National prognosticators thread

[MoreTrife]

didn't see one so I thought I'd start one. Not that national predictions are that relevant but they can fun/infruriating to check out. I'm not sure if they are out but I did see Baseball Prospectus (via 30 clubs in 30 days) put the Brewers at 77-85, tied for third i think. Seems pretty low. I feel like barring major players going down (weeks, fielder, braun, gallardo), we will be more competitive than that. any others out there?

[logan82]

We have a good chance to compete for the division if things go our way. Low 80's wins is probable though. We improved our starting pitching but our offense took a hit. Our defense is probably a little worse as well.

[yount19.u]

I'm not sure how the Prospectus has the Brewers doing that much worse than they did last year. The pitching has been improved along with a slight improvement on defense. Maybe a half step back was taken on offense, but the team gained speed in exchange for power. What in their formula has the Brewers' outlook seeming so dire?

[endaround]

A lot depends on how you project Bush and Parra. Those two basically are a 5-8 game swing depending on how you weight last year versus earlier years.

[logan82]

2 wins on offense at the CF position(even if Gomez hits his projections) and probably small steps back at 1B, 3B, 2B and LF. I think a small step back on defense as well. Escobar has the tools to be a better SS than Hardy but he needs to be more consistent. There is almost no way Weeks matches the defense we got at 2B.(+14 runs UZR best in the league) Basically we got a little better in CF but almost nowhere else. 3B we get s better McGehee on defense but lose all of Hall's plus defense. I agree Parra and Bush pitching to the career numbers is a huge boost. It probably puts us in the low 80's for wins though.

[Flood Pants]

What in their formula has the Brewers' outlook seeming so dire?

Do a team audit for the Brewers and look at the VORP of who they lost versus who they gained. Essentially, they're basing their formula on expected runs scored vs. expected runs given up. By their numbers, we lost a god 20 runs by letting Cameron go and even a few by replacing Hardy with Escobar. The pitchers added just about balance out these lost runs, leaving us with a team whose expected runs are about the same as last year's. Cameron's loss really makes a huge difference for this offense.

[greeg35]

but all he did was strike out and be non-clutch

[Thurston Fluff]

While I get why they say we will be that low I think what is missed is the depth of the pitching vs last season. We may not be all that much better talent wise but the options to cover injuries or ineffectiveness are much better than they were a year ago.

[RightFieldCoder]

Even the Brewers (at least publicly) don't know who the 5 starters will be. It's hard to make a prediction since a large part will depend on what happens with Soup.

[nate82]

2 wins on offense at the CF position(even if Gomez hits his projections) and probably small steps back at 1B, 3B, 2B and LF. I think a small step back on defense as well. Escobar has the tools to be a better SS than Hardy but he needs to be more consistent. There is almost no way Weeks matches the defense we got at 2B.(+14 runs UZR best in the league) Basically we got a little better in CF but almost nowhere else. 3B we get s better McGehee on defense but lose all of Hall's plus defense. I agree Parra and Bush pitching to the career numbers is a huge boost. It probably puts us in the low 80's for wins though.

You are forgetting a few spots where the offense will be better at than last year. Two significant spots that could improve is from RF (Hart, Gerut, Edmonds) and Catcher (Zaun, and whoever the backup will be). Now Zaun will be better than Kendall though his OBP probably won't be as good as Kendall's though Zaun did have a better OBP than Kendall did last year in the AL. Now Hart can not be as bad as he was last year could he? If Hart improves on his 2009 season that could be a major boost to the offense. If Edmonds is platooning with Hart out in RF I still do not see that as a problem. In reality there is only really two spots where our offense is going to be significantly worse than it was in 2009 and that is at 2B and CF.

 

If Gerut and Gomez can be a successful platoon out in center field that would be fine since CF is also one of the areas where offense is usually valued a little lower compared to the defense. I don't see Braun or Fielder regressing all that much in 2010 so LF and 1B shouldn't be a concern. The small step back at LF and 1B will be very insignificant the only way it would be a concern is if either one of them gets injured for a long period of time then that would be a major concern. I believe the Brewers are closer to being a 85 win team than they are of a low 80's win team.

[logan82]

The upgrade at catcher and RF is probably pretty small. Hart wasn't as bad as made out to be in 2009. I don't expect him to be much better. The upgrade at catcher is somewhat lessened by the fact that Zaun will probably only catch around 100 games and the backup is probably not going to hit as well as Kendall.

 

Braun may match his OPS from 2009, in fact I think he will, but I see him doing it with a much lower OBP which will be less valuable.

[yount19.u]

What in their formula has the Brewers' outlook seeming so dire?

Do a team audit for the Brewers and look at the VORP of who they lost versus who they gained. Essentially, they're basing their formula on expected runs scored vs. expected runs given up. By their numbers, we lost a god 20 runs by letting Cameron go and even a few by replacing Hardy with Escobar. The pitchers added just about balance out these lost runs, leaving us with a team whose expected runs are about the same as last year's. Cameron's loss really makes a huge difference for this offense.

But what about team defense and speed, both of which have been improved (speed more than defense)? I don't believe VORP takes those into account. It just seems like Baseball Prospectus puts such a high value on slugging, and since the Brewers lost that with Cameron and Hardy, suddenly they're towards the bottom of the Central. Are there any accuracy checks out there showing how well they've predicted team records in the past? I know '08 for the Brewers was within 3 wins.

[RockCoCougars]

but all he did was strike out and be non-clutch

Exactly. Granted with good defense, but that will be replaced adequately by Lopez.

[bullox]

Exactly. Granted with good defense, but that will be replaced adequately by Lopez.

Blue text indicates sarcasm.

[RockCoCougars]

Exactly. Granted with good defense, but that will be replaced adequately by Lopez.

Blue text indicates sarcasm.

The original poster might have been expressing sarcasm, but that's my general view of Cameron, hence the black text. I'd much rather have a combo of Gomez and Edmonds for a third of the price. Edmonds is only a few years older, but has been a much better hitter over his career than Cameron. Gomez is much younger, and probably at this point the equal or slightly better than Cameron in the field. For the price, I'll gladly take either option over Cam.

[logan82]

The Brewers lost a lot of OBP by going to Gomez instead of Cameron as well.

[greeg35]

I'd much rather have a combo of Gomez and Edmonds for a third of the

price. Edmonds is only a few years older, but has been a much better

hitter over his career than Cameron. Gomez is much younger, and

probably at this point the equal or slightly better than Cameron in the

field. For the price, I'll gladly take either option over Cam.

"For the price" is an argument for another thread. This is about projected wins this year vs last year. We lose a lot of offense going from Cam to Gomez and we WOULD lose a lot of defense if we go to Edmonds in CF (and despite all those gold gloves 10 years ago I hope we don't). These guys don't equal Cam unless Gomez has huge surprises in store for us offensively.

[Ennder]

The Brewers lost a lot of OBP by going to Gomez instead of Cameron as well.

Brewers CFs had a .329 OBP last season. I think a combo of Gomez and Edmonds could plausibly match that. If he can combine last years BB rate with 2008s BABIP and add in a little bit of weaker pitching in the NL than in the AL and something like a .315 OBP is certainly doable by him. Sure his career OBP is still nasty but he did show a lot of growth in his peripherals last year even if they didn't show up in his slash stats. There is still a substantial loss of power of course.

[Baldkin]

If Edmonds plays more than a handful of games in CF that probably negates the slight defensive advantage Gomez has over Cameron in CF.

 

The defense should be better (Healthy McGeehee, Gomez, Escobar and Zaun all being minor steps up over last year), Offense should be about the same from SS. Will probably take a hit at CF and 3B. C and RF should both be much improved.

 

The backup for Zaun shouldn't hit any worse than Kendall did. He was the worst every day hitter in all of baseball last year. Zaun will probably be at least 100 points of OPS better than Kendall. That's about the difference between Mike Cameron and Ryan Braun.

[logan82]

Brewers CFs had a .329 OBP last season. I think a combo of Gomez and Edmonds could plausibly match that. If he can combine last years BB rate with 2008s BABIP and add in a little bit of weaker pitching in the NL than in the AL and something like a .315 OBP is certainly doable by him. Sure his career OBP is still nasty but he did show a lot of growth in his peripherals last year even if they didn't show up in his slash stats. There is still a substantial loss of power of course.

Going from Cameron to Gomez is a big hit in OBP even if Gomez hits his projections. The backup CF from last year flat out sucked so yes we could get similar OBP at the CF position. Just so I don't make that same mistake again.

 

2009 splits

C .242/.331/.317/.648

1B .299/.412/.602/1.014

2B .303/.377/.474/.851

SS ..247/.306/.355/.661

3B .267/.330/.439/.769

LF .309/.373/.530/.902

CF .241/.329/.432/.761

RF .270/.340/.425/.765

[RockCoCougars]

greeg35]"For the price" is an argument for another thread. This is about projected wins this year vs last year. We lose a lot of offense going from Cam to Gomez and we WOULD lose a lot of defense if we go to Edmonds in CF (and despite all those gold gloves 10 years ago I hope we don't). These guys don't equal Cam unless Gomez has huge surprises in store for us offensively.

Point taken.....but the savings in center field theoretically allowed the team to sign Wolf by freeing up most of the salary needed to sign him. Though I am a little more cynical about that signing than most here, it would be hard even for me to argue that adding Wolf shouldn't bolster the rotation, hopefully adding wins on that side of things.

[Flood Pants]

I think this team can very well be better than last year, but it's hard to predict that they will. A lot has to go right. Weeks has to stay healthy (which is unreasonable to predict due to his track record). Gomez needs to step it up at the plate (which he has the potential to do, but no track record). Wolf needs to be the good pitcher he is about every other year (but he's been too inconsistent to count on this). I'd argue that this team has potential to be better, but there isn't the hard evidence to firmly predict that they will.

 

We fans should be cautiously optimistic. But a national prognosticator should go with the odds.

[ELCABALLO45]

Here is what the Houston Chronicle says.

 

1. Cardinals

2. Cubs

3. Reds

4. Astros

5. Brewers

6. Pirates

 

http://www.chron.com/disp...l/sports/bb/6942205.html

[logan82]

As much as some of us like to complain about TH, at least he isn't Richard Justice.

 

Compounding the problem is the fact Jeff Suppan (neck) will start the season on the disabled list.

 

They say that like Suppan is a good pitcher. That is only a problem if we lose 2 other starters.

[brains and braun]

Wow. Looks like the newspaper isn't much better than the baseball team. Especially loved his assertion that Suppan on the DL would be a blow to the staff.