When Does Our Hitting Cause a Change?

[The Truth]

They aren't a 3TO team. The Red Sox of recent years are a 3TO team. The Brewers don't draw enough walks.

Very good point. And far too few of our players work the count and drive up the pitch count

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

I've been saying it for a long time, and I know it's not a popular opinion, but I honestly feel that nothing with this organization is going to change until Melvin and his chronie Nichols are gone.

Yep. All or nothing hitting and bad defense. Two hallmarks.

[Invader3K]

This offense desperately needs a shakeup, regardless of what anyone thinks about Melvin's methodology, or the "makeup" of the team. 7 runs scored over the last six games. With Morgan probably headed back to the DL, I think either a call up needs to be made (Gamel?) or a trade has to be made. It's time for some outside the box thinking. Just bringing back Erick Almonte isn't going to cut it at this point.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm starting to think that Lucroy should be batting second. He always carried a high OBP in the minors, got called up early last year and struggled. But now has an OBP of .383

[greeg35]

He always carried a high OBP in the minors, got called up early last year and struggled. But now has an OBP of .383

current BABIP is .390

[JohnBriggs12]

I'm starting to think that Lucroy should be batting second. He always carried a high OBP in the minors, got called up early last year and struggled. But now has an OBP of .383

Had Morgan not gotten hurt (again), the solution would have been to bat Morgan first and Lucroy 2nd. Weeks then could be put in the 5 spot where his power would be more useful. He's got 6 HR but just 10 RBI. Whoever bats 2nd is not going to walk a lot. Teams aren't going to nibble to guys ahead of Braun. But Lucroy has shown he can hit a decent fastball.

 

I'm worried about McGehee. When he showed up in 2009, he was turning on balls and hitting HR at higher rate than he did in the minors. Now he's looking to hit everything to RF, is getting jammed inside and isn't hitting HR.

[CheezWizHed]

I'm not a fan of Weeks in the 5 spot. I'd be ok with him in the 2 spot, if we had a pure lead-off type hitter (like if Gomez had an OBP of 350-370 range). But outside of Braun and Fielder, he has the best OBP skills on the team. And on an OBP starved team, it needs to be accentuated, not diminished.

 

current BABIP is .390

 

Last I looked, that was a good thing... Yes, he will revert down somewhat. But his career MiLB OBP is .080 above his AVE. So if he reverts to .260/.340 that still is an improvement on what we have now. And honestly, I feel confident that he can hit .280/360.

[greeg35]

I would expect a big regression on the BABIP, and I'm not sure we can expect his major league OBP numbers to mirror is minor league numbers when it does. His walk rates in the minors were mostly double digits, with a high of 15% in AA. Last year it was 6% in the majors, this year so far it is 8%. Hopefully that keeps on climbing. That said, I think I agree that Lucroy is the best #2 option (assuming we won't ever put Fielder there) we have right now, and he's a heck of a lot more palatable in that spot than Gomez.

[Invader3K]

I agree that Lucroy in the two spot looks good right now, but I don't think it's a big enough move to solve this club's offensive problems.

[rluzinski]

rluzinski wrote:

 

Having a power-heavy lineup might slightly increase the variance in runs/game (score 5 or more runs or 3 or less a little more often).

Actually it doesn't. I did a research/article on this for another website about 3 years back, and divided the games by 0-1 runs, 2-3 runs, 4-5 runs (being average) 6-7 runs, 8-9 runs, or 10 or more runs. What I found (to my surprise) was that the teams that scored a lot of runs, but did so with a lower slugging percentage actually were more to the extremes, having more games where they'd score 0-3 runs, but also more games where they'd score 8 or more. This caught me completely by surprise in all honesty, to see the so called 'slugging' teams show more consistency in their run scoring distribution. It's not on this computer, it's on my old PC downstairs, so I'll look later and see if I can dig it up and share it.

You might have found that to be true for a particular sample but I don't really see how that's possible in reality. If you picture the most extreme examples of each, you have a team that only hits HR and a team that only hits singles. You can quickly simulate that in excel and I would think you'd find the HR team to have a higher variance. Of course, If I am going to throw out that hypothesis, I should just test it, huh?

My suspicion is that the difference in variance is so small between the two that you would need a massive sample to see the difference.

As for what is the average runs/game variance, there are plenty of ways to estimate that based on average runs/game. Seems like baseball fans are always surprised by how often their favorite team scores 3 runs or less. Here's an old blog post of mine addressing fans' criticism of the 2006 Brewers offense:

http://rluzinski.blogspot.com/2006/05/runs-per-game-and-consistency.html

I think it has to do with fans' expectation that runs/game follow a normal distribution? It simple can't as you can't score less than 0 runs per game but you WILL score 10 or more runs at least a few times. That means that your average runs/game might be 4.5 but you will score less than 4 runs in more than 50% of your games. That's just reality.

 

[Invader3K]

We're in fifth place right now. Simple lineup changes (batting Lucroy second) aren't going to make too much difference at this point, IMHO. Melvin needs to make a roster move significantly better than bringing back Almonte.

[rluzinski]

The worst thing a team can do is try random things to "shake things up" when an offense is in a week-long slump. You can try to justify it with the ol' "But what they are doing now isn't working!" but that is much to reactionary, IMO. Of course, this might be a good time for RR to "reevaluate" his batting order and offensive strategies. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

[greeg35]

that about sums up the reasons for why I'm in favor of the changes I'm in favor of: because the way RR chose to do them made no sense to begin with.

[MJLiverock]

The team had a .199 BABIP during the previous 7 days prior to las night's game, that is unsustainably low. Just getting that to a normal level would have probably won a game or two in this stretch and eased a lot of concerns. I dont' think the team is going to go out and start making big changes based on one bad road trip early in the season. And frankly I don't see what big changes that could make a difference there are even available at this point in the year. The most obvious was playing Morgan more but he is hurt again.

 

I am not sold on LuCroy in the 2 spot simply because he a ground ball machine without a lot of power thus far. His major league walk rate is nothing special, he managed a .300 Gomezesque OBP last year, he's had a hot start for 60 or so plate appearances but I'd like to see him keep it up before I annoint him the next Joe Mauer.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I am not sold on LuCroy in the 2 spot simply because he a ground ball machine without a lot of power thus far. His major league walk rate is nothing special, he managed a .300 Gomezesque OBP last year, he's had a hot start for 60 or so plate appearances but I'd like to see him keep it up before I annoint him the next Joe Mauer.

At this point, anyone besides Betancourt would be an upgrade over Gomez in the 2 spot though. I don't think Lucroy is an ideal #2 hitter, not at all. But a .277 OBP guy hitting in the heart of your order is reducing the RBI chances of the big boppers by a lot.

[NievesNoNO]

TheCrew07[/b]]I've been saying it for a long time, and I know it's not a popular opinion, but I honestly feel that nothing with this organization is going to change until Melvin and his chronie Nichols are gone.

I don't agree with Melvin leaving but that's another topic. You have the underlying issue right on though. The hitters are who they are (I really hate that cliche, I wish I thought of a different one). They are not going to magically change with a new hitting coach or manager. In the end I think the offense will be fine. It amazes me how many think that you can just "coach em up" and get different results. To me the hitting coach has to be one of the most pointless positions on a club. I think they can be valuable studying film of the player to find subtle changes in the hands or stance that have changed, but as far as actually coaching on a daily basis to try to change an approach to me that's fruitless. The time to instill an approach to hitting is in the minor leagues. Let me back up a bit by saying I have no idea what a MLB hitting coach or Svuem does on a daily basis, perhaps that's what he/they do, in which case it would still be pointless to swap him out. I think if I was hitting coach I'd just string together some highlights of each player hitting well and have them watch for 15 minutes before the game.

 

IMO, the two biggest problems on this club are infield defense and our bench. I realize we aren't swapping out our whole infield, but I still think it would make a huge difference to somehow get a guy at short to replace Yuni even if he's only a defensive whizz. We have the pitching this year, but having them wonder if every ground ball will be booted or second guessing an attempt to try to get a hitter to ground into a DP will make the staff less effective. Secondly, our bench provides zero value to this team. I know most teams don't have an elite bench but usually theres some reason why they're on the team. I realize there's been some injuries to deal with but guys like Nieves, Kotsay, Almonte shouldn't have a spot on this team. There are better options. Gamel, Kottaras, Boggs, Katin. If Yuni was replaced he'd actually have some value on the bench, as at least he can put the ball in play consistently and has a bit of power.

 

[logan82]

I think you have to stick Hart #2 because he is the next best hitter after Fielder, Braun and Week. He will eventually hit. Gomez won't.

[TheCrew07]

TheCrew07[/b]]I've been saying it for a long time, and I know it's not a popular opinion, but I honestly feel that nothing with this organization is going to change until Melvin and his chronie Nichols are gone.

I don't agree with Melvin leaving but that's another topic. You have the underlying issue right on though. The hitters are who they are (I really hate that cliche, I wish I thought of a different one). They are not going to magically change with a new hitting coach or manager. In the end I think the offense will be fine. It amazes me how many think that you can just "coach em up" and get different results.

 

The problem is that the way the organization operates will not change unless the GM changes. Melvin had an immediate positive impact on the MLB roster when he got here, he's very good at assembling competitive teams. However his methods do not produce sustained success for a team like Milwaukee which doesn't have the resources to compete for marquee free agents, not that I think free agency is the way to go about building an organization regardless of market size, because I obviously don't. I've posted literally 100s of times why I don't think you can can cycle talent the way Melvin has done and maintain success either. We graduated a ton of talent to MLB and traded away the rest, now we're left with essentially no depth at the positions that matter the most, starting pitching and position players. We'll have good bullpen depth for a long time, but the bullpen is the least important part of the triad. I like Marcum and Grienke as players, but I wouldn't have traded for either one, not this off season, the trades came way too late.

 

The organization has never placed a premium on defensive development, this is why mangement pieces like Nichols need to go. It's criminal that a player like Micheal Brantley played DH more than he played the field all those years. How tough would have been to rotate the 4 outfielders through the 3 OF positions and DH? Even if the players only end up being bench players, they at least have experience playing different positions so would have increased versatility for the MLB team. The Brewers have always just thrown the players out on the field and let them play, that's how we develop defense as an organization. Gamel's defense wasn't addressed at all until he hit AA, Braun was allowed to play 3B based solely on his athleticism while his bat carried him, or own good defenders are those that were naturals... Weeks has worked damn hard to get to average, and he's had a below average start to the season. The end result of this philosophy is that we have limited options defensively, which limits the offenive flexibility of the team as well. Gamel could have made a huge difference adding another power LH bat to the line up 2 years ago, but his defensive issues limited his availability to the big league club. Unfortunately all these issues are tied together, it's not just as simple as replacing hitter X with hitter Y.

 

I want players that are as close to complete players defensively as possible by the time they the hit the majors, waiting 4 years to players to reach an "average" level competence significantly reduces their overall value through their cheapest years when the Brewers should be getting the best possible value out of those players. That way they can concentrate on their bats, their hitting, and focus on 1 learning curve when they get there, the defensive (fundamental) side of the game should be instinct by the time they reach MLB. Fielder does nothing fundamentally sound at 1B which is why he struggles so bad, and I can't believe the organization allows him to continually try to tag runners and try to win the foot race to the bag given what happened with Gallardo? Why won't he just toss the ball to the pitcher covering the bag? It's such an easy play... Is he that bad excuting an underhand toss that he'd rather make the much tougher play than risk a bad toss? Why won't he ever get under a bad throw he needs to scoop instead of flailing at it? Regardless, it's extremely obvious that the Brewers as an organization don't emphasize plate discipline or defense through the minors the way other organizations have done, and as such those shortcomings become transparent at the MLB level. In my opinion the little things the Brewers don't do well offensively are tied to the problems they have defensively, it appears the organization focuses almost exclusively on SLG, at the expense of everything else.

 

In the end Melvin backed himself into this corner because he never acquried enough pitching when he knew the organization didn't have any coming through the system with this current group of position players. His moves over the years had severely limited his options to the point where he made both trades this off season out of desperation, which of course further limited what he could do position player wise on the MLB roster. How do fix a roster that's compromised entirely of position players who mostly have the same profile offensively and defensively? It's no secret around here that I believe every team in the post season can hit but pitching and defense will make the difference in the playoffs and win championships, 1 misplay can change a series because the sample size is so small. Look at how the Cameron and Weeks misplays in a single playoff game changed the series against the Phillies in 2008, there isn't any margin for error when it's "win or go home". That's why I've never been in the "must win now" camp on this site, the roster makeup has been fundamentally flawed from the start.

 

The question now is how do you change the hitting, fielding, or pitching when you don't have any other options talent wise (prospects) and can't afford to buy anyone because the payroll is maxed out? A change in organizational philosophy is needed much more than a immediate change to the position players on the team. However in the short term it would help significantly if our 5 best hitters were actually batting 1-5, which isn't a Melvin issue, but a Roenicke issue. I'm willing to give RR time as he's transitioning leagues, but there's really no excuse for batting someone like Gomez 2nd... not ever.

[PKBadger]

It amazes me how many think that you can just "coach em up" and get different results. To me the hitting coach has to be one of the most pointless positions on a club. I think they can be valuable studying film of the player to find subtle changes in the hands or stance that have changed, but as far as actually coaching on a daily basis to try to change an approach to me that's fruitless. The time to instill an approach to hitting is in the minor leagues.

It amazes me how many people marginalize good coaching. It's how you go from this...

 

http://theburghblues.mlblogs.com/Jose%20Bautista%205-5-07.jpg

 

 

...to this

 

 

http://www.bronxbombersbeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Jose-Bautista.jpg

[logan82]

If it is all about good coaching how come Bautista is the exception rather than the rule?

[PKBadger]

Never said it was all about good coaching, just refuting the idea that the players can do everything themselves without any help.

[logan82]

I don't think people are saying that coaching doesn't help. Just that all the coaching is pretty much equal once you get to the majors. A tweak here a tweak there. When you fire a hitting coach or even a manager all you are doing is changing names. Nothing else.

[JohnBriggs12]

We're in fifth place right now. Simple lineup changes (batting Lucroy second) aren't going to make too much difference at this point, IMHO. Melvin needs to make a roster move significantly better than bringing back Almonte.

He's kind of locked into this roster. If the mainstays don't hit, they are sunk. He can make some minor adjustments. Anyone else think Mike Rivera and his 1.067 OPS at Nashville might be an upgrade over Nieves? Heck, Mike's even nailed 4 of 10 base stealers so far. Return of Morgan should help. But as long as the big guns stay silent, this offense will be bad.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Alot had to go right in order for the Brewers to win this division (even if the division wasn't full of world-beaters). So far, pretty much nothing has gone right for the Brewers, and they are 5.5 GB with four teams in front of them in the NL Central Standings. Injuries and problems with the roster depth are going to continue to be an issue for the Brewers - I don't see STL running away with the division, but with Cincy could be a problem after getting some pitching healthy with Cueto and Bailey off the DL.

 

Overall, pitching isn't the reason the Brewers have been a sinking ship - their bad offense and terrible defense are to blame, and Melvin doesn't have enough moves available to make if the teamwide funk in those two areas continues.

 

Even with all the starting pitching talent added in the offseason the Brewers were no better than a 50/50 shot at the playoffs (in fact they probably had longer odds than that) - that was assuming they'd be a top 5 NL offense, so if this team doesn't consistently hit, they're going nowhere.

[owbc]

Never said it was all

about good coaching, just refuting the idea that the players can do

everything themselves without any help.

You can't teach plate discipline.

 

Even Bautista doesn't break that rule. His OBP was 114 points above his batting average the year before he hit 54 HR. Coaching helped him tinker his swing, but it didn't teach him where the strike zone is.

 

I've seen subtle improvements from talented players like Braun and Fielder, but the rule seems to hold the majority of the time. Certainly by the time a player reaches the big leagues, the window to see significant improvement in OBP has already closed. Geoff Jenkins bit at pitches in the dirt his entire career, despite the revolving door of hitting coaches.