Jimmy Nelson: Victim of either defense or luck?

[markedman5]

So if I read this correctly we either have a really bad defense or Jimmy has been very unlucky? @msimonespn: Which starting pitchers are giving up hard-hit contact least often?

 

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[sveumrules]

I think at this point enough baseball has happened that it's safe to say our bad defense hasn't done our bad pitching any favors.

 

Say what you will about defensive stats but we grade out poorly across the board. 24th in DRS, 23rd in UZR, 27th in defensive efficiency. If you don't like all the new fangled acronyms we're 25th in good old fashioned fielding percentage.

 

At the same time pitching and defense are closely intertwined and our pitchers haven't done the defense any favors by allowing the highest percentage of hard hit balls of all 30 clubs to this point.

 

That said, I would say Nelson has overcome the defense to some extent by keeping the ball on the ground and limiting hard contact, which is one of the reasons his ERA and FIP are mostly in line.

[TheCrew07]

Neither, trying to backwards compute what "should" have happened is one of the biggest farces in sports which is why I personally have no use for any version of FIP or BABIP.

 

Every ground ball should not be an out, nor are they "seeing eye singles", nor are they all the same, though statistically they are treated as such.

[FVBrewerFan]

As Nelson is approaching one full season of MLB, I refuse to believe he that "unlucky." Just too many starts under his belt. His FB just isn't special enough, and if he doesn't locate it gets hit. His secondary stuff is nasty when he's on, just not consistent enough. Add all that up, and you get the ERA he has.

[JohnBriggs12]

It's not just bad defense that's helping sabotage the pitching staff. It was mentioned last night that the Brewers lead the majors in wild pitches by a wide margin. Just last night a wild pitch led to a run. Is this the result of Brewer catchers being inept at blocking balls? Perhaps, in particular Maldonado. But I think the issue is deeper than that.

 

Ever notice how many times Schroeder advocates spiking the curveball on 0-2 counts or how he says, "no need to throw a strike here" when a pitcher is ahead? Funny, I don't remember in earlier years him making comments like that so I don't think its a result of his experience as a player 25-30 years ago. I'm convinced he's just repeating what he hears from Rick Kranitz. I think that's one of the problems the Brewer starters have. When they do get ahead 0-2 or 1-2, they waste pitches and let the hitter get back into counts. When Schroeder says that with an 0-2 count its amazing how many times the count gets to 3 and 2. They seem so afraid of giving up a 2 strike hit, that they don't just nibble, they throw breaking pitches that never look like strikes to the hitter. Eventually they put themselves in position where they have to throw very hittable pitches.

 

Kranitz is the anti George Bamberger. Bambi's guys put away hitters quickly and didn't throw waste pitches. Not only does it lead to more favorable counts for hitters and more walks, but it helps run up pitch counts.

[pacopete4]

He just needs to pitch better. It's that simple. He needs to figure out or develop an out pitch at the MLB level. He's not yet to do so which has hindered him from being a #2-3 type pitcher that he could possibly be.

[Ennder]

I'd have to look deeper at the stats to comment on this directly but I will say that ERA is a worthless stat in season. It takes 500 IP for it to be considered statistically meaningful.

 

So much of ERA is out of a pitchers control that you really shouldn't use it as a gauge of anything. Inherited runners scored, how many players happen to be on for the HRs which aren't always the pitchers to control, random variance from BABIP, discounting unearned runs etc.

 

I will also say this team has played awful defense on the year just from watching. The entire team has looked like it was asleep most of the year.

[Pugger]

Jimmy looked bad out there last night but after a couple of shaky innings he got it together and pitched very well. We forget how young he is so for him to fix himself in the middle of the game is very encouraging imo.

[JohnBriggs12]

Nelson started the season as the Brewers #5 starter. If the 2016 season started next week, I dare say he's the opening day pitcher. He's progressing and when he's on, he's right up there with the top guys in the league. His progression in the 2nd half and how Peralta looks after his return will be very interesting to watch. For there to be any hope of this team making things interesting the next couple of seasons, they would need to have both Nelson and Peralta perform like top of the rotation starters that their stuff suggests they can be.

[danzig6767]

He just needs to pitch better. It's that simple. He needs to figure out or develop an out pitch at the MLB level. He's not yet to do so which has hindered him from being a #2-3 type pitcher that he could possibly be.

I really hope that Nelson can develop a fairly reliable changeup. Same for Peralta. That's such a great pitch to make hitters have to think instead of mainly just looking for hard stuff like fastball/slider.