5 keys to the 2010 Brewers

[jaroszewski]

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgkhtjgz_19fxgch6c3

 

 

5 keys for the 2010 Milwaukee Brewers to make the playoffs:

 

The best way to demonstrate the best ways for the Brewers to

get back to the playoffs in 2010 is to look at the 2009 team and find what got

the team to a roughly .500 record last season, point out the weakness of the

team, and pray they get better. But what

exactly does that entail? How do the

Brewers go from winning 80 games last season to winning 90? Sabermetrical analysis tells us that a win is

roughly equal to 10 runs, and that a run prevented is equal to a run

scored. Thus, we need to get the 2010 Brewers

to score or prevent 100 total runs.

Where are the best ways to gain these runs from last season?

 

The 2009 Brewers scored 785 runs (4.85 per game) while

giving up 818 (5.05 per game) runs for a Pythagorean win/loss of 78/84.

 

This tells us that the Brewers won 2 more games than they

should have.

 

The 2009 Brewers went 40-41 both at home and on the road.

 

This is probably the most underrated place for

improvement. The Brewers over the last

couple of years was the incredible home record with a dismal road record. For example:

 

2005: Overall 81-81 Home

46-35 Road 35-46

 

2006: Overall 75-87 Home

48-33 Road 27-54

 

2007: Overall 83-79 Home

51-30 Road 32-49

 

2008: Overall 90-72 Home

49-32 Road 41-40

 

2009: Overall 80-82 Home

40-41 Road 40-41

 

Total: Overall 409-401 Home

234-171 Road 175-230

 

This is a huge difference in a noticeable trend. In 2008, the teams with the 4 best road

records made the playoffs. The Brewers

need to regain that home field advantage that they enjoyed in earlier

years. Assuming the Brewers can win the

close to the average or median number from the last 4 years should give the

Brewers sizeable improvement, but this represents a non-statistical

analysis. Perhaps further introspective

analysis could tell us more about these numbers, and is something I will look

at more in depth in another piece.

 

A recap of the 2009 Milwaukee Brewers, starting with the

offense:

 

2009 Brewers (Rank)

 

OBP wOBA SLG

OPS BABIP wRC

 

.341(8) .335(9) .426(10)

.767(9) .305(8) 786(9) (Just one

off of actual total)

 

And now for a position by position analysis:

 

Position (Rank) OBP wOBA SLG OPS BABIP wRC

 

 

 

C 23 .330 .292 .315 .645 .292 54

 

1B 2 .415 .426 .616 1.031 .318 147

 

2B 2 .382 .371 .475 .857 .345 121

 

3B 14 .332 .336 .443 .775 .322 94

 

SS 21 .305 .291 .351 .656 .281 62

 

LF 2 .374 .392 .531 .906 .342 128

 

CF 19 .328 .330 .428 .756 .293 86

 

RF 22 .339 .333 .419 .758 .301 89

 

DH (36) 20 .350 .328 .389 .739 .346 5

 

P (285) 10 .193 .175 .182 .376 .236 -3

 

PH 3

 

I added up the wRC for all positions I had data for. PH I deemed as being worth 3 wRC because that

was the difference between the added positions number (783) and the total

aggregate number (786)

 

A couple of observations or areas of improvement:

 

Jason Kendall was putrid, and he was the best catcher. AB by Gregg Zaun as well as a fair share from

one of the prospects vying for the backup job, Salome or Kottaras or Lucroy or

whomever wins the backup job should be a way to create some runs to the team.

 

Rickie Weeks is a common, and lazy, place to expect improvement. He will have a lot to do in order to

replicate the numbers that the 2^nd base contingent produced last

season. A drop-off is likely, but Weeks

could breakout, he is 27 and has a ton of talent, but that breakout would

likely result in simple reproduction of last year’s 2^nd base

production.

 

Fielder and Braun had tremendous seasons last year, but both

benefited from a higher than normal BABIP.

Expect a minor drop-off in both of their production, but nothing too

drastic to expect a collapse of the offense.

 

Corey Hart will be fully recovered from his mid-season

surgery and has new contacts. Will this

be enough for the former All-Star to have a breakout year? He made noticeable strides in his plate

discipline last season, and sometimes that uptick in walks is followed the next

season by an increase in power. Since

Hart accumulated so many of the RF AB a year ago, his improvement, or rather

just simply producing at his 2007 or first half of 2008 stats would be another

way.

 

CF could end up being a shot in the dark for the

Brewers. Carlos Gomez will have to

severely perform better than he has thus far in both his major and minor league

career to produce the way Mike Cameron did last season. Expect a drop-off there.

 

Bill Hall’s anemic numbers were essentially canceled out by

Casey McGehee’s incredible breakout campaign.

However, McGehee has never, not in the majors or the minors performed

the way he did last season. Expect

another drop-off.

 

Escobar will probably only slightly improve on J.J. Hardy’s

putrid numbers last season, based on his minor league profile.

 

Let us now turn to some projections to try to estimate the

run production based on some of the stipulations that I put forward in the

preceding blurbs. I will try to

approximate things like AB and things like that which are admitted very

unscientific. I will also only use OBP

and SLG, and then will plug them into the Lineup Analysis tool provided at

Baseball Musings to try and get an approximation. My method was to weight the 3 projection

systems ¼ each as well as Fangraphs’ fan projections ¼.

 

Position	Player	PA	OBP	SLG
C	Gregg Zaun	321.25	0.33375	0.37725
1B	Prince Fielder	661.75	0.39225	0.575
2B	Rickie Weeks	452.5	0.3585	0.44375
3B	Casey McGehee	461.75	0.33325	0.43375
SS	Alcides Escobar	467	0.33225	0.38875
LF	Ryan Braun	643.5	0.3725	0.5715
CF	Carlos Gomez	479	0.3155	0.37275
RF	Corey Hart	536.75	0.33075	0.45875

 

 

 

Here are your projected starters. Using last years’ teams’ AB totals, again not

such a good method, the Brewers went to the plate 6296 times. The projections above accumulated only 4023.5

AB. This means I am looking for 2272.5

PA. Last season, the pitchers went to

the dish 285 times, and since the difference would be minimal at best, I will

simply add those numbers. We now need

1986.5 AB. Taking into account some key

backups:

 

Position Player PA OBP SLG

 

IF Craig

Counsell 360.5 .33575 .3335

 

OF Jim

Edmonds 269.5 .332 .428

 

OF Jody

Gerut 311 .323 .431

 

IF Mat

Gamel 414.25 .34675 .445

 

P 285 .193 .182

 

IF Hernan

Iribarren 302.5 .334 .3955

 

C George

Kottaras 304.5 .331 .409

 

 

All together this brings us 6270.8 AB, leaving us around 22

AB short. Even if Prince Fielder was

batting in these AB, the output would only be about 5 runs, not even a

win. These remaining AB are negligible,

and therefore, I am simply going to multiply them out in the tool. Here is the starting lineup with my preferred

order:

 

1)

Weeks

 

2)

Zaun

 

3)

Braun

 

4)

Fielder

 

5)

Hart

 

6)

McGehee

 

7)

Gomez

 

8)

Pitcher

 

9)

Escobar

 

Now using the projected plate appearances, we must divide

the production, notably of the bench into positions on which they will start to

either give the starter an off day or in case of an injury. This method is a tad flawed because positions

like CF will be overrepresented, while positions like C will be

underrepresented. Because of the

relative closeness in the projected production of the Brewers SS, CF, and C, I

feel like this method, while inaccurate, is still close enough to be given

merit. Sabermetrical analysis also feels

like the batting order doesn’t matter, a notion that I disagree with, but not

entirely.

 

The positions are divided up as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then equate each player’s projections into their weighted

playing time at each position. I will

put both the Extra and the DH into the pitchers spot as they are the ones most

likely to be pinch-hit for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And plugging into the Lineup Analysis tool that lineup is

projected to score 5.048 runs per game, or 818 runs total, which places them

just over 30 runs higher than last season’s mark of 785. Okay Milwaukee, we received 3 wins more than

last season. How else can we improve

this season?

 

Looking at Jack Z’s incredible improvement in Seattle, one

thing comes out at you, DEFENSE. Can the

Brewers similarly improve with the mitt?

Likely not to the extent, but let’s see where improvement can be made,

first by tallying runs last season. I

find that the most accurate measure is UZR.

The following from the 2009 Brewers:

 

Overall UZR/150= -0.2

 

1B	-0.6
2B	14
3B	-1.2
SS	4.7
LF	-11.5
CF	6.4
RF	-3.9

 

 

 

So where will fluctuations likely come?

 

The main substitutions are as follows:

 

SS: Escobar in for Hardy

 

CF: Gomez in for Cameron

 

C: Zaun in for Kendall

 

2B: Weeks in for Lopez/Counsell

 

C seems like a wash, while SS and CF seem like upgrades and

2B seems like a downgrade.

 

With last season’s league leading 14 UZR, can Rickie Weeks

playing a ton of innings improve or even break even with 2009 production? I think that Weeks can settle in at around

+10 UZR, which would be just a 4 run drop-off from the 2009 production. Gomez’s UZR last season of 10 makes up for

that from Cameron’s. I think that

Escobar will improve on Hardy’s numbers, perhaps vaulting to +15 UZR. I have nothing but the eye test to attribute

to that. There is one win right there. McGehee was putrid according to UZR last

season, producing a -17.7 UZR. I found

this odd considering McGehee’s reputation was that he was a good defender. Having his knee surgery should surely help

that, so let’s make him average, which I do not believe to be a stretch

considering his 12.1 UZR at 2B and his minor league reputation. Braun lost a win of value last year in the

field from his rookie season, and should probably gain back half of that to

maybe -8 instead of -14. These may seem

too many, and with almost the entire bench sans Counsell not so good

defensively, I will say that the only real impact comes from the upgrade from

Escobar to Hardy, which results in 1 more win.

To 84 we go.

 

 

 

 

 

Now we turn our attention to the pitching, which destroyed

the 2009 Brewers. They gave up an

astonishing 818 runs last season. The

Brewers made some splashes in FA. Will

they pan out? Were they smart? We shall see.

But what to the numbers tell us?

 

The signing of Rick Peterson as pitching coach could be a

source of improvement. In 1997, the last

year before Peterson was the coach, the team gave up 946 runs. In 1998, they gave up 866 runs, nearly 60

less. Then Peterson went to take over

the Mets. In 2003, the year before he

took over, the Mets gave up 754 runs. In

2004, the Mets gave up 731 runs, a 23 run difference. Can we simply average them out. I think that we should turn more to the Mets

example than the A’s example. The Mets

did not have the talent infusion that the A’s had during that time, I’m sure

you are aware of the Big 3. Let’s say

that he can get 40 runs or 4 wins out of this team. Where will this improvement come from?

 

Last season the Brewers’ pitching staff pitched 1435

innings, giving up 818 runs, earned and unearned. I will use the same algorithm to determine

runs giving up as I did to determine runs scored. I will not use ERA, only xFIP and Runs given

up, in this model, until I get to 1435 innings.

Okay, sorry I got to 1432 innings, but still I leave you with:

 

 

 

 

In these 1432

innings, these Brewers gave up 717 runs.

 

The Pythagorean winning percentage of scoring 818 and giving

up 717 is .533 which gives the Brewers 86 wins.

This number is without any injuries except for those already factored in

during the projection process. Is that

enough to overcome the Cardinals and Cubs?

I say that it is enough for the Cubs, but not enough for the

Cardinals. What are the most likely

sources of improvement on this 86 wins?

 

1)

Corey

Hart out produces his numbers

 

2)

Alcides Escobar shows a more noticeable

difference defensively than the projections say.

 

3)

George Kottaras

plays more than Gregg Zaun

 

4)

Ryan Braun plays defense more like he did in

2008 than in 2009

 

5)

Yovani Gallardo takes 2 step forwards instead of

just 1 that is outlined in the systems.