2019 Brewers' pitching staff

[Brew crew 92]

Barnes did a pretty nice job in last night's game. Did get bailed out a little bit on a great play by Arcia to end the inning, but had two strikeouts before that and a walk to Goldschmidt in an at-bat where Barnes was being careful when considering the hitter.

 

Time to do away with the assumptions that "I want this guy to do good" and "this guy is bad." Zach Davies was a guy that seemingly everyone wanted dumped and so far he is the only good starting pitcher that the Brewers have had in terms of what matters the most, actual run prevention (Davies ERA = 1.53, next best starter's ERA = 6.00). Barnes 4.05 ERA trails only Hader and Guerra among the relievers. Barnes 3.44 FIP trails only Hader and Albers. Barnes 2.61 xFIP trails only Hader. There is no question that he's been one of the team's best relievers so far and, as long as he keeps pitching at this level, there is no reason he should be in the discussion to be sent down.

 

Brewer bullpen rankings (ERA rank 1st, FIP rank 2nd, xFIP rank 3rd).

 

Hader (1-1-1)

Guerra (2-6-7)

Barnes (3-3-2)

Albers (4-2-3)

Anderson (5-7-5)

Claudio (6-5-8)

Wilson (7-4-4)

Petricka (8-9-9)

Williams (9-8-6)

 

Barnes and Albers (another Brewer Fan "favorite") has probably been the teams second and third best relievers so far.

 

Your Barnes example is the poster boy for stats clouding the real picture of reality. Statistically you rate him as a second or third best reliever, but my eyes and counsell’s eyes certainly don’t agree.

 

There’s a good reason CC has him 7th of 8 in The bullpen pecking order. Barnes pitches well when in the lowest leverage situations like Sunday, CC didn’t have much choice in last nights game. History suggests keeping Barnes far far away from high leverage situations.

 

With Jackson’s success in Japan, to go along with his success right now in AAA, bring him up. Potential upside far greater than Barnes in my opinion. Don’t think CC be disappointed either.

[pacopete4]

Barnes did a pretty nice job in last night's game. Did get bailed out a little bit on a great play by Arcia to end the inning, but had two strikeouts before that and a walk to Goldschmidt in an at-bat where Barnes was being careful when considering the hitter.

 

Time to do away with the assumptions that "I want this guy to do good" and "this guy is bad." Zach Davies was a guy that seemingly everyone wanted dumped and so far he is the only good starting pitcher that the Brewers have had in terms of what matters the most, actual run prevention (Davies ERA = 1.53, next best starter's ERA = 6.00). Barnes 4.05 ERA trails only Hader and Guerra among the relievers. Barnes 3.44 FIP trails only Hader and Albers. Barnes 2.61 xFIP trails only Hader. There is no question that he's been one of the team's best relievers so far and, as long as he keeps pitching at this level, there is no reason he should be in the discussion to be sent down.

 

Brewer bullpen rankings (ERA rank 1st, FIP rank 2nd, xFIP rank 3rd).

 

Hader (1-1-1)

Guerra (2-6-7)

Barnes (3-3-2)

Albers (4-2-3)

Anderson (5-7-5)

Claudio (6-5-8)

Wilson (7-4-4)

Petricka (8-9-9)

Williams (9-8-6)

 

Barnes and Albers (another Brewer Fan "favorite") has probably been the teams second and third best relievers so far.

 

Your Barnes example is the poster boy for stats clouding the real picture of reality. Statistically you rate him as a second or third best reliever, but my eyes and counsell’s eyes certainly don’t agree.

 

There’s a good reason CC has him 7th of 8 in The bullpen pecking order. Barnes pitches well when in the lowest leverage situations like Sunday, CC didn’t have much choice in last nights game. History suggests keeping Barnes far far away from high leverage situations.

 

With Jackson’s success in Japan, to go along with his success right now in AAA, bring him up. Potential upside far greater than Barnes in my opinion. Don’t think CC be disappointed either.

 

Barnes pitched the 8th yesterday. He’s striking out more than a batter per inning and has a WHIP under 1. You can want to dislike him. You can dislike him. But certainly don’t try to begin to push another false narrative that Counsell sees what you see.

[sveumrules]

Barnes pitched the 8th, but we were up by 4 so it wasn't really a super high leverage situation. (edit: actually up only 3, thought the 3rd Yelich bomb was bottom 7th. Still only a 0.87 LI when Barnes entered the game)

 

gmLI measures the leverage index each time a pitcher enters a game, 1.00 is average, above means a pitcher is typically pitching high leverage spots, below means they are typically pitching low leverage.

 

Of course 17 games & 65 IP is a miniscule sample, but the bullpen pecking order as measured by gmLI so far this season is...

 

Hader (2.21) Guerra (1.58) Albers (1.43) Wilson (1.25) Claudio (1.25) Williams (0.62) Barnes (0.47) Chase (0.36) Petricka (0.25)

[JosephC]

Hader had 6 appearances prior to last night's game. Of those 6, 3 were "4 outs or more" appearances. Counsell appears more than willing to pitch Hader in more than one inning if needed. Hader did not pitch on the 13th or 14th. Counsell could have easily sent Hader out there to work the 8th and 9th considering it was a three run lead when Barnes entered and the Brewers were facing a team that was only 1/2 game behind them in the standings. Martinez, Carpenter, Goldschmidt and DeJong were the scheduled hitters. If Counsell lacks confidence in Barnes, he sure didn't show it last night.

[bjkrautk]

Barnes did a pretty nice job in last night's game. Did get bailed out a little bit on a great play by Arcia to end the inning, but had two strikeouts before that and a walk to Goldschmidt in an at-bat where Barnes was being careful when considering the hitter.

 

Time to do away with the assumptions that "I want this guy to do good" and "this guy is bad." Zach Davies was a guy that seemingly everyone wanted dumped and so far he is the only good starting pitcher that the Brewers have had in terms of what matters the most, actual run prevention (Davies ERA = 1.53, next best starter's ERA = 6.00). Barnes 4.05 ERA trails only Hader and Guerra among the relievers. Barnes 3.44 FIP trails only Hader and Albers. Barnes 2.61 xFIP trails only Hader. There is no question that he's been one of the team's best relievers so far and, as long as he keeps pitching at this level, there is no reason he should be in the discussion to be sent down.

 

Barnes actually got off to better starts in 2018 and 2017 than he did this year. Then he had dumpster fire Junes in both years (6.75 and 7.20 ERAs, respectively. http://www.espn.com/mlb/player/splits/_/id/34868) A single Barnes-ian blow-up regresses those statistics to the mean; while I'm happy when he delivers a scoreless inning, the last thing I want is for him to pitch in high-leverage situations...because signs of improvement are fleeting.

[JosephC]

Barnes pitched the 8th, but we were up by 4 so it wasn't really a high leverage situation.

 

gmLI measures the leverage index each time a pitcher enters a game, 1.00 is average, above means a pitcher is typically pitching high leverage spots, below means they are typically pitching low leverage.

 

Of course 17 games & 65 IP is a miniscule sample, but the bullpen pecking order as measured by gmLI so far this season is...

 

Hader (2.21) Guerra (1.58) Albers (1.43) Wilson (1.25) Claudio (1.25) Williams (0.62) Barnes (0.47) Chase (0.36) Petricka (0.25)

 

The Brewers scored a run in the bottom of the 8th to push the lead to 4. Entering the top of the 8th the Brewers were ahead 9-6.

 

Counsell was giving non-important outings to Barnes early. However, Barnes has clearly been one of the more effective pitchers out of the bullpen so far. Counsell putting him in a game in a hold situation against a team 1/2 game behind in the standings with Martinez, Carpenter, Goldschmidt and DeJong due up is a high leverage situation. The thing that always has annoyed me about the foolish "closer" role is, wouldn't it have made more sense to have the #1 reliever pitch against these guys? But that's another discussion.

 

If Barnes has a couple blow-ups then he will wind up right back in a long-relief role or back in AAA. But based on what he and the other relievers have done so far, it makes much more sense to pitch him in more critical situations and see how he responds. Last night was a clear win for Barnes, although I will be the first to say that Arcia did make one great play behind him.

[JosephC]

So who goes down today for Jeffress?

 

I thought it'd be Barnes for sure, but he was trusted in the 8th inning yesterday over Petricka, and I think this may actually be one of the last days we could option Petricka back down without his permission (he's like maybe 5 days away from 5 years of service time).

 

On the other hand, after yesterday maybe they value Petricka's fresh arm. On the other other hand, with a 4-run lead in the 9th and no off day in sight, Counsell brought in Hader rather than trying to just let Barnes finish it out (which seemed like the right way to go if you're going to option Barnes for a fresh arm the next day).

 

I'll guess it's Petricka that goes down for Jeffress.

 

Please, please, please Stearns...stop with the "fresh arm" nonsense of JJ Hoover and Mike Zagurski and keep the best 8 relievers on the 25-man roster. Since the beginning of 2016, Petricka has a MLB ERA of 5.42, FIP of 4.87 and WHIP of 1.75. It's questionable if this guy is even worthy of a spot on the 40-man roster.

[djoctagone]

It’ll be interesting to see if the crew brings anyone up besides jeffress. I vote drop hart and add Jackson, bring him up, send Barnes and Petricka down.

with nine more games to play without an off day, i'm thinking this is more and more likely.

 

i'd bring up aaron wilkerson (last pitched friday) and option freddy peralta. when it's peralta's turn in the rotation, wilkerson down for adrian houser for at least one start. peralta could be recalled to pitch 26 april in new york.

 

swapping petricka for jeffress makes sense as well.

[Brew crew 92]

Barnes did a pretty nice job in last night's game. Did get bailed out a little bit on a great play by Arcia to end the inning, but had two strikeouts before that and a walk to Goldschmidt in an at-bat where Barnes was being careful when considering the hitter.

 

Time to do away with the assumptions that "I want this guy to do good" and "this guy is bad." Zach Davies was a guy that seemingly everyone wanted dumped and so far he is the only good starting pitcher that the Brewers have had in terms of what matters the most, actual run prevention (Davies ERA = 1.53, next best starter's ERA = 6.00). Barnes 4.05 ERA trails only Hader and Guerra among the relievers. Barnes 3.44 FIP trails only Hader and Albers. Barnes 2.61 xFIP trails only Hader. There is no question that he's been one of the team's best relievers so far and, as long as he keeps pitching at this level, there is no reason he should be in the discussion to be sent down.

 

Brewer bullpen rankings (ERA rank 1st, FIP rank 2nd, xFIP rank 3rd).

 

Hader (1-1-1)

Guerra (2-6-7)

Barnes (3-3-2)

Albers (4-2-3)

Anderson (5-7-5)

Claudio (6-5-8)

Wilson (7-4-4)

Petricka (8-9-9)

Williams (9-8-6)

 

Barnes and Albers (another Brewer Fan "favorite") has probably been the teams second and third best relievers so far.

 

Your Barnes example is the poster boy for stats clouding the real picture of reality. Statistically you rate him as a second or third best reliever, but my eyes and counsell’s eyes certainly don’t agree.

 

There’s a good reason CC has him 7th of 8 in The bullpen pecking order. Barnes pitches well when in the lowest leverage situations like Sunday, CC didn’t have much choice in last nights game. History suggests keeping Barnes far far away from high leverage situations.

 

With Jackson’s success in Japan, to go along with his success right now in AAA, bring him up. Potential upside far greater than Barnes in my opinion. Don’t think CC be disappointed either.

 

Barnes pitched the 8th yesterday. He’s striking out more than a batter per inning and has a WHIP under 1. You can want to dislike him. You can dislike him. But certainly don’t try to begin to push another false narrative that Counsell sees what you see.

 

Just look at Counsell’s use of Barnes, outside of last nights game, when we were running out of arms. Hasn’t put him in any high leverage situation since opening weekend when he was hit hard late in games. CC not fooled by the stats.

[mrn1ceguy]

So who goes down today for Jeffress?

 

I thought it'd be Barnes for sure, but he was trusted in the 8th inning yesterday over Petricka, and I think this may actually be one of the last days we could option Petricka back down without his permission (he's like maybe 5 days away from 5 years of service time).

 

On the other hand, after yesterday maybe they value Petricka's fresh arm. On the other other hand, with a 4-run lead in the 9th and no off day in sight, Counsell brought in Hader rather than trying to just let Barnes finish it out (which seemed like the right way to go if you're going to option Barnes for a fresh arm the next day).

 

I'll guess it's Petricka that goes down for Jeffress.

 

My vote, send down Peralta today. Keep the pen as full and fresh as possible and give Peralta a start or two in AAA to work on his secondary pitches without worrying about results.

 

Then in 2-3 days, send down Petricka after he gets the rented mule treatment (if needed) for Houser to make Peralta's next start or two.

 

Then once Peralta is down for the 10 days or so, get him back up here for Houser (or move Houser to the pen and send down whoever is struggling).

[Oxy]

Barnes pitched the 8th, but we were up by 4 so it wasn't really a high leverage situation.

 

gmLI measures the leverage index each time a pitcher enters a game, 1.00 is average, above means a pitcher is typically pitching high leverage spots, below means they are typically pitching low leverage.

 

Of course 17 games & 65 IP is a miniscule sample, but the bullpen pecking order as measured by gmLI so far this season is...

 

Hader (2.21) Guerra (1.58) Albers (1.43) Wilson (1.25) Claudio (1.25) Williams (0.62) Barnes (0.47) Chase (0.36) Petricka (0.25)

 

The Brewers scored a run in the bottom of the 8th to push the lead to 4. Entering the top of the 8th the Brewers were ahead 9-6.

 

Counsell was giving garbage outings to Barnes early. However, Barnes has clearly been one of the more effective pitchers out of the bullpen so far. Counsell putting him in a game in a hold situation against a team 1/2 game behind in the standings with Martinez, Carpenter, Goldschmidt and DeJong due up is a high leverage situation. The thing that always has annoyed me about the foolish "closer" role is, wouldn't it have made more sense to have the #1 reliever pitch against these guys? But that's another discussion.

 

 

I'm not exactly sure what you guys are saying. If it was a 7-6 game, Hader likely would have had the 8th and 9th. In a 3 (or 4) run game, you give Barnes the ball and KNOW that you have Hader to come in if things go south and you probably still get the win. If you bring Hader in right away with that lead and he gives up 2 or 3 runs you probably still have to keep him in the game AND risk losing the game AND lose Hader for the rest of the series. That's a whole lot of bad things that could happen if you plan on Hader for 2. With Barnes, you might slightly lower your chances to win the game but will still have Hader for today or tomorrow.

[Brew crew 92]

I can’t be the only one here that thinks Counsell has Barnes 7 th of 8 pen arms. And will only use him in lowest of leverage situations.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I can’t be the only one here that thinks Counsell has Barnes 7 th of 8 pen arms.

 

I don't think he's got any sort of antiquated ranking system. He plays matchups fueled by analytical research. If the numbers show Barnes should be in there to face a particular batter in a given situation, he'll be in there, regardless of if its a leverage situation or not.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Petricka optioned, per Toby's Twitter handle.

[pacopete4]

I can’t be the only one here that thinks Counsell has Barnes 7 th of 8 pen arms. And will only use him in lowest of leverage situations.

 

No but you’re the only one that will try to use your opinion of what CC is thinking as if it is a fact.

[Brew crew 92]

I can’t be the only one here that thinks Counsell has Barnes 7 th of 8 pen arms.

 

I don't think he's got any sort of antiquated ranking system. He plays matchups fueled by analytical research. If the numbers show Barnes should be in there to face a particular batter in a given situation, he'll be in there, regardless of if its a leverage situation or not.

 

With Petricka sent packing, Barnes is now the LAST pitcher Counsell will pitch in high leverage situations, just behind jeffress.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

I can’t be the only one here that thinks Counsell has Barnes 7 th of 8 pen arms.

 

I don't think he's got any sort of antiquated ranking system. He plays matchups fueled by analytical research. If the numbers show Barnes should be in there to face a particular batter in a given situation, he'll be in there, regardless of if its a leverage situation or not.

 

With Petricka sent packing, Barnes is now the LAST pitcher Counsell will pitch in high leverage situations, just behind jeffress.

 

So what is going to be your argument when Barnes pitches in a high-leverage spot in the next week?

[Brew crew 92]

It would have to be an emergency situation, lack of arms available. In all likelihood he won’t be in this pen past June anyhow, don’t you think?

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

It would have to be an emergency situation, lack of arms available. In all likelihood he won’t be in this pen past June anyhow, don’t you think?

 

He's proven effective in the past. If he strings together effective outings, he'll keep his role. If not, he'll quickly join the San Antonio shuttle. I can almost guarantee he'll be used in high-leverage spots relatively soon, though. Because all the team's relievers are used that way. They don't have traditional "mop up" guys.

[Roderick]

It would have to be an emergency situation, lack of arms available. In all likelihood he won’t be in this pen past June anyhow, don’t you think?

 

He's proven effective in the past. If he strings together effective outings, he'll keep his role. If not, he'll quickly join the San Antonio shuttle. I can almost guarantee he'll be used in high-leverage spots relatively soon, though. Because all the team's relievers are used that way. They don't have traditional "mop up" guys.

 

I was going to say, they don't have no choice. There is no hiding Wang in this bullpen. The starters don't go deep enough, every one is going to be abused. I assume that MLB said they wanted a liver ball, and they got it.

[Greenleaf1]

When Barnes first came up, he looked absolutely lights out, but his command has been pretty spotty (sometimes outright bad) so it seems like it's difficult for him to be consistently reliable in high leverage situations.

 

Barnes definitely gets more hate than he deserves though. His career ERA/FIP/xFIP/WAR is 3.56/3.55/3.66/1.6, those are pretty good numbers for a 6th/7th inning guy over parts of 4 seasons (including this year). I think I always thought he'd turn the corner and be dominant, but not expecting that anymore. His FB velocity is way down this year (93.8 vs. 96.4 career, 95.9 last year), so unless he can find better command he'll be in trouble.

 

That said, extremely small sample size but his walk rate is way down this year and his K rate is actually up over last year.

 

I think Barnes is pretty firmly somewhere in the middle of this pen. The fact that he has an option remaining is really the only reason why I'd expect him to get sent down at some point this year if he gets into a rut.

 

Long story short, I like Barnes, he's probably better than most people seem to think, but if his velo stays down and that walk rate creeps back up, he'll never be consistent enough to be anything other than a solid middle reliever.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

It’ll be interesting to see if the crew brings anyone up besides jeffress. I vote drop hart and add Jackson, bring him up, send Barnes and Petricka down.

with nine more games to play without an off day, i'm thinking this is more and more likely.

 

i'd bring up aaron wilkerson (last pitched friday) and option freddy peralta. when it's peralta's turn in the rotation, wilkerson down for adrian houser for at least one start. peralta could be recalled to pitch 26 april in new york.

 

swapping petricka for jeffress makes sense as well.

 

https://twitter.com/Brewers/status/1118236421817499654

 

That is about as close as you're gonna get to nailing it.

[JosephC]

I'm certainly not suggesting that Barnes will be a bullpen savior and that he doesn't have a spotty history. But all this talk about playing matchups, going with the hot hand, etc...frankly there haven't been many standouts in the bullpen other than Hader. Albers has come into a couple tight spots with running on base and has done a nice job wiggling out of those, his stuff is nothing special but he's done a nice jobs in the times I've seen him. After that, Barnes has kind of stepped up and has been the "hot hand" after those two. Prior to last night's ballgame, Barnes previous four outings were scoreless, 4 2/3 innings of work with 2 hits, 0 walks and 4 strikeouts. So Counsell puts him in a critical spot against plus major league hitters, Barnes delivers a nice performance, and I come on here this morning and see a comment that he should get shipped out in favor of some guy who (1) isn't even on the 40-man roster (2) got bombed in his brief stint in MLB in 2015 (6.23 ERA, 1.85 WHIP) (3) didn't pitch all that well in spring training (5.87 ERA, 1.96 WHIP). And as Greenleaf1 pointed out a couple posts ago, Barnes is a 3.56/3.55/3.66 ERA/FIP/xFIP career pitcher. I don't see any reason that he should be the one that gets the boot for a total question mark like Jay Jackson, especially when Barnes has been pitching well of late.

 

Barnes does have a spotty track record. But how about saving the pitchforks until he is going through another bad stretch? Based on what the pitchers in the bullpen have done lately, it seems appropriate that Counsell used Barnes in the 8th inning last night and Barnes should keep getting the occasional high leverage appearance until (1) he blows it or (2) other guys step up and pitch themselves into that role.

[Brew crew 92]

I'm certainly not suggesting that Barnes will be a bullpen savior and that he doesn't have a spotty history. But all this talk about playing matchups, going with the hot hand, etc...frankly there haven't been many standouts in the bullpen other than Hader. Albers has come into a couple tight spots with running on base and has done a nice job wiggling out of those, his stuff is nothing special but he's done a nice jobs in the times I've seen him. After that, Barnes has kind of stepped up and has been the "hot hand" after those two. Prior to last night's ballgame, Barnes previous four outings were scoreless, 4 2/3 innings of work with 2 hits, 0 walks and 4 strikeouts. So Counsell puts him in a critical spot against plus major league hitters, Barnes delivers a nice performance, and I come on here this morning and see a comment that he should get shipped out in favor of some guy who (1) isn't even on the 40-man roster (2) got bombed in his brief stint in MLB in 2015 (6.23 ERA, 1.85 WHIP) (3) didn't pitch all that well in spring training (5.87 ERA, 1.96 WHIP). And as Greenleaf1 pointed out a couple posts ago, Barnes is a 3.56/3.55/3.66 ERA/FIP/xFIP career pitcher. I don't see any reason that he should be the one that gets the boot for a total question mark like Jay Jackson, especially when Barnes has been pitching well of late.

 

Barnes does have a spotty track record. But how about saving the pitchforks until he is going through another bad stretch? Based on what the pitchers in the bullpen have done lately, it seems appropriate that Counsell used Barnes in the 8th inning last night and Barnes should keep getting the occasional high leverage appearance until (1) he blows it or (2) other guys step up and pitch themselves into that role.

 

You have your opinion, I have mine.

CC pitched him on the first homestand in a couple high leverage situations , he was hit hard, and since then CC hasn’t pitched him in anything other than mop up situations, where as you say, he has pitched well. I’ve watched Barnes going on 3 years now and the tougher the situation he’s put in the worse he pitches. His command gets worse the more stress he’s under, more so than most pitchers. Stats in low leverage > good. Stats in high leverage > bad.

 

Time will tell on Jackson, it’s early but he’s pitching well in high leverage for the missions. You brought up 2015 and spring training. What you failed to mention, was for the last 3 years in japan he was statistically one of the better relievers. Stearns obviously saw that and signed him. IF he continues to pitch well he’ll be up.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Get ready to welcome Jake Petricka back to the major league roster: