Boston Globe likes the Brewers

[pete]

Ennder, if you look at what I wrote, I don't think you really addressed it. If anything you confirmed my impressions.

 

But forget that. Are you able to describe Cappy's skillset? Not statistically, but description.

 

I'd add that your "safe assumption" is highly debatable. The absolute best statistic for defense is runs allowed and the Brewers had 776 (IIRC) and I believe that would put them right about the middle in the NL. It is a statistic that rates pitching and defense simultaneously. If the defense was terrible or horrid or putrid or atrocious it would mean that the pitching was very, very good.

[TooLiveBrew]

But forget that. Are you able to describe Cappy's skillset? Not statistically, but description.

 

Lemme guess... you are! Thank goodness!

But hey, you were claiming that scrappy Cappy wasn't hit hard and that raw data openly admits to not giving that information, so what good is that? Heck, if you said you like him as a player and your impression was this and that, it would work for me. Its not like you or I are going to affect the decisions of the team or his performance.

 

Well, all you're doing is making some random recollection of what you believe happened, so I have no reason to believe the video observation isn't much more accurate.

[pete]

But forget that. Are you able to describe Cappy's skillset? Not statistically, but description.

 

 

 

 

Lemme guess... you are! Thank goodness!

 

lol... actually I didn't and I wasn't planning on it. Why don't you give it a shot?

But hey, you were claiming that scrappy Cappy wasn't hit hard and that raw data openly admits to not giving that

information, so what good is that? Heck, if you said you like him as a player and your impression was this and that, it would work for me. Its not like you or

I are going to affect the decisions of the team or his performance.

 

 

 

 

Well, all you're doing is making some random recollection of what you believe happened, so I have no reason to believe the video observation isn't much

more accurate.

 

The video observation doesn't claim to report the information!! That's a low threshold for accuracy.

[TooLiveBrew]

lol... actually I didn't and I wasn't planning on it. Why don't you give it a shot?

 

So, if you're not capable of providing an answer, why the taunt at Ennder?

the video observation doesn't claim to report the information!! That's a low threshold for accuracy.

 

It's much more accurate than, 'Hey! I remember...' Are you really attempting to claim that your/anyone's personal recollection is better than analyzing pitch by pitch?

[Ennder]

Can you really look at this month to month and make a blanket statement that he has stunk since mid 2006? I don't think that is really a fair thing to say at all. In fact it was mostly August that killed his season last year. In fact before the game he got hurt in and went on the DL he was sitting at a 3.80 ERA last year with better peripherals than his career rates and that was 1/3 of the way into the season.

It was mostly August... and July... and June.

 

And holy small sample size - month-by-month? I'm saying that if you look at his 1.5 season trends here, he had one 1.5 season stretch (2005-1st half of 2006) where he was pretty darn good and now one 1.5 season stretch (2nd half of 2006 - present) which was Obermueller-esque.

 

Actually it wasn't July as I said his peripherals were exactly what was expected but the ERA was just high (a very shaky stat to judge a pitcher on over a small sample). It was one start in June (the start he left with an injury mind you) and August that made his stats worse than 2006. My point is even within that 1.5 year sample you gave he was very good for big stretches of it. Does that really point to a pitcher that had problems ever since the middle of 2006 like you suggest? I don't think it does at all.

 

As for Pete, your question doesn't matter for Capuano and to be honest BIS now designates liners seperately anyway. If everything about Capuano has remained the same between 2005 and 2007 and the only thing that has changed is his singles rate that pretty clearly shows that he wasn't just being hit harder. Unless you really think they hit him harder but it didnt' show up at all in GB% or ISO (extra base hits against). They hit him a ton harder but it all happened to be singles? I don't think so.

 

The Brewers defense is bad according to plus/minus, according to DER, according to PMR, according to OOZ and PIZ, according to MGL, and according to anyone who watched a big chunk of Brewer games last year. I didn't realize there was still someone out there that didn't think our defense was bad last year.

[crewcuts]

It is mostly based on the fact thatt the only thing that has changed in his skillset between 2005 and 2007 was the number of singles he gave up. K rate, BB rate, GB%, ISO, HR/9 etc all stayed the same, the number of singles he gave up went up and nothing else. Couple that with the fact the Brewers had the 3rd worst defense in the NL statistically last year and it seems like a pretty safe assumption to make.

 

2006 looked like the year he really stepped up because his BB rate went way down but now it just sort of looks like an outlier. 2005 and 2007 are almost statistical mirror images other than BABIP, in fact 2007 is probably slightly better than 2005.

The defense played a big part last year but we haven't looked at the inherited runners scored stats of our bullpen last season...I know that while Turnbow was pretty effective starting an inning often times, he had an awful year with inherited runners...Don't know the numbers across the board for the bullpen, but that is an ERA killer for the starters. I believe the stat I read was that in the 16 times T-Bow came in with runners on base, 14 times runners scored..I'm not picking on Turnbow, I still think he has value. But am curious about the rest of the bullpen..

 

[Ennder]

Capuano did get hurt by the bullpen last year for sure, 16 of the 25 runners inherited against him were let in. Part of the problem with that is he left a lot of games early so he got some pretty shaky RP's coming in after him.

[crewcuts]

Couple that with the amount of singles given up (only 3 teams allowed more) and you can argue (not conclude) that the defense contributed it's share to the inflated ERAs. This would also negatively influence a ground ball pitcher more than a fly ball pitcher..Not defending or promoting Capuano, just have to look at the variables out of his control before making hard and fast conclusions.

[Ennder]

I think it hurts marginal pitchers more than good pitchers is the key. A guy like Capuano puts a lot of guys on base and gives up a good number of extra base hits. That is the kind of skilset that will get hurt quite a bit by extra singles here and there. Someone like Sheets who doesn't let very many guys on isn't hurt nearly as much by fluctuations.

 

That is part of why ace type pitchers have relatively stable ERA's year to year and 2nd and 3rd tier starters are all over the place. The more runners you put on the more chances to get hurt or helped by 'bad luck or variance' or whatever you want to call it.

[don1481]

Actually it wasn't July as I said his peripherals were exactly what was expected but the ERA was just high (a very shaky stat to judge a pitcher on over a small sample). It was one start in June (the start he left with an injury mind you) and August that made his stats worse than 2006. My point is even within that 1.5 year sample you gave he was very good for big stretches of it. Does that really point to a pitcher that had problems ever since the middle of 2006 like you suggest? I don't think it does at all.

On that note, let's review his July:

2 "good" starts (7/18 and 7/23)

3 "not-so-good" starts (7/8, 7/13, 7/28)

1 "inconclusive" start (7/3)

Since you've conceded August, let's go right on ahead to June:

1 "good" start

1 "inconclusive" start

And May:

2 "good" starts (5/7, 5/28)

3 "not-so-good" starts (5/13, 5/18, 5/23)

and of course, 1 "inconclusive" start (5/2)

That's 3 months right there that Capuano was not exactly very good. I'm excluding June since he was injured.

 

And let's review the second half of 2006:

 

July (post-All Star Break):

2 "good" starts (7/21, 7/31)

2 "not-so-good" starts (7/15, 7/26)

 

August:

4 "good" starts (8/11, 8/16, 8, 22, 8/27)

1 "not-so-good" start (8/6)

 

September:

3 "good" starts (9/1, 9/6, 9/18)

3 "not-so-good" starts (9/13, 9/23, 9/29)

 

Let's be honest, if the Brewers are to compete this year, they need a more consistently-good effort out of their starting pitching. And for the past season and a half now, Capuano has failed to answer the bell start in and start out. And the Brewers can ill-afford to throw him in the rotation with the hopes that he'll do better overall.

 

It's maddening seeing Capuano have good games and then a bunch of bad ones. But, unfortunately, it emphasizes his overall inconsistency. And that is why it'd be a gamble to put him into the rotation.

 

EDIT:

 

A guy like Capuano puts a lot of guys on base and gives up a good number of extra base hits.

And this pretty much supports my point as to why having him in the rotation is not a good idea.

[TooLiveBrew]

Come on though, don - you're putting the entire onus on Capuano for every facet of every start. There have been so many discussions as to just how badly the D negatively impacted Chris (arguably the most of any Brewers SP), how can you just ignore that?

 

Perhaps I'm jumping to conclusions... are you basing your analyses soley on BBs, Ks? Even though that does leave out a pitcher's responsibility in giving up H's, the defense skews that aspect so much that I - personally - prefer to look at that over which the pitcher has the most control.

[Ennder]

To use the system devised by baseball HQ for their qERA stat I'll look at his PQS pitching logs. The nice thing about the system is it doesn't dwell on ER's or H's and is more about the things a pitcher does control.

 

A score of 5 is a dominant start, a 4 is very good, a 2 or 3 is ok, a 1 is bad, a 0 is terrible.

 

second half of 2006 - 0,3,2,3,4,4,5,3,4,5,3,2,2,1,0

 

He was pretty good until the very end of the 2nd half and he tired out and had a bad run.

 

First half of 2007 - 4,4,4,4,3,0,5,0,1,0,5,5,0,0,1

 

There is the inconsistency you are talking about. That first 0 is a game he left with an injury after 3 innings. The 0 after the two 5's is the game he got hurt in. Overall his first half had two 0's because of injuries, a 0 and a 1 after the injury. three dominant starts, 4 very good starts and 1 decent start.

 

Second half of 2007 - 0,5,5,4,3,2,0,3,3,3

 

He really didn't pitch that poorly in the 2nd half, just gave up more HR's than you'd expect but overall he had a bunch of ok games.

 

The system itself gives him a qERA of 5.07 last year which is right in line with what actually happened. He had a lot of 0's but most of them were centered around the injury so for my money I'm willing to bet it had something to do with it.

[rluzinski]

Let's be honest, if the Brewers are to compete this year, they need a more consistently-good effort out of their starting pitching.

 

When baseball fans say their favorite team needs more consistency, what they really mean is that they want better overall results. I think we all want that. really, though, if Cappy has 4 good starts followed by 4 bad ones, how is that any worse than alternating back and forth? it results in the same number of wins, so it seems pretty irrelevant to me.

 

The absolute best statistic for defense is runs allowed and the Brewers had 776 (IIRC)

 

If you mean defense to be fielding + pitching, I would agree. If you mean to say that trying to untangle the two is so hopeless that it's not even worth trying, I can't agree and neither would the majority of people studying such things. Hell, if you want to throw out all the advanced fielding metrics that rely on ball location and velocity, because of the uncertainty of its accuracy, that's a defendable position to take. But you'd also have to throw away all the defensive independent events that occur (walks, Ks, HRs). At the very least, you could use something like FIP to give you a better understanding of relationship between runs allowed, pitching and fielding.

Is that a yes or a no? Is it derived from a stringer looking at videotapes and assigning a general value?

 

And you have no idea whether observation is more accurate or not.

 

Is your contention that casual observation might be more accurate than observations that have some kind of standards behind them and are recorded on an event by event basis? If you want to say both are unreliable, fine, but your position (as I understand it) is pretty hard to understand. If you simply mean that it might be correct by random chance.... well, OK then. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[don1481]

Come on though, don - you're putting the entire onus on Capuano for every facet of every start. There have been so many discussions as to just how badly the D negatively impacted Chris (arguably the most of any Brewers SP), how can you just ignore that?

I swear I'm in the Twilight Zone here - people still defending Capuano. Granted, I don't see anyone defending Vargas right now, so I guess I can go back into Winter Hibernation Mode for a little longer.

 

 

When baseball fans say their favorite team needs more consistency, what they really mean is that they want better overall results. I think we all want that. really, though, if Cappy has 4 good starts followed by 4 bad ones, how is that any worse than alternating back and forth? it results in the same number of wins, so it seems pretty irrelevant to me.

Both are not what I'd call acceptable results; I'd rather not say one is worse than the other. A hitter succeeding 50% of the time is beyond outstanding; a pitcher succeeding 50% of the time (Quality Starts, whatever you want to use for your metrics) is not what playoff-caliber teams need to win.

[logan82]

A back end of the rotation guy succeeding 50% of the time is pretty good.

[rluzinski]

a pitcher succeeding 50% of the time (Quality Starts, whatever you want to use for your metrics) is not what playoff-caliber teams need to win.

 

You think a playoff caliber team has 5 above average starting pitchers in their rotation?

 

Everyone is always talking about what a playoff caliber team has to be and apparently it's one that have an above average player at each of their 25 roster positions (above average #1 pitcher, above average 2B, above average bench, etc...). Nevermind that such a team has never existed and would probably would win 125+ games if it did.

[pete]

lol... actually I didn't and I wasn't planning on it. Why don't you give it a shot?

 

 

 

 

So, if you're not capable of providing an answer, why the taunt at Ennder?

I'm capable, you're capable, and Endder is capable. Why would you make a statement like that? The last thing I'm doing is taunting him. I'm trying to get him to actually engage.

 

 

the video observation doesn't claim to report the information!! That's a low threshold for accuracy.

 

 

 

 

It's much more accurate than, 'Hey! I remember...' Are you really attempting to claim that your/anyone's personal recollection is better than

analyzing pitch by pitch?

 

 

LOL - YO - helloooooo... something that doesn't claim to provide data can't be more accurate at providing that data. How hard is that to understand that it has to be repeated?

 

I hate to break it to you, but observation is fundamental to science. Its illogical to conclude that a pitch by pitch analysis is more accurate than observation of even a subset of those pitches.

[pete]

As for Pete, your question doesn't matter for Capuano and to be honest BIS now designates liners seperately anyway. If everything about Capuano has remained the same between 2005 and 2007 and the only thing that has changed is his singles rate that pretty clearly shows that he wasn't just being hit harder. Unless you really think they hit him harder but it didnt' show up at all in GB% or ISO (extra base hits against). They hit him a ton harder but it all happened to be singles? I don't think so.

Not sure what question you're referring to, but the whole point of the discussion was that the designation of liners didn't define being hit hard and that the BIS number is of unknown quality and they admit to multiple factors in data collection that could only be described as crude. And I never claimed that the only thing was that he was being hit harder.

 

The Brewers defense is bad according to plus/minus, according to DER, according to PMR, according to OOZ and PIZ, according to MGL, and according to anyone who watched a big chunk of Brewer games last year. I didn't realize there was still someone out there that didn't think our defense was bad last year.

You know I can even add acronyms to that but absolutely nothing you said refutes my point. Go back and look at the statistic I gave. Referring to a long list of attempts to quantify defense doesn't mean you've determined anything. All of them are based on two basic methodologies and the people who create them refer to their flaws and shortcomings. Thats why new ones are still being created every year and the ones that exist are always being rejiggered. The people who create them say that they aren't accurate enough to draw conclusions over short periods like seasons. A better sample period is a career.

 

But hey, since RA is league middle, you must believe that Brewers pitching is well above average. Or maybe the team was lucky all year.

 

 

(cleaned up code --1992)

[1992casey]

LOL - YO - helloooooo...

 

I hate to break it to you,

 

Strike-level condescension.

[don1481]

You think a playoff caliber team has 5 above average starting pitchers in their rotation?

 

Russ, let's be honest: Right now, the Brewers have, really, two: Sheets and Gallardo, and there are question marks around both of them. Sheets because of his recent injury history (who knows what random part will break this year) and Gallardo because of his relatively small sample size. If Villanueva gets a spot in the rotation, then that's three. But based on TH's comments in his Bush signs for 2.55 M blog entry, for some odd reason Villy has not been guaranteed a spot in the rotation.

 

Ideally, the plan would be to maximize the opportunities to win. And to do that would at least in part involve running out as many plus starting pitchers as possible.

[naivin]

Frankly, besides Sheets somehow managing to cobble together a complete season, Capuano may be the key to the Brewers success this year, whether it is a result of his pitching, or what he brings in a trade. If the Brewers hang on to him and count on him to go out and pitch like he did in '06, or if he turns into a trade for another piece that helps make the team better, whatever he does or the Brewers do with him, could go a long way in determining how well the Brewers do this year. Were I a betting man, I would say the Brewers woudl desperately like to seem him win a spot in the rotation. If he can manage to do that, I would say that would be very good news.

[Ennder]

But hey, since RA is league middle, you must believe that Brewers pitching is well above average. Or maybe the team was lucky all year.

 

Yes, the Brewers pitching was well above average last year. The Brewers had the 3rd best FIP in the NL and roughly the 3rd worst defense in the NL. Swap the Cubs and Brewers defense and the Brewers are one of the better RA in the league and the Cubs are average in it.

 

As for the reliability of defensive metrics, yes they are less reliable than offensive. That doesn't mean you just throw them out. When every single system out there and scouting and personal observation all say something you know it is at least partially true. The degree of just how bad it was is questionable but the Brewers had a terrible defensive team last year and nobody except apparently you disagrees with that. Even Yost comes out and admits it.

[homer]

"I hate to break it to you, but observation is fundamental to science. Its illogical to conclude that a pitch by pitch analysis is more accurate than observation of even a subset of those pitches. "

 

 

Isn't LD% simply quantifying observation? Or is it the person doing the observing that causes the issue?

[rluzinski]

He's concerned about the subjective element of designating balls as line drives. It's a valid concern but he uses it to reject all play-by-play-based defensive metrics and any attempts to separate pitching and fielding. It would be like rejecting all scouting information because it relys on subjective observation. Of course, Pete is trumpeting the value of subjective observation, so I can't seem to sort out his logic.

 

At the very least, you can analyze the fielding independent stats of a pitcher (walks and strikeouts being the big two). Or would that be relying too much on the umpire to accurately call balls and strikes?

 

Don, If you want to argue that Cappy is not among the 5 best starting pitcher options for the Brewers in 2008, I'm not going to call you wrong. I simply objected to your claim that a playoff caliber team can't afford to have a pitcher like Cappy in their rotation. I don't think you appreciate how low the bar is set for an average #5 pitcher, including teams that are playoff caliber. That or his winless streak has convinced you that Cappy is the worst pitcher, ever. And I also don't appreciate how you can act so surprised that people would be defending Cappy when they are carefully laying out WHY they are more optimistic about him than you are. You are rejecting the analysis because you disagree with its conclusion. I don't think that's really fair.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

OK, then, Russ, since Bush, Capuano, Kendall...can all have somewhat logical statistical defenses presented on their behalf, how 'bout a nice challenge?

 

Anything nice to say about Claudio Vargas? Tony Gwynn, Jr? Or the 3rd head of the Brewers Cerebrus, Johnny Estrada? http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

Have at it!