2021-05-30: Brewers (Woodruff) at Nationals (Scherzer) [Brewers win, 3-0 -- Crew completes series sweep]

[pacopete4]

Sweeeeeeeeeeep!

[JET15]

Sweep!

[HarveysWBs]

Nice sweep. We’ve reached the part of the schedule where we need to make some hay, so that’s a good start!

[owbc]

Easy peasy. Add one to the win column.

[liveforoctober]

Fellas, we are about to sweep the Nationals and our top 3 starting pitchers are rivaling the best in baseball. there will be time to fight this year. today is a day to enjoy. go crew.

[markedman5]

Get out the brooms baby!

 

Hope Williams isn’t hurt……something must be up with him or he would have been out there In the 8th.

[willie key]

Nice sweep. Hope to see a few more of those this next couple of months

[igor67]

I'm going to take credit because I actually swept the floor in the 5th inning.

[pacopete4]

Get out the brooms baby!

 

Hope Williams isn’t hurt……something must be up with him or he would have been out there In the 8th.

 

He had pitched in 3 of the last 4 games/days.

[BruisedCrew]

I don’t get that thinking? At all. You always take more runs and a possibility of not using your best arm. Especially when you turn around and play an early one tomorrow. We are so dramatic around here with bullpen arms. Hell, Box has a WHIP under 1 and we think he stinks.

 

Let’s just say that I feel more comfortable with Hader coming in with a 3 run cushion than bringing in a lesser pitcher who has to face at least 3 batters with a 4 run lead. If the lesser pitcher can’t get anyone out like Perdomo the other day, you end up bringing in Hader with much less of a cushion, in that case against a powerful offense.

 

And not using your best arm has a lot less value when he hasn’t pitched in 3 days, and the team only has two more games before an off day. I strike the balance in favor of going for the win when you have a good chance instead of saving the ace reliever for a future chance that might not be coming for several days.

 

As it works out Hader was able to finish this one up without having to deal with the stress of facing the tying run. Perfect. And he should be ready to go tomorrow if the opportunity presents itself.

 

Hope that explains my thinking. If you disagree with it fine.

[sdcheezhd]

I know we should be all positive after a sweep but geez Sam Holbrook behind the plate. You could lip read the Nats guy saying "you f'g suck, you're f-g terrible" before he got tossed and he wasn't wrong. Turner should have been in an 0-2 hole in the 9th never seen one that bad.

[yourout]

Always thought run differential was a reasonably good indicator of success but there's some real upside down numbers in the MLB right now with the Brewers being minus 13 and four games over 500 and Cleveland being -7 and 5 games over.

Meanwhile Houston is plus 48 and only four games over.

Must be the blowouts early in the year still skew the differential.

 

Wonder at the end of the year if it's normally a reasonable indicator of success.

[sveumrules]

Always thought run differential was a reasonably good indicator of success but there's some real upside down numbers in the MLB right now with the Brewers being minus 13 and four games over 500 and Cleveland being -7 and 5 games over.

Meanwhile Houston is plus 48 and only four games over.

Must be the blowouts early in the year still skew the differential.

 

Wonder at the end of the year if it's normally a reasonable indicator of success.

 

By the end of the year it is normally pretty reliable. This early in the season there's still too much noise/not enough sample for it to be the best indicator of future results.

 

Before he got hired by the Rays, Jeff Sullivan wrote an article at FanGraphs examining which of actual 1st half results, pythag (run differential) 1st half results or projected 2nd half results did the best job of predicting actual 2nd half results.

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-best-to-predict-the-seasons-second-half/

 

Even after 80 games (we're still only at 53) the projected 2nd half results still did a better job of predicting the actual 2nd half results than either of 1st half actual or pythag results.

[Lathund]

Run differential is better on average than actual record at predicting rest of season record. But two things to note there; "better" doesn't necessarily mean "good". And that while it will do better on average, it doesn't necessarily translate to individual teams. The teams with the best RDs in the league are probably pretty good, the teams with the worst ones are probably not very good. But beyond that you can't really tell much. Is a team with +30 better than one with +15? Maybe, maybe not. Teams handle leads/deficits differently in terms of pitcher usage, teams use position players differently in blowouts (And blowouts themselves don't really seem to follow baseball logic; like the 2020 Brewers with their bad offense winning 19-0 and 18-3 within the space of one week. And losing 0-12 inbetween), teams have had different schedules and faced different pitchers, rosters change throughout the season and so on and so forth.

 

At this point in the season, projections are still a lot more meaningful than season-to-date stats. Something like BaseRuns, which is to Run Differential what Run Differential is to W-L record is useful too. I think taking all of these things into account, as well as strength of schedule and injury situation is needed really. Any one of them in isolation won't tell you much.

 

Or to get back more specifically to the previous post: At the end of the year, RD does correlate well with W-L record. But there have still been WS winners with negative RD, and teams with superb run differentials that didn't make the playoffs.

 

EDIT: I see sveum beat me to it. And included some actual sources!

[brewmann04]

I have to say that the Crew top 3 Starters can compete with any team staff in the game.

[bm1090]

Always thought run differential was a reasonably good indicator of success but there's some real upside down numbers in the MLB right now with the Brewers being minus 13 and four games over 500 and Cleveland being -7 and 5 games over.

Meanwhile Houston is plus 48 and only four games over.

Must be the blowouts early in the year still skew the differential.

 

Wonder at the end of the year if it's normally a reasonable indicator of success.

 

By the end of the year it is normally pretty reliable. This early in the season there's still too much noise/not enough sample for it to be the best indicator of future results.

 

Before he got hired by the Rays, Jeff Sullivan wrote an article at FanGraphs examining which of actual 1st half results, pythag (run differential) 1st half results or projected 2nd half results did the best job of predicting actual 2nd half results.

 

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-best-to-predict-the-seasons-second-half/

 

Even after 80 games (we're still only at 53) the projected 2nd half results still did a better job of predicting the actual 2nd half results than either of 1st half actual or pythag results.

 

How are the projected 2nd half results calculated? I understand the other variables, but am a bit confused by how that calculation is done. Is it projected 2nd half results from the preseason?

[sveumrules]

From what I understand the 2nd half projected results are determined using a 50/50 split of the Steamer/ZiPS projections, which are updated as the season goes along.

 

As an example, here is how they are projecting rest of season playing time/results for Brewers hitters currently...

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=rfangraphsdc&team=23&lg=all&players=0

[Pugger]

1. Kolten Wong 2B

2. Daniel Vogelbach 1B

3. Christian Yelich LF

4. Avisail Garcia RF

5. Omar Narvaez C

6. Travis Shaw 3B

7. Willy Adames SS

8. Jackie Bradley CF

9. Brandon Woodruff P

 

I hate bumping Adames down. Get your athletes to the top of the lineup. You’re sticking a base clogged in front of one of the best base runners in all of baseball and that simply makes zero sense.

 

Vogelbach, Narvaez and Shaw are pathetically slow. Why move Adames down? CC just has to mess with the line-up daily. I hate that!

 

Yes, what is with that? If you find a lineup that works what is wrong with sticking with it?

[ClosetBrewerFan]

From what I understand the 2nd half projected results are determined using a 50/50 split of the Steamer/ZiPS projections, which are updated as the season goes along.

 

As an example, here is how they are projecting rest of season playing time/results for Brewers hitters currently...

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/projections.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&type=rfangraphsdc&team=23&lg=all&players=0

Thanks for posting this. Its interesting to see what these projections show. If the Brewers analytics are similar, it could explain why they are giving Shaw and Vogelbach a longer leash. It would be hard to find a better alternative if they were to put up a 729 and 775 OPS, respectively, going forward.

 

That Jackie Bradley contract is looking bad though. A 678 OPS going forward would be horrible. Certainly better than the 488 he is putting up now, but wow. Tyrone Taylor projects similar numbers and is a lot cheaper.