2019 Misc MLB News

[yfinn6]

I appreciate Bill's loyalty to the team and genuine love of Milwaukee and the fans, but he's just a typical aging former player who hasn't fully bought into analytics and modern baseball theory. Not really a slam on him, as he's probably better than most color guys out there, but I think we're all interested in this next generation of players and the insights they might bring to the game. But we could have far, far worse. We're also really spoiled with fantastic PBP guys in this state.

 

I think about 80% of the target audience does not care about analytics and modern baseball theory. I'm a diehard fan and some of the stats are above me and that's totally fine with me. If the Brewers were to hire a "color guy" who went into detail about advanced metrics it would bore the viewing audience to death.

[PeaveyFury]

I appreciate Bill's loyalty to the team and genuine love of Milwaukee and the fans, but he's just a typical aging former player who hasn't fully bought into analytics and modern baseball theory. Not really a slam on him, as he's probably better than most color guys out there, but I think we're all interested in this next generation of players and the insights they might bring to the game. But we could have far, far worse. We're also really spoiled with fantastic PBP guys in this state.

 

I think about 80% of the target audience does not care about analytics and modern baseball theory. I'm a diehard fan and some of the stats are above me and that's totally fine with me. If the Brewers were to hire a "color guy" who went into detail about advanced metrics it would bore the viewing audience to death.

 

That’s very fair.

[wallus]

BA makes Rock a lot better. He is the best partner that he has had while with the Brewers. I enjoy their non baseball banter.

[brooks_quichenick]

Flipping through games on MLB.tv every night makes me appreciate Rock more. He’s not spectacular but a lot of the color commentators around the league are just brutal to listen to.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't "hate" Schroeder, I think part of what he's doing is playing a role, and part of what he's doing is what he knows, and that's "70's and 80's baseball guy"

 

He says things that aren't always factually and statistically accurate, and he and BA work well together because BA is usually able to subtly and casually correct those things without it coming off as being a jerk to his on-air partner.

[trwi7]

Trevor Rosenthal this year

 

0.0 IP, 4 H, 7 ER, 4 BB

 

38 pitches, no outs recorded. His ERA is infinite.

[homer]

Trevor Rosenthal this year

 

0.0 IP, 4 H, 7 ER, 4 BB

 

38 pitches, no outs recorded. His ERA is infinite.

 

is that good? Infinite sounds good.

[MadScientist]

Trevor Rosenthal this year

 

0.0 IP, 4 H, 7 ER, 4 BB

 

38 pitches, no outs recorded. His ERA is infinite.

 

is that good? Infinite sounds good.

It would be very good if he were still with the Cardinals.

[tmwiese55]

Flipping through games on MLB.tv every night makes me appreciate Rock more. He’s not spectacular but a lot of the color commentators around the league are just brutal to listen to.

 

I've been saying this on here and to people in general for years. I see portions of a lot of other games/broadcasts and our guys are definitely in the upper tier. BA obviously is one of the best in the biz as he keeps getting national gigs. Rock is what he is, but compared to what you hear elsewhere he's miles ahead. You'd be shocked at the amount of dead air you hear on others. Don't get me wrong, when you listen to guys for 160 games a year you're going to get sick of them repeating and using cliches, but that's going to happen with anyone.

[jjfanec]

Lester leaves the Cubs game with hamstring tightness. If that turns out to be more serious they are in real trouble. Their rotation depth is not good. Their bats seem to have woken up quite a bit though

[rickh150]

Lester leaves the Cubs game with hamstring tightness. If that turns out to be more serious they are in real trouble. Their rotation depth is not good. Their bats seem to have woken up quite a bit though

 

I cannot see 2019 without the Cubs being somewhat good. I refuse to think of them as a bad team until they are mathematically eliminated. They have too much talent and payroll to be anything resembling bad this season.

[young guns]

Trevor Rosenthal this year

 

0.0 IP, 4 H, 7 ER, 4 BB

 

38 pitches, no outs recorded. His ERA is infinite.

Until yesterday, dating back to 2017(he didn't pitching 2018) he had a streak of 9 batters faced with all of them scoring.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Lester leaves the Cubs game with hamstring tightness. If that turns out to be more serious they are in real trouble. Their rotation depth is not good. Their bats seem to have woken up quite a bit though

 

I cannot see 2019 without the Cubs being somewhat good. I refuse to think of them as a bad team until they are mathematically eliminated. They have too much talent and payroll to be anything resembling bad this season.

 

They are going to score a ton of runs - they are also going to give up a ton of runs...unless their pitching gets straightened out it's going to be tough for them to put together sustained streaks of winning, since the NL has hardly any doormat teams on paper. They are basically the Reds, with a much more expensive yet bad pitching staff.

 

I think the Cards are much better positioned give the Brewers a run for the division, simply because they have much better pitching.

[DHonks]

Played golf Saturday with a diehard Mets fan. After hearing him declare they have 5 legit MVP candidates and 3 pitchers with a chance at the Cy Young award, he casually asked how the Brewers were doing so far. I said 7-1, and he went silent for a few minutes. Kind of a funny experience

[Jaylyn]

Chris Davis is really a crazy story. He's in year four of a seven year $161 million contact, 33 years old. Hit .168 last year and currently in a 0-46 streak going back to last year. 0-16 with 11 strikeouts this year. Mercilessly booed. How long can this go on!? It's not like he's going to turn it around at this point

0-49 after last night, new MLB record. Despite the fact that he has a huge contract and more money than I will ever see, I just can't help feeling bad for him. Sending positive vibes Chris!!

[homer]

Chris Sale was hitting 93, 94 today. He gave up a bunch of runs again but at least his velo seems to be returning. I bring this up as a Chris Sale fantasy baseball owner.

[TURBO]

Chris Sale was hitting 93, 94 today. He gave up a bunch of runs again but at least his velo seems to be returning. I bring this up as a Chris Sale fantasy baseball owner.

 

I own him in all 3 of my keeper leagues.

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Chris Davis is really a crazy story. He's in year four of a seven year $161 million contact, 33 years old. Hit .168 last year and currently in a 0-46 streak going back to last year. 0-16 with 11 strikeouts this year. Mercilessly booed. How long can this go on!? It's not like he's going to turn it around at this point

0-49 after last night, new MLB record. Despite the fact that he has a huge contract and more money than I will ever see, I just can't help feeling bad for him. Sending positive vibes Chris!!

 

Brewers should offer something for him and agree to take on $2 million per year. We can hope a change of scenery has some miracle effect while having a contest for worst 1B ever.

[homer]

Jay Bruce has 9 hits. 7 of those are home runs.

[bill hAll Star]

Something up with the balls again? I'm not sure if they ever un-juiced them but we've got a few weeks going here with HR numbers higher than that spike in 2017.

[RollieTime]

I think it’s mostly because so many guys just want to try to hit a ton of homeruns instead of being all-around players. I think the pendulum will swing the other way once there are guys complaining about hitting 30 homeruns, but only getting offered 2/$10 million contracts because so many guys are doing it. Having guys hit .280/.350 with 15 homeruns is a better recipe for a consistent offense than a .230/.280 hitter with 30 homers.

 

I think baseball is just at a point where homeruns are “king”, but once some players decide to become better hitters, work counts for walks, and go back to putting more balls in play, more players will follow suit because GM’s value players like that over gaudy homerun numbers. There just aren’t a lot of players like that in the league right now and it is something that players need to want to do and put in the time to do instead of walking up trying to hit a ball 450 feet every single time up.

 

This is just my opinion and not a fact obviously. But players similar to Cain and Ender Inciarte will become more valuable than guys trying to hit a homerun every time they step up to the plate.

[bill hAll Star]

I think it’s mostly because so many guys just want to try to hit a ton of homeruns instead of being all-around players. I think the pendulum will swing the other way once there are guys complaining about hitting 30 homeruns, but only getting offered 2/$10 million contracts because so many guys are doing it. Having guys hit .280/.350 with 15 homeruns is a better recipe for a consistent offense than a .230/.280 hitter with 30 homers.

 

I think baseball is just at a point where homeruns are “king”, but once some players decide to become better hitters, work counts for walks, and go back to putting more balls in play, more players will follow suit because GM’s value players like that over gaudy homerun numbers. There just aren’t a lot of players like that in the league right now and it is something that players need to want to do and put in the time to do instead of walking up trying to hit a ball 450 feet every single time up.

 

This is just my opinion and not a fact obviously. But players similar to Cain and Ender Inciarte will become more valuable than guys trying to hit a homerun every time they step up to the plate.

 

I'm not sure if that's true. Teams that have the best analytic minds in the game are signing all home run hitting mashers. Now, that's not to say that they shouldn't have Cains guys like that in there, but launch angle + hitting the home run is still tied to winning in the minds of most GMs.

 

However, the point is that entire teams are mashing the heck out of the ball over the fence. Jarrod Dyson and Tommy La Stella are matching entire seasons worth of home run totals in the first 2 weeks. I'm not sure those guys are trying to hit home runs and I'm not sure Jay Bruce is trying any harder than last year yet he is having a much easier time getting the ball over the fence this year.

 

It has only been a short period, but the home run totals are at 2017 levels (they went back down in 2018).

[wallus]

You can't shift a home run but you can take away a lot of hits with shifting.

[HiAndTight]

I think it’s mostly because so many guys just want to try to hit a ton of homeruns instead of being all-around players. I think the pendulum will swing the other way once there are guys complaining about hitting 30 homeruns, but only getting offered 2/$10 million contracts because so many guys are doing it. Having guys hit .280/.350 with 15 homeruns is a better recipe for a consistent offense than a .230/.280 hitter with 30 homers.

 

I think baseball is just at a point where homeruns are “king”, but once some players decide to become better hitters, work counts for walks, and go back to putting more balls in play, more players will follow suit because GM’s value players like that over gaudy homerun numbers. There just aren’t a lot of players like that in the league right now and it is something that players need to want to do and put in the time to do instead of walking up trying to hit a ball 450 feet every single time up.

 

This is just my opinion and not a fact obviously. But players similar to Cain and Ender Inciarte will become more valuable than guys trying to hit a homerun every time they step up to the plate.

 

Well, I don't know if it's true or not because just using HR's without giving us anything on OBP doesn't help a ton. We did see the Brewers just let a 40 HR hitter leave because he was going to cost about 10 million.

 

 

And guys like Cain are always going to be valuable. He got 80 million over 5 years, which I think was a very good contract for the Brewers, in a depressed market.

 

There is something fun about watching Cain though. You watch him...and it doesn't look like he's doing well at the plate. But because of his approach, he's almost always hitting over .280 with a very high OBP. You've seen nights where he's gotten on 3 times without hitting a ball to the OF. I'd bet he could hit 25-30 HR's and see his BA and OBP dro about 80 points, but that would make him much less valuable.

 

 

 

I'm not sure if that's true. Teams that have the best analytic minds in the game are signing all home run hitting mashers. Now, that's not to say that they shouldn't have Cains guys like that in there, but launch angle + hitting the home run is still tied to winning in the minds of most GMs.

 

However, the point is that entire teams are mashing the heck out of the ball over the fence. Jarrod Dyson and Tommy La Stella are matching entire seasons worth of home run totals in the first 2 weeks. I'm not sure those guys are trying to hit home runs and I'm not sure Jay Bruce is trying any harder than last year yet he is having a much easier time getting the ball over the fence this year.

 

It has only been a short period, but the home run totals are at 2017 levels (they went back down in 2018).

[Dead Simmons]

In case anyone missed it, here's the worst play I have EVER seen in the outfield in a ball game at any level.

 

 

https://www.mlb.com/video/hernandez-s-unusual-double

 

 

Here's writer, Jay Jaffe's take on the debacle https://blogs.fangraphs.com/instagraphs/just-what-the-hell-was-marcell-ozuna-doing/