2019 Brewers' pitching staff

[tmwiese55]

Nice try on what? That I'm changing my tune or something?

 

Me on 9/10: "I think what should be obvious by how you move these people around on a day by day basis is that it lays out exactly what pretty much all of their problems is, consistency. All these guys you get a fascination with after one or two outings are all capable of doing well on any given day, it's not like they don't have 'stuff' so to speak. But they're also liable to get blown up way too often and you have no idea when it's gonna happen. "

 

You on Sept 6: Yes. It’s not as good as I thought it would be.

You today: Gloating that you were right

 

 

Still, I fully will say and admit they've outperformed what I thought they could do 2ish weeks ago. Most of anything I commented on was you going overboard on acting like we'd 'know' these guys are gonna be awesome that had no track record to go off. Basically "could/might" is way different than "know". Guys like Suter, Black, Peralta, then you were throwing things like Nelson too. So to me it comes to Suter/Black/Pomeranz doing generally well whereas 2-3 weeks back someone a little more toned down like me realized we really didn't know what we were gonna get. They could've flopped, instead they've probably been our 3 of our top 5 guys of late.

 

If you go back a few weeks you'll also find yourself saying that JJ was gonna be awesome because he had that one good game where his splitter looked good. You'll find yourself saying Nelson was gonna be a bullpen ACE. You'll find yourself saying Grandal basically was a bad signing and that he should be benched for a AAA guy because he's too tired. You'll find yourself one day saying Jackson is good, the next day bad. You'll find yourself saying management should be canned for how bad their team was built and how bad the pitching was. In your praise for pitching you ripped on the O as the real problem but they've been doing much better too. Basically throw enough at the wall and something is gonna stick, especially if you take both sides of every issue.

[pacopete4]

You'll also see him firing our GM, amongst other batcrazy stuff, so I'm not sure why anyone goes down this road with this guy.

[Brew crew 92]

Bullpen was great yesterday. Was anyone on here saying you were ignorant the games before when they loaded bases every inning and what was it Wednesday night when the pen blew the lead? Even folks like me who've called you out on how overboard you are on this have mostly just said the issue is consistency, yet you're trying to act like we're all saying it completely sucks. Most of the guys have the stuff to do it on any given day, it's just that they are too susceptible to the blow up days and therefore inconsistent. Which should be so obvious to you as you change your good/bad list every day based on their ups/downs and inconsistencies. Beyond inconsistency, a lot of the guys simply hadn't been pitching so there needs to be a see how they do type attitude before crowning them awesome. Say guys like Suter/Black, two guys where two weeks ago you don't know what you're gonna get but have been doing great. But yea, carry on with told ya so after good games.

 

Return of Hader's slider is huge, just shake your head wondering why they went away from it all year.

 

Nice try.

No reading between the lines was necessary with my post. Anyone that’s watched this bullpen pitch since September 1, that says anything other than, at worst, it’s a good bullpen, doesn’t know what their talking about. My post pointed that out. That’s all. And (IF) it gets more and more dominant moving forward then what? Maybe the inconsistent word can go away, and we can see this pen for what it is > one of the best if not THE BEST in the NL.

 

Come on! The best bullpen in the NL is in St. Louis. They've got two relievers each with over 60 innings pitched with a FIP of 2.90 or less. They have six arms in the bullpen with more than 40 innings pitched with a WHIP of 1.2 or less. Besides John Gant, every reliever in the Cardinal pen has at least a 2:1 Strike out to walk ratio.

 

The Brewers pen is markedly improved since July by a few simple facts. Junior Guerra was dominant in August and has been very good in the 2nd half. The last four weeks Hader has regained his form as a dominant reliever (0.649 WHIP and 7.67:1 SO:W ratio). Since coming back from the minors on July 14th Jay Jackson has been solid. Finally Pomeranz, Black and Suter replace the revolving door of Alex Wilson, Jacob Barnes, Aaron Wilkerson, Burch Smith, Taylor Williams etc.

 

I give the GM credit for remaking his pen on the fly into a very good unit, but the Cardinals still have the superior pen.

 

Up until September yes.

 

Right now it’s close, but, I believe the brewers pen will get better, while the Cards regress slightly. So going into the playoffs, we will have the best pen, yeah.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Tom Haudricourt called the Brewers getting Lyles the “change of scenery move of the year.” A couple Cub fans argued saying it was Castellanos. Um, apparently those dummies don’t actually understand what the phrase “change of scenery” actually means. The whole reason the Cubs dealt for Castellanos is because he was playing well.

[Ennder]

So just to put the pitching staff into perspective I will quote myself from March to show just how highly I thought of it going into the season. I realize that first line makes me look dumb too but I included it for honesty sake~.

 

"Chacin is the one guy I have faith in.

 

Chase Anderson had a 5.22 FIP last season and a 5.09 in 2016, he easily can be replacement level. Burnes has never started a regular season game in the majors so his range of outcomes are huge. Peralta had a 4.25 ERA, can't pitch from the stretch and relies way too much on his fastball. Woodruff's FIPs were in the mid 4's in the minors. Davies has been all over the place for his entire career This rotation could easily be just terrible, there is no comfort level that it has 7 above average pitchers like you suggest. In fact there is almost no way that is actually true. Nelson cannot be trusted for anything on the season, we have no clue if he is going to get healthy and if he does if he will pitch at full strength.

 

I know I'm looking at the bleak side of things but that side does exist, this could be one of the worst rotations in baseball and it would not surprise me at all. It could also be above average. It is a very volatile rotation. What is painfully clear though is that the rotation is going to have to be babied. None of them are safe the 3rd time through the order and none of them are particularly efficient. We are going to be dipping into the bullpen in the 6th inning on a regular basis and many games in the 5th inning. The bullpen is going to have to save the rotation to make this work.

 

Maybe we just look at baseball differently but this team went as far as it did despite the rotation last season, it was easily the weakest part of the team. We protected it with an overextended bullpen and got lucky that Miley was so good. Overall it was the weakness of the team and I expect the same to be true this season."

 

The pitching was a huge concern going into the season and the fact it hasn't been great says absolutely nothing about the pitching coach. This is just sort of the expected result, maybe a tad bit on the lower end result but not by a whole lot. This was a really risky part of the team going into the season.

[82brewcrew82]

So just to put the pitching staff into perspective I will quote myself from March to show just how highly I thought of it going into the season. I realize that first line makes me look dumb too but I included it for honesty sake~.

 

"Chacin is the one guy I have faith in.

 

Chase Anderson had a 5.22 FIP last season and a 5.09 in 2016, he easily can be replacement level. Burnes has never started a regular season game in the majors so his range of outcomes are huge. Peralta had a 4.25 ERA, can't pitch from the stretch and relies way too much on his fastball. Woodruff's FIPs were in the mid 4's in the minors. Davies has been all over the place for his entire career This rotation could easily be just terrible, there is no comfort level that it has 7 above average pitchers like you suggest. In fact there is almost no way that is actually true. Nelson cannot be trusted for anything on the season, we have no clue if he is going to get healthy and if he does if he will pitch at full strength.

 

I know I'm looking at the bleak side of things but that side does exist, this could be one of the worst rotations in baseball and it would not surprise me at all. It could also be above average. It is a very volatile rotation. What is painfully clear though is that the rotation is going to have to be babied. None of them are safe the 3rd time through the order and none of them are particularly efficient. We are going to be dipping into the bullpen in the 6th inning on a regular basis and many games in the 5th inning. The bullpen is going to have to save the rotation to make this work.

 

Maybe we just look at baseball differently but this team went as far as it did despite the rotation last season, it was easily the weakest part of the team. We protected it with an overextended bullpen and got lucky that Miley was so good. Overall it was the weakness of the team and I expect the same to be true this season."

 

The pitching was a huge concern going into the season and the fact it hasn't been great says absolutely nothing about the pitching coach. This is just sort of the expected result, maybe a tad bit on the lower end result but not by a whole lot. This was a really risky part of the team going into the season.

The sad part is it pretty much all happened outside of Woody. I wouldn't have bet that it all would have gone off the rails including Chacin.

[Ennder]

The sad part is it pretty much all happened outside of Woody. I wouldn't have bet that it all would have gone off the rails including Chacin.

 

Yeah I'll freely admit that i was wrong on Woodruff. Out of the 3 rookies he was the one I thought would fail but he proved me wrong, he was outstanding before the injury. I barely mentioned him because I didn't think he was as important to the staff but if we do miss the playoffs his injury is probably the biggest reason since it spanned so much larger a time span than Yelich's did. We tend to forget it at this point but Knebel's injury was huge too. We would easily have 2 or 3 more wins on the season if he hadn't got hurt before it even started.

[82brewcrew82]

The sad part is it pretty much all happened outside of Woody. I wouldn't have bet that it all would have gone off the rails including Chacin.

 

Yeah I'll freely admit that i was wrong on Woodruff. Out of the 3 rookies he was the one I thought would fail but he proved me wrong, he was outstanding before the injury. I barely mentioned him because I didn't think he was as important to the staff but if we do miss the playoffs his injury is probably the biggest reason since it spanned so much larger a time span than Yelich's did. We tend to forget it at this point but Knebel's injury was huge too. We would easily have 2 or 3 more wins on the season if he hadn't got hurt before it even started.

Agreed. They just don't have the horses that they had last year whether that is due to injury, failure to acquire or regression. Makes me wonder how they are still hanging around at this point. The offense hasn't been THAT great. I guess we just have some pitchers getting hot at the right time ([sarcasm]probably due to excellent coaching[/sarcasm]). It's hard to wrap my head around.

[Brew crew 92]

The sad part is it pretty much all happened outside of Woody. I wouldn't have bet that it all would have gone off the rails including Chacin.

 

Yeah I'll freely admit that i was wrong on Woodruff. Out of the 3 rookies he was the one I thought would fail but he proved me wrong, he was outstanding before the injury. I barely mentioned him because I didn't think he was as important to the staff but if we do miss the playoffs his injury is probably the biggest reason since it spanned so much larger a time span than Yelich's did. We tend to forget it at this point but Knebel's injury was huge too. We would easily have 2 or 3 more wins on the season if he hadn't got hurt before it even started.

Agreed. They just don't have the horses that they had last year whether that is due to injury, failure to acquire or regression. Makes me wonder how they are still hanging around at this point. The offense hasn't been THAT great. I guess we just have some pitchers getting hot at the right time ([sarcasm]probably due to excellent coaching[/sarcasm]). It's hard to wrap my head around.

 

 

Suter Pomeranz Peralta Jackson Hader Guerra Lyles Claudio have been fantastic since September 1. Black Gio Houser Anderson Davies have been solid if not fantastic. That’s a lot of good to solid pitching. Pre-September doesn’t matter, this is a good staff NOW. And it’s about to get better with Woodruff.

[brewmann04]

we could use some starters to go more than 4 ings some games down the road.

[MrTPlush]

The pitching staff is not good, but they have been holding it together and pitching like it of recent. Which at this point is all that matters. It is like the run differential thing. I don't really care how we look on paper...I just want wins and guys producing. A big difference maker in these last few weeks is those role player guys. Can the Peralta, Jackson, Claudio, etc. guys of the world hold it together and get big outs? The way we are working them they need to or we are going to be a sinking titanic quick. They are the main reason we have won so much recently. We pull a starter early and those guys carry the freight.

 

That Rockies series is a little dangerous in my opinion. That is a legit offense that has scored more runs this year (by a lot) than most teams we have been playing (and will play) in recent weeks. Maybe Coors induced to an extent, but we have to play on the road so it doesn't matter a whole lot regardless. Good news, their pitching is the biggest dumpster fire outside of Baltimore.

[homer]

Woody starting tomorrow.

[82brewcrew82]

That's good news. It'll be interesting to see what he can give in terms of both effectiveness and stamina.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Woody starting tomorrow.

 

Pretty decent mid-September acquisition.

 

Obviously losing Yelich for the stretch run here hurts, but the rest of the team's key players are getting healthy at the right time. I imagine We'll see Hiura in the starting lineup soon as well. Obviously those guys aren't pitchers, but speaking moreso about the general health of the team.

[long ball]

Looks like it will be a piggyback effort with Gio. That's probably the toughest matchup of the series with Paddack going for SD.

[82brewcrew82]

Woody starting tomorrow.

 

Pretty decent mid-September acquisition.

 

Obviously losing Yelich for the stretch run here hurts, but the rest of the team's key players are getting healthy at the right time. I imagine We'll see Hiura in the starting lineup soon as well. Obviously those guys aren't pitchers, but speaking moreso about the general health of the team.

With this few games remaining a talent upgrade at any spot is significant. With Hiura back, that isn't a horrible lineup even with Yelich out.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Looks like it will be a piggyback effort with Gio. That's probably the toughest matchup of the series with Paddack going for SD.

 

Going to be tough for the Padres to set a lineup not knowing how far Woodruff will go. And piggybacking with Gio is also interesting, as you're following up Woody's righty power stuff with Gio's lefty finesse junk.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Going to be tough for the Padres to set a lineup not knowing how far Woodruff will go. And piggybacking with Gio is also interesting, as you're following up Woody's righty power stuff with Gio's lefty finesse junk.

 

I love when they do this and would like to see it more often.

[KeithStone53151]

Going to be tough for the Padres to set a lineup not knowing how far Woodruff will go. And piggybacking with Gio is also interesting, as you're following up Woody's righty power stuff with Gio's lefty finesse junk.

 

I love when they do this and would like to see it more often.

 

Now is the perfect time of year to play this type of baseball. I wouldn't be surprised if our starters only pitch 3-5 innings from here on out, unless of course X starter is just wrecking hitters. But we have enough long relief and overall pitching options to shorten starts and have an extra AB of a 600-800 OPS hitter vs a 300 OPS hitting pitcher.

[Brew crew 92]

Going to be tough for the Padres to set a lineup not knowing how far Woodruff will go. And piggybacking with Gio is also interesting, as you're following up Woody's righty power stuff with Gio's lefty finesse junk.

 

I love when they do this and would like to see it more often.

 

Now is the perfect time of year to play this type of baseball. I wouldn't be surprised if our starters only pitch 3-5 innings from here on out, unless of course X starter is just wrecking hitters. But we have enough long relief and overall pitching options to shorten starts and have an extra AB of a 600-800 OPS hitter vs a 300 OPS hitting pitcher.

 

 

Problem is we don’t have enough long relief, or solid pen options for that matter. Suter is it for long relief. We have 14 in the pen, but 3-4 will never be used, unless a blow out. 2-3 more used only when behind. So that leaves 7 maybe 8 in a close game on a daily basis.

[Brew crew 92]

Counsell going with Pomeranz to close was big. Having 2 closers is critical to this team moving forward. Now, if We can get Peralta to close, like he did once already this year, we’d really have something. But that might be asking too much. I’ll take having someone to close, other than Hader and not get too greedy.

 

We’re developing our own 2019 version of last year’s 3 headed monster. Another dominating performance or two from Peralta and imo, we’ll have it > Pomeranz Peralta Hader.

 

I mentioned this last night, but with each game, this bullpen is inching its way to being as dominant as last year’s pen, and in one way is better, having 4 LHP’s that are all throwing as well as ours are right now, we’ve never had before. No wonder Counsell is so confident in this bullpen, he can matchup like never before.

 

With Woodruff back, this rotation is better than what we had last September going into October. Imo, we now have our best overall September pitching staff ever. And we’re not doing it with 14 pen arms either, 7-9 on a nightly basis, which bodes well for the postseason. This pitching staff can compete with anyone.

[Jopal78]

Don’t forget about Junior Guerra. A 0.91 whip since the All Star break and nearly 9k per 9 innings

[Zad Fnark]

Junior's opponent's batting average is something like .185, too.

 

I tend to look at that as much as ERA.

[Brew crew 92]

Don’t forget about Junior Guerra. A 0.91 whip since the All Star break and nearly 9k per 9 innings

 

And getting a little rest, which should keep him strong. Isn’t this, right now, the best pen in the NL?

[MrTPlush]

Junior Guerra has been solid this year. Before the season I thought he would be a key to a stable pen. He hasn't been as good as I was hoping, but certainly a contributor. One thing with Guerra in the second half: He has not given up multiple runs in an outing since July 17th. He has only done it twice in the second half all together. Guerra would probably be viewed a lot more positively if our offense was not continuously handing the bullpen one run games to cling onto. When guys go out there and give up multiple runs in an inning, that is what breaks the camel's back.