Unrealistic Expectations for improving our team

[pete]

So Erin, the Rays didn't plan for success, nor have a 9=8 attitude from the start from Maddon on down, it just simply fell into their lap?

 

You're leaving out what is probably the most relevant fact: they were awful for years and drafted the best players available.

 

The Brewers... seemingly aren't being put in a winners mentality for the next 2-3 seasons.

 

What exactly are you talking about?

[cwolf2012]

If Looper, Parra, Bush, and Suppan pitch to their career norms, or even close, we're looking at a team still in contention right now. Yes, the rotation was not great to start, but they've severely underperformed. Not a single starter for the Brewers has an ERA at or below his career average as a starter. That was predictable for Yo and Suppan, but Bush, Looper, and Parra should have all been 4.5 ERA pitchers, and they're not. If you're going to blame Melvin for all 4 of our non-Gallardo starters being significantly worse than predicted, then there's not much anyone can say.

 

This team should have been an 85 win team. Injuries and pitchers underperforming by a LOT have derailed the season. So it goes. I can't honestly hate on Melvin for that. He put together what should have been at least a competent staff this year, and they all fell apart. Is the pitching coach to blame? A little bit, but most of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the trainers and the players themselves. Melvin can take part of the blame for the lack of depth in AAA to replace those people, along with Jack Z and possibly the developmental system.

 

There are so many factors in play here, and so much has gone wrong for the Brewers this year that was entirely out of anyone's control that coming down on Melvin and declaring him a GM who doesn't "have a winning style" is premature, and frankly, an entirely emotional response with little or no basis in fact. Melvin did about as well as he could this offseason, with having handcuffed himself with Suppan and Hall. That's an entirely over-discussed topic, so I won't go into it.

[lcbj68c]

If Looper, Parra, Bush, and Suppan pitch to their career norms, or even close, we're looking at a team still in contention right now. Yes, the rotation was not great to start, but they've severely underperformed. Not a single starter for the Brewers has an ERA at or below his career average as a starter. That was predictable for Yo and Suppan, but Bush, Looper, and Parra should have all been 4.5 ERA pitchers

 

So, just for clarification, in 2010...you'll be thrilled when Suppan, Gallardo, Bush, Parra, Looper (or Looper equal, sweetnlow, or whatever sugar subsitute you prefer) is trotted out as the rotation? I don't see how guys with career norms of .480 winning baseball get you an expected win total of 85-79. I've said over and over that it's not so much about 2009, as much as it is that 2010 and 2011 look like garbage and his philsophy of buying mediocre and hoping for career years is foolish. Just curious, what did BP have as our expected W-L before the season? 85 wins seems like blue goggles, but I could be wrong.

[logan82]

So, just for clarification, in 2010...you'll be thrilled when Suppan, Gallardo, Bush, Parra, Looper (or Looper equal, sweetnlow, or whatever sugar subsitute you prefer) is trotted out as the rotation?

 

Nobody would be thrilled with that rotation, but it is solid unless they all underperform like they did this year.

 

 

I don't see how guys with career norms of .480 winning baseball get you an expected win total of 85-79.

 

There are much better things to use than win%. I guess you would rather go with Looper than Gallardo if you are using win %. Looper does have a much better win % than Gallardo this year.

 

 

Just curious, what did BP have as our expected W-L before the season?

 

 

BP had us at 85 wins preseason.S

[TooLiveBrew]

Geez TLB and AKA Pete is Doug Melvin your Dad?

 

Yes. We are brothers, and both have sweet mustaches. AKA Pete just didn't want to admit it. And that.

[DougJones43]

Nobody would be thrilled with that rotation, but it is solid unless they all underperform like they did this year.

After this year's horrendous performances get figured in, the 2010 projections for most of these pitchers will be markedly worse than what they were entering this year, no?

[brewers19]

There are a lot of people in this discussion who are treating 'mediocre' and 'average' as synonyms and, just to clear up any confusion, they're not.

 

There's no simple formula for building a perennially winning baseball team. There are 29 other organizations - many of which are more qualified and blessed with more favorable circumstances and resources - that are trying to do the exact same thing. To expect a GM to keep their team in the top third at all times is, in the words of the original poster, unrealistic; some manage to do it, but they've pretty much all got a hefty head start in regards to what they have to work with. Roughly speaking, half the teams in the league are going to have a winning record and half will have a losing one; being average is really not the pejorative that some people are making it out to be. The pitching staff may be a pile of crap, but the team as a whole is most certainly not.

[DougJones43]

This team should have been an 85 win team. Injuries and pitchers underperforming by a LOT have derailed the season. So it goes. I can't honestly hate on Melvin for that. He put together what should have been at least a competent staff this year, and they all fell apart.

I just can't get on board with this idea that a GM bears such little responsibility in the actual performance (vs projection) of his players. That's part of a GM's job, in my eyes, is to spot trends/characteristics/abililties/etc. that might not show up in projections -- and lead to a player performing different than a formula says they will. I mean, what's the point of having a GM and scouting department if you could just look at BP projections every year and build a 85 or 90-win roster accordingly. Look at what the Cardinals have got with Smoltz after they noticed a flaw and fixed it. The guy went from "finished" to a very competent pitcher, all because of something that would have never showed up by just looking at projections.

 

As far as projections for the Brewers staff goes, even though the staff might be exactly the same group of guys entering next year, their projections figure to be far different. That, in and of itself, goes to show that projections don't necessarily match up with the actual talent. It would be pretty much the exact same level of talent of 2009, but with significantly worse projections for 2010. There must have been something there that could have foretold this, but Melvin and company didn't see it or chose to ignore it. I like the use of stats as a tool, but there is so much more that seems to get constantly thrown to the wayside on this board. Sorry if it sounds Joe Morgan-ish, but the results on the field are what will always matter, not projections.

[Ennder]

There must have been something there that could have foretold this

 

Looper and Gallardo pitched pretty close to their projections. Bush and Suppan were pitching to their projections before getting hurt which is something that happens to pitchers. Parra's is the only one that really did differently than expected. I don't think you are giving nearly enough credit to injuries for how this season went. Suppan and Bush don't get hurt and this season goes very different. Melvin is to blame for not having enough depth to live through the injuries but the actual starting 5 has mostly been derailed by injury, not by Melvin being 'wrong' somehow.

 

Another part of the issue may be that you are trying to judge pitchers by ERA which is just a terrible way to go about it. The projections can't account for luck/variance and ERA has a ton of it over a single season, if you compare projections to something like xFIP you'll see they weren't too far off until the injuries at least.

[endaround]

I won't argue about Looper again, but there are two pitchers who for some reason completely collapsed who were supposed to provide some depth. Villaneuva battled control problems. Seth McClung though stopped being able to strike batters out. He always had bad control but at least he could get Ks. This year his K/BB is 1.00.

[dlk9s]

I won't argue about Looper again, but there are two pitchers who for some reason completely collapsed who were supposed to provide some depth. Villaneuva battled control problems. Seth McClung though stopped being able to strike batters out. He always had bad control but at least he could get Ks. This year his K/BB is 1.00.

Very true.

 

I don't think anyone thought the Brewers were going to be the team to beat this year, but I honestly think the playoffs were a reasonable goal. And from there, we know anybody has a shot to win it all. Think about how many things went wrong. Bush and Suppan injuries (and resulting horrid pitching from both as a result, in addition to missed time), major drop-off's by Parra, Villy, and McClung, Weeks was lost early on, Hardy fell off a cliff, and Hart significantly underperformed and when he did pick it back up, he went on the DL. On top of that, our bench position players did as close to nothing as any bench can do for a while. Counsell and McGehee have gone above and beyond expectations this year, but that was about it. If all or most of those guys either don't get hurt for extended periods of time or play at least close to expectations, this season looks much different.

 

Obviously, all teams have injuries and underperformers, but the Brewers experience a crap-storm of it this season. That's not to say that Melvin and Macha couldn't have done a better job, but man, I don't think anyone saw all of these problems coming.

[bklynbrewcrew]

The only guy in this rotation that has surprised me has been Parra. I expected Manny to be a lot better than he was but I am not at all surprised that Looper and Suppan pitched like garbage. As for Bush the injury definitely hurt the team but lets face it he is just an average pitcher. I said before the season that this rotation was not nearly good enough to contend with and unfortunately I was proven right.

[mletto157]

I think the rotation could have easily been at least good enough to contend with. With the offense we have we didn't need them to be the best rotation in baseball in order to contend. Had Parra pitched like he did last year, or I should be a little more accurate and say got the results he did last year (let's face it - luck has played a huge part in his terrible ERA this season), we'd be in a better position. Had Suppan not gotten hurt we'd be in a better position. Had Bush not gotten hurt, we'd be in a much better position. Looper was relatively normal, except for his ridiculous HR/FB ratio (which is also largely luck). These things are all abnormal things to happen to these players; and no one could have predicted all of these abnormal things happening in the same year. They don't happen and we easily at least contend.

[logan82]

We need to add competent #6-#8 pitchers for next year(provided Looper is back). Other than that, our pitching should be good. If we can improve, all the better.