2019-08-02: Brewers (Davies) at Cubs (Quintana) [Brewers lose, 6-2]

[jjgott]

Maybe Hiura really did need to "work on his defense"?

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The butcher at it again.

 

Just doing his best to live up to the scouting report

[pacopete4]

Tough call on best trades to never happen. Lucroy axing the deal to Cleveland (and costing himself a possible WS birth) or the Mets declining Gomez. Both have brought us so much and I’m so happy they occurred.

[treego14]

Davies can rake!

[Oxy]

That was quite an AB for Davies.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Tough call on best trades to never happen. Lucroy axing the deal to Cleveland or the Mets declining Gomez. Both have brought us so much and I’m so happy they occurred.

 

Gotta be the Gomez deal, but both ended up working in the Brewers' favor. The LuCroy Indians trade might have been ok, although I've always thought Mejia was overrated.

[pacopete4]

Tough call on best trades to never happen. Lucroy axing the deal to Cleveland or the Mets declining Gomez. Both have brought us so much and I’m so happy they occurred.

 

Gotta be the Gomez deal, but both ended up working in the Brewers' favor. The LuCroy Indians trade might have been ok, although I've always thought Mejia was overrated.

 

Without Lucroy to Texas, does Yelich get to us?

[sveumrules]

 

Our position players have 1178 PAs vs LHP this year. The 8 players in our starting lineup have accounted for 849 of those PAs, or 71.8%.

 

Jesus & Saladino accounted (very poorly) for 114 of them, or about 9.8%.

 

The larger sample indicates our lineup today is at no disadvantage against a LHP.

 

Against RH this year - 3040 PA - 394 Runs - .129 runs per PA

Against LH this year - 1238 PA - 137 Runs - .111

4278 PA this year in 110 games - 38.89 PA per game

38.89 * .129 = 5.0 runs per plate appearances worth of game vs RH

38.89 * .111 = 4.3 runs per plate appearances worth of games vs LH

 

Does this not seem like a pretty decent difference without potentially making it worse having by having Shaw off the bench instead of Perez or Aguilar? The offense vs lefties can be propped up by various rate stats but the black holes keep them from scoring runs at a rate of .7 runs per game.

 

Over a large enough sample, equal OPS marks should result in similar runs being scored. That difference of .7 runs per game could be the result of black holes (which Aguilar & Saladino were & no one in our lineup today is) or it could be the result of sequencing, random variation, luck or any other number of factors (especially considering LH splits are always noisier because the sample is naturally smaller than RH splits).

 

Either way, we are 17-16 against LH starters this year, so even if we do score slightly less runs than expected based on out OPS mark against LHP, it hasn't really manifested itself in terms of wins/losses (& we certainly aren't "basically helpless" as OP suggested).

[adambr2]

Not a really great thing when Davies, Cain, Yelich, and Hiura come up in the inning and Davies has by far the best AB.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Tough call on best trades to never happen. Lucroy axing the deal to Cleveland or the Mets declining Gomez. Both have brought us so much and I’m so happy they occurred.

 

Gotta be the Gomez deal, but both ended up working in the Brewers' favor. The LuCroy Indians trade might have been ok, although I've always thought Mejia was overrated.

 

Without Lucroy to Texas, does Yelich get to us?

 

Perhaps. Mejia has had similar prospect ranking, and they knew Realmuto wasn't going to be a long-timer in Miami.

[timpep]

 

Over a large enough sample, equal OPS marks should result in similar runs being scored. That difference of .7 runs per game could be the result of black holes (which Aguilar & Saladino were & no one in our lineup today is) or it could be the result of sequencing, random variation, luck or any other number of factors (especially considering LH splits are always noisier because the sample is naturally smaller than RH splits).

 

Either way, we are 17-16 against LH starters this year, so even if we do score slightly less runs than expected based on out OPS mark against LHP, it hasn't really manifested itself in terms of wins/losses (& we certainly aren't "basically helpless" as OP suggested).

 

I have never mentioned Saladino but you keep bringing him up. Original OP did, I agree, my only argument was the stats you brought up weren't really relevant to the argument he was making(right or wrong).

 

Your later argument that they have been as good vs LHP as they have been vs RHP is something that I just felt the numbers didn't agree with.

 

I am happy to agree that Saladino was a black hole. I also think Perez probably should not have been sent down but what happened happened. I think we can probably both agree on the fact that with Hiura on the team the numbers pre-Hiura don't have a ton of relevance either(I just used the same samples you did as best I could).

 

We can definitely take it further in our search for the problems vs LHP and probably find that it's mostly because the RH hitters (Aguilar, Arcia, Braun) in particular either didn't crush lefties at the rate they had in the past or just plain continued to suck overall in the case of Arcia).

 

So to sum up. I think we probably do agree on a lot. Probably disagree on some finer points and we were both using numbers that were highly influenced by a roster that didn't include Keston Hiura.

[pacopete4]

Well... fudge.

[Brewcrewin07]

Zach Davies, doing Zach Davies things...I knew this game would be a loss for sure. Davies should not be pitching against...well anyone, let alone the Cubs in Wrigley. CANNOT stand him.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

Zach Davies, doing Zach Davies things...I knew this game would be a loss for sure. Davies should not be pitching against...well anyone, let alone the Cubs in Wrigley. CANNOT stand him.

 

Man, you are putting all your cards on the table this week. And not in a good way.

[HarveysWBs]

So, Drew Pomeranz, anyone?

[treego14]

Well, Zach is gettin' hacked, again!

[MDCrew]

Ugh Davies

[pacopete4]

I don't think you have to throw 95+ to be a good starting pitcher but I also think it is very hard to be a good one, consistently, when throwing 86-88mph. These hitters are just too good unless you have that great of control and/or have amazing offspeed pitches.

[BruisedCrew]

 

Our position players have 1178 PAs vs LHP this year. The 8 players in our starting lineup have accounted for 849 of those PAs, or 71.8%.

 

Jesus & Saladino accounted (very poorly) for 114 of them, or about 9.8%.

 

The larger sample indicates our lineup today is at no disadvantage against a LHP.

 

Against RH this year - 3040 PA - 394 Runs - .129 runs per PA

Against LH this year - 1238 PA - 137 Runs - .111

4278 PA this year in 110 games - 38.89 PA per game

38.89 * .129 = 5.0 runs per plate appearances worth of game vs RH

38.89 * .111 = 4.3 runs per plate appearances worth of games vs LH

 

Does this not seem like a pretty decent difference without potentially making it worse having by having Shaw off the bench instead of Perez or Aguilar? The offense vs lefties can be propped up by various rate stats but the black holes keep them from scoring runs at a rate of .7 runs per game.

 

One other aspect of this that would be hard to prove or quantify without a lot of digging would be the quality of pitchers the Brewers have faced. Especially back in June it seemed like teams were dredging up any lefty they could come up with to face the Brewers. Thise teams seemed to think they were better off coming up with any lefty than using one of their back end rotation righties. Producing as well (or as poorly) against Joe Schmo lefty as against an all star caliber righty isn’t a fair comparison.

 

Maybe the Brewers being more successful against righties than lefties is more perception than reality. I do think that when the Brewers were 10 games over .500 they were 10 over against righties and .500 against lefties. So maybe things have leveled off.

[Baldkin]

Click their name. Select Add Foe.

 

Then you won't see their posts. Makes for a much more pleasant Brewerfan experience.

[HarveysWBs]

I don't think you have to throw 95+ to be a good starting pitcher but I also think it is very hard to be a good one, consistently, when throwing 86-88mph. These hitters are just too good unless you have that great of control and/or have amazing offspeed pitches.

 

Yeah, he doesn’t have great location today, but even when he’s keeping it off the plate, the Cubs are barreling them up. I still believe he is a perfectly serviceable #5, but that is not how this season shook out, to say the least. And he’s slumping right now, for sure.

[BruisedCrew]

Looks like Counsell may have been on to something not worrying about having Hader available today.

[Brewcrewin07]

Zach Davies, doing Zach Davies things...I knew this game would be a loss for sure. Davies should not be pitching against...well anyone, let alone the Cubs in Wrigley. CANNOT stand him.

 

Man, you are putting all your cards on the table this week. And not in a good way.

 

It's not that really anymore, frankly I'm at the point where I just don't even care that much. They showed at the deadline they don't care that much either, so why as a fan, should I?? Any team that constantly runs Zach Davies out to the mound, and expects anything more than what we saw in his last couple of starts and today, is just fooling themselves. THIS is the real Zach Davies, always has been. Just because he is under team control, doesn't mean you have to hold on to him like he's good or something. They could find almost anyone to do what he is capable of doing(at his best). Shelby Miller wouldn't be any worse, and there's a long list of names to go along with him too. it's just disgusting.

[adambr2]

So, Drew Pomeranz, anyone?

 

The guy with a 6.10 ERA as a starter pitching in a pitcher's park?

 

Most of our pitchers are anywhere between average and crap, and the guys we traded for fall into that same category.

 

I'd pick up Chase's option next year, trade Davies, and keep Woodruff, Chase, Faria, Hader, Burnes, Peralta, Knebel, and gut just about everything else.

[Oxy]

I guess I send Davies out for the 4th but I won't give him a baserunner. Pomeranz should be ready and ready to go for a few innings.