How is this team 31-22

[Trowekamp]

I was looking through the stats yesterday and couldn't believe this team is 9 games over .500 as we approach the end of the first 3rd of the season. I went through the lineup and there are only 2 positions that are exceeding expectations CF (Cameron) and 2B (Weeks / Counsell / McGehee), 2 that are around what you would expect at 1B and LF with Braun and Fielder and the rest below expectations at 3B (Hall), SS (Hardy), RF (Hart), and C (Kendall) though I know it is tough for Hall and Kendall to be below expectations, I expected at least a .230 batting average. Then bench of (Duffy, Nelson, and McGehee before he started) contributed nothing and Rivera barely plays.

When you look at the rotation Gallardo has been a pleasant suprise while Parra once again disappoints and Bush, Suppan, and Looper are what they are.. the bullpen has been absolutely fantastic when you factor out Julio's and Swindle's throwaway innnings.

So I started wondering what the Crew would have to do to keep up the pace the last 2/3 of the season. I think it is safe to assume Hardy and Hall will heat up but I see a regression to a career mean for Counsell and Cameron. In addition, I think it is safe to say outside of Villy everyone else in the bullpen will end up with a higher ERA than they have now so to me that leave 3 areas where they need to focus: 3B, C, and SP.

At 3B, I think it is time to send Hall to the minors to let him regain some confidence and I would platoon Gamel and Heether indefinitely. I don't think they would have much trouble replacing Hall's production and likely easily exceeding it. If someone claims Hall oh well I believe that gets them off the hook for next year's salary and I don't see him refusing the assignment and giving up $10 million in salary.

At catcher I think it is time to let Rivera catch more. I don't get the argument where Kendall's defense is making up for his pitcher level bat. I don't see Suppan, Parra, and Looper benefiting and he has regressed in throwing out runners. I would at least have Rivera starting to catch once more per rotation if not splitting them evenly.

Finally, I would send Parra to the bullpen and let McClung start. Sending Parra to the minors is useless as he already knows he can get AAA hitters out and needs to learn to be agressive with major leaguers. Maybe a stint in the bullpen will give him that knowledge. Also if gives you another left-hander in the pen. I think Big Red has earned a shot at starting and he would at least give you Looper / Bush numbers which would be an major improvement over Parra at this point. Other than that I think the rest of the roster is in pretty good shape now that they brought in Catalanno and Gerut and evicted Julio.

What do you think?

[JohnBriggs12]

They're 31-22 because 6/7ths of the bullpen has been lights out. They've been no better than average in any other aspect of the game but when one aspect is so dominant (assuming the others are average), you are going to win more than you lose.

 

The concern is the starting pitching regressing from average to bad which will affect the bullpen eventually.

 

One thing I'd like to see is Casey McGehee playing everyday at 2B. The long term benefits to this club if McGehee shows he can be a solid everyday major leaguer are enormous. It gives Melvin a plethora of chips to be able to deal in the offseason to shore up needs. Yes Counsell has done a nice job, but over the long run, Counsell's greatest value is to be a bench player. Losing Weeks was a tough blow, but the opportunity to see what you have in McGehee should not be wasted.

[dlk9s]

I think it is safe to assume Hardy and Hall will heat up

 

Methinks you missed watching Hardy in May.

 

Starting May 1st and not counting last night, he's .310/.398/.471/.869.

[endaround]

Hardy has been on fire since he started of terribly. The Brewers have a good offense and a very good defense that covers up for some really bad starting pitchers. Add in a good bullpen and there you have it. The problem is that part of that is still luck based as this last trip through the rotation has shown us. Lopper, Suppan, and Parra haven't pitched well but Suppan and and Looper have been lucky.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Team OBP is up 14 points from last year. It sure helps when players develop pitch recognition. Braun has been significantly better in that department with a .421 OBP so far.

[Menotti80]

ken macha. plain and simple

[Ennder]

Good bullpen and one the best defenses in the NL so far on the season is pretty much the story. Adequate SP and adequate hitting.

[Thurston Fluff]

while Parra once again disappoints

 

not to nitpick but how can Parra once again disappoint when this is the first time he's disappointed? 10 wins with a 4.39 ERA as a rookie isn't great but far from disappointing.

 

I think you have to look at what was expected from the players as much as if they are meeting them. The team wouldn't have the same record if all the players sucked but met their modest expectations.

[Invader3K]

I think a few of the key factors are that the hitters seem to be better at the plate this year (Braun and Fielder in particular), and the bullpen has been very solid. I also think the change with Ken Macha seems to have been a positive one so far. I like that he's not afraid to change the lineup, and doesn't usually give his pitchers enough rope to hang their whole team, like Yost often seemed to.

[cwolf2012]

"I went through the lineup and there are only 2 positions that are exceeding expectations CF (Cameron) and 2B (Weeks / Counsell / McGehee)"

 

Braun is exceeding my expectations for sure. I always knew he'd be a high-AVG high SLG kind of player, but his OBP is over 100 points higher than his average. That's huge for the future.

 

I think he'll come back around and start slugging the ball again. If the OBP holds, I could see him having over a 1.000 OPS for the season.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

The bullpen has been lights out since Trevor came back.

 

The offense as a whole is still above average, although some of the 21/26 wins success was riding Rickie's hot bat. Braun, Fielder and Cam are all-stars or close and Hardy & Hart are starting to pick it up. Counsell as a supersub has been Kapler-esque thus far. They still center the offense around the longball which means they'll be a little streakier as has been the case so far.

 

The starting pitching has been solid although the last couple weeks has been tougher. Quality Starts is certainly a flawed metric, but makes intuitive sense for this team if the offense is above average and the 7-9 inning bullpen are solid. Just keep it close through 6 and they'll win more than their share. They weren't delivering those the first two weeks of the season or the last two, yet were in the middle month...big correlation with our streaks.

 

I think the defense is the underrated piece of the equation here. Our defense went from bad in 2007 to ok in 2008 and has been one of the league's best in 2009. We have a number of pitch to contact pitchers so it's imperative that we are solid in the field. Melvin's move to sign Cam & move Braun to LF along with the maturity of younger players has paid big dividends.

 

I guess that is also a reason I'm not as ready to toss Hall to the woodshed for Gamel quite so quickly. I'd take Gamel's bat, especially against RHP, but the dropoff in glove may overwhelm what is picked up. I'd platoon them, but add a start here and there for Hall and make him a late game defensive sub...just like Macha is doing. The added runs, pitches and stress on the pen from a lousy defense was a big part of the downfall in 2007. Gamel has the athletic ability to be a decent fielder at some point, but this is 2009 we're talking about. Our starting pitching is adaquate, but they need this defense to maintain it's level of performance.

[chadomac]

Bill Hall isn't being sent to the minors. This team's plate discipline, defense, and bullpen are very improved and are helping them win a lot of games they wouldn't have won in the past, I think.

[rluzinski]

I think someone should post each player's production vs. their preseason projections (Marcel or ZiPS from fangraphs.com), so we can see qualitatively, how players are doing, relative to their expectations.

 

I honestly don't think Mcgehee is anything but a below average 2B, offensively . A couple weeks of very good production isn't going to change my mind.

 

As was already pointing out, saying that Parra continues to disappoint doesn't seem fair. He had a decent year in 2008, overall. He's had a bad start but a month ago, everyone was screaming to get Suppan out of the rotation. Lalst year it was Dave Bush. People need to learn to be more patient with the pitchers in general, IMO.

 

And Bill Hall shouldn't even play against lefties now and should instead be basically DFA'd (I don't believe he has to accept a miner league assignment)? Instead, we are supposed to eat his contract and replace him with someone that is not as talented and put him in a platoon at 3B? Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

The Brewers are on pace to win 95 games. Since I don't think they have the talent of a true 95 win team, I'd say luck is the only way they win that many games. They still seem more like an 85 win team to me, which would give them 88 wins on the season.

[Invader3K]

What about strength of opponents? We've been playing some relatively bad teams lately, which kind of helps. At the beginning of the year it was a pretty tough schedule.

[benji]

Who would have thought 2 years ago that the brewers would have "one of the best defenses." I agree the defense and the bullpen are the story.

[Ennder]

What about strength of opponents? We've been playing some relatively bad teams lately, which kind of helps. At the beginning of the year it was a pretty tough schedule.

Looking at the standings on ESPN the Brewers have the toughest SOS in all of baseball so far on the season with a .512. Their RPI is the 2nd best in baseball.

 

The Cubs are 2nd in SOS. Reds are 5th and Cardinals are 14th.

[Invader3K]

Well, then that is actually reassuring. Theoretically things should get a bit easier as the season wears on.

[dadofandrew]

They have the 5th best run differential in the NL, and the 3rd best record. They are 5th in offense, 9th in ERA, and 6th in unearned runs allowed (1st meaning giving up the fewest). All that adds up to an above average team.

 

They have 3 more wins that you'd expect based on runs allowed and scored, and are 10-7 in one-run games, and 2-0 in extra innings. I tried to correlate bullpen performance to teams outperforming their expected W-L last year, and did not find any, but Hoffman and the bullpen as a whole being 2nd in ERA in the NL would seem to be as good a reason as any to explain that difference, though luck probably plays as big a role as any.

[joepepsi]

Saying "2 that are around what you would expect at 1B and LF with Braun and Fielder" is understating their contributions considerably. It's like Ruth hitting 54 homers the year after he hit 60 and claiming he had an off year. Prince has the 3rd best OPS among 1B in the NL, Braun is 2nd among LF'ers, behind Ibanez who probably isn't going to maintain his pace. Maybe that's what "we expect" of these two, but it shouldn't diminish the fact they are having great seasons.

 

The offense is 4th in the league in runs scored, and the starting pitching has been sorta league average. The bullpen is getting a ton of credit and deservedly so. But much of that credit should go to a rotation that averages just under 6 innings per start and leads MLB in % of quality starts. There have been very few instances where the bullpen was needed before the 6th inning. That saves an arm or two a game. The pen is not overused, which helps with effectiveness.

 

Their pythagorean is 28-25. I'm willing to give the three win difference to Hoffman.

[Trowekamp]

Isaying that Parra continues to disappoint doesn't seem fair.

I will back track a little here and say compared to my expectations, my hopes were he would be slightly above .500 with a 4.25 - 4.50 ERA and if you take the last 4 months he is nowhere near that though I am sure someone will make a small sample size argument though I would like to know at one point a small sample size becomes a big sample size : ) . And I believe McLung Starting and Parra in the pen is a better situation for them. For those (not you rluz) who want to keep start Hall how can we continue to give away 3 at bats (Hall, Kendall, P) each time through the lineup. If you are going to start Hall then play Rivera.

 

On Hardy yes he has been better that last month but I was saying when you look at his entire season he has been disappointing so far but I expect him to do better.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Bill Hall is .317/.333/.537 vs. LHP this year, was .306/.371/.522 last year and is .280/.354/.495 for his career. That's hardly giving up outs. His defense is probably a little above average. He's probably a platoon player with Gamel and a defensive sub since Gamel is below average defensively.

 

Kendall is about the worst in the league at the plate. Can't do much about the pitcher.

[Ennder]

if you take the last 4 months he is nowhere near that though I am sure someone will make a small sample size argument

 

It is certainly too small a sample to matter, just so you know though Parra had an ERA of 4.25 last August so you are really talking about a 3 month sample here in the first place and his ERA was 4.57 through 8 starts this season so you are really talking about 1 month and 3 starts of which he pitched 30 terrible innings. Even with the poor start to the year his peripherals are slightly better than Suppan's on the year, the results obviously aren't because of that last horrible start.

 

So while you can be disappointed with him if you are going to break it down into samples and try to include last year being a disappointment you are probably really only disappointed with 1.5 months of Parra. If you are breaking it down by seasons obviously last year wasn't a disappointment so you shouldn't add an again.

[Thurston Fluff]

I think it's fair tos ay Parra has disappointed so far this year. It's just not fair to add again.

[Trowekamp]

Bill Hall is .317/.333/.537 vs. LHP this year, was .306/.371/.522 last year and is .280/.354/.495 for his career. That's hardly giving up outs. His defense is probably a little above average. He's probably a platoon player with Gamel and a defensive sub since Gamel is below average defensively.

 

Kendall is about the worst in the league at the plate. Can't do much about the pitcher.

The problem with saying Bill Hall hits lefties is that fact that he gets lots of at bats against righties when the lefty leaves the game. If Macha had a strict you will never bat against righties rule for him (like a you will never bat after the 7th Kendall if we are behind or tied) then I would feel better about it.

[ecjimg]

"saying that Parra continues to disappoint doesn't seem fair."

 

It does to me. Last year, his first full season, he was 79th of 88 "qualifying" pitchers in WHIP (tied with Suppan).