Alex Claudio

[Jopal78]

A rare miss by Stearns. Loogys are a dime a dozen and that’s what they’ve got in Claudio. Regrettably they traded their competitive balance A draft pick for him. With right handed hitters hammering him, an era of close to 6 and lacking swing and miss stuff; I think there’s a real chance he doesn’t make it to the end of the year in Milwaukee

[adambr2]

He's fine when used in his proper role. He is exactly what his career splits advertised him to be, a LOOGY. Why in the world they thought, and apparently still think he could be more than that is a mystery to me.

[DHonks]

I’d take a LOOGY over Most of our competitive balance picks. Frederickson, Richardson, Davis, that powerful OF that could never hit, etc.

[HiAndTight]

I’d take a LOOGY over Most of our competitive balance picks. Frederickson, Richardson, Davis, that powerful OF that could never hit, etc.

 

 

Yeah, I'd take that to if your choices are players who didn't pan out. I'd take the SHOT of the 38th pick in the draft, especially with the Brewers ability to unearth college arms in that range in recent years with Burnes, Woodruff, and others.

 

 

And can we officially NEVER list his war in the same sentence as Kimbrel, Knebel, Jeffress and Hader again?

 

I said it before and I'll repeat myself, I'd gladly take Dan Jennings and the 38th pick over him.

[True Blue Brew Crew]

Yeah when they traded a pick, the expectation has to be that he's more than a LOOGY. I'll admit that my own assumption was they saw something they could change or add to his repertoire to make him a useful multi-inning reliever who could get LH and RH bats out. With the way they use their starters, a LOOGY on this staff is about as useful as a knitted condom.

[brewers888]

I’d take a LOOGY over Most of our competitive balance picks. Frederickson, Richardson, Davis, that powerful OF that could never hit, etc.

 

If you put it that way I guess so but luckily we have a far better GM and scouting director than we did back then. Claudio is a dime a dozen lefty reliever who is basically batting practice for right handed hitters. This trade isn't the end of the world but it sure was not a move we should have made.

[MrTPlush]

Solid post judging a move in retrospect. If LOOGYs were so easy to find we would be able to find them...yet the last 10 years have been filled with mostly terrible ones that can’t even get lefties out.

 

Claudio can, but they insist on using him like he is a normal reliever and throw him against righties constantly. AND GOOD RIGHTIES.

 

That pick is overrated and the slot money is too. Hardly a loss. But people will complain and mention how it could have been the next Mike Trout when 95% chance said player never gets to AAA.

[DHonks]

Roache is the one I was thinking of.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the draft and draft picks. But we’ve swung-and-missed so much that I’d rather have a solid contributing big leaguer than an extra pick

[trwi7]

Solid post judging a move in retrospect. If LOOGYs were so easy to find we would be able to find them...yet the last 10 years have been filled with mostly terrible ones that can’t even get lefties out.

 

Jennings vs LHB last year: .226/.266/.304

 

There were a lot of people not happy with the move when it happened. Cedeno got them out too. The question is why did Stearns feel the need to take a valuable draft pick and spend it on a guy that should only face left handed hitters when he had two that he got rid of already and when LOOGYs just aren't that valuable to begin with?

 

Roache is the one I was thinking of.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the draft and draft picks. But we’ve swung-and-missed so much that I’d rather have a solid contributing big leaguer than an extra pick

 

So because we've missed on some picks we should just toss them aside? Maybe the Packers and Bucks should do that too? And we're not really getting a contributing big leaguer right now.

 

Also, this decade we've gotten Jimmy Nelson with a pick in the 60s, Haniger at pick 38, Woodruff in the 11th round and Burnes at 111 and that's with piss poor drafting for most of the decade. We still managed to get some quality around (and later) than where that pick is going to be. Not to mention dropping us to the second lowest bonus pool in the draft.

 

It was a trade that didn't make any sense at the time and now that Claudio is being used as a pitcher that he clearly cannot be, it's even worse.

[jerichoholicninja]

His career OPS against LHB is .496, this year it's .477.

His career OPS against RHB is .804, this year it's .948.

 

He is who is and why he's allowed to face as many RHB this year as he has is mind boggling. The numbers couldn't be clearer.

[rickh150]

A rare miss by Stearns. Loogys are a dime a dozen and that’s what they’ve got in Claudio. Regrettably they traded their competitive balance A draft pick for him. With right handed hitters hammering him, an era of close to 6 and lacking swing and miss stuff; I think there’s a real chance he doesn’t make it to the end of the year in Milwaukee

 

Pitchers Great against lefties are not a dime a dozen....

[OnTheBlack]

Solid post judging a move in retrospect. If LOOGYs were so easy to find we would be able to find them...yet the last 10 years have been filled with mostly terrible ones that can’t even get lefties out.

 

Jennings vs LHB last year: .226/.266/.304

 

There were a lot of people not happy with the move when it happened. Cedeno got them out too. The question is why did Stearns feel the need to take a valuable draft pick and spend it on a guy that should only face left handed hitters when he had two that he got rid of already and when LOOGYs just aren't that valuable to begin with?

 

Roache is the one I was thinking of.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the draft and draft picks. But we’ve swung-and-missed so much that I’d rather have a solid contributing big leaguer than an extra pick

 

So because we've missed on some picks we should just toss them aside? Maybe the Packers and Bucks should do that too? And we're not really getting a contributing big leaguer right now.

 

Also, this decade we've gotten Jimmy Nelson with a pick in the 60s, Haniger at pick 38, Woodruff in the 11th round and Burnes at 111 and that's with piss poor drafting for most of the decade. We still managed to get some quality around (and later) than where that pick is going to be. Not to mention dropping us to the second lowest bonus pool in the draft.

 

It was a trade that didn't make any sense at the time and now that Claudio is being used as a pitcher that he clearly cannot be, it's even worse.

 

 

 

Exactly. But at that time, we saw lists that showed how similar he was(or at least how he wasn't THAT far behind) guys like Kimbrel, Knebel, Jeffress and Hader because he served as a loogy for a bad team.

 

 

It was a bad move then, it's a bad move now.

[SomewhereInTime]

Something that hasn't been noted yet,

 

Claudio has been massively overused so far, he literally leads all of baseball in appearances, not all of which have been the one or two out LOOGY variety, plenty like today where he's in to try and get through a whole inning.

[NYChez]

Lefties are hitting .136 against him. Claudio’s poor numbers against righties and borderline overuse is 70% the result of Chase averaging less than 5 innings per start and Chacin averaging 5.03 innings per start, resulting in the need to reach the end of the line of the bullpen seemingly weekly.

 

20% of the blame goes to the fact the bullpen has young arms they don’t want to overwork such as Hader, Burnes, Houser and Peralta means the guy who ends up in the unenviable role is Claudio. Even though he deserves a little blame for the poor results against righties, I applaud him for taking the ball without complaint to take one for the team multiple times.

[JohnBriggs12]

A rare miss by Stearns. Loogys are a dime a dozen and that’s what they’ve got in Claudio. Regrettably they traded their competitive balance A draft pick for him. With right handed hitters hammering him, an era of close to 6 and lacking swing and miss stuff; I think there’s a real chance he doesn’t make it to the end of the year in Milwaukee

 

Not that rare. Stearns muffed this one in back to back seasons. How quickly we forget Boone Logan. Can't believe the excuses being made for him. Last year Stearns cut his losses and let Logan go midseason. Hopefully Stearns won't wait until June 24th again.

[MrTPlush]

Yup, Logan is a solid comparison, NOT. His 1.350 OPS against him via LHB is really comparable...come on Briggs. Just the most basic research could tell you how ridiculous that comparison is. Logan couldn’t get anything out and most importantly got destroyed by lefties.

 

They would be dumb to ditch Claudio. They just need to use him right and I assure you his value will then exceed what that pick was worth.

 

People don’t understand how worthless that pick really is. It holds very little value. You can cling to how he could have been the next great thing, but reality is that pick was almost assured to be nothing. Not to mention whoever it was wouldn’t be anything for the next half decade in any likely scenario a too...making it’s value even lower.

 

Even if it was the wrong decision the value loss is so ridiculously low why it even deserves a thread is beyond me.

[pacopete4]

A rare miss by Stearns. Loogys are a dime a dozen and that’s what they’ve got in Claudio. Regrettably they traded their competitive balance A draft pick for him. With right handed hitters hammering him, an era of close to 6 and lacking swing and miss stuff; I think there’s a real chance he doesn’t make it to the end of the year in Milwaukee

 

Not that rare. Stearns muffed this one in back to back seasons. How quickly we forget Boone Logan. Can't believe the excuses being made for him. Last year Stearns cut his losses and let Logan go midseason. Hopefully Stearns won't wait until June 24th again.

 

Are you advocating that he cut a useful pitcher?

[sveumrules]

Dan Jennings? Take a look at his 2019 numbers.

 

I remember trwi7 saying we should have just gotten Luis Avilan & saved the pick. Take a gander at his stats.

 

Boone Logan was 33, coming off 0.5 bWAR in his previous three seasons & signed to a one year deal.

 

Claudio is 27, coming off 4.8 bWAR in his three previous seasons & is under control for two more years after this. It's almost like it's a completely different situation than Boone Logan aside from which arm they throw with.

 

Claudio was primarily acquired because he has a rubber arm & over the last three seasons averaged 1.7 BB9/0.5 HR9, both among the best in the league.

 

He is currently at 3.4 BB9/2.1 HR9. Just like when many posters were freaking out about our entire pitching staff after a fluky bad first few weeks (which has since stanilized considerably as the sample has grown), so too are many posters assuming Claudio's most recent 20 IP are more predictive than the 200 IP which came before.

[adambr2]

Dan Jennings? Take a look at his 2019 numbers.

 

I remember trwi7 saying we should have just gotten Luis Avilan & saved the pick. Take a gander at his stats.

 

Boone Logan was 33, coming off 0.5 bWAR in his previous three seasons & signed to a one year deal.

 

Claudio is 27, coming off 4.8 bWAR in his three previous seasons & is under control for two more years after this. It's almost like it's a completely different situation than Boone Logan aside from which arm they throw with.

 

Claudio was primarily acquired because he has a rubber arm & over the last three seasons averaged 1.7 BB9/0.5 HR9, both among the best in the league.

 

He is currently at 3.4 BB9/2.1 HR9. Just like when many posters were freaking out about our entire pitching staff after a fluky bad first few weeks (which has since stanilized considerably as the sample has grown), so too are many posters assuming Claudio's most recent 20 IP are more predictive than the 200 IP which came before.

 

I assume that both his small 20 IP sample and larger 200 IP sample of being shelled by right handed hitting will continue if he continues to be used improperly.

[JohnBriggs12]

You can use splits all you want to criticize my comparing him to Logan, but the fact is they didn't sign Claudio just to face lefties or that's all he would be doing.

 

The fact is that Logan didn't do the job he was brought in to do and neither is Claudio. Claudio was brought in not just to get lefties out. He was brought in to get ground balls against RH and LH hitters and even though he's had all kinds of traffic on the bases when he's pitched, he's induced just 2 double plays.

 

He's got a FIP over 6 and a negative WAR. Spin the numbers all you want, but he's not helping this team.

[trwi7]

I remember trwi7 saying we should have just gotten Luis Avilan & saved the pick. Take a gander at his stats.

 

Avilan vs LHB: .154/.313/.231

Avilan vs RHB: .429/.477/.686

 

Claudio vs LHB: .136/.240/.227

Claudio vs RHB: .361/.425/.722

 

Stats seem pretty similar, no? At the very least not enough of a difference to give up the 41st pick in the draft.

 

I also suggested Tony Sipp who has this weird reverse split going on right now (.750 OPS vs LHB, .500 vs RHP), Oliver Perez .222/.276/.370 vs LHB and .250/.333/.458 vs RHB and Jake Diekman, who is shutting down both righties and lefties and only got $2.75 million guaranteed with $500,000 in incentives.

 

Like I said, there were plenty of options out there that could do what Claudio can that cost only a couple million and don't cost a draft pick.

[Brew crew 92]

I have know idea why a front office and manager as smart as ours would continue to use Claudio to face right handed hitters. I’m hoping Saturday’s game the last time we see that this year unless it’s in mop up role.

 

Claudio is a very unique pitcher, and will be a true weapon if used as the Loogy only.

 

The fact that lefty’s can’t hit him is one positive.

The fact that if only facing lefty’s he can pitch in every game is also a positive.

And finally he throws the ball so slow it messes with some of the hitters timing, helping the next reliever.

 

As far as losing the 38th pick in the draft, if we get 3 years of the Loogy only version of Claudio then it was another good trade by Stearn’s & co.

[Jopal78]

Why is Doug Melvin out of a job as the Brewers GM? Mainly, because the pipeline of talent he built dried up.

Sure, the player selected by Texas with the Competitive Balance A pick is not a sure bet to see the majors, but statistically most players in the majors come from the top couple of rounds, rather than picks outside of the first 100 or so.

 

When the Brewers had a LOOGY like Cedeno under team control, this is just a unwise gamble