Impact of losing Sheets apparently greater than Cubs lose of Soriano...

[BREWCREW5]

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070807&content_id=2134636&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

 

Apparently the NL scout doesnt know who Yo is...Prepare to be annoyed.

[SeriesFinale]

I wouldn't disagree with him

[AJAY]

I am pretty sure that if Sheets were in the rotation and Gallardo was available in the bullpen, we probably don't blow some of those big leads recently. Gallardo has done great in the rotation, but now the bullpen is a mess.

 

It seems like every year when Sheets goes down, there is such a huge ripple effect on this the pitching staff. It goes beyond the starters.

[Brian the Automator]

Ok, so maybe the Cubs have a player to take over the leadoff spot, that's fine... but telling me that replacing the 2nd or 3rd best offensive weapon in the lineup isn't a big deal is ludicrous.

 

It's not as big a blow as Sheets just because he was our best pitcher and the length of time he's been out, but it's still a really big hit.

[splitterpfj]

I'll reserve judgement on this until I see how the Cubs do. If they lose a bunch of low scoring games, like the one they had last night, the loss of Soriano will obviously be a factor.

[hauser42]

Sheets is a bigger loss. Very few teams can loose their top pitcher and not feel the effect. This would be like the Cubs losing Z.

 

Soriano loss is replaced because the have options in the OF to replace him.

[Klements Bratwurst]

Ok, so maybe the Cubs have a player to take over the leadoff spot, that's fine... but telling me that replacing the 2nd or 3rd best offensive weapon in the lineup isn't a big deal is ludicrous.

 

It's not as big a blow as Sheets just because he was our best pitcher and the length of time he's been out, but it's still a really big hit.

 

I would second this, because we could still have Yo in the bullpen resting his arm and not running out of innings to throw in 2007. I am afraid we will be Yo-less in September when Sheets returns and that is a big loss.

[Fatter than Joey]

Yeah --- I think any team would probably rather lose Sorianos all day long rather than their Sheets.

 

Once Yo hits his limit -- our Aciness ratio will take a nosedive.

[brewcrewkid14]

I think that there is an advantage to losing a pitcher in a season as long as a few things fall into place (i.e. they return that season, performance not effected, etc.).

 

The Brewers are going to have a 100% strong pitcher for the last month of the season. Yeah Soriano will be pretty rested too, but I think fatigue for a pitcher has more of an effect than it does for a hitter (not saying that there isn't an effect from fatigue for a hitter).

[logan82]

Sheets is pretty good at giving you 7+ innings on a regular basis. Gallardo is only going 6 most of the time. This taxes our bullpen and has a cumulative effect. I know it is hard to quantify, but I think our bullpen would be much better rested now if we hadn't lost Sheets. Also we could have had Gallardo for September and the playoffs, now he will be at his innings limit and more than likley shut down by mid Sepember. To me the loss of Sheets is more replacing Gallardo starts with Vargas starts late in the year.

[Rorschach88]

I think that there is an advantage to losing a pitcher in a season as long as a few things fall into place (i.e. they return that season, performance not effected, etc.).

Plus the fact that losing a pitcher only means your team is affected every 5 or so games, when with losing a positional player, especially someone like Soriano who will play almost every single day. Plus if the cubs have the depth like that article says, then why aren't they bringing Pie back up? Instead they're bringing up a second baseman to play outfeild.

[bbrauch2000]

In Rob Neyer's blog, he said something to the effect that the loss of Soriano wont be enough to hold onto the Cubs as long as we continue to throw homer-prone Claudio Vargas out there every 5 days................

[monty57]

Sheets is pretty good at giving you 7+ innings on a regular basis. Gallardo is only going 6 most of the time. This taxes our bullpen and has a cumulative effect. I know it is hard to quantify, but I think our bullpen would be much better rested now if we hadn't lost Sheets. Also we could have had Gallardo for September and the playoffs, now he will be at his innings limit and more than likley shut down by mid Sepember. To me the loss of Sheets is more replacing Gallardo starts with Vargas starts late in the year.

Agreed, and I'll try to quantify it somewhat. The Brewers' starters this season have pitched 674.1 out of 1020 total innings. That's 66.11% of the innings this season. In other words, on average the bullpen has had to pitch 33% of the innings, or three innings for each game. Currently, Cordero, Shouse, Turnbow, Villanueva and Wise are on pace for 70-80 appearances each this season. That means they all throw just about every other game, which leads to a lot of dead arms, and it means that, in order to give some of the guys rest, Yost has been forced to throw the "25th man" out there in tight situations far too often this season.

 

I normally would be happy that the staff has some pitchers who haven't gotten injured and have routinely put up 5-6 inning starts. However, that's what the Brewers get every night... 5-6 innings. They never have anyone pitch over 6 innings. When they try, they get shelled in the 7th. The last time someone pitched eight effective innings (Vargas), he was so tired five days later that he could only go 2.2 innings. He did go seven two days ago, which helped the pen, but he gave up 6 ER early, and the Brewers were never in the game.

 

If you can have someone go 7+ innings even once every time through the rotation, it reduces the strain on the bullpen, and helps keep the bullpen from blowing up. Sheets was someone who could do that. Unfortunately the rest of the Brewers' starters have not been able to do that this season. In the last 50 starts, going back to the beginning of June the current starters (non-Sheets) have had eight starts that went 7+ innings.

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Until the Brewers starters can begin putting together some 7-8 inning starts on a somewhat routine basis (even 1-2 times through a 5 man rotation), we will continue to lose games that we "should have won." We can't rely on three different bullpen arms to be "on" every night.

 

So, since it doesn't appear anyone's going to step up and fill this role until Sheets comes back, I'd say that losing Sheets has had a much more detrimental effect on the Brewers as a whole than losing Soriano will have on the Cubs.

[HebrewHammer]

Everyone said before the year this team goes with Sheets. Your Ace carries your team. The Cubs got a whole lot better when Zambrano started pitching well. the whole team improved because you have that confidence constant.

[samwise]

We can't rely on three different bullpen arms to be "on" every night.

 

I agree 100%, yet it seems everyone (myself included) does it every night.

 

I think the injury to Soriano really cooled off a white hot team, the Sheets injury has plunged our team into a pitching/bullpen mini-crisis.(I won't say full blown meltdown, we are still in 1st place, and the bats have gone soft) But my gut feeling is that the teams will be on pretty equal footing when both return. This is not ideal for us, because we were so far ahead, but that is all you can ask for. I think that how each player does when they return will be the diffrence maker. Wow, I am really going out there on a limb huh.

[Bring Back the Stein]

Does anyone really believe that Sheets is going to come back healthy and be able to contribute the way he had been? I, for one, do not. Would like to-would LOVE to-but I think he is what he is: A talented pitcher prone to injury.

[Ennder]

The Cubs were 5-5 in their last 10 games when Soriano went down, they were not white hot.

 

The injury to Sheets is probably a good thing for 2008 since its not really a long term pitching related problem. I was more worried that his arm would blow up from over use after missing back to back half seasons.

 

Injury prone is a pretty silly tag in general so I won't go into that one again.

[Bring Back the Stein]

I don't think it's silly at all to term "injury prone" a pitcher with a big curve ball who has a tear in his middle finger, who relies on power and has back problems and shoulder problems and that a pitcher of any kind has inner ear problems. How many times on the DL do you have to be to be injury prone? Pedro is on the DL every year. I think he's injury prone. I also think he's a great pitcher.

[Diskono]

Does anyone really believe that Sheets is going to come back healthy and be able to contribute the way he had been? I, for one, do not. Would like to-would LOVE to-but I think he is what he is: A talented pitcher prone to injury.

 

I don't think he's ever given us a reason not to believe that he can come back. He may need a rehab start in AAA, but I'm sure he'll be fine.

[uecker9]

Haven't we been down this road before?

[Bring Back the Stein]

Unfortunately, too many times.

[Thurston Fluff]

This is just an observation but I think the Cubs are more of an emotional team that can ride highs higher but lows effect them more than the Brewers. Pinnella is an emotional guy and so are some of the key players. Those types of teams don't handle big blows as well as even keeled teams do. Sheets loss is a physical one Soriano's is a phycological one. I have to think that Sheets loss not only has a ripple effect by the loss of a good bullpen arm to the rotation but he was also the only one who could be expected to go deep in every game he pitched. That lack of deep starts is really taxing the Brewers now.

[Ennder]

Unfortunately, too many times.

I dunno, people called Jenkins injury prone too, people call Halladay injury prone. I guess if you are using the term very loosely anyone who gets hurt twice within a couple years is injury prone. Thats simply not how I use the word. Injury prone is someone who has a chronic condition that comes up time and time again. Weeks wrist acts up next year and he gets the label from me. Harden, Wood, Prior... constantly hurt and in the same exact areas, that to me is injury prone. Maybe a guy like J.D. Drew when it gets to be 5 or 6 straight years with an injury too I guess. Sheets isn't quite there, he's been sick a couple times and had two injuries in 7 years, to me thats not prone.

 

But I guess that is why i wasn't going to get into it.

[samwise]

The Cubs were 5-5 in their last 10 games when Soriano went down, they were not white hot.

 

I guess I meant in the month of July they were hot, 17-9, but yeah they had cooled down before he was hurt.

[Oldcity]

I don't like how that author made it seem like it didn't matter that Soriano is out, but I definitely agree that the Brewers losing Sheets is a tougher blow than the Cubs losing Soriano.