Article on the Brewers

[danzig6767]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6746478/undervalued-sluggers

 

I saw this posted on another forum and thought it was interesting enough to highjack it for Brewerfan. The article was reasonably well written, but like many in the national media who don't watch the Brewers near everyday, they've been slow to pick up on the defensive improvement by Weeks. At one time he was dreadful defensively, but to his credit he's improved

greatly. He'll still has his brainfart moments and inexplicably sometimes drops

throws or line drives that hit him right in his glove, but he'll also

show fabulous range at times, he no longer boots tons of simple ground

balls, and he has a great arm with much improved accuracy.

 

Plus, while Melvin certainly deserves some of the blame for our poor team defense overall, especially since he personally added the two statues which play 3rd/SS, Braun, Prince, and Hart all came from the farm system with real defensive shortcomings, particularly Braun and Prince. Hart isn't as bad as those two, but he has issues sometimes reading balls off the bat and his arm is a mix of not being overly strong and inaccurate. So while i don't believe at all that it was some plan by Doug to build such a defensively challenged team, he certainly threw gas on the defensive fire by adding two statues on the left side of his infield to go along with already poor defenders on the roster from the farm system who hit to well to be replaced for defensive reasons.

 

I'm trying to think if i can ever recall any MLB team who had a shortstop and third baseman duo which may have had less range than these two, and i'm at a loss to think of one offhand.

[Invader3K]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6746478/undervalued-sluggers

 

I'm trying to think if i can ever recall any MLB team who had a shortstop and third baseman duo which may have had less range than these two, and i'm at a loss to think of one offhand.

It seems like even in the dark days of the late '90s and early 2000's, we still had competent defense on that side of the infield.

[Funketown]

This is a well written and worthwhile article, but there are a few things that I think he missed. Weeks is no longer a bad defender, Morgan/Gomez combined make one of the best defensive center field combos in the majors, and Lucroy is probably right around average behind the plate despite his low CS%.

[joepepsi]

This was written by one of the few remaining good writers at Baseball Prospectus. A fine article and interesting take on the Brewers.

[Hofbraunhaus]

I really enjoyed that article. It was a great overview of where the brewers are today. I laughed when I read these two lines "According to defensive metrics, Betancourt was the worst starting shortstop in baseball. Which meant he would fit right in with the Brewers." The article definitely explains our flaws while at the same time explaining why we are a dangerous team.