2019 Brewers' pitching staff

[ThisIsMyCrew]

Yet, here we are with this terrible pitching coach in 1st place. The best pitching coach in last place. Reminder that it’s a team game and a pitching coach doesn’t make or break a team. Tough crowd.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Yet, here we are with this terrible pitching coach in 1st place. The best pitching coach in last place. Reminder that it’s a team game and a pitching coach doesn’t make or break a team. Tough crowd.

 

Even so, being in first place doesn't mean that if you have an area of need doesn't mean you shouldn't look to improve. If Hook isn't doing his job to a satisfactory effort then it's fair to point out that Johnson was doing a better job with the same (or mostly same) group of pitchers. The Brewers have 39 wins right now, but could they have 42 or 43 if the pitching coach was getting better results from his pitchers? That's a fair question. Pitch sequence is something that matters. Pitch location, landing point, release angle all those things that a coach has an impact on (and more) and it's fair to question how much of an impact the coach does (or doesn't) have on those results, and how those results impact wins and losses.

[adambr2]

Yet, here we are with this terrible pitching coach in 1st place. The best pitching coach in last place. Reminder that it’s a team game and a pitching coach doesn’t make or break a team. Tough crowd.

 

I guess I just really don't understand this. Team game? Yes. Pitching coach make or break a team? Well, your PITCHING can most certainly make or break your team, the degree that that is attributable to your pitching coach can be debated.

 

The best pitching coach in last place dig at DJ seems odd. The Reds have given up 91 less runs than us this year. Are you saying it wouldn't be beneficial to us to have given up that many less runs?

 

I don't really know if Hook has done a good or bad job. But I do know I can't think of a single pitcher on this staff that has improved from last year outside of Zach Davies. That's troubling.

[82brewcrew82]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

[yourout]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

 

To me it's not are the pitchers is good as the Cubs or Dodgers or anyone else.

The real question is are they as good as they can be. And on that count I don't think so.

 

Do we have exceptional arm Talent.. probably not. But there is a lot more than we're getting out of them at this point and it's a combination of mechanics, pitch selection and game planning.

[Brew crew 92]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

 

Woodruff and Davies comment is silly.

 

Both at worst would be #3’s and 4’s and at best #1’s and 2’s.

[adambr2]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

 

Were we any more talented last year when the pitching was far better?

 

Talent was not really supposed to be an issue. That's why we went young in the rotation. We were rolling with Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes BECAUSE of how talented they are. People have gushed about the talented arms of Taylor Williams and Jacob Barnes for years .

 

Then when the pitching staff flops, its just that we didn't have arm talent?

 

I think this is sort of a chicken or the egg argument that gets applied often in sports. It becomes really easy to argue that a unit isn't talented when they struggle, because they have performed, well, not good, like one would expect a talentless unit to look.

 

But I don't think there were very many people coming into this season that looked at Nelson's upcoming return and the rotation rolling with Burnes, Woodruff, and Peralta, and said "Yeah, I just don't think our pitching is very talented."

[sveumrules]

You can manipulate the numbers, you can write thesis on the subject and you can put a whole lot of lipstick on that pig, but the bottom line is we don't have enough pitching.

 

 

Enough pitching to do what? Win the World Series? At the end of the season only one team will.

 

Last year we didn't have enough pitching in the opinion of many posters & we won the most games in the National League.

 

I believe we have enough pitching to make the postseason & from there anything can happen.

[adambr2]

The other thing that I don't understand about 82's argument is that, besides Knebel and Miley, but with full years of further developed Burnes, Peralta and Woodruff, and the return of Nelson, it's the exact same staff that DJ was very successful with last year. The one that missed the World Series by one game. Knebel is a huge loss no doubt, but with appreciate for what Wade Miley did for us last year, I really don't think anyone is going to consider Wade Miley the difference between a talented and less talented pitching staff. So they were successful last year, but this year, same guys, lack of success, they just have no talent? I just don't buy it. That seems like revisionist history. To be fair, I'm sure there were people coming into this season with concerns, but the general consensus was excitement.

 

The hype surrounding our young pitchers was real this year. People said they were more excited about our staff than any time in recent memory. Playoff performances from 2018 helped reinforce the hype. Now to be sure, perhaps the hype was overhype and expectations were way out of proportion. But when you look at DJ's departure and the results so far...for whatever reason, DJ has been much more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has been in Milwaukee. I don't see how that can even be debated.

[sveumrules]

Sure, DJ has been more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has with his staff here. I don't think anyone is trying argue otherwise.

 

When accounting for changing run environments & understanding that comparing full season team ERA to 70 games of team ERA is folly it is less clear that Hook is a dismal failure or that we don't have enough pitching.

 

Our 2019 xFIP- (far more reliable than ERA after 70 games) of 97 is right in line with the 99 mark we posted under DJ in both 2017 & 2018.

[coolhandluke121]

Can't remember who was in here saying they would carry only 12 pitchers all year, and just 11 at times, but they acted like I knew nothing about baseball for saying they would go with 13 more often than not. Thank goodness the Brewers understand the importance of pitching depth or they'd be under .500 right now.

[sveumrules]

I think it is safe to say that so far the Chris Hook experiment has been a dismal failure.

 

I would have thought they could have at least found a guy with big league experience for the job instead of a AAA guy working the bigs for the first time.

 

Um, we hired DJ directly from the minors for his first MLB pitching coach job.

 

After his first 70 games the Brewers were a bottom five staff in MLB, good thing they didn't end the experiment.

[Lathund]

Sure, DJ has been more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has with his staff here. I don't think anyone is trying argue otherwise.

 

When accounting for changing run environments & understanding that comparing full season team ERA to 70 games of team ERA is folly it is less clear that Hook is a dismal failure or that we don't have enough pitching.

 

Our 2019 xFIP- (far more reliable than ERA after 70 games) of 97 is right in line with the 99 mark we posted under DJ in both 2017 & 2018.

 

I was just about to post something similar, i.e the hypothesis that perhaps the pitching isn't as bad as many think. By xFIP, DRA, SIERA, cFIP or any other metric, Brewers rank higher this year than last. And at this point of the season, all of them do a better job of predicting the RoS results than the current ERA does.

 

One explanation for the difference in run prevention could be defense. Last year, the Brewers ranked very well in all the major defensive metrics; 2nd in DRS, 8th in UZR, 4th in Defensive Efficiency. This year, those ranks are 10th, 18th and 17th respectively. As little weight as I put on fielding percentage, it paints a similar picture (14th vs 26th). Now it's still relatively early; defensive metrics are usually said to need 3x as long to stabilize as most offensive metrics, so we can essentially put the same weight on it as we could on things like team OPS on April 25th. In other words, that they tell us something about how we've played so far, but not necessarily about true ability or full season results. But it also lines up with at least what I've seen from the games I've watched, that the defense hasn't been as good.

[JosephC]

I take it that Catcher's ERA is a stat that is no longer tracked because I can't find 2019 numbers anywhere.

[sveumrules]

I take it that Catcher's ERA is a stat that is no longer tracked because I can't find 2019 numbers anywhere.

 

It looks like they have it on BRef if you scroll down to Player Advanced Fielding...

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2019-specialpos_c-fielding.shtml

[adambr2]

Sure, DJ has been more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has with his staff here. I don't think anyone is trying argue otherwise.

 

When accounting for changing run environments & understanding that comparing full season team ERA to 70 games of team ERA is folly it is less clear that Hook is a dismal failure or that we don't have enough pitching.

 

Our 2019 xFIP- (far more reliable than ERA after 70 games) of 97 is right in line with the 99 mark we posted under DJ in both 2017 & 2018.

 

I would argue regardless of the xFIP- comparison that there should have been an expectation of improvement from the staff with the rotation overhaul, not a slight regression.

 

Peripherals are great and sabermetrical measures have come a long way toward giving us better ways to analyze what we see, but they're too often interpreted to be the whole story, rather than just part of the story. There are reasons beyond random chance that some pitchers consistently outperform their peripherals and some pitchers consistently underperform their peripherals.

[JosephC]

I take it that Catcher's ERA is a stat that is no longer tracked because I can't find 2019 numbers anywhere.

 

It looks like they have it on BRef if you scroll down to Player Advanced Fielding...

 

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2019-specialpos_c-fielding.shtml

 

Thanks.

 

Holy crap, can talk about small sample sizes all we want but the difference between Grandal and Pina is pretty staggering. I kind of suspected that Pina would be better but never to that extent. I almost have to wonder if those numbers are correct? If this continues then Pina should be catching a lot more and Grandal can get more time at 1B.

 

The eyeball test told me pretty early in the year that Baseball Prospectus catching metrics were garbage and I haven't seen anything recently to make me think otherwise.

[82brewcrew82]

I was very vocal about being down on the pitching last year. I think Miley was huge. I think Chacin over performed last year. There are other differences. If you watch this team day in and day out do you really sit there and go "yeah, this team has world series caliber pitching". I just don't see it. I hope I'm wrong.

[Brew crew 92]

Two things:

 

1.) I remember reading in, i think it was McCalvy’s column back in April or May, the difference between DJ and Hook, DJ better at pitch sequencing and Hook better at mechanics. Woodruff’s improvements with his mechanics, FB up a tick or two, better change-up. Guerra has a plus curve he didn’t have last year. Houser big improvement. I think it’s fair to attribute some of that to Hooks teaching.

 

2.) The Brewers pitching is good enough to get into the playoffs as is through osmosis, but Stearns will improve it to be able to compete with the big boy.

[sveumrules]

Sure, DJ has been more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has with his staff here. I don't think anyone is trying argue otherwise.

 

When accounting for changing run environments & understanding that comparing full season team ERA to 70 games of team ERA is folly it is less clear that Hook is a dismal failure or that we don't have enough pitching.

 

Our 2019 xFIP- (far more reliable than ERA after 70 games) of 97 is right in line with the 99 mark we posted under DJ in both 2017 & 2018.

 

I would argue regardless of the xFIP- comparison that there should have been an expectation of improvement from the staff with the rotation overhaul, not a slight regression.

 

Peripherals are great and sabermetrical measures have come a long way toward giving us better ways to analyze what we see, but they're too often interpreted to be the whole story, rather than just part of the story. There are reasons beyond random chance that some pitchers consistently outperform their peripherals and some pitchers consistently underperform their peripherals.

 

I don't think there should have been expectation of improvement from a rotation that was hoping to employ three first full season starters. Even if they are "more talented" than the guys they were replacing, young talent doesn't always equate to immediate results.

 

It turning out how it has was always a reasonable possibility & that we are still in the thick of the postseason picture with two of our three young starters underwhelming speaks to the strength of the organization as a whole, to me at least.

[Lathund]

Peripherals are great and sabermetrical measures have come a long way toward giving us better ways to analyze what we see, but they're too often interpreted to be the whole story, rather than just part of the story. There are reasons beyond random chance that some pitchers consistently outperform their peripherals and some pitchers consistently underperform their peripherals.

 

Yeah there are, but 60 games isn't anywhere near enough to draw such conclusions. Nor does it really apply as easily on a team level. The point of a stat like FIP/xFIP isn't to say that it is the whole story, but that it is the part of the story that the pitcher is solely (well, umpire, weather, ballpark dimenions and things like that play a part) responsible for, and that measuring that tells us more about actual ability than something like ERA does, which is impacted so much by the defense, by sequencing, by batted ball luck, by decisions from an official scorer, by inherited runners etc. At some point, whether it's 1 season or multiple seasons (And that time frame is obviously different when looking at teams as opposed to individual pitchers), ERA (or RA/9) will become more predictive of future run prevention, but we're absolutely not there yet.

 

I'll add to the above I posted about defense, that if a team is doing better at the "balls not in play" component of the game, but are giving up more runs, it's obviously the balls in play that hurt. Some of that is due to pitchers giving up more hard contact, some of that is due to defense, and some of it is luck and sequencing. xFIP does a better job isolating the pitcher's part of it.

[82brewcrew82]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

 

Woodruff and Davies comment is silly.

 

Both at worst would be #3’s and 4’s and at best #1’s and 2’s.

You know what's heavy on irony? You calling someone esle's posts silly.

[82brewcrew82]

Sure, DJ has been more successful with his staff in Cincy than Hook has with his staff here. I don't think anyone is trying argue otherwise.

 

When accounting for changing run environments & understanding that comparing full season team ERA to 70 games of team ERA is folly it is less clear that Hook is a dismal failure or that we don't have enough pitching.

 

Our 2019 xFIP- (far more reliable than ERA after 70 games) of 97 is right in line with the 99 mark we posted under DJ in both 2017 & 2018.

 

I would argue regardless of the xFIP- comparison that there should have been an expectation of improvement from the staff with the rotation overhaul, not a slight regression.

 

Peripherals are great and sabermetrical measures have come a long way toward giving us better ways to analyze what we see, but they're too often interpreted to be the whole story, rather than just part of the story. There are reasons beyond random chance that some pitchers consistently outperform their peripherals and some pitchers consistently underperform their peripherals.

 

I don't think there should have been expectation of improvement from a rotation that was hoping to employ three first full season starters. Even if they are "more talented" than the guys they were replacing, young talent doesn't always equate to immediate results.

 

It turning out how it has was always a reasonable possibility & that we are still in the thick of the postseason picture with two of our three young starters underwhelming speaks to the strength of the organization as a whole, to me at least.

I think using the term "arm talent" was a mistake on my part. To generalize, I don't think we have enough pitching. Even if the young pitchers struggled, we were told repeatedly we had enough depth to cover that. Now people and screaming for Aaron Wilkerson to get a shot, that is the depths we have sunk to. I don't know how they are keeping it together but you are correct in that they ultimately are. Still, I can't help but sense impending doom with this staff.

[Brew crew 92]

Talent level might have a little bit to do with this. Cubs, Dodgers, Braves, Phillies (our main competition right now) all have far better pitching than we do. I mean, Davies or Woodruff might squeak in as a five on a couple of those rotations and not even sniff the other couple. I think it's a credit to hook that we are as close to those teams as we are. The contenders in the NL just have far more arm talent than we do.

 

Woodruff and Davies comment is silly.

 

Both at worst would be #3’s and 4’s and at best #1’s and 2’s.

You know what's heavy on irony? You calling someone esle's posts silly.

 

Yeah yeah, still doesn’t change the silliness of yours.

[pacopete4]

You know what's heavy on irony? You calling someone esle's posts silly.

Yeah yeah, still doesn’t change the silliness of yours.

[sarcasm]Please stop picking on other posters.[/sarcasm]