Article on Team Defense

[homer]

Not surprisingly, the Brewers are among the bottom 5 teams in all the majors in three of four categories mentioned:

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/7168142

[HebrewHammer]

Our defense is just a killer. Last night we dropped a ball in the outfield and that basically cost us the game.

 

Many people only look at errors for bad defense. That's hardly the case. Errors are total and complete defensive failures. Bad defense is not turning the double play as much, not stopping more infield hits, covering less outfield and not being able to throw guys out. We're not very good at any of these usually and it kills us.

 

If we had an average defense we'd be among the top teams in the NL right now.

[bigbrewkahuna]

What I don't like is that the future "core" of this team are the ones that are mainly responsible for this mess.

[HebrewHammer]

What I don't like is that the future "core" of this team are the ones that are mainly responsible for this mess.

They're young though. They can only get better.

It's not the time to start hating on this young group of guys. Between Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Braun and Hart, we have 5 young guys who are very talented and should get better with more time.

 

Really, we just need a catcher. It's plainly obvious why the Brewers were able to get Estrada. We all thought a ".300 stick for a catcher, not bad". But his OBP is a point higher it seems, he can't run, doesn't throw anyone out and doesn't really call too good a game. In short, he sucks. And he's not young. He needs to be DFA'd or traded to a bad team.

 

But our young guys should get better. Weeks is already covering more field and failing a lot less. Hardy has been a little disappointment. Braun is simply going to have to improve a lot. Hart is OK. They can only get better in every facet of the game.

 

 

 

[homer]

The other thing is that even if the young defense only marginally improves, if the young offense improves and scores 6 runs a game the fielding woes won't matter so much. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[rluzinski]

Melvin has put little emphasis on defense during is tenure, so this is what you get. At least it's young players with the bad defense, since they can still improve.

[Ennder]

It's plainly obvious why the Brewers were able to get Estrada. We all thought a ".300 stick for a catcher, not bad". But his OBP is a point higher it seems, he can't run, doesn't throw anyone out and doesn't really call too good a game. In short, he sucks. And he's not young. He needs to be DFA'd or traded to a bad team

 

He calls a pretty normal game, his arm is poor though. This is his worst season where he was healthy and Melvin really cannot know that ahead of time. Just curious if he was sitting at a .775 OPS would everyone still hate him? He's played four full time seasons now, two of which he posted a .770+ OPS, one of which he played hurt for half the season and then this year where he has struggled offensively like half the team has.

 

His defense is way overemphasized, going from Estrada to Miller is a very small gain in defensive efficiency. Neither one of them are strong defensive C's but neither is terrible either, they both have noodle arms at this point in their careers.

 

The teams ERA is basically the same with both of them. Miller has a much worse PB+WP ratio than Estrada does, Estrada being average and Miller well below average. Miller has allowed more SB/G than Estrada but Estrada's CS% is criminal at just 9%, Millers is poor as well at 23%. Both of them fall in the bottom half of C's defensively, but neither would rate in the bottom 1/3 most likely.

[brettac1]

Johnny Estrada has a .298 OBP right now, and yes Melvin should have seen that coming. He has had one season with an above average OBP, not to mention he was a 30 year old catcher when he was acquired. That's not to say Miller is a better alternative, though, because he isn't really.

[logan82]

I was looking at just errors last week and if we replaced Braun with an average fielding 3B we would drop 12 errors and be about in the middle of the pack in tha NL. With Hall getting better and Hart in tha OF iI believe we cover decent ground in the OF and have good arms. I think Jenkins is pretty good and has a really good arm. We are weak at the corners in the IF. Weeks is slightly below average and Hardy is just average this year. I would expect an improvement from all of our infielders next year.

[Ennder]

Johnny Estrada has a .298 OBP right now, and yes Melvin should have seen that coming. He has had one season with an above average OBP, not to mention he was a 30 year old catcher when he was acquired. That's not to say Miller is a better alternative, though, because he isn't really.

Not true, he has 1 year with a below average OBP for a C and that year he was hurt half the season and played through it because they were in a playoff race. The average C has a .316 OBP this season in the NL.

 

If Estrada was sitting at even a .750 OPS like Melvin expected out of him he'd be an above average C overall on the season, even with the defesne. The problem is he has not hit well since the all star break, something that can be said about a lot of players on this team.

[crewcrazy]

Estrada's never really been the same ever since Darin Erstad's nasty collision with him at home plate a few years ago. That was one of the worst collisions I've ever seen at home plate, and I remember there being genuine concern for Estrada's health after that hit.

 

Regardless, his offensive numbers this year have been a disappointment, but I guess we should've expected a bit of a drop with him moving out of Chase Field and into a more neutral hitting ballpark like MP.