Clint Hurdle's quote: importance of pitching and defense

[brettac1]

Sam makes a good point about how the Rockies scored more runs this past year, so it's not like they're all about pitching and defense.

 

Yes, but it's the playoffs, so everything has to be boiled down to those two things. Look at the White Sox of '05 as another example.

 

I do agree that in the playoffs, though, the late inning reliever takes on greater importance than they do in the regular season. Bullpens are a huge, huge part of playoff success. That being said, I'd still rather be the Indians or Red Sox, because I think they have better offenses, and they can both pitch fairly well.

 

I think having great defense, on the other hand, is more beneficial in the regular season, over a long period of time. Obviously, it helps to have a Troy Tulowitzki in the middle of the diamond any time of the season, but over the course of five games defense can't "save" enough runs to make up for a guy that would have a terrible bat and great glove.

[homer]

Nice stud players picked that late. Is that coaching, high altitude, pure luck or something else?

I'm sure Colby or someone else knows better than me, but I'd say having that many low round players not only start but play at darn near All Star levels (MVP in one case) is extremely lucky. Althought the altitude may have something to do with it given their home/road splits.

[bjkrautk]

How about we look at the pitching, and not focus exclusively on defense.

 

The Rockies Bullpen has 5 pitchers who have notched 20+ -save seasons over their careers (Brian Fuentes, LaTroy Hawkins, Matt Herges, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Jorge Julio...the last 2 of which didn't even make the post-season roster). That doesn't even include their current closer: Manny Corpas only finished with 19 saves.

 

When virtually everyone of your go-to guys in the bullpen has closer-type stuff (and experience)...the late innings get a lot easier.

[Fatter than Joey]

BHK = SUK

[RoseBowlMtg]

Wow that is a great stat for relief pitchers. When we hear middle relief is so hard to find Colorado has a bunch of them. Great trade baits I Imagine.

[colbyjack]

Nice stud players picked that late. Is that coaching, high altitude, pure luck or something else?

 

I'm sure Colby or someone else knows better than me, but I'd say having that many low round players not only start but play at darn near All Star levels (MVP in one case) is extremely lucky. Althought the altitude may have something to do with it given their home/road splits.

 

I'm not really sure what the point of RoseBowlMtg's comment was posted in bold just above. The Rockies have done a tremendous job procuring talent the past several years, both via the draft and on the international free agent market (Morales, Jimenez, Corpas). I would give the credit to the organization's scouting dep't. for finding those players and then to the player development staff for making them into big-leaguers.

 

Good point on the bullpen, although Affeldt, Hawkins, Herges and Julio are all going to be FAs (a mutual option on Hawkins, those rarely seem to be picked up), so its not like they have tradable depth.

[brettac1]

Don't forget Speier, too. Not that he has amazing stuff, but he closed for a lot of his minor league career, so he has quite a great deal of experience in higher leverage spots.

[sbrylski]

Sam makes a good point about how the Rockies scored more runs this past year, so it's not like they're all about pitching and defense.

 

Yes, but it's the playoffs, so everything has to be boiled down to those two things. Look at the White Sox of '05 as another example.

I think people are citing an emphasis on defense and pitching as a reason for their regular season success as well. True, but they also improved offensively.

[Fatter than Joey]

True, but they also improved offensively.

 

I never thought I would have seen Willy Taveras used as evidence for this sort of argument http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[MNBrew]

A few responses, to FTJ's comments in #20...

 

#1

me: To connect the Brewers' going downhill and Braun's arrival in the majors is an example of selective, convenient, and misguided reasoning.

 

FTJ: I wish you would elaborate more on this -- Upon Brauns arrival we had an injection of OPS. Why didn't we win more games? -- Lack of defense had a hand in it for certain.

 

ME: I agree that sub-standard defense played a part. But I think shoddy pitching (3 starters w/ 5+ ERAs by season's end; many overworked & ineffective relievers over the 2nd half) and consistently poor clutch hitting played bigger parts.

 

 

#2

me: The pitching went to heck not because of the defense but because the starters pitched generally poorly and inefficiently (high pitch count for low inning totals)

 

FTJ: Perhaps the pitch count/inning rose because our D was making errors, or not making plays they should have? I don't know how a person can look at pitching results (in this case, runs scored) and not take a look at if a pitcher's D helped or hurt his cause.

 

ME: What I'd want to know is the how the rate of change in the fielding percentage correlated to the decline in pitching and clutch hitting. They're all parts of the big picture. Defensive decline didn't help the other areas. However, I just can't imagine the rate of fielding error increase was even close to proportional to the rise in staff ERA (and decline in RISP), which if correct should then disprove all but a small bit of causality.

 

 

#3

me: the bullpen was overused and became very inefficient

 

FTJ: I agree Ned Yost sucks.

 

ME: I talked about the bullpen's overuse, which is bigger than any blame you want to put toward Ned. The dislike of Ned is a very popular point of view on this site. However, in spite of his flaws that must improve, I'm not in that camp.

 

 

#4

me: and because most of the hitters -- especially the veterans!!!!! -- didn't contribute for crap.

 

FTJ: What veterans? -- our lineup and the core thereof, is anchored by our young studs. I certainly can concede some of our vets came up short -- but most of our vets were situational players.

 

ME: What veterans? Jenkins & Mench in LF, Hall in CF, and Estrada at C. That's 3 of the 8 starting positions -- essentially half the vets who underperformed were nearly half the starting position players! That was all the more magnified by the the fact that the bench veterans generally stunk, too.

 

#5

me: To blame the decline largely on the defense is absurd.

 

FTJ: Really? -- "Largely" of course is your word, but if you watched the games, and walk away thinking our defense didn't leave games on the table, I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

 

me: That said, I do completely agree that the defense MUST improve.

 

FTJ: Really? -- It sounds like to me based on your previous statements, the defense wasn't a substantial hurdle this last season, why then MUST our defense improve? -- It looks to me that you want better vet production, and guys like Suppan/Bush/Cappy to decide to quit sucking.

 

ME: I didn't say defense wasn't a substantial hurdle. In essence, though, I did say I didn't think it was the greatest hurdle. The defense still must improve -- yes, it definitely left a few on the table. In my opinion, the bullpen and poor clutch hitting completely blew far more games than the defense, which was my consistent assertion.

[logan82]

I think having great defense, on the other hand, is more beneficial in the regular season, over a long period of time.

I would have guessed the opposite. A good offense can get you through the regular season. I look to the Yankees as an example. I would think that every team that makes the post season has a pretty good offfense and the difference is the defense and pitching. A good offense will face 4th and 5th starters often enough to run up big leads so you can get away with below average pitching and defense. Add to that facing teams with only 1 or 2 quality starters so their 2nd or 3rd starter is also pretty bad and you get a lot of run scoring and wins.

[sbrylski]

I think having great defense, on the other hand, is more beneficial in the regular season, over a long period of time. Obviously, it helps to have a Troy Tulowitzki in the middle of the diamond any time of the season, but over the course of five games defense can't "save" enough runs to make up for a guy that would have a terrible bat and great glove.

 

What if you look at the season in sets of 5 games? If in each set of five games, the better bat is more beneficial than the good glove, why would the cumulative be any different?

[JohnBriggs12]

I still think Braun will improve enough to at least be average defensively at third. Two examples of sluggers at the position that were defensive liabilities when they came up were Eddie Mathews (30 errors in 1953) and Aramis Ramirez (33 errors in 2003). While Mathews will never be compared to Brooks Robinson or Mike Schmidt with the glove, he evolved into a solid guy at the position and so has Ramirez.

 

Braun is certainly athletic enough to handle the position (unlike say Wes Helms for comparison), so the more he plays, the more comfortable he should get. In the meantime, I think the Brewers should avoid stacking their pitching staff with sinkerballers and rag arm type lefties who induce a lot of groundballs to third.

[joepepsi]

The Diamondbacks are very strong in pitching and defense too. In fact they pitched and played defense very well against Colorado and Chicago. Where they are weak is offense. Their offense stinks, and it did all year. In pitching, speed, and defense, both teams were evenly matched and played true to those strengths. The difference was Colorado's superior offense.

 

The Rockies were right to finally realize even in a hitter's park you need good pitching. And Tulowitzki, Matsui, Atkins, and Helton showed what Bill James wrote 20 years ago, much of what appears as good pitching is really good defense. So, strengthening those areas have tremendously helped the Rockies' historic run. But this is also an offense of very good hitters, most of them entering their prime age years.

 

The Brewers allowed only 18 more runs than the Rockies did this year.(776 vs. 758) While I agree they need to tighten up defense, it's questionable how much difference Colorado's "superior" defense really made versus the Brewers "poor" defense. What is true, the Rockies scored a far more runs than the Brewers, 860 vs. 801. If the Brewers allowed 776 runs this year and scored 860 runs they would have easily beat the Cubs, probably manhandled the D-Backs since they did just that during the season, and would be locked in a struggle with Colorado.

 

 

Then the whole nation would be hearing about the miracle kid pitchers, Gallardo and Viily, the vacuum glove of Hardy, the arm of Hart, the Rickey Henderson like play of Weeks, the gritty veteran leadership of Jenkins, who has waited a decade for this chance, the "bloody sock" courage of ailing Ben Sheets, bravely pitching through injury for his team, and the assured HOF careers of Fielder and Braun.

[Fatter than Joey]

The Brewers allowed only 18 more runs than the Rockies did this year.(776 vs. 758)

 

The fact that the Brewers allowed 18 more runs playing predominately at MP says a lot though -- If the Brewers played their home games at Coors, they would have given up a lot more runs.

 

I am not sure you can just look at the runs given up by the Rockies and Brewers and draw a lot of conclusions off of that.

[RoseBowlMtg]

joepepsi interesting take: Here are some numbers:

 

..........................era, runs, earned runs, dif, wins/loss

Colorado in wins: 2.93, 289, 272, 17, 90

Colorado in loss: 6.14, 469, 434, 35, 73

 

Milwaukee in wins: 2.51, 233, 214, 19, 83

Milwaukee in loss: 6.64, 543, 499 , 44, 79

 

So my brilliant observation is if you allow less runs you have a better chance of winning! http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif The Brewers allowed 74 more runs in 6 more games with 44 unearned runs allowed. 9 more unearned runs in losses so how much did that effect the team? 2 wins? Why so many unearned runs in losses? Why such a higher era when you have more unearned runs?

[Thurston Fluff]

the bullpen was overused and became very inefficient

 

Inefficiant yes. Over used? Check the numbers and you wll find that was not the case. They are middle of the pack in innings and no reliever was in the top 15 in innings or appearances. This is something that has become conventional wisdom simply by people repeating it so often. That does not make it true.

 

The defense has contributed to the pitching cproblems but I don't think it's as simple as that. It doesn't account for all the times the fielders did their job and the pitcher still couldn't get anyone out. It certainly doesn't account for Turnbow's wildness or CoCo's inexplicable home/road splits.

 

 

All the more reason to put Gwynn (who's bat I am not a fan of) in CF, Braun in LF and Hall, a middle IF type, at 3b

 

If you wish to go the defense over offense route go with Nix. He's as good defensively and is much better offensively.

 

I'm all about getting better defensively but not at the expense of offensive production. I think we'll find improvement defensively with Hall, Braun and Weeks simply through time. Braun and Weeks do not have a lot of professional baseball time in. It seems longer for Weeks since he's been on the team a couple years. This summer he was around 400 games of pro ball. Prince has more time in proball than Weeks. I think Hall and Hart are going to make a better than average tandum in right and center and left is not really all that important defensively.

I do think Melvin would be better served to consider defense a little more prominantly in the future. If he has an achilles heal it's that.