Suppan to the bullpen; Narveson to start

[Oldcity]

This is dumb. I don't mean removing him from the rotation--that needed to be done. I mean the fact that they're doing this after two starts, as though Suppan's last two starts somehow provided more reason to remove him from the rotation than all of last year.

[Ennder]

This is going to cause problems at the end of the season probably because Narveson should not pitch 190 innings and if he is healthy all year he's going to be on pace for that. They probably should have gone with Parra or let Suppan start 2-3 more games first.

[Fatter than Joey]

In the case of the 12th man, why would service time automatically be an issue? And if 12th man is actually good, how can that hurt?

 

I think that the "12th man" -- the biggest issue is finding regular innings to pitch. I'd rather have Braddock getting regular innings and developing in Nashville, than sitting around waiting for innings to fall his way. As we saw last week, Hoffman ended up pitching in games that he had no business pitching in (from a game-result standpoint), but needed the innings to keep sharp.

 

The other argument for keeping a guy like Suppan or Narveson over Stetter or Braddock, is that Suppan or Narveson can start if needed, where Stetter and Braddock cannot.

[sheethead]

Maybe Suppan can get closer to that 4.75-5.25 ERA coming out of the bullpen.

[sgtcluels]

I guess the question is, if both Narvdog and Suppan are replacement level, wouldn't calling up some SP from AAA give us the same result? Protecting Suppan is fairly silly, he's below replacement level so calling up someone like Lofgren could yield the same results in the event of injury.

[joepepsi]

Do teams really have mop up guys in the pen anymore? Almost every game each team uses 3-4 pitchers, so there's a need to have 7 good pitchers in the pen, and not much room for a crappy failed starter.

[JohnBriggs12]

Why keep Suppan at all? He's got negative value starting or relieving. Shouldn't the question be what move makes the Brewers a better team? Aren't they a better team with Stetter and/or Braddock or virtually every arm currently in Nashville in the pen instead of Suppan?

 

What the next time Bush gets shelled bringing in Suppan to throw gasoline on the fire is some solution? Subjecting your fans to that is going to sell tickets?

[Invader3K]

The point is that you can throw Suppan in there during a blowout, and not waste better pitchers like Vargas/Parra/Villanueva, etc. And how can you say Suppan has negative value as a reliever when he has never really been a reliever his entire career?

[sheethead]

Suppan has negative value as a player, period. It doesn't matter how or when you use him. If this was any market larger than KC, CLE, or MKE, he would be out of baseball.

[sgtcluels]

The point is that you can throw Suppan in there during a blowout, and not waste better pitchers like Vargas/Parra/Villanueva, etc. And how can you say Suppan has negative value as a reliever when he has never really been a reliever his entire career?

Isn't that what Parra is for right now? He's not been used as a Loogy, he hasn't been used in high leverage situations (Only once did he appear so far in a game with the run difference under 4). Seems like we are going to have a redundant long relief pitcher who can only go 4ip max.

[Fatter than Joey]

I guess the question is, if both Narvdog and Suppan are replacement level, wouldn't calling up some SP from AAA give us the same result?

 

No. Last year there were a number of starters that were worse than Suppan -- Burns, McClung, Villy.... etc...

 

Just because Pitcher A, is below replacement level, you can't assume all of your AAA starters are better than that.

[And That]

I'd just assume go back to Chris Smith as the 12th pitcher and take my chances with Estrada, Lofgren, Loe or Rivas (or Parra, if it's soon) when we need another starter at some point.

 

It's not just that Suppan is below replacement level - he looks done to me, noticeably worse than the last few years.

[sheethead]

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any takers for the Suppan under 5.25 ERA in 2010 wager. Maybe I should have tried earlier this year.

[Ennder]

You would be hard pressed to find someone that would bet on ERA since it is borderline random with a pitcher like Suppan who puts a lot on base and doesn't K much. His xFIP is still under 5.25 though.

[sheethead]

I saw plenty of people around here using ERA to describe a particular 4.75-5.25 range. I can see how this is no longer a convenient argument. That is good there is a Tom Tango stat that shows Suppan as not being completely useless. I will no doubt learn it when I get some free time, but I hope it doesn't leave out home runs that are not legit.

[logan82]

Suppan probably falls into a 5.00-5.75 ERA range for the whole year if he stayed a starter. If you had said 5.50 ERA you may have had a few more takers. ERA can just as easily be influenced by a manager as well. Parra had his ERA inflated by about 0.32 last year by being left in just one time to take one for the team.

[Ennder]

I saw plenty of people around here using ERA to describe a particular 4.75-5.25 range. I can see how this is no longer a convenient argument. That is good there is a Tom Tango stat that shows Suppan as not being completely useless. I will no doubt learn it when I get some free time, but I hope it doesn't leave out home runs that are not legit.

When you describe someone as a 4.75-5.25 pitcher you are talking his true talent level, that is very different than a small sample of results. When you are looking at ERA the stat itself it doesn't become significant until something like 500 IP. In fact over a 200 IP sample you would be better off knowing absolutely nothing except K/9 than knowing nothing but his ERA over that sample, that is just how meaningless the stat is over a small sample.

 

Randy Wolf is most likely a 4.00-4.50 ERA true talent pitcher, doesnt' mean he can't have an ERA of 5 or an ERA of 3.50 this year. This isn't some crazy concept made to defend Suppan, it is just using stats that make a little sense over smaller samples.

[sheethead]

So is this only if Suppan pitches 500 innings this year? If not, you're on.

 

Under 5.75