's still an issue.

[danzig6767]

Walks can really kill you

 

We are 2-5 instead of 4-3 largely because in one inning of back to back games our starting pitcher nibbled to much instead of making hitters put the ball in play and this lead to a couple of devastating big innings. Even worse was some of these walks were to hitters that aren't exactly major threats to destroy a pitch left over the plate. When over those two innings you give up 10 runs on only 4 hits, well, there isn't much else to blame the losses on IMO. Throw some damn strikes.

 

As for the team overall, the hitters do look more patient and that's great. In the end though, the main concern with this team is the same as it was before the season started, is there enough pitching? I didn't think there was enough to win a playoff berth and so far it's hard to feel otherwise unless Parra and one of Bush/Looper has a better year than i'd expect over roughly 200 innings.

[Ennder]

If there is one thing I've learned in my many years of fantasy baseball it is that April is the goofiest month. I put very little stock in stats built in April because hitters are behind pitchers in general, especially power hitters but a lot of pitchers including some really good ones have not found their control yet. This leads to a lot of bad outings by good pitchers and a lot of good outings by mediocre hitters. When a player carries his success or struggles into the middle of May then I start to pay more attention.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

It's early - but so far: Our most encouraging hitter has been Weeks. I hope it keeps up as well. He is hitting the ball hard and taking his walks pitches. If he emerges as a top flight lead off hitter, he will score a ton of runs. I share the biggest concern with Ennder. I'm not sure if Braun is just slumping or if he's hurt. He looks like he did during that patch last year when we found out his intercostal was hurt. Not sure he goes on the 60 day DL, but if he plays hurt his stats will surely suffer.

 

Our most encouraging pitcher - In looking for some bullpen guys to step up, certainly Coffey and DiFelice have looked good so far. Bush and Looper had decent starts as well. Aside from the obvious Suppan concern, I've been surprised Macha hasn't gone to Stetter on a couple occassions. If he really is our LOOGY, Macha needs to get some confidence in him or we need an alternative.

 

***Good point Gobias - it should be taking his pitches instead of walks.

[Gobias Industries]

It's early - but so far: Our most encouraging hitter has been Weeks. I hope it keeps up as well. He is hitting the ball hard and taking his walks. If he emerges as a top flight lead off hitter, he will score a ton of runs.

FWIW, Weeks only has 1 walk (3 HBP), but it's not like he's chasing outside the zone. He's hitting the ball hard several times a game, and swinging at strikes. Looks like a different player at the plate and on D.

 

I'm very encouraged by the starters on offense (except Kendall). We're scoring enough runs to win games off of top-flight SP, but it's just our pitching that has sucked.

 

Nelson, McG, and Duffy have all looked really shaky when given the chance. It really wouldn't surprise me if all of those guys are replaced by the end of the season.

[dlk9s]

Nelson, McG, and Duffy have all looked really shaky when given the chance. It really wouldn't surprise me if all of those guys are replaced by the end of the season.

On the bright side, Duffy did get on base in the 9th inning in two games when the Brewers were down a run.