2022 NL Central Discussion

[Brewcrew82]

46 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I guess you'd have to define "elite". You're picking out a couple of statistics where the Brewers rate high. I focus more on runs allowed than how many strikeouts the pitchers get. To the extent that runs allowed is affected by fielding, so be it. I don't think there's much question that the Cardinals fielding is better than the Brewers, and that helps their pitching. But, at this point in the season the Brewers and Cardinals are virtually even in runs allowed per game. Whether they're preventing runs with pitching or fielding is immaterial to me.

On a couple of your other points:

1. I am not "assuming" that O'Neill and Flaherty are going to return and play at an All Star level. You're adding that word. But, they are players who could provide positive contributions.

2. I also am not "assuming" that the Cardinal rookies will continue to outpace the best Brewers hitters. If you want to disagree with me, please react to what I actually said, not your twisting of it. I referred to how the Brewers hitters have performed individually the last month. If you haven't  done that, maybe you should. It would illustrate why the Brewers offensive problems have come from more than injuries.

3. I am not "assuming" that Woodruff will be as mediocre the rest of the season as he has been so far. But it wouldn't be the first time that a pitcher with high expectations had an off season. I remember guys like Nola and Giolito last year.

4. On Peralta, I heard what Counsell said. When I hear that a pitcher will be out for a "significant amount of time" with no timeline for when he will be back, and that "we expect him back this year", my experience with this kind of "manager speak" is that the player may or may not be back this season but they aren't going to rule it out yet. So, while I'm not "assuming" that Peralta will not pitch again this season, I'm not going to be surprised if he doesn't. In its most optimistic presentation, Peralta will at some point begin soft tossing, then throwing a little farther, then throwing a few pitches off a mound, then pitching to hitters, then going on rehab for a few starts, and then maybe returning to the big club. If there are no setbacks at all that process will take a few months when it starts, and we haven't heard anything about it. What the Brewers said about Peralta is very similar to what the Mets said about deGrom last June. Keep in mind that this is the same organization that wasn't sure Adames would need to go on the IL when he first got hurt and now he's been out for 3 weeks. I'm sure they will be very cautious with Peralta.

Are you saying ranking 2nd or 1st in these categories isn't elite? Cause if that's not elite, then elite doesn't exist. And you asked about the Brewers' pitching being elite, not their "run prevention". Nor am I "cherrypicking" stats where the Brewers rate high. These stats (WAR, FIP, K/9 etc.) are as fundamental to modern-day pitching as it gets. I know you're not fond of these "newer statistics" but even by the traditional ERA measure the Brewers are 6th in MLB while the Cardinals are in the middle tier. 

If you see me assuming the best in the Brewers while assuming the worst in the Cardinals, I certainly see you doing the reverse. 

42 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Last season is last season.

I look at the projection models for entertainment, but I don't treat them as true probabilities as many others do. If they were that accurate this early in the season the Mets and Padres would have been fighting it out in the playoffs last year and the Braves would have been sitting home.

They're definitely nowhere near perfect, but they're as good and as all-inclusive as it gets at this early stage in the season, particularly when both rosters have changed relatively little over the past year. The Cardinals certainly didn't make any earth-shattering additions like they did the previous offseason in Arenado (not that the Brewers did either). And it remains to be seen how long their rookies can continue at this pace, as well as whether or not guys like O'Neill, Carlson, and Flaherty can return from injury and be productive. I certainly have my doubts with at least some of these guys. 

I do agree with you in that the division race this year is likely to be closer than it was last year, simply because the Brewers' running away with the division last year was so out of the norm historically and because the Cardinals seem to be more like their September selves than I initially thought.

 

[BruisedCrew]

21 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

I do agree with you in that the division race this year is likely to be closer than it was last year, simply because the Brewers' running away with the division last year was so out of the norm historically and because the Cardinals seem to be more like their September selves than I initially thought.

 

This is probably a good jumping off point because that is my main point. I think the Cardinals are better than experts and preseason projections expected and that the division race is likely to be close unless there are significant developments in the future like major, long term injuries or significant acquisitions before the trading deadline. If the Cardinals pick up Juan Soto as a rental that would change the picture.

 

[nate82]

Just now, BruisedCrew said:

This is probably a good jumping off point because that is my main point. I think the Cardinals are better than experts and preseason projections expected and that the division race is likely to be close unless there are significant developments in the future like major, long term injuries or significant acquisitions before the trading deadline. If the Cardinals pick up Juan Soto as a rental that would change the picture.

 

The Nationals will not be trading Soto and he wouldn't be a rental.  Basically to get Soto the Cardinals would have to trade Arenado, Goldschmidt, Flaherty, and their top 50 prospects all of them.  

[BruisedCrew]

33 minutes ago, nate82 said:

The Nationals will not be trading Soto and he wouldn't be a rental.  Basically to get Soto the Cardinals would have to trade Arenado, Goldschmidt, Flaherty, and their top 50 prospects all of them.  

My mistake.  I know the Nats have said that they wouldn't trade Soto but I thought he had turned down a long term contract offer from them.

So, scratching that as an example, the point still remains that moves made in July (by either team) could significantly change the outlook for the division race

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

The Cardinals are not an especially deep team, and they are old as well. They are currently getting several performances that defy projections and expectations of those players. I expect injuries to hit some of those older performers soon enough, and a few of the guys who are tearing the cover off the ball will come back down to earth. 

O'Neil was looking terrible before he got hurt. Not sure if he had some sort of nagging thing that was affecting his performance or not, but I don't know if it is necessarily safe to assume that he will look like last year's version when he comes back. His all-or-nothing approach already made him a prime negative regression candidate this season. It is simply possible that, like Hiura, the league has adjusted, and what we are seeing now is close to what he truly is.

[Brewcrew82]

6 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

The Cardinals are not an especially deep team, and they are old as well. They are currently getting several performances that defy projections and expectations of those players. I expect injuries to hit some of those older performers soon enough, and a few of the guys who are tearing the cover off the ball will come back down to earth. 

O'Neil was looking terrible before he got hurt. Not sure if he had some sort of nagging thing that was affecting his performance or not, but I don't know if it is necessarily safe to assume that he will look like last year's version when he comes back. His all-or-nothing approach already made him a prime negative regression candidate this season. It is simply possible that, like Hiura, the league has adjusted, and what we are seeing now is close to what he truly is.

People like to talk about the lack of star hitting power on this team compared to the Cardinals, but Adames' Statcast numbers this year are virtually identical to Goldschmidt's and largely better than Arenado's. Plus, Adames plays the premium defensive position on the infield quite well. I'm NOT saying that Adames is better than those guys (they are both likely future Hall of Famers), but it is quite interesting nevertheless.

In addition, after a blazing start in April, Arenado has cooled off and is hitting more in line with his expected numbers. Meanwhile, as a result of his insane hot streak, Goldschmidt has significantly surpassed his expected stats. So, Goldschmidt will likely start to cool off soon, and the Cardinals will have to fill that lost production somewhere else to keep winning at their current rate. They are unlikely to get that from their three rookies, who are also currently hitting way above expectations, nor can they expect to get it from 40 year olds such as Pujols and Molina. That narrows the pool of candidates to O'Neill and Carlson, who are both due to return from injury soon. O'Neill's problem, as you say, is his huge swing and miss tendencies which bear a striking resemblance to those of Hiura. Last year, he was able to combat this by hitting the ball extremely hard when he did make contact. However, this year, his hard-hit percentage has taken a nose dive, which has led to him being statistically one of the worst position players in baseball, even worse than Lorenzo Cain by bWAR. That is a huge problem for the Cardinals, and one I'm not sure is easily rectified.

[homer]

As bad as it's been for the Brewers, it could have been worse:

 

[BruisedCrew]

5 hours ago, homer said:

As bad as it's been for the Brewers, it could have been worse:

 

I don’t think this is completely accurate because the Reds beat the DBacks on Monday and Tuesday before losing the last two games of that series. Maybe he means that the 5 division teams have a combined 17 games of losing streaks, with the Brewers leading the way with their 6 game streak, the Reds 2 games, and the others 3 each. 
 

The overall point is fair. The division teams are having a bad week.

For the Brewers, they are still clinging to their 1/2 game division lead, but more important is that their recent slide, combined with winning streaks by the Braves and Phillies, has dramatically tightened up the race for the NL playoff spots. The Brewers are now only 1.5 games ahead of the Braves and 4 games ahead of the Phillies, who are currently sitting in the 7th and 8th spots. Those margins were 8.5 and 10.5 games just last week. 

[sveumrules]

On May 30th FanGraphs had the NLC Division Odds at MIL 85.7% and STL 14.1%.

Today, after going 2-10 on their last dozen games, FanGraphs has the NLC Division Odds at MIL 61.6% and STL 38.0%.

[Brewcrew82]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

On May 30th FanGraphs had the NLC Division Odds at MIL 85.7% and STL 14.1%.

Today, after going 2-10 on their last dozen games, FanGraphs has the NLC Division Odds at MIL 61.6% and STL 38.0%.

Such a long season. While our losing streak was obviously less than ideal, the people who were already declaring the season over were not speaking from reality. We're basically in the same position we were in last year, when we won 95 games despite a late-season tailspin. 

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Such a long season. While our losing streak was obviously less than ideal, the people who were already declaring the season over were not speaking from reality. We're basically in the same position we were in last year, when we won 95 games despite a late-season tailspin. 

Yeah, after 62 games last year the Brewers were 35-27 (one game ahead of this year) & FanGraphs had the division odds at MIL 57.5% | CHI (who were also 35-27) 26.6% | STL (32-30) 9.6% | CIN (29-31) 6.3%.

[Jim French Stepstool]

On 6/7/2022 at 8:00 AM, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

The Cardinals are not an especially deep team, and they are old as well. They are currently getting several performances that defy projections and expectations of those players. I expect injuries to hit some of those older performers soon enough, and a few of the guys who are tearing the cover off the ball will come back down to earth. 

 

I think the above is an outstanding point. I recently brought up the fact that they had three recent callups, all of whom were productive offensively w/o having had a taste of the bigs before. And, if WE had three key performers around 40 yr old I'm sure there would be some on this board pulling the sky down over everyones' head regarding that.

This isn't to say the Brewers are in terrific shape, just to point out they don't necessarily have to see everything fall into place perfectly to win the division.

[BruisedCrew]

13 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

the people who were already declaring the season over were not speaking from reality.

Neither were the people who were declaring that Attanasio should do something along the lines of firing Counsell. 

[Lathund]

Looking at Statcasts xwOBA (i.e quality of contact + strikeouts + walks), the Cardinals rank 22nd for pitching and 23rd for hitting. Brewers rank 7th and 13th respectively. Looking at other predictive pitching metrics, Cardinals rank 22nd in xFIP- (Brewers 2nd), 25th by SIERA (Brewers 3rd). "But their defense!!11!!" you say; well, by DRS the Cardinals rank 10th, by UZR 11th, by OAA 13th, by defensive efficiency 11th. That's solidly above average, but not the kind of defense that can make up for bad pitching. 

Point is, they're not a great team. We're still at a point of the season where projections are much better than season-to-date W/L at predicting rest of season performances, and the underlying metrics all line up with the projections still. Given somewhat similar luck with injuries, sequencing etc. Brewers will be the better team RoS, of that I have very little doubt. Now will that randomness/luck factor actually be even? Remains to be seen. But I also think that it's easier to improve at DH, CF (At least from the current level of performance...) and middle relief like the Brewers need to, than it is at catcher or in the rotation like the Cardinals do. 

[BruisedCrew]

Before I can get too excited about advanced metrics and projections I need to see if the Brewers can actually escape the funk that produced losing 10 of 12 games. One win over the Nationals, as welcome as it was, doesn’t do that. 
 

In the short term the Brewers next two weeks include 6 games against the Mets and Blue Jays, two very good teams, 4 against the Cardinals, and 3 against the Reds, who aren’t the pushovers that they seemed to be when they started 3-22. Without some improvements in all areas things could get ugly really fast. On the other hand, winning 6 or 7 of these games (including at least 2 against the Cardinals) would be a vast improvement over the previous two weeks. 
 

Tim Muma’s latest article about Burnes, Lauer, and Houser pinpoints something that has to change, and quickly, if the Brewers are going to avoid sinking further. 
 

The daily snapshot of the Brewers position relative to last season may look similar. But the forward looking picture without Peralta and Woodruff is a lot more cloudy. And I wouldn’t count on the Cardinals folding up and going away like the Cubs did last year. 

[Brewcrew82]

Apparently Yadier Molina is all-powerful, getting the on-field umps to call a balk 5 mins after the fact on a non-reviewable play. And, of course, it leads to a run. What garbage from a garbage player/umpiring crew. 

[BruisedCrew]

Goldschmidt took a day off Sunday and now he’s back with a vengeance. 3 HRs in 3 games (so far) as the Cards look to pad their division lead with a 4 game sweep against the Pirates.  
 

Flaherty will be making his first start tomorrow. 
 

If the Brewers don’t figure something out soon the Cardinals might do what the Brewers did last June: go from second place to an 8 game lead in the division in two weeks. 

[BruisedCrew]

Make that 4 HR and 9 RBI for Goldschmidt in the Pirates series, and todays second game is only in the second inning. 

[djoctagone]

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 minute ago, djoctagone said:

 

Woof. That's a lot of lost production. Excuse me while I show absolutely no sympathy whatsoever.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Woof. That's a lot of lost production. Excuse me while I show absolutely no sympathy whatsoever.

Who exactly feels bad in this situation? Players have known since before the season began they have to be vaccinated or quarantine upon arrival in Canada. The Cardinals certainly know who their vaccinated employees are.
Moreover, the Cards beat writers being in the clubhouse have likely known since spring training which players are vaccinated and who isn’t. 
 

Maybe some kids are heartbroken realizing not all pro athletes are great humans and team first guys, otherwise who cares?

[Brock Beauchamp]

2 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Who exactly feels bad in this situation? Players have known since before the season began they have to be vaccinated or quarantine upon arrival in Canada. The Cardinals certainly know who their vaccinated employees are.
Moreover, the Cards beat writers being in the clubhouse have likely known since spring training which players are vaccinated and who isn’t. 

Maybe some kids are heartbroken realizing not all pro athletes are great humans and team first guys, otherwise who cares?

My point is that I'm totally okay with St Louis going into a tough series minus their two best hitters in an unforced error.

[Jopal78]

8 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

My point is that I'm totally okay with St Louis going into a tough series minus their two best hitters in an unforced error.

I guess my point is: is it an unforced error? Certainly the Cardinals know their schedule before the season starts and who is unvaccinated.

Every team that goes to Toronto has players who stay in the US. I’m sure the Brewers would be no different. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

35 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

I guess my point is: is it an unforced error? Certainly the Cardinals know their schedule before the season starts and who is unvaccinated.

Every team that goes to Toronto has players who stay in the US. I’m sure the Brewers would be no different. 

The Cardinals don’t get to choose their schedule and they can’t choose whether their already-rostered players decide to get vaccinated.

It’s an unforced error in the sense the players could have chosen to become vaccinated at any point and did not do so. 

[Jopal78]

9 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

The Cardinals don’t get to choose their schedule and they can’t choose whether their already-rostered players decide to get vaccinated.

It’s an unforced error in the sense the players could have chosen to become vaccinated at any point and did not do so. 

Obviously the players don’t really care or they would have chosen to get vaccinated, so I still don’t understand the “unforced error” here? 
 

I think the “unforced error” comment is really just throwing a dig at their vaccination status, which at this point in time, who cares anymore what athletes are vaxxed and not. I can guarantee you I’m not going to get Covid from either Goldschmidt or Arenado.