Bottom of the barrel position players...really bad.

[Funketown]

I'm not sure how these numbers compare to other teams, but I've been thinking about how it seems like the Brewers' bottom position players/25th guys on the roster have been brutal this season.

 

Here's the composite line for Falu-Herrera-Gindl-Schafer-Bianchi:

 

232 PA's, .176/.240/.225/.465, -3.88 WAR/600 PA's

 

If you include Overbay, this "improves" to:

 

373 PA's, .192/.264/.256/.520, -3.06 WAR/600 PA's.

[DHonks]

I think if you always take a team's worst players, you'll find a similar result. Why not include last year's worst player--Maldanado--to see how it skews things?

[JohnBriggs12]

Go to Baseball reference and you'll see that most teams have multiple bench players with similar numbers. Cardinals quartet of Mark Ellis, Descalso, Shane Robinson, and Ryan Grichuk have 251 PA and are hitting a combined .166 and slugging .220 with 1 HR and 18 RBI combined. That's pretty typical around baseball.

 

Coming off the bench in the big leagues is a tough job. Usually it's against premier relief pitchers throwing in the upper 90's. As bad as Bianchi looked for the Brewers, put him in the lineup everyday against AAA pitching and he's suddenly hitting .313/.371/.500.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Nobody *wants* to have a bad bench, but there's just not a lot of good bats to go around that are available. If they're good hitters, they're probably starting somewhere.

[Funketown]

Of course they shouldn't be expected to be good, I'm mostly just curious to how this compares to other teams around the league. This may be typical, it just struck me as a surprisingly bad slash line even for these types of players (basically, the real-life replacement players). I wasn't looking at Maldonado (and really I shouldn't include Overbay) because I think most thought they'd have a bigger role than just injury fill-ins.

[3and2Fastball]

I've spent a ton of time coaching youth players and some high school players lately, and studying film on college prospects and pro prospects and watching a lot of college games, and from that perspective it is absolutely astounding how great Irving Falu & Jeff Bianchi & Caleb Gindl and the rest are. They are unbelievably great Baseball players

 

I realize this is the MLB forum and, relative to the rest of MLB, fans want those guys to be better, but I know about 50 Dads who would give their left nut for their 11 year old to grow up to be as good as Irving Falu

[SRB]

I've spent a ton of time coaching youth players and some high school players lately, and studying film on college prospects and pro prospects and watching a lot of college games, and from that perspective it is absolutely astounding how great Irving Falu & Jeff Bianchi & Caleb Gindl and the rest are. They are unbelievably great Baseball players

 

I realize this is the MLB forum and, relative to the rest of MLB, fans want those guys to be better, but I know about 50 Dads who would give their left nut for their 11 year old to grow up to be as good as Irving Falu

 

Yes, but just because you are great relative to the general population doesn't mean you have any business being on a MLB roster.

 

The Brewers have had a remarkably horrendous bench this season. I don't see how anyone could argue that it has been even close to league average. The notion that it's "normal" to have a bench so far below replacement value ignores the entire point of the replacement-level baseline...

[JayZZ755]

The original poster is cherry picking, since Weeks and Maldonado are playing well but are not counted. "The bad guys suck if you ignore the good guys."

[DuWayne Steurer]

Of course they shouldn't be expected to be good, I'm mostly just curious to how this compares to other teams around the league. This may be typical, it just struck me as a surprisingly bad slash line even for these types of players (basically, the real-life replacement players). I wasn't looking at Maldonado (and really I shouldn't include Overbay) because I think most thought they'd have a bigger role than just injury fill-ins.

 

 

If you go around the league this year, most of the bench hitters are absolutely putrid. I don't think anyone on the Braves bench (at least when I looked recently) had an OPS over .600.

 

This is NOT to say that the Brewers shouldn't look for upgrades if they are available, but in a lot of cases, they aren't.

[Funketown]

The original poster is cherry picking, since Weeks and Maldonado are playing well but are not counted. "The bad guys suck if you ignore the good guys."

 

No, I didn't include those guys because they aren't really part of the back/forth to MLB cycle, they have clearly defined roles on the team and were expected to get significant playing time before the season started.

[Outlander]

Nori Aoki's WAR per ESPN is 530 out of 539 AL positional players. Think the Brewers won that trade.

[HiAndTight]

I've spent a ton of time coaching youth players and some high school players lately, and studying film on college prospects and pro prospects and watching a lot of college games, and from that perspective it is absolutely astounding how great Irving Falu & Jeff Bianchi & Caleb Gindl and the rest are. They are unbelievably great Baseball players

 

I realize this is the MLB forum and, relative to the rest of MLB, fans want those guys to be better, but I know about 50 Dads who would give their left nut for their 11 year old to grow up to be as good as Irving Falu

 

Yes, but just because you are great relative to the general population doesn't mean you have any business being on a MLB roster.

 

The Brewers have had a remarkably horrendous bench this season. I don't see how anyone could argue that it has been even close to league average. The notion that it's "normal" to have a bench so far below replacement value ignores the entire point of the replacement-level baseline...

 

 

Exactly, I'm a proponent of removing Estrada from the rotation in favor of Nelson because Estrada is a soft tosser who gives up a lot of HR's. Now if I had to step in the box to face him, and I played baseball(not at a real high level, but since we're comparing them to normal people who've played baseball) his fastball would look like 100 MPH to me and I wouldn't touch his change.

 

Obviously these guys are great players in the sense you're talking about. Hell, the guys hitting .200 in rookie ball are great players and often times the best players to ever come from the towns they grew up in. But that doesn't make them great for the professional stage.

 

I'm still a fan of Bianchi however. Despite all the numbers and quantifiable data, he just has a pretty good approach and I could see him coming back up after some regular PT and producing much better. The rest...yeah, they're bad...when compared to the major leagues.

[SoupTown]

Briggsy (RR calls him that) said what I was thinking the last couple of days: "As bad as Bianchi looked for the Brewers, put him in the lineup everyday against AAA pitching and he's suddenly hitting .313/.371/.500."

 

It sure does seem to me the jump from AAA to MLB is great. Is Bianchi now the definition of an AAAA player? I wonder if our bench really should be oldsters that are only capable (physically) of playing now and again. I had a previous theory one should pick all sorts of AAAA, on the bubble guys who are 27 years old, for the bench. You hope to get their magical year 26,27,28.

 

But maybe you should pick the grizzled 36,37,38 year olds who were polished MLB guys at 26,27,28.

[JohnBriggs12]

With Ramirez back, one of Reynolds (12 HR) or Overbay (17 RBI) becomes a bench player. Overbay's averages don't look good, but his line drive percentage is excellent at 25%.

 

As for Bianchi, he just got into a bit of a slump with the bat and with limited chances afforded bench players, he didn't have a chance to work his way out of it. Bianchi's a career .309 hitter in AAA. He's pretty much hit at every level. I too think he'll be back but he needs 200 or so AB's as a regular in Nashville. If he started at SS in the majors he'd likely hit .240 or so. Not saying that's good enough to start but he wouldn't be hitting .150 either. Whoever is backup SS in Milwaukee is not going to see the field much at all. Segura plays almost every day.

[Funketown]

FWIW, Dave Cameron did a quick analysis of how the real-life "replacement" guys seem to perform a while back:

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-recent-examples-of-a-replacement-level-player/

 

They've got an average batting line of .233/.289/.365/.644 (wRC+ = 78) with poor defense, which seems pretty reasonable. That said, most of these guys seem to be more of the Mark Reynolds tier (established players who likely win a spot during spring training) as opposed to the next-in-line call-ups like your Herrera and Falu types.

[monty57]

I never had a problem with Bianchi because his role was to be the "play anywhere" utility IF. He is an excellent defender, so I have no problem with him filling in when Segura needs a day off. I'd rather have that than a guy who hits a bit better, but is a butcher in the field. That's why I don't really like Herrera. While he is supposed to be able to play any position, he doesn't seem to play any of them very well. Given everyday duty, I think they're probably equal in terms of hitting ability, so I'd choose Bianchi.

 

It's not our bench players' fault that we went into the season with two 2B-only guys. That has limited our roster and forced guys to play positions they shouldn't, like Herrera and Reynolds in the OF. Honestly, it's probably the reason Herrera is on the MLB roster, because we don't have room for a 5th OF, so we need a guy who "plays" there.

 

The bench should have defined roles. It needs some defense-first players, and some guys who can come off the bench to pinch hit. Platoons at 1B and 2B, along with an injury-prone 3B whose backup is one of the 1B (meaning the bad hitting 1B has to play everyday) & injury-prone RF (which hurts when we can't have a 5th OF) have caused problems. With the platoons, we're forced to have guys like Herrera. We just got stuck with an inflexible roster.

 

However, if you are looking at the strength of the bench, you do have to include the whole bench, so eliminating Weeks and Maldonado doesn't work. Weeks' role is 2B platoon/primary RH bat off the bench. Overbay's role is backup 1B/primary LH hitter. You can't include the one performing poorly and not the one performing well.

[RobertR]

It's not our bench players' fault that we went into the season with two 2B-only guys. That has limited our roster and forced guys to play positions they shouldn't, like Herrera and Reynolds in the OF. Honestly, it's probably the reason Herrera is on the MLB roster, because we don't have room for a 5th OF, so we need a guy who "plays" there.

 

It should be pointed out that our bench 2B-only guy is the best reserve on the team offensively. And he's not preventing the Brewers from carrying a good 4th or 5th outfielder.