2019 Brewers' pitching staff

[82brewcrew82]

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

Gosh, your sucha bully. What a witty response.

[Brew crew 92]

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

Gosh, your sucha bully. What a witty response.

 

I’ll give you the last word, so you know, you can feel like you owned me, again.

[Lathund]

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.

 

Well what the eyeball test tells you in that situation is that you disagree with the metrics, rightly or wrongly, not that they're garbage. The whole point of these metrics, and so many others from the sabermetric era, is that what looks good or bad isn't always what it seems. It's not at all easy to with the eye test recognize that one catcher gets 1% more called strikes than another, and it's not immediately obvious how many runs that adds up to over thousands of pitches. But the eye test can easily spot are things like passed balls, that always look bad. But giving up a couple of passed balls more than the average catcher over the course of a season doesn't really give up very many runs. Over the years there have been many attempts, by many different people, at quantifying the value of framing, using various different approaches. And they all reach similar conclusions, that it can cost or save double-digit runs compared to the average. And they all find the same players to grade out well or not.

 

Now what BPros catching metrics don't tell us anything about, and don't attempt to as I don't know how it can really be quantified, is how well a catcher calls a game. But at the same time, looking at something as blunt as cERA over 127 innings is borderline useless. Statisticians stress sample sizes for a reason, it's not something to just ignore. Which teams did they catch against? Who were the pitchers? And so forth. Maybe Grandal is a horrible game caller, I honestly wouldn't know, even if I doubt it. But in terms of what can be quantified rather well, i.e blocking, throwing and framing; he is a good catcher.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Knock it off with the personal crap and 3rd grade insults. Seriously.

[NYChez]

The Brewers’ overworked bullpen has thrown 203 pitches in the last four days. The Padres’ bullpen has thrown 427 pitches in the last four games! Hopefully it’s advantage Milwaukee heading to the San Diego series.

[Brew crew 92]

The Brewers’ overworked bullpen has thrown 203 pitches in the last four days. The Padres’ bullpen has thrown 427 pitches in the last four games! Hopefully it’s advantage Milwaukee heading to the San Diego series.

 

I’m sure there’ll be reinforcements, but still, hoping it hurts them.

[wntrtxn21]

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.

 

Brewer pitchers' FIP this year so far: 4.38. Last year 4.01. Very significant difference. ERA 4.37. Last year 3.97. Those two stats says this year's staff is quite a bit worse than last year. It depends on what stats you want to use.

[sveumrules]

League Average FIP 2018: 4.15

League Acerage FIP 2019: 4.44

 

League Average ERA 2018: 4.15

League Average ERA 2019: 4.44

 

Looking at the raw numbers is misleading because the run environment has changed drastically from last year on account of the boom in home runs. The ERA-/FIP-/xFIP- marks I have cited account for that difference.

[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.

 

Brewer pitchers' FIP this year so far: 4.38. Last year 4.01. Very significant difference. ERA 4.37. Last year 3.97. Those two stats says this year's staff is quite a bit worse than last year. It depends on what stats you want to use.

 

The problem with using raw numbers is that the run environment changes from year to year, especially with whatevere it is they're doing with the baseball this year. Last year the league average ERA and FIP was 4.15, so far in 2019 it's 4.44. In terms of raw FIP Brewers ranked 13th in 2018, 14th in 2019. ERA- still sees a large difference, but FIP- is 97 vs 99. It does indeed depend on which stat you want to use, and in small samples xFIP which sveumrules used, especially the league- and park-adjusted xFIP-, is superior to FIP and ERA when it comes to correlation with future run prevention. Especially in this case, since the difference is HR rate, which is a notoriously noisy stat.

 

So essentially there's one variable, the least predictive and least reliable, that suggests the team has been significantly worse compared to last year. There's another, the second least predictive and reliable, that suggests it's been slightly worse. The remaining ones that I'm aware of (xFIP, SIERA, cFIP, DRA) all actually says that the team has been better this year. Some of them only in relative terms (i.e compared to the rest of the league), some in absolute terms.

 

I'm not going to claim that they necessarily have been, but there's a lot to suggest they haven't been worse. What's important to factor in is also what's going to happen going forward. The season started with Peralta and Burnes in the rotation and with Alex Wilson closing out games early on. The phase of trying to figure out what you've got and what you need was a rather rough one for the Brewers, and it's still not entirely clear who will have what role of Nelson, Anderson, Chacin, Peralta. But much is clearer now than it was early on. I believe the run prevention will be better going forward, both because the metrics suggests it, but also because I believe we will on average be using better pitchers. Whether that's through guys who have joined the club during the season (like Gio or Houser), or have gotten better as they've gotten healthier and stronger (like Jeffress), or simply using some guys differently or guys just settling in to their roles. The fact that the Brewers to this point still has had the toughest schedule is another thing to factor in, even if it's fairly minor.

 

And when a team outperformed their FIP last year, but are underperforming it this year, look to the defense (And luck/sequencing/randomness, but nothing to do about that so no point bothering really).

[trwi7]

Knock it off with the personal crap and 3rd grade insults. Seriously.

 

I don’t take direction from people that have cooties.

[82brewcrew82]

Let's assume the staff isn't performing much different than last year and any deviance is white noise, or juiced balls, or the pitching coach or whatever. Unless we're the only ones playing with juiced balls or several teams cloned DJ (as though that were the issue), it doesn't explain why this staff is bad compared to the current seasons competition.

[sveumrules]

The Brewers are currently 18th in ERA, 14th in FIP & 9th in xFIP.

 

None of those rankings are bad. The ERA is slightly below average, the FIP is slightly above average, the xFIP (which has the best predictive power of the three) is above average.

[Oxy]

The variance in outcomes for this pitching staff is extremely wide due to the number of arms that we are cycling through. We are in first place right now and the staff hasn't particularly performed all that well. Pick up another arm or two and things will be fine. Stand pat with who we have and things might be fine too.

[long ball]

Looking through the potential rental SP arms out there and it looks like if we are going to see any improvement from the pitching staff this season it's going to have to be through internal improvement or the bullpen.

 

The only worthwhile rental SPs out there who will like be moved are Bumgarner, Roark, and maybe Alex Wood if he can come back healthy this month. Zack Wheeler too if the Mets decide to sell.

 

I don't think the Brewers have the bullets they're willing to part with to get any of the SPs under team control past this season.

[wntrtxn21]

Looking through the potential rental SP arms out there and it looks like if we are going to see any improvement from the pitching staff this season it's going to have to be through internal improvement or the bullpen.

 

The only worthwhile rental SPs out there who will like be moved are Bumgarner, Roark, and maybe Alex Wood if he can come back healthy this month. Zack Wheeler too if the Mets decide to sell.

 

I don't think the Brewers have the bullets they're willing to part with to get any of the SPs under team control past this season.

 

I don't see the improvement coming from SPs. It's going to have to come from the bullpen. The Crew can improve with some obtainable arms and hope Gio, Anderson, Nelson, etc.. get better.

[LouisEly]

According to BF.net's 40-man roster, both Nelson and Anderson have an option left. If so, I think it's time to send one down (preferably Nelson) and give Wilkerson a 4-5 game look in the rotation. He isn't going to set the world on fire, but he has nothing left to prove in AAA and can't be worse than what Nelson and Anderson have been doing lately. Will be nice to see what Wilkerson can do with an extended look and not having to pitch as soon as he gets to the ballpark after traveling all day.

[JosephC]

Nelson has passed five years of service time and now cannot be optioned without his permission. Would be interesting to see if would accept a minor league assignment. I think 99.999% of players would refuse the reassignment, but I'm not so sure with Nelson. He probably know that he is headed for MiLB regardless is he is in the Brewers, Marlins or Orioles organization...I can't even see a really bad club wanting to continue to rehab him on a major league roster, not with as bad as he has pitched so far. He might think it's best to continue to work on the routine he has established with the Brewer's medical/coaching staff. I don't think it's out of the question that he actually might accept a reassignment to AAA.

 

Chase Anderson is also past five years of service time. My guess is that he would refuse to be sent down and would take his chances on getting an MLB job with a bad team in need of pitching.

[brooks_quichenick]

Nelson to the bullpen

 

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Sure sounds like the Brewers tried to get Nelson to accept a trip down to AAA but he declined...

 

 

David Stearns said the Brewers discussed a number of options with Jimmy Nelson, including being optioned to Triple-A to continue to start. But Nelson has 5+ years of service, so he had a say. So, "we all agreed," Stearns said, on a move to the 'pen for now.

[JimH5]

The way that the labor agreement is, players have no incentive to do anything "for the good of the team". He earned the right to refuse a minor league assignment, where the coaching and training staff is presumably worse and the facilities are surely worse.

 

Both sides should use the leverage presented to them by the terms of the labor deal.

[adambr2]

Nelson is not going to accept an AAA assignment, nor should he be disparaged for not agreeing to do so. It's his right not to now, and the MLBPA probably would discourage him from accepting it.

 

This one is 100% on David Stearns and the Brewer brass for poorly managing his service time. Again, when Nelson was brought back up from AAA he was still 7 days shy of his 5th year. The plan should have been to get 2 starts out of him and immediately make a determination on whether he was ready or should continue that rotation schedule in AAA. Instead, he threw poorly once, then they sat on their hands and let Nelson not pitch for 10 days, and now here they are. It was predictable, and avoidable.

[JosephC]

Nelson shouldn't feel the need to do anything good for the team, and he should feel the need to what is best for himself. If he has two or three bad bullpen performances, is it a lock for him to choose being released over a AAA assignment if that is presented to him as his choice? Normally I think a player is better off getting released in hopes of finding an MLB job somewhere else. But Nelson is coming off an injury that normally doesn't carry all that positive of an outlook, and he has been rotten in his return to MLB.

 

If Jesus Aguilar is put on waivers, there are enough bad teams and his contract is cheap enough that I have little doubt that one of the first teams that have priority would claim him and be happy to have him on their 25-man roster as a 3 month audition for the 2020 roster.

 

If Chase Anderson is put on waivers, I think he'd make it through because nobody would want to take his contract. But if subsequently released by the Brewers, I have no doubt that a bad team would immediately sign him and put him on the 25-man roster and be happy to have him (at least initially).

 

If Jimmy Nelson is put on waivers and subsequently released, I'd guess his performance has been so bad AND with the injury factor hanging over his head, that he is not going to get an MLB job, even from a bad team, for the rest of this season. I think chances are much better than 50/50 that he would be back in MiLB ball for someone else if not for the Brewers. And if not with the Brewers, then he is looking at going into next off-season as a non-roster invitee that has to pitch himself onto a 40-man roster and then onto a 25-man roster. I think with the Brewers, even if shipped to AAA, he'd be pretty safe to keep his 40-man roster spot through the rest of this season. He and his agent have to know that he is going to have a real uphill battle to get back to MLB if he leaves the Brewers. The Brewers sunk over 7 million in him the last couple of years, they will have far more motivation than any other organization in giving him repeated chances to try and stick in MLB. A released versus AAA decision should be, at least, a very difficult decision for Nelson and his agent, and personally if I were either of them I would lean towards staying with the Brewer's organization at least to the end of the season because I see the chances of him immediately landing another MLB job to be very poor at this time. He really needs to show something out of the bullpen in his next few appearances.

 

Also agree with adambr2 that the Brewers did a real poor job with handling his service time and option situation.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

I don't fault Nelson for declining the trip to San Antonio, he's earned that right. As JosephC pointed out it could be in his best interest at some point. And that time could come quickly. The only aspect of all this that doesn't sit right with me is the fuss Nelson made when he wasn't called up when he thought he should be. I believe it came a couple weeks after he expected and he didn't hide his anger about it. Well now it's clear he wasn't ready.

[Thurston Fluff]

There is a pretty big downside to going to AAA for his future. It would be a lot harder to convince the Brewers to keep him on the 40 man roster if sucks as bad in AAA as he does in the majors. It would no doubt also limit interest from other teams if the Brewers do release him. If he stays in the majors and sucks there would still be doubt but not nearly as much as if he sucks in the minors. Anyway this is where we're at with him now. For everyne's sake I'm hoping he finds a productive role in the pen.

[adambr2]

The only aspect of all this that doesn't sit right with me is the fuss Nelson made when he wasn't called up when he thought he should be. I believe it came a couple weeks after he expected and he didn't hide his anger about it. Well now it's clear he wasn't ready.

 

Unless I'm missing something or some comments I don't remember it that way at all. The only thing I could find on Jimmy's reaction to being sent to San Antonio was this:

"Jimmy was disappointed, but he was mature and professional," Stearns said. "I thought he handled it as well as could be expected. He asked good questions. He told us he wants to improve.

 

"That’s a pretty good reaction from my perspective."