Bad Luck or Bad Team?

[trwi7]

Wolf hits 92 on what planet?

 

His average fastball this year is 87.9. Since 2002 his average is 88.1.

[DougJones43]

I get the "soft tossing" label on Davis, that's what he is. Wolf hits 92, which isn't really "soft tossing"...

If you read my entire post, you'd see the the two "soft tossing old guys" I was referring to were Davis and Suppan. I never said that about Wolf, and in fact said in the first paragraph of the post that I'm okay with the Wolf signing, so you're way off in your assumption that I was just tossing out the phrase in regards to anyone Melvin has signed.

[Polish Falcons]

They are now 62-80 since July 2 of 2009. That's not bad luck, it's a bad team. People conveniently ignore the players performing above expectation which could be attributed to good luck. Brewers are one of only 7 teams above projected OPS in a down hitting year. That's unlikely to continue and Braun and McGehee are individually, at least until recently, also well above expectations. Let's not just look at where their luck has gone bad please.

OK, McGehe and Hart are probably playing a bit above their talent level. But McGehe has sustained a high level of play for a while now, I think he's a lot better than the experts here are giving him credit for. Hart is not necessarily the best homerun hitter in the national league, but if he keeps it up this wouldn't be his first time in the all-star game. Other than that I don't know who the people playing "well above expectations" are. The two best hitters on our team certainly aren't above expectations. Take Prince Fielder for example. After 61 games Prince has 10 HR and 22 RBI. So he is on pace to hit 26 homeruns and 58 RBI's. That would make Prince one of the lowest run producing first baseman in baseball. There's another thread about Braun being in the midst of one of his longest slumps since his rookie year.

[monty57]

Wolf hits 92 on what planet?

 

I don't generally pay much attention to the MPH guage on TV, but I know the first game Wolf played with Lucroy (the one he got very flustered with him mid-inning) he pumped three straight fastballs in the 91-92 range. I'd guess that's his top fastball, and he generally works in the 87-89 MPH range, unlike Davis who tops out around 88 and works in the 84-86 MPH range.

 

If you read my entire post, you'd see the the two "soft tossing old guys" I was referring to were Davis and Suppan. I never said that about Wolf, and in fact said in the first paragraph of the post that I'm okay with the Wolf signing, so you're way off in your assumption that I was just tossing out the phrase in regards to anyone Melvin has signed.

 

I didn't mean to aim that criticism directly at you, and I did read your entire post. I've just seen the term "soft-tosser" used on this board more in the past couple months than I have heard it in my entire life, and it seems to have become a pretty generic phrase being thrown around, particularly from those who dislike Melvin. Davis has been a "soft-tosser" his entire career, and since his first term with the Brewers has been successful with it. Suppan has been a "soft-tosser" for a long time and was decent as a "soft-tosser" in his prime, which he passed years ago. Now he just sucks and should never have been forced into the Brewers' rotation.

 

"Soft-tossers" can be good or bad, just like "hard-tossers" can. "Hard-tossers" just have more margin for error. Coming into this season, Davis wasn't terrible, while Suppan was, so I wasn't upset with Davis in the rotation, while I was upset with Suppan in the rotation.

[logan82]

Suppan in the rotation made no sense unless there were injuries to at least 2 other starters. I think almost everybody would agree Parra and Narveson should have been in the rotation ahead of Suppan. I wanted to keep Suppan on the team but as the mop up guy/7th starter. If he had been used in that capacity he wouldn't have hurt us to much. Instead he was put in as our 5th starter then used in close games as a reliever.

[Beast Light]

Doug Davis has a career xFIP of 4.43 and his 3 year average isn't much worse.

Randy Wolf has a career xFIP of 4.30 and his 3 year average is about the same.

 

Suppan was a clear case of a mistake signing though and I can certainly see not liking the 3rd year of Wolf's contract. These guys aren't borderline players, they are right around average players. There is a big difference. Sometimes an old average player does well, sometimes poorly. Most of the complaints with these signings is backseat driving, there was no reason to expect them to tank but we have just been unlucky with their results.

Should a team pay $10MM per year for an average pitcher? I don't think so.

 

Also, how is this team so consistently unlucky and at what point do we start pointing towards a common denominator? The way I see it, this team is playing to their talent level. If anything, they were lucky for the first 45 or so games last year. After that, the starting rotation was horrendous and coming into this season, I did not think that a Randy Wolf (who is no longer pitching for a contract) and Doug Davis would be enough to turn it around.

 

This team has now been bad for the past 162 games. That would be quite a streak of bad luck.

[rluzinski]

Should a team pay $10MM per year for an average pitcher? I don't think so.

 

Prior to this year (Lot's of talk about market downturn) teams were paying about $9 mil for an average player.

[Ennder]

Should a team pay $10MM per year for an average pitcher? I don't think so.

 

Also, how is this team so consistently unlucky and at what point do we start pointing towards a common denominator? The way I see it, this team is playing to their talent level. If anything, they were lucky for the first 45 or so games last year. After that, the starting rotation was horrendous and coming into this season, I did not think that a Randy Wolf (who is no longer pitching for a contract) and Doug Davis would be enough to turn it around.

 

This team has now been bad for the past 162 games. That would be quite a streak of bad luck.

Year to year production is just incredibly random, people get way too hung up on a single year performance, especially when it comes to ERA which is just not a useful stat over 200 innings. Wins and Losses are also incredibly random over a single season. I don't think anyone thinks this is a 90 win team but an 83 win team can easily play like the Brewers have over the past 162 games.