Rotation's numbers are alarming

[FVBrewerFan]

While I'm on board the replace McGehee/Yuni train, are they just easy scapegoats? Did some quick research and found some numbers that are rather alarming. For a pitching rotation that was supposed to at least compete with teams like the Phillies, Giants, and Cards they are not even coming close. Here's how our rotation stcaks up in NL rankings:

 

ERA: 13th

OPS: 10th

WHIP: 9th

 

This tells me that while trading for KRod is nice, Barmes/Furcal would help, bringing Green up would help.... none of that will matter unless the rotation is better than the numbers above.

[endaround]

Those numbers are all base on defense. They are 6th in FIP and 4th in xFIP. They aren't in the league of the Phllies, Braves or the Giants but match up fine with the Cardinals.

[reillymcshane]

Removing Betencourt and McGehee from the field would help this quite a bit. How much is a good guess, but those two, combined with Prince, makes for a brutal infield defense.

 

Bring up Green. Get a defensive guy at SS.

 

As for the pitchers, the good thing is that I see definite room for improvement with Greinke with the ERA. He's too good for that to continue. Marcum is pitching about like I'd expected him, Wolf a little better, Gallardo a bit worse. Narvy is about what I expected out of the 5th slot.

 

Health will be important too. We don't want Estrada in the rotation.

 

Still, improving the defense will be a boost to ALL the pitchers. We're past the all-star break. It's time to get replacements for McGehee and Yuni. I think all these moves could move us more to the middle of the pack.

[FVBrewerFan]

That's actually giving FIP a lot more credit than it's worth. Defense certainly plays a role (or lack thereof in the case of the Brewers.) But FIP doesn't differentiate between a dribbler back to the mound vs. a line drive to center. So like most sabermetric stats, it can't be used as a definitive metric. So all this tells me is the Brewers staff gets a higher % of their outs via SO, and that lowers their FIP.

 

In fact, the severe shifts the Brewers use negates part of the "bad defense" excuse.

[Ennder]

No pitching stat is perfect, but pretty much all of them are better than ERA or WHIP. The OPS stat is a little better but not a ton.

 

The rotation has gone through a rough patch recently and the stats spiked, natural ebb and flow of the season. They'll get hot at some point too and look better than they are for a while I'm sure. Probably when we start playing some bad offensive teams more often again.

[pebadger]

If only they could pitch to themselves.

[MillerBombers]

We have a good set of pitchers but we are missing a stopper this year. Back in the early 2000's when I started seriously following the Brewers, I remember Ben Sheets almost always stopping the bleeding (from a pitching standpoint) even though we would have 4 bad pitching performances in a row after him. It really doesn't seem like we have that this year and it is costing us.

[RockCoCougars]

Greinke gets a lot of the heat, but Gallardo hasn't been very good, Marcum has been pedestrian since May, Wolf has been brutal the past few times out, and Narveson is Narveson.

[FVBrewerFan]

Yea, that's my point. When you look at results vs. expectations, Wolf and Narvy are the only ones performing like you would expect. I thought Marcum was on his way to pitching above expectations, but now he's back to an avg MLB starter. But Yo and Greinke have been the real issue. They should be up there with the top of the rotation starters from Philly, Braves, Giants, etc. and they just haven't done it.

 

That's why I say we can grumble about our favorite culprits- Yuni, McGehee, RR, etc., but until or unless the rotation improves, the rest is just conversation.

[Oldcity]

I wonder about Marcum's health. His decline started exactly after his hip injury.

[umphrey]

Pitcher - ERA

 

Shaun Marcum - 3.39

Randy Wolf - 3.65

Yovani Gallardo - 4.08

Chris Narveson - 4.74

Zack Greinke - 5.45

 

The first 4 are pretty close to where I would have expected. Marcum has been worth the trade. Wolf has pitched to his contract. Yovani has overall been slightly disappointing, but not a major issue. Narveson has been good in comparison to other #5 pitchers who make less than half a million dollars.

 

Zack Greinke is making ace money and took half our farm system, yet he has been the least productive. If his bad numbers were good numbers, it would vault us from below average to above average as a staff.

[FVBrewerFan]

I would say Yo has been more than "slightly" disapointing. If this team has a realistic chance to compete for the World Series, Yo has to perform at his best. Not just at his best every other start. problem with him is that when he's not on, he hasn't been able to gut it through for a decent start. He gets lit up, and it's happened too often.

 

Nothing has changed from the beginning os the season. If this team is a legitimate contender to win it all, they need Greinke, Yo, and Marcum at their best. Not "decent" or "acceptable." Otherwise it will take an incredible amount of offense and luck.

[TheCrew]

I think people are being overly critical of the pitching staff - Wolf has been absolutely exceptional. Yo has been a bit of a disappointment - but it's not like he has been bad. Marcum has also been great but did seem to slow down since the quick exit in Boston.

 

The only disappointment has been Greinke - he's been solid outside of getting blown up in NY and Chi - but not dominant. Seems like he is a just a bit off from putting it all together though as his peripherals are pretty darn good.

 

Narv dog is the narv dog - most teams would love to have him as their 5th starter.

 

6th starter (Estrada) has been better than a lot of teams regulars.

 

I understand people are looking for a scapegoat for the Brewers not having a 5 game lead in the division at this point in the season, but the starting pitching shouldn't be anywhere close to that list.

[TooLiveBrew]

I think people are being overly critical of the pitching staff - Wolf has been absolutely exceptional. Yo has been a bit of a disappointment - but it's not like he has been bad. Marcum has also been great but did seem to slow down since the quick exit in Boston.

 

Gallardo's rough stretch in late April & early May is still inflating his ERA quite a bit. Over his last 10 starts, his ERA is 3.45. Wolf has been just huge so far. Marcum has come back to earth, probably due to the hip flexor issue, but maybe not. Hard to say.

 

Greinke's start tonight dropped his ERA from 5.45 to 5.04. Still obviously not good, but I believe he's going to have that ERA down in the low 4's pretty soon.

 

Narveson has been pretty bad lately, 5.95 ERA in his last 10 starts. I think we tend to overvalue him, but he's certainly not a bad #5.

[danzig6767]

I would say Yo has been more than "slightly" disapointing. If this team has a realistic chance to compete for the World Series, Yo has to perform at his best. Not just at his best every other start. problem with him is that when he's not on, he hasn't been able to gut it through for a decent start. He gets lit up, and it's happened too often.

Before the year i had hopeS that this would be the season where Gallardo really put it together and became one of the better pitchers in the NL. He's been solid this year and it is only his 4th year in the majors if you discount 2008, so he certainly has room/time to get among the better pitchers, but i'm now starting to lose hope that it actually happens.

 

Yovani is frustrating in that even though he throws pretty hard, but not regularly in that 95 plus range, he uses good command of his fastball and curve to get a lot of strikeouts. On the the flip side, his command leaves him enough that he just generally can't avoid walking to many batters to be a top tier starter. That said, every starter on the team is also harmed by our terrible defense, and his ERA would likely be under 4 if he pitched on a better team, as it has been the last two years.

 

I just watch him pitch sometimes and when he's on his game that night, Gallardo has that look of a guy who could be a legit quality No.1 starter, but making that leap from good starter to ace is a hard leap to make as evidenced by how rare and in demand the great starters are in MLB.

[rluzinski]

That's actually giving FIP a lot more credit than it's worth. Defense certainly plays a role (or lack thereof in the case of the Brewers.) But FIP doesn't differentiate between a dribbler back to the mound vs. a line drive to center. So like most sabermetric stats, it can't be used as a definitive metric.

You mean, like like every baseball statistic ever created or will ever be created?

I agree that just using FIP is probably too extreme. The pitcher should get some credit for the result of balls-in-play. How about, average ERA and FIP, to at least give defenders some of the credit for sucking?

 

[davemakovec]

That's the reason I'm always frustrated with Gallardo, too. Ace-quality stuff, but he can't put it all together.

 

I think we're getting what we paid for in Marcum (who's been quite good overall), Wolf is above expectations, Narveson is about what you'd expect, and Gallardo is a disappointment. Greinke, well, Greinke's a mystery. Stat-wise, he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. That ERA's something else, though. I'm trying to trust in fangraphs, which keeps saying that he's likely to go on one of those crazy dominant stretches at some point.

[JohnBriggs12]

Part of the reason the Brewer starter numbers look bad are that with the possible exception of Narveson, Roenicke gives them all a very long leash. That's understandable because guys like Gallardo, Greinke and Marcum on paper are workhorses that eat innings.

 

The starter numbers would look a lot better if Roenicke had a quicker hook.

[rluzinski]

The first 2 ERA's listed are 2011 preseason projections, the last last is their current ERA:

 

[b]PLAYER	 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">	</span>ZiPS	MARCEL ACTUAL[/b]	
Greinke	 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">	</span>3.23	3.38	5.04
Marcum	 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">	</span>3.35	3.70	3.39
Gallardo	3.49	3.68	4.08
Wolf	 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre">	</span>4.09	3.98	3.65
Narveson	4.76	4.40	4.74

[chadomac]

Those projections help. I was going to say that you can only really say that Greinke is underperforming, and maybe Gallardo a little bit. Greinke stands out big time, everyone else is just about where I'd expect them. Marcum/Wolf/Narveson are a little better than I expected (but not much)... Gallardo a little worse than I expected, and Greinke a whole lot worse than I expected. If Greinke starts reguarly pitching 7 innings and giving up 2 or less runs like he's capable of, the team will prosper big time.

[FVBrewerFan]

I don't know, over half a run higher for Yo is pretty significant. Like I've said, Yo needs to perform BETTER than what an avergae year would be for him. That's probably not fair to him, but it's reality. For the Brewers to compete for and in the post-season, that's the only way they can stack up against Philly, Braves, SF, etc. Greinke is the one who needs to improve the most, we all know that. But Yo really needs to have his best season.

 

Especially since I fully expect Wolf to come back down to his projection. Then you'll have 3 guys basically at the levels they're expected to be at, and 2 under-performing. What makes that problem bigger, is the two underperming are at the top of the rotation. Pretty darn relevant when the playoffs start.

[chadomac]

I expect both Greinke and Gallardo to pitch better than they did in the first half, which should make up for Marcum or Wolf or Narveson coming back down to earth. But so far this season, I think 3 pitchers overachieving makes up for Gallardo's slight scuffle, but it doesn't make up for an ace pitching to a 5+ ERA.

[Bernman23]

Greinke's been much worse than even his sub-par ERA indicates because he was lucky to get those 2 earned runs off his total, and he has 9 unearned in 80.1 innings this season. By comparison, Marcum has 2 unearned in 116.2 innings. Narveson has 1 in 108.1. Wolf has 6 in 118.1. Gallardo has 6 in 121.1.

 

The runs allowed per 9 averages of our respective starters are:

 

Greinke: 6.05 (+1.01 unearned)

Narveson: 4.80 (+0.06 unearned)

Gallardo: 4.53 (+0.45 unearned)

Wolf: 4.11 (+0.46 unearned)

Marcum: 3.54 (+0.15 unearned)

 

You can't absolve a pitcher from blame because a runner originally reached base undeservedly. Obviously it's partially his fault if he allowed the runner to score eventually and some pitchers limit the damage better than others.

 

Marcum has never allowed more than 5 unearned runs in a season, and only 13 in his entire 700+ inning career, which you can credit to his obvious mental toughness. Narveson is on a similar pace for his career, so he's a little better pitcher than his ERA's indicate. As for Greinke, it was well documented before he arrived in Milwaukee that mental toughness was an issue, and it's shown in many ways here, especially after his teammates have made a mistake. This is not a new problem for him giving up a lot of unearned runs. He allowed 12 last year, and 9 each year previously. So it's more of a Greinke problem which he needs to correct, than an issue with the defense in his starts.

[Funketown]

Bernman, when evaluating a pitcher we should attempt to take defensive variables out of the equation, not add more in.

 

It's not Greinke's fault he played on the Royals, who made the 5th most errors in the majors from 2008-2010. Marcum, meanwhile, played on the Blue Jays, who made the 5th least errors in the majors over that time.

 

Should we also blame Greinke for only winning 16 games in 2009? I mean, it must be his fault that the Royals couldn't hit either, no?

[Bernman23]

Bernman, when evaluating a pitcher we should attempt to take defensive variables out of the equation, not add more in.

 

It's not Greinke's fault he played on the Royals, who made the 5th most errors in the majors from 2008-2010. Marcum, meanwhile, played on the Blue Jays, who made the 5th least errors in the majors over that time.

 

Should we also blame Greinke for only winning 16 games in 2009? I mean, it must be his fault that the Royals couldn't hit either, no?

Greinke has the same defense as Marcum and co. this year, and it's disproportionately a much bigger problem for him than the rest of the staff.

 

Kyle Davies pitched with the same defense as Greinke the last 2 years. He allowed about 6 less in the same amount of innings last year and 2 the year before.

 

Bruce Chen allowed 7 less unearned runs last year extrapolated over the same innings. He averaged about 2 less the previous year.

 

Sean O'Sullivan allowed 7 less unearned over the same innings with the Royals last year (didn't play with them the previous season).

 

Those were the Royals' starters that I randomly chose to research. I could go on and on.

 

You ignored that I weeded out the defensive variable to some extent in my first post on the subject, and now have basically proven that allowing unearned runs to the extent that he does is a unique issue with Greinke.

 

Greinke has a problem staying poised after his defense makes a mistake, which is his own fault, and hurts his respective teams.

 

Your run support analogy is a poor one because that's a factor which was completely out of his control at the time, unlike allowing baserunners before or after unearned runs cross the plate.