The impact of losing Sheets and Gallardo

I've found a statistic for pitchers that basically mirrors the defensive statistic I use for regular position players. And it doesn't say good things about most of the Brewers staff.

BaseballProspectus publishes a statistic for each Major League pitcher called "Runs Prevented". It basically tells you how many fewer runs each pitcher is allowing compared too the number of runs an average pitcher would be expected to allow in the same number of outs given the same ballparks.

By this statistic the Brewers top two pitchers, by far, are the ones on the disabled list. Ben Sheets and Yovani Gallardo are preventing runs at a much higher rate than any of the other Brewer pitchers. So their collective absence is really hurting the team.

Click here to see "Brewer Pitchers Runs Prevented Above Average"

Discussion Points

1. Besides Sheets and Gallardo, the other starters have allowed a combined 27.4 runs above average... pretty brutal.

2. By RPAA, Gagne is the worst reliever still on the roster. Torres is the best. In fact, Torres is the best non-DL pitcher left on the roster at preventing runs.

3. If you remove Sheets and Gallardo, the rest of the staff has allowed 25.4 runs above average, which probably explains why the pitching has struggled since those two went down.

4. By RPAA, Carlos Villanueva has been almost as bad as Dave Bush. He may be headed for the minors. Suppan and Parra haven't been much better.

Will the Brewers go retro blue?

Up until the 1970s, the standard road jerseys for baseball teams were almost all oatmeal gray. After Charlie O. Finley went electric yellow with the Kansas City A's 1967 road uniforms, a bunch of teams followed suit and ditched the drab gray.

Those that changed normally went with eggshell blue road uniforms... the Pilots/Brewers among the converts (some of the more traditional teams, such as the Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers kept their traditional looks).

I notice this season certain teams are turning back to the colored unis. I like it. Does anyone know is the Brewers plan to follow suit?

Breaking down Benny Boy

Hardballtimes.com is an awesome baseball site. Lately they've become "awesomer" with their cogent and dead-on profiles of the Brewers top two pitchers, Yovani Gallardo and Ben Sheets.

The latest analysis is of Sheets. In it the writer points out what I've always contended. Benny is a brilliant pitcher, but his mechanics are all messed up. He throws with such violence, he almost always falls way off the mound toward first base after he delivers the pill.

Placing that much torque on his arm and imbalance on his body is probably causing all of the random injuries he is suffering through and has suffered through in his career. Can you change him, though... without adversely effecting his "stuff"? I doubt it.

Zapruder film exonerates Sveum

If I'm going to blog I should at least blog the troof. So I need to post a retraction to last night's post that was critical of Dale Sveum for sending runners to the plate under disadvantageous conditions. In fact, he did not.

It turns out it was RICKIE WEEKS freelancing on that play at the plate in the ninth that could have cost the Brew Crew the game. Dale Sveum put up the "Macht Halten" sing at third and Weeks ignored it.

Rick, you ain't Jackie Robinson. Rely on the 3rd base coach. That's what he's there for, bud.

Sveum needs a little lasik

I love Dale Sveum. Anyone who was around when he rocked the County on Easter Sunday loves him. But he had a bad... bad... day at Wrigley yesterday.

I just watched the tape delay broadcast. Two seperate Brewers (first Fielder and later Weeks) were thrown out at home plate by lengths that I can only describe as being from me to the Diesel (he lives in Orlando and I'm blogging from Millerville). And, based on Sveum's reaction, I don't think either of them ran through a "Stop" sign.

So the question is: what did Dale see? Or, more to the point, what was he thinking? Maybe those new old-school looking batting helmets he has to wear are too tight.

Whatever. In a close game, he can't be that aggressive. He can't be running the Brewers into big outs at home plate. And if guys are getting thrown out by ten feet, that means he ran them into it.

Did you see the Hippy, Hippy Shake?

Did you see that spazzo Charles Manson-looking Cubs fan out in left field who caught Zambrano's early tater? I think he was a bit excited. My God. He did the most violent and ridiculously long"Love Rollercoaster" dance I've ever seen. It looked like he was in seizure.

Cubs fans: coke or meth... not both.

Beer Me Not

Speaking of the rowdies, how bush was it when the Cub fans in the "Bartman Section" doused my man Brauny with their Old Styles just as he was making his throw to Counsell that would eventually cut down Fukodummy at the plate?

I mean, that was a cascade of bad swill. That's lame.

Brewers get Wooden just in time

Big win for the Brew Crew in Chicago, aided in part by the Cubs strange decision to trust their closers role to a man who has never been what you would describe as a "control" pitcher, Kerry Wood.

If you think about it, closer is a severely overrated position. Most Major League quality pitchers can prevent one earned run in one inning of work. So most any decent pitcher can close well most of the time. But the one kind of pitcher who you don't want to let out there is a guy like Wood (or Turnblow) who has a tendency to give up free passes, or hit guys, or just give up extra baserunners. Those guys will kill ya.

So, as a Brewers fan, I hope Pinella keeps drinking that bottled water and getting Wood every ninth inning.

Download Ueck

Did you know you can download any sweet Ueck call onto your ipod? I just found it out today. After a big Brewer win you go to Brewers Radio Network and download the postgame show. I downloaded today's show and it has a great Ueck call of the ninth inning rally. Now I'm off to the gym with it.

By the way, after an April in which the Brewers did not even scratch their offensive potential, to see them in second place one game out after a big series in Chicago... I'm feeling pretty good.

Yost pointed to Shouse two batters late

The Brewers' 3-1 matinee loss to the Philadelphia Phillies obviously goes mainly on the anemic offense... but I'd say it partially goes on the manager's handling of the bullpen as well.

I just got done watching the Brewers Squeeze Play replay of the game. Here's what I saw. In the eighth inning, RP David Riske was working. He got the first two righthanded Phillies out on strikes. Philadelphia then had two lefthanded batters come up. Yost had Brian Shouse up and warm but Yost decided to stay with Riske.

The first lefty walked. The second was Chase Utley, and he singled. That set up Pat Burrell's two run double to left (which Brauny took a preposterously shallow attack angle on, thus allowing the second run to score, but he's still learning). After Burrell, Yost went to Shouse. Brian retired the next batter -- a lefty -- on a little dribbler to the right side of the infield for out number three. But the Brewers already got the needle and the damage was done.

My beef: I can see Yost allowing Riske to go at the first lefty, but after he walked him, Riske had no business facing the dangerous Utley. That should have been Shouse's man.

Utley's raking with the bat, not the glove

Chase Utley, the second baseman for the Phillies is being touted as the very early leader in the 2008 MVP race. So I ran the numbers on him using the "Net Runs Above Average" system.

Indeed, he leads the Major Leagues in offensive runs created above the average a second baseman would create in the same number of outs. He has created 15.4 additional runs above average with his bat.

But I have also heard, on ESPN and elsewhere, that part of his MVP luster is his second base glove. That's not really been the case. His glove is pretty average.

He's had 53 balls hit into his zone, and has made 43 outs on those balls, and 7 extra outs on balls out of his zone. The average second baseman would have made 44 outs and 6 out of zone outs. So Utley's glove produced just under one out less than the average, which translates to .73 runs his glove has cost the Phillies.

Still, 14.9 net runs above average is pretty spectacular start. But he's done it mostly with the wood, not the leather.

Now the Brewer pitchers are getting too much credit

Pitchers are a lot like NFL quarterbacks. Quarterbacks have much less impact on NFL outcomes than most people believe. In the same way, pitchers have much less impact on a baseball team's defensive performance than most people believe.

Case in point: the 2007 Brewers and the 2008 Brewers. Last year Brewer pitchers were singled out as the root cause of the Brewers miserable defense, when in fact 70-80% of the Brewers inability to prevent opponent baserunners and opponent runs was the fault of the Brewers historically awful field defense.

This year the field defense has played quite well, particularly up the middle and in the outfield corners, resulting in a much higher percentage of batted balls that are turned into outs. Of course, few recognize this. Instead, predictably, the pitchers are considered the primary reason for the team's improved defensive play.

In fact, if you watched the last 6 or so Brewer games, and if you had the guts to stick around for the "riveting" post game conference (no one will ever confuse Ned Yost with JFK), you undoubtedly heard some variation of this non-question everytime: "Ned, how about the performance of your pitching staff?". And in response you then probably heard Ned mumble some variation of this non-insightful, cliched answer: "Gee, what can you say?... I can't say enough about the work our pitching staff has done."

The Truth as I see it

In my mind, there are only 5 ways a pitcher can truly impact a team's overall defensive performance:

1. By preventing hard hit balls, or "line drives". Line drives are statistically much, much harder to turn into outs (a lot of people would disagree with me on this one. Many believe pitchers have no impact whatsoever on the percentage of line drives put into play. They may be right, but for now I'm going to disagree and keep this measure.)

Q: How are the Brewers pitchers doing?

A: Neither Good nor Bad. They are allowing exactly the National League average percentage of line drives in play -- 19%. So they are neither helping nor hurting the defensive cause in this area.

2. By inducing more groundballs. (Even I'm not sure I agree with myself on this one. Technically, flyballs are the easiest batted balls to turn into outs, so in that sense inducing more groundballs doesn't necessarily make the defense better. But, if you think about it, groundballs never leave the yard, and are also the least likely batted balls to become extra base hits. So more groundballs probably does help the bottom line and so I'll keep this measure).

Q: How are the Brewers pitchers doing?

A: Well. They are allowing 46% groundballs, and the National League average is 43%.

3. By walking fewer batters. Now comes the three undisputed ways pitching makes a difference... and in all 3 the Brewers are doing poorly. The first, is walks allowed.

Q: How are the Brewers pitchers doing?

A: Below Average. The National League average walks/9 is 3.6 and the Brewer staff is allowing 4.0. They have to get that down.

4. By striking out more batters. Again, this is an undisputed way the pitcher can impact the game... by making more outs on his own.

Q: How are the Brewers pitchers doing?

A: Below Average. The National League average is 6.7 K/9 and the Brewer staff is only generating 6.5. That means more balls put in play. So far the defense is making up the stagger, but the pitchers need to do more in this area.

5. By preventing home runs. This is the number one area the quality of pitching can impact the defense.

Q: How are the Brewers pitchers doing?

A: Below Average. The National League average is 0.95HR/9 and the Brewer staff is giving up 1.0. Again, its not that far off average, but it is not above average either. So its not deserving of praise and is arguably deserving of some heat.

Conclusion

My point in all of this is not to suggest the pitchers have sucked. It is to suggest they have been mediocre and don't deserve all the "What can you say about them?" plaudits. The truth is Milwaukee's improved run prevention is a result of improved fielding and "positional out creation". (I add that last bureacratic sounding phrase because people too often equate "fielding" with errors or lack of errors. Improved out creation is meant to suggest an expansion of the areas in which the defense now routinely creates outs (commonly refered to as the defense's "range" -- the increase of which is much more desirable than mere "error-free" ball).

The return of my "NRCAA" stat shows Kapler's driving the sled by himself

My theory is that winning and losing records in baseball are entirely dependent upon the net runs each team can generate above the expected average (that plus some pitching statistics that I won't get into today).

By "net runs" I mean the combination of Runs Created ("Offensive Runs") above the average at each player's position (as determined by Baseball Prospectus' "RAP" statistic) and Runs Prevented ("Defensive Runs") above the average at each player's position (as calculated by me, using the number of balls hit into the player's zone, the number of outs the player made on those balls as compared to the average number of outs made on the same number of balls, and the number of outs the player made on balls outside the player's zone as compared to the average number of "out of zone" outs normally made given an equivalent number of "in zone" opportunities. These calculations are all based upon statistics kept by Hardball Times. I then use these figures to translate the extra/fewer outs made into runs prevented/allowed by the defender).

I haven't proven this theory mathematically (I haven't tried, actually), but I think it stands up logically. After all, if you have a team that creates net runs at a rate equivalent to the average, you should expect a .500 team, right? Therefore, if you have a team that generates runs above or below that average, you ought to likewise expect a team that wins a majority or minority of its games.

Anyway, that's my theory and for right now I'm sticking to it.

Click here to see how the Brewers are doing with "Net Runs" this season

Discussion Points

1. Thank God for Gabe (Kapler)

In a limited amount of playing time, Gabe Kapler is playing out of his mind. He is creating and preventing runs at an unfathomable rate. His range in centerfield is, so far, incredible. How can you take the guy out? He's been so great, I would go so far as to say that if the Brewers win the pennant, they will look back and remember the way Kapler helped keep the team above water while the stars muddled around.

2. The defense is carrying the offense

Unbelievably, this season the defense is completely carrying the anemic offense. Every single Brewer except reserves Counsell and Gwynn are creating "Defensive Runs" above the average, leaving the team at +21.7 defensive runs above average, while few Brewers are creating "Offensive Runs" above average, with the team at a cumulative -3.7 offensive runs. Last season, as I've said ad nauseum, the opposite was true. How long can this hold up? Hopefully, the offense will meet the defense and not vice versa. Remember, though, the team has played the majority of its games away from Miller Park against some pretty formidable opponents.

3. Hart's defense, in particular, has been magnificent

Corey Hart has been playing a masterful right field. There is no other way to say it. Hart has had 29 balls hit into his zone. He has turned those balls into 29 outs. Magnificent. Beyond that he has made 11 additional outs on balls hit outside his zone. The average rightfielder would only have been expected to make around 5 "out of zone" outs on 29 "in zone" opportunities (obviously, the number of "out of zone" plays a player should make is based on a solid guesstimate of the number of legitimate chances "out of zone" he would likely have had given his established number of "in zone" chances. In baseball, as in life, a lot of statistical probabilities of this kind turn out to be more reliable than you -- or, actually, I -- might have initially thought).

4. Somebody give Brauny boy some electroshock

Just kidding. He's just in a slump. But his defense has been terrific. He needs to stop trying so hard at the plate. A sign he's trying too hard: His infield flyball percentage is about triple the Major League Average. That often indicates overswinging. He's also looking at fewer pitches per plate appearance. Relax. You don't go from an incredible hitter to one who can't hit. It doesn't happen. Stop thinking about the chicks at the U (did you know that's how he chose his college? Based on the chick caliber!! Now there's a deep thinker for you. Lee Harvey Braun, you are a madman. I must party with you).

Hang in there... I haven't bailed

Sorry about the no writing period. I'll pick up the pace, as I always do, in the coming days and weeks. However, I'm a little under the weather today, so I'll keep my comments brief. My general theme is: Don't panic, its early.

1. Don't worry about Brauny and Fielder. The best hitters go through swoons. That's just the nature of the thing.

2. The defense still looks pretty good. And surprise, surprise... by the numbers Braun is so far playing a superb leftfield. When his bat comes back, think of the runs he'll produce.

3. The only weak spots appear to be the corners of the infield. Hall's game has slipped and Fielder never was much of a "fielder" to begin with. But Hall is capable of better.

Alright, I'm getting a serious flu headache here, so I have to quit for now. But I'll post again at least by Saturday. Until then, my message is this: Don't Panic!! These are not your Daddy's Brewers!!

The worm has definitely turned

I try to keep this blog on the analytical tip, so I try to stay away from "symbolic" moments, but this one I can't resist.

It happened, ironically, in the first inning of the only Brewer loss so far this season.

On a simple fly ball to right, Brewers 2nd baseman Rickie Weeks tagged up and charged for the plate. The Cubs new RF Fukudome made a horrible decision to make a play on Weeks, and then compounded his error by airmailing his throw to the backstop (what's Japanese for "Hit the cutoff man, hot shot?").

On top of that, the Cubs new greenhorn catcher made the foolish, foolish decision to loiter in the basepath without the ball. Ho, Rickie Weeks made him pay. Weeks, a 2nd baseman, knocked the Cubs backstop ass over tea kettle, without even breaking his own stride. It was one of the most bonecrushing, teethrattling hits I have ever seen made without shoulder pads.

In the aftermath, the Cubs catcher got up dazed, and then realized too late that Brewers CF Tony Gwynn was streaking around third, sliding in with the Brewers second run.

Let's review. Two runs on a sacrifice fly, scored by the Brewers, not the opposition. The Brewers dishing out, not receiving, the punishment. The opposition, not the Brewers, appearing amateurish and overmatched. The Brewers, not the opposition, aggressive and poised as can be to take advantage of the situation. How sweet it was.

And if you didn't get a chill up your spine when the Brewers television announcer described the play as Weeks "taking out the Cubs catcher just for fun", you haven't been a Brewers fan for very long, my friend.

You didn't experience the humiliation of the previous years. You weren't around when the Brewers own management told its fans the Brewers could not compete. You weren't here for the laughter and mockery towards everything Blue and Gold.

But if you did experience all that pain, then you know this... the worm has finally turned. Its going to be the Brewers who will be dishing out the humiliation and dealing out the pain for the foreseeable future.

Observations based on Hardballtimes team stats

The terrific website Hardballtimes.com has their initial team stats for 2008 up and running. Here are some "quicky" observations based upon my cursory look at the Brewers stats. Remember to swallow these with a grain of salt, because its very, very early.

1. The defense has been brilliant.

So far, so very good for the Brewers defensive efforts. And, according to the more sophisticated URZ defensive analysis (it discriminates between balls that are merely in a fielder's zone and balls the fielder ought to have played into outs), LF Ryan Braun is doing just fine in his new pasture, thank you.

2. The pitching, on the other hand, is a little slack

Remember last season when the "Fielding Independent Pitching" numbers, or, in other words, the ERA the pitching staff would expect to have with an average defense behind it, was always much lower than the actual ERA? So far, that's reversed. The fielders are kind of saving the pitchers bacon. The pitchers are giving up slightly too many walks and home runs.

3. The offense is a bit overheated

Don't be surprised if the offense cools a bit in the coming days. According to the Brewers "Batting Average on Balls in Play", they are a bit overheated. Meaning, slightly more balls are finding friendly pasture than you would statistically expect. The Brewers BABIP is something like .364 and the league average is around .308. If the Brewers have found a way to guide more balls to empty areas, then this may be irrelevant. But I wouldn't count on... nor would I worry about it too much.

4. Brauny, though, a bit unlucky at the plate

On the other hand, Ryan Braun has personally been a bit unlucky at the plate. Or rather, his luck may be evening out. He alone has a below average BABIP. That may be karma. His BABIP all last year was incredible. I expect he will get very hot shortly.

5. JJ a bit slow out of the blocks

JJ Hardy's struggling a bit with both his defense and his bat. His defense isn't much to worry about, but his bat needs to come out of the freezer.

6. Don't go too crazy... the Giants REALLY blow

Be careful about ordering your playoff tickets just yet. The Giants are occupying the Brewers old stomping grounds -- the dregs of the league. Still, though, its been an encouraging start to the season.

Inaugural 2008 posting: Brewers defense looks vastly improved

If you followed this Brewer blog last year, I argued until I was blue in the face that the Brewers' "pitching" problems were actually defensive problems. The Brewers defense was awful everywhere and, in my opinion, it ruined a decent Brewer pitching staff.

I thought that conclusion was self-evident. After all, as I argued last season, in order to conclude otherwise, you had to believe that all of a sudden -- and en masse -- the entire pitching staff went rotten. Absent a conspiracy, that made NO SENSE.

That said, I never really sensed anyone bought into my argument. The skepticism was understandable. We are taught to believe basehits are, primarily, a reflection of the quality of the pitches thrown. I certainly used to believe that. Part of me stubbornly refuses to stop believing it. But, generally speaking, its simply not so.

Sure, pitchers can prevent balls from being hit into play (through strikeouts), and, to some extent I guess, pitchers can shorten the odds of balls in play becoming hits... principally by limiting the number of "line drives" they surrender. But otherwise, pitchers are at the mercy of their defense when it comes to whether balls struck in play become basehits.

So, since most pitchers allow a mix of batted balls that are generally in line with the Major League average (44% groundballs, 21% line drives, 35% fly balls), most pitchers can expect an average Major League defense to convert about 69% of all non-home run batted balls into outs.

The key word in that last paragraph is "average". An "average" Major League defense. Of course, the 2007 Brewers did not have an average defense. Far from it.

And that, in my opinion, was the phantom menace that derailed Milwaukee's postseason hopes. (After a while the pitching did deteriorate, but the initial crisis was brought on and sustained by poor defense).

Problem solved?

Brewers GM Doug Melvin offseason moves seemed to suggest he independently came to the same conclusion. For rather than overhauling the pitching staff, he, quite sensibly in my mind, decided to overhaul the defense.

First he acquired CF Mike Cameron. Then he moved Bill Hall from centerfield (where he was great at the spectacular play and awful at the routine play) to 3rd base. That was the key move, because it got Ryan Braun out of the infield, where he was unspeakably awful. Most fans kind of understood that Braun was a bad fielder, but I don't think most ever really grasped the extent of the damage Braun was doing at the hot corner.

That's because fans only recognize errors. In fact, errors aren't nearly as damaging as "balls not played". Those are hard to recognize, but they kill you nonetheless.

Ryan Braun's combination of errors and balls not played... in concert, of course, with poor play from other defenders... in my opinion sabotaged the Brewers pitching staff. Braun was so bad, I estimated he cost the team as many runs as he created. And he had one of the great rookie offensive seasons in history.

Hall, Brewers... brilliant so far

So far the moves are paying off handsomely. Its early, obviously, but the Brewers actually have an above average defense. And notice how much better the pitchers seem? (Bush killed himself against the Cubs... so did Gagne... otherwise the staff looks great).

Click here for the happy defensive numbers

If you look closer, the heroes thus far have unquestionably been Billy Hall, who has played a brilliant 3rd base, converting 10 of 12 (or 14) into outs. A much different situation than we had last year.

Also, centerfield has been brilliantly manned by young Tony Gwynn and Gabe "Welcome Back" Kapler.

I have to also mention the superb play thus far from Rickie Weeks at 2nd base. At one time in his career he was a real adventure. Maybe not anymore.

Xanadu Braun (defense played on rollerskates)

Um, I'm not going to say that Ryan Braun is playing poorly in left. Statistically, he's alright. But I wouldn't call him Carl Yastremski either. He really botched an easy looper from Fukudome in the Brewers only loss (a play that seemed to rattle pitcher Dave Bush), and he's only converted 6 of the 14 balls hit to him into outs. Of course, all of the basehits in his zone have been classified as "line drives", so technically he's only failed to convert 0.5 balls into outs, but nevertheless. I'm still suspicious. Its kind of like the kid who's always getting in trouble. Even when he has a legitimate excuse for his actions, you're still kind of skeptical. That's my feeling with Braun. He still looks a bit shaky out there... and at least one of the balls (Fukudome's) was not really a "line drive", it was more of a lollipop or hump backer, and most certainly should have been caught.

Eight Brewers named in Mitchell Report

Here are the names of the 8 (7 former and 1 current) Brewers named in the George Mitchell Steroids report. Some of the names, looking back, seem somewhat obvious (Vina). Others are absolutely baffling (Steve Woodard -- are you serious?). Several of the players are pitchers, lending credence to those who alleged that the majority of users during the steroid era were pitchers.

1. Fernando Vina

2. Eric Gagne

3. Gary Bennett, Jr.

4. David Bell

5. Steve Woodard

6. Josias Manzanillo

7. Ron Villone

8. Darren Holmes

Could Joe Torre return to Beer City?

This is just idle speculation, but should the Yankees fire long-time manager Joe Torre this week, is it possible the Brewers would make a run at him? It would seem a natural fit. Torre obviously has the postseason experience that the local media and BrewerNation have been clamoring for in a manager, and he has clear ties to the city.

Torre has said that he intends to continue managing with or without the Yankees, and he was a beloved and successful catcher for the former hometeam, the Milwaukee Braves. Torre has also proven he knows how to manage an up-and-coming young team, as he did with the Yankees in the 90s. His brother also played for the Braves and, if I am not mistaken, maintains a strong connection to the community.

Of course all of this is predicated on the Yankees willingness to part ways with Torre, as well as the Brewers willingness to part ways with the seemingly overmatched Ned Yost and then go after a big name leader like Torre. Decisions made over the last few days have made the latter less realistic than the former. But we shall see.

FBTMP Final Grades: Brewer Position Players

Prince Fielder (Grade: A)
Runs Above Average O (+39) D (-10) Net: +29 runs

2007 was a watershed season for the Brewers newest superstar Prince G. Fielder. He's clearly established himself as the leader on this young and rising team. He seems destined to follow Yount, Molitor and Aaron before him as the iconic Brewer of his era. At the plate his numbers were tremendous across the board. He had an OPS+ of 159 and a secondary average of a whopping .492. In fact, if his defense had been better he would have received my first ever A+. But even so, Big Daddy was without question the MVP of the 2007 Milwaukee Brewers. The thing I really liked about him all season was his consistency. He hit as well against lefties as righties, as well on the road as at home, as well in the clutch as in the routine. There are no holes in his swing, and no holes in his character. Now if he could just bear down a little better with the glove... is that too much to ask?

Rickie Weeks (Grade: B-)
Runs Above Average: O (+15) D (-5) Net: +10 runs

What a kick Rickie made down the homestretch. He turned what was probably an average season into a clearly above average one. And what we saw in September, I truly believe, was the true Rickie Weeks. We saw the power and the speed, and we even saw some defensive improvement. I think he could be the second coming of Joe Morgan, and that's high praise (for those of you who only know Morgan as the lame ESPN color commentator). His low batting average was misleading. Because of his ability to walk, to hit home runs, and to steal bases, his Equivalent Average was a very healthy .283. Plus, the earlier part of his season was not the real Rickie. He was clearly affected by the the wrist surgery. His play at the end showed that. You just don't go months without a home run and without power and then suddenly start doing the yard work Weeks did in August and September unless you had medical issues.

JJ Hardy (Grade: B)
Runs Above Average: O (+4) D (+5) Net: +9 runs

The only Brewer to create runs both in the field and at the plate, JJ Hardy had a nice first full season. Sure, he faded badly at the plate during the summer after a scorching spring, but that was pretty much expected. He was still pretty solid all-around. I wonder, however, if we will consistently see the power production numbers he put up this season. He doesn't seem to have a swing that would permit that to happen. He more or less flings his bat through the zone rather than snapping it through as Braun and other natural power hitters do.

Corey Hart (Grade: B+)
Runs Above Average: O (+15) D (-7) Net: +8 runs

What a stunning breakout season for the formerly mulleted Corey Hart. At the plate, his skills remind me of Robin Yount -- particularly the way he is able to go to the opposite field with power. And on defense, he is reliable but unspectacular. (My "Defensive Runs" grading system may have been unfair to him. Unlike other Brewers who ended up costing the team defensive runs, he consistently made all of the routine plays. He simply lacked the normal range an outfielder would have, and thus made a below average amount of "out of zone" plays.) He is going to be a cornerstone at Miller Park for the next couple of years.

Craig Counsell (Grade: C+)
Runs Above Average: O (-13) D (+17) Net: +4 runs

The old pro. Oh, Craig... if only you could hit. On a team of nondefenders, this guy was an oasis of solid defense. I could easily make the argument that the Brewers would have been better off playing him at third base and keeping Brauny in the minors for another year. But the Brewers felt they needed Brauny's offense right away. I don't think they ever foresaw the extent to which Brauny's defense would negate his offensive contributions. No one did.

Kevin Mench (Grade: D+)
Runs Above Average: O (-7) D (+7) Net: 0 runs

The Brewers need to upgrade at three positions: catcher, centerfield, and leftfield. They simply didn't get enough offensive production out of the veteran platoon of Mench and Jenkins, and they were out there for their offense! Mench saved the team seven runs defensively, but he was below average on routine plays -- all of the runs he saved came as a result of his above average "out of zone" plays. The fact that he could make so many unusual plays, but then flubbed or dogged it so often on the common plays should not be seen as a badge of honor. It should be seen as a lack of concentration and effort. And on offense he's either an ocean or a desert, mainly because he refuses to take pitches. He also didn't show the power the team expected, hitting only 3 home runs after the All-Star break. Yost finally tired of him and he barely saw the field in September.

Geoff Jenkins (Grade: C-)
Runs Above Average: O (-3) D (+2) Net: -1 run

The final voyage of the Milwaukee Clipper was a bit rocky. Once the star of the team, he was relegated to a platoon role in 2007. To his credit he didn't bitch about it. He didn't really do anything with his bat to end it either. But he was one of the Brewers best defenders. The irony of that. Had I told you ten years ago that Geoff Jenkins would end his career in Milwaukee as a below average hitter and an above average fielder, you would have sent me to the rubber room. But that's what he was. All in all, his legacy as a Brewer will be mixed. I will remember him as a guy who had the sweet swing of a young Stan Musial, but the hitting eye of a Caribbean shortstop. In BrewerNation as a whole, I think he will be remembered as the superstar who never was.

Ryan Braun (Grade: C+)
Runs Above Average: O (+30) D (-33) Net: -3 runs

The most exciting Brewer rookie to come along in a generation. And one of the most frustrating. He had the second best offensive rookie year of this century, and one of the ten best of all time, but he still may not win the Rookie of the Year honor because his defense was simply terrible. He couldn't field the routine balls, he showed no range, and his throws were scatterarmed. I don't think people realize how much his defense did to destroy the pitching staff. When Ryan Braun came up the team was 28-18. With him on the big league roster they went 55-61. Defense matters, particularly at third base.

Gabe Gross (Grade: D+)
Runs Above Average: O (-4) D (+1) Net: -3 runs

Gross had a roller coaster season. He was so bad in the middle of the summer that he got sent down ot the minor leagues, a true indignation for a four year veteran. Then he responded with a hot bat in late August. Then that faded badly (unfortunately it took Ned Yost a week and a half to realize this). Overall a poor season for Gross.

Bill Hall (Grade: D-)
Runs Above Average: O (-7) D (-8) Net: -15 runs

If you can point to one guy and say he really let the team down, besides Ben Sheets, it would have to be Bill Hall. On defense, he was an unsteady centerfielder, and that's being kind. A lot of the time it looked like he didn't know if he was on foot or horseback out there. He and Braun just killed the pitching staff with their amateurish defense. At least Braun countered his defensive sloppiness with offense. Hall did not. At all. He never got going. He never even threatened to get going. And no one on the roster gave up more net runs than Hall. And it wasn't even close. He had a brutal season, and may have cost the team the pennant.

Johnny Estrada (Grade: D-)
Runs Above Average: O (-5) CS (8%)

Just because you're short and squatty and slow as dirt doesn't make you a catcher. Catchers are supposed to be able to throw runners out when they are attempting to steal, not play traffic cop on the Autobahn. (Estrada's caught stealing% of 8% was an absolute embarrassment.) Oh, and catchers are supposed to BLOCK balls in the dirt, not wave their gloves at them. And catchers are supposed to hit for power. They aren't supposed to be banjo hitters. But, if you are going to be a banjo hitter, couldn't you just mix in a walk every other month? They need to show this selfish jerk and clubhouse cancer the door. Give Rivera the job if nothing else. He can't do much worse.

Damian Miller (Grade: D+)
Runs Above Average: O (-3) CS (31.4%)

The old warhorse. Give him credit. He can't hit worth a lick anymore, but at least he's still a leader who can call a good game behind the plate and throw out a guy every now and again. He plays the game the right way... he just can't play much anymore.

Anthony Gwynn (Grade: Incomplete)
N/A

This guy is strictly a reserve outfielder. His defense in centerfield was nothing impressive, and if he isn't going to do that particularly well, he better be Tim Raines on the basepaths... which he will never be. Some want to start him in centerfield. Not me. I saw "The Alex Sanchez Story" once already and didn't care for it much the first time around.

Joe Dillon (Grade: B)
N/A

He finally got his moment in the show. Up there with the big league club, where you never have to handle your luggage, where they hit white balls in batting practice, where the women all have long legs and brains... No one can ever take that away from him. And he can always say he gave it everything he had when he got there. That's why I'm giving the real life Crash Davis a gentleman's B.

Coming Soon: FBTMP Final Grades: Brewer Pitchers

Vinnie, vidi, vici... and Corey

Local boy Vinnie Rottino was the nominal hero of today's game, but it all started with Corey Hart.

There are three Brewers who have had, without qualification, terrific seasons. P Francisco Cordero, 1b Prince Fielder... and OF Corey Hart. Hart has been supersolid in the field, and a terror with the bat. Whatever the Brewers do in the next couple of years, he's clearly going to be a big part of it.

He showed what he was made of today in the bottom of the ninth inning. What a killer at-bat he had against one of the best closers in baseball, Trevor Hoffman. With two strikes, he somehow laid off Hoffman's unbelievable change and waited for that one pitch he could drive. When he got it, he didn't miss. That's the sign of a thoroughbred, and Hart is certainly that.

Brewers got screwed on the Linebrink trade

How ironic it was to see Joe Thatcher come in and kill some big Brewer rallies over the last two games, while Scott Linebrink allowed the two run home run that basically turned the lights out on the Brewer season.

If you didn't know, the Brewers traded Thatcher and another highly regarded pitching prospect to the Padres for Scott Linebrink. The Brewers expected Linebrink to do for the Brewers what... well, what Thatcher has been doing for the Padres. And doing very well, I might add.

The Canadian appears to have blown that deal, big time.

It took me a while to see it. I was so myopically focused on the other pitcher the Crew gave up in the trade, Will Inman, that I missed the value of Thatcher. The Diesel alerted me to this oversight, as well as Thatcher's phenomenal big league performance, a couple of weeks ago.

He was right. He's been lights out. His ERA+ is over 400 (with anything over 100 being above average). And he isn't just a lefty hunter, as he proved in Milwaukee over the last two nights.

But I still thought he might be a flash in the pan. Not so. He's been doing this consistently in the minors.

Then I thought, maybe he was a fluke that no one saw coming. Not so, either. Here's a copy of all of Toby's Power 50 comments about the guy from brewerfan.net:

07/08/2007
11
Thatcher has a ridiculous 47-to-8 K/BB ratio in just 33 1/3 IP this season while holding opponents to a .203 average; here's hoping the Brewers don't overpay for a veteran lefty in trade before giving Joe an earned opportunity.
06/07/2007
10
A move to Nashville helps Joe make a big Power 50 jump, but so does Brian Shouse's recent struggles. Shousie needs a southpaw bullpen partner.
05/02/2007
20
Joe’s the second lefty everyone wants. Why trade for someone when Joe’s already here?
12/03/2006
27
Joe has been superb everywhere the Brewers have sent him - could AAA be the next stop for the future LOOGY?
08/23/2006
49
I thought Thatcher might make the Huntsville squad out of spring training this year, but there's almost no question that he'll make it there by next spring, if not earlier.
06/04/2006
42
Why, oh why, is Joe Thatcher still in West Virginia?
01/13/2006
48
Older lefty who dominated at both brief stops last year - Joe throws in the 90's and should be in Huntsville to start '06

Apparently Toby saw him coming. The question is, why didn't the Canadian?

Brewers lost the pennant on the road and in the field

History could have told us a long time ago that the Brewers weren't going to win the pennant. Their road record just wasn't championship worthy.

According to the book The Hidden Game of Baseball, above average road wins are historically much more significant indicators of championship teams than are above average home wins. In other words, you can play as well as you want at home, you're not going to win the pennant unless you can get it done on the road.

From 1901 to 1984 (when the book was published), only six teams had won pennants while carrying a below average road record, and 95 percent of all pennant winners have had a road record that was at least 10% better than the average.

The Brewers simply have to learn to win on the road. I think its a question of mental toughness. If so, they need to develop it.

Particularly on defense. In my opinion, the Brewers poor road record is almost entirely a function of loose defense.

If you do the splits, the one numerical difference that stands out is the opponents batting average on the road. Its 37 points higher. Sounds like pitching right? Not really.

If you look inside the numbers, I'd blame the defense. The pitchers strikeout/walk ratio is only slightly worse on the road, and their home run/AB ratio is actually better. On top of that, the opponents "Isolated Power" numbers are just a bit better away than they are at home. That means the 37 point BA increase is almost entirely explained by singles allowed.

That suggests we have a more porous defense on the road than we do at home. But, if you read this blog regularly, you probably could have figured that out.

Brewers playoff hopes get mulleted

If the Brewers were going to be eliminated did it really have to be at the hands of a guy who looks like he should be smoking cigarettes and hanging out at the video arcade?

Almost all of the Padres damage last night was inflicted by Khalil Green, who unabashedly rocks the most serious mullet in the Major Leagues. And what kind of name is that for a white boy anyway?

Let the Pinella nonsense begin

Did anyone have the stomach to watch ESPN after the game last night? They were showing the Cubs big champagne party, and the ESPN babbling heads were trying to give the credit for the Cubs division championship to Lou Pinella. Are you kidding me?

The guy is so stupid he bats Alphonso Soriano, their best power hitter, lead off -- because Lou thinks he's fast. Lou aint overbright. How many runs did he cost the Cubs with that ill-conceived strategy alone?

And, please... enough with the "Lou's season changing tirade" bullshit. That theory doesn't even make a bit of sense. To espouse it is to suggest that Pinnela's a great manager because he's a petulant baby.

If that's the case I nominate my nephew Charlie to be the next Brewer manager. He can throw temper tantrums that would put Lou to shame.

Did you know?

Last night after the game I met some friends at Fiesta Garibaldi on Bluemound. That's where WSSP SportsRadio 1250 originates their "Usinger Postgame Show".

Anyway, I caught a look at the personalities behind the show, Steve "Sparky" Fifer and Tim Allen. I did not realize Tim Allen was blind. I already respected the guy's generally solid takes on Brewer baseball, now I sort of marvel at them.

If you've ever read the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell, you know the brain is necessarily ruled by prejudice. It has to be. You couldn't get through a day if you had to sit and contemplate everything you saw or everything you did.

Here's an example of how strong that prejudice can be. Last night Tim Allen was wearing dark glasses. He had a cane. And I saw him being led to his seat at the bar by another guy's arm. Yet, in the face of all that obvious evidence that he was visually challenged, all I kept thinking to myself was "Why the hell is he wearing sunglasses in a bar?"

I guess having listened to him all summer long, my brain refused to believe he could provide that kind of sharp analysis without having seen the games. Uncanny.

Yost's wife agrees with me

According to Richard Justice of The Houston Chronicle, after the bizarre beaning of Albert Pujols on Thursday, Ned Yost's wife left him either an email or a phone message that asked Ned what I was asking rhetorically on this web site, "Ned, have you lost your mind?".

Justice apparently believes, as I do, that if the Brewers do not make the playoffs, which appears a certainty, many will look back on that particular incident, and it will cost Yost his job.

While it is unfair to judge a man's ability on one slip of consciousness, I think the circumstances will be such that it will happen.

A one and done at Wrigley would be awesome

This being the first pennant race I've had any interest in since Major League Baseball switched to the wildcard format, I must say these things sure aren't what they used to be. They don't have the same sense of "moment" anymore. There's too many of them, they feel contrived, if you're any good you shouldn't even be in one, etc. It feels more like an NBA playoff race than an MLB pennant race, if you know what I mean.

But the one thing that would bring that old feeling back would be a one game winner-take-all showdown at Wrigley Field against the Cubs. That would be awesome. Like a return to baseball normalcy. Like old school, real, pennant-race-in-autumn baseball. Red Sox-Yankees at Fenway in the afternoon with the shadows creeping over home plate and Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola doing the call... that type of deal.

In fact, as stupid as it sounds, I'm a lot more excited to see that than I am to see a divisional playoff series between the Brewers and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Of course, I want to get to that divisional series very badly. I'm just saying it won't be as epic as a one game playoff at Wrigley Field would be. It'll just be, as Holmgren redubbed the new NFL playoff format in the 90s, "the tournament".

Oh well, always remember the math is on our side! (I still don't know what that means).

Could Brauny get robbed of the NL ROY?

I assumed Ryan Braun would be a shoe-in for Rookie of the Year in the National League. By OPS+ he has had one of the top 6 offensive rookie seasons in baseball history. I figured that counted for something.

But now there are rumblings that his defense may end up costing him. Ken Rosenthal of foxsports.com indicates that Colorado SS Troy Tulowitzki will be his choice.

While I understand that Braun's poor defense must be weighed against him, Rosenthal's case for Tulowitzki is less than compelling.

He cites Tulowitzki's defensive value as a sure-handed shortstop. Fair enough, I'll give him that, because the ZR numbers back him up.

But then he cites Tulowitzki's home run production, which he points out is the most in history for a National League rookie shortstop. And I would rebut by pointing out that Tulowitzki's power numbers are almost entirely related to Coors Field. Tulowitzki's slugging percentage at Coors Field is .594. Away from Coors Field it plummets to .393. And his OPS at Coors Field is .962. Away from Coors Field it drops significantly to .721.

In fact, by any decent measure Tulowitzki's overall offensive production isn't even remotely comparable to Braun's.

The best statistical yardstick for determining such production is Baseball Prospectus' Equivalent Average. That statistic factors in park effect and other variables in its measurement of overall offensive value per out. Ryan Braun owns the 9th best EQA in the National League at .319. Tulowitzki's EQA is 46 points lower.

In short, I think the sheer weight of Braun's historic production ought to make him the presumptive choice for Rookie of the Year. And I think that in order to overcome that presumption and award someone else, you have to meet a heavy burden of proof. You have to make a stronger case than Rosenthal makes for Tulowitzki.

Report: Melvin not happy with Yost's odd decision

Alert the vultures. Nedly's days may be numbered.

This is second hand information: Charley Sykes reported on TMJ 620 this morning that Brewers GM Doug Melvin intended to question Brewers manager Ned Yost about last night's beanball incident. Melvin clearly indicated that he would be displeased to learn that it was ordered or planned by Yost. He said he didn't see why Yost would do that in that important situation, and indeed, he didn't see why anyone would do it.

If this information is accurate, and it seems solid, then I believe Doug Melvin will use this bizarre incident to wash his hands of Yost.

My guess is that he probably wanted to anyway, since Yost was never his guy to begin with, but that prior to this he would have been hard pressed to do so, given the fact that the Brewers would be just coming off their first September pennant race in 15 years.

More proof Yost has come unhinged

Did you read any of the quotes in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel from Ned Yost's press conference last night after the Cardinals debacle? Unbelievable. He's completely lost it.

First he claimed, against all logic, that "We still have the math on our side." Huh? How far did you get in arithmetic, Ned? We have four games to go and we are two games behind. How is that favorable math?

Then he tried to deny that he sent Seth McClung to the mound to play the role of the hockey goon. "The pitch just got away from him," Yost insisted.

[Yost's ridiculous denial reminds of the scene in Goodfellas where Paul Cicero is telling Henry Hill he doesn't want him using or selling "the junk" anymore, and Hill plays stupid about it, and Cicero says "Don't make a jerk out of me, Henry... don't make a jerk out of me. Just don't do it." Same to you, Ned.]

Now here's the really disturbing stuff. When asked why he would bring Turnbow in with a runner on base, when the statistics show that he struggles mightily pitching out of the stretch, Yost replied "Any time you get a runner on first and two outs you go ahead and close it out."

What is he talking about? He brought Turnbow in with one out, and besides, Yost's reply is so off point you wonder if he was responding to some fantasy question in his head.

Then he was asked why he allowed Turnbow to stay in the game after he walked the bases loaded. "[H]e's had three days rest. He's strong and healthy. You just hoped he'd find the strike zone."

Hoped he'd find the strike zone?? He was just kind of hoping he would find the strike zone? Has he seen any of Turnbow's outings this year? Does he know we're in a pennant race?! That is outrageous!

Moreover, what happened to the "Whatever it takes" approach he promised he would employ a couple of weeks ago? Are we back to the old "Let them work out of it" mentality? Does that mean he's thrown in the towel? With the math on our side?

Bottom Line

I wasn't one of the people screaming for Yost to be fired. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He used that up last night.

I think his actions last night, especially his decision to jeopardize the game in order to "get even" with the Cardinals, calls into question his fitness as a manager. I think he may lose his job over this.

Yost has gone Captain Queeg on us

I've been pretty fair to the Nedly this season, but his decision to deliberately hit Albert Pujols when the Brewers were trailing by a run with one out and none on in the eighth inning of a must win game was just about the most irrational managerial move I've ever seen. When you combine that decision with his recent slew of ejections and bizarre episodes of chippiness, you have to conclude this pennant race has caused him to come unglued.

Note: Not everyone agrees with me. Some applauded the move and thought it was a long time coming. The hosts of WSSP 1250's Brewer Postgame show, both certified Yost haters, thought Ned finally showed some cahones when he ordered the Pujols plunking. They believed the move was designed to show the players that Yost had their back.

Here's my case against the move:

1. You couldn't afford to give away a free base and ultimately a free run. When you are down by a run with six outs to go, and your season hanging in the balance, I don't think its intelligent to get in a pissing match with the other team when the net result is a rally starting baserunner for the opposition -- a baserunner who would come around to score. I think you have to find another way to settle your grievances -- a way that doesn't punish your own team.

2. You set Turnbow up to fail. If you're going to deliberately put someone on base, why in the world would you then bring in Derrick Turnbow, a pitcher who becomes appreciably worse working out of the stretch, and who is dreadful with men in scoring position? You've basically given a guy zero margin for error, who has shown he does not operate well under those conditions. One little flare hit and he was in a world of hurt that he wasn't equipped to get out of.

3. If it was so important to plunk Pujols, why wait so long? Prince Fielder was drilled in the second inning. Yet Yost waited until the eighth inning to retaliate. He determined that it had to be Pujols who got hit, and he wanted it done when he had a pitcher in the game that he could afford to have tossed. So, in one sense Yost didn't want to hurt the team by sacrificing the starting pitcher, but in another sense he didn't mind hurting the team by costing it a run. You can't have it both ways. If it wasn't important enough to do right away, it shouldn't have been important enough to do in a crucial spot in the eighth inning.

Ned wants to know who ate the strawberries

"Ahh, but the strawberries that's... that's where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with... geometric logic... that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox DID exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action. I, I, I know now they were only trying to protect some fellow officers..."

Like Captain Queeg on the USS Caine, I think the pressure has broken Nedly and caused him to lose his grip. Over the past week, his behavior has become increasingly erratic. Last night he ordered the self destructive hit on Pujols. The night before that he was caught on camera yelling obscenities across the diamond at Tony LaRussa. Over the weekend he was suggesting the umps were conspiring against the Brewers. And game in and game out he seems hell bent on getting tossed out. Is that not the profile of a man on the ledge?

I wouldn't be surprised if Nedly's still over at Miller Park right now... sitting in the dark clubhouse, rolling marbles and mumbling about strawberries.

How the Prince stacks up for MVP

Prince Fielder's MVP campaign is picking up some serious steam. He now seems to be the clear cut favorite. The player most prominently mentioned as his primary competition is Colorado's LF Matt Holliday. In fairness, though, the award should probably go to the New York Mets 3b David Wright.

The Prince has had an inarguably terrific season. Its just that Wright has had a better one. Wright has been simply brilliant, both on offense and on defense. He tops both Fielder and Holliday in every important statistical category that measures the contribution a player made to his team.

Here is how the Prince stacks up against his rivals in the key statistics provided by Baseball Prospectus:

Equivalent Average (which measures offensive value per out made):

1. David Wright .330

2. Prince Fielder .320

3. Matt Holliday .316

Equivalent Runs (which measures runs created per out made):

1. David Wright 126.5

2. Prince Fielder 117.7

3. Matt Holliday 116.0

Runs Created Above Average (which measures the runs created above those the average player at the position would have been expected to create)

1. David Wright 50.2

2. Matt Holliday 38.2

3. Prince Fielder 35.2

Defensive Runs Above Average (which measures the number of runs prevented above those the average player at the position would have been expected to prevent):

1. David Wright 26.4

2. Matt Holliday 8.31

3. Prince Fielder -(7.98)

Net Runs Above Average (which combines RCAA plus DRAA):

1. David Wright 76.6

2. Matt Holliday 46.7

3. Prince Fielder 27.1

Defense finally picks Suppan up

With the exception of an abysmal showing in Sunday's Atlanta finale, the Brewers defense has really tightened up in the past two weeks.

Last night they fielded only 66.6% of the balls put in play by the Cardinals, which is below the MLB average of 69.5%, but that was the fault of the pitchers. On the mix of batted balls (33.3% LineDrives 43.3% Groundballs 23.3% Flyballs), the average defense would only have converted 60.7% into outs, so the Brewer defense had a well-above average night.

Its just as well that Supp got credited afterward for yet another nice September outing... he got bashed badly over the summer for badly pitched outings that were actually bad defensive outings.

Oh, Brauny

Not everything was seashells and balloons for the Brewers defense last night.

God bless Ryan Braun. He can rake like a sunofabitch. But he just can't field third base. Particularly, he can't defend the foul line.

Did you see his effort on the double hit up the line by Cardinal Ryan Ludwick in the fourth inning last night? It was almost comical.

Ludwick hit a not-particularly-sharp groundball that was... truthfully... not even that close to third base. Somehow the ball turned into a double. Well, not somehow. Braunhow.

Brauny played the thing like it was an explosive device. The ball bounded maybe a step-and-a-half to his right. He moved over decently to play it on the backhand. It took a cherry hop that should have made it easy to field. But Brauny let it get under his glove. Actually it was worse than that. He seemed to almost flinch and recoil a bit when it got near his glove.

If I were the Brewers, the first thing I would start doing when my boots touched down in Arizona next spring would be to start hitting fungoes at Ryan Braun's backhand, and not stop until spring training was over. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

I fully believe defense can be taught. And I fully believe Ryan Braun can learn it. He obviously has phenomenal hand-eye coordination. So it can be done. Its all a question of effort and will.

The Prince orders up a Mick special

Have you seen the tape measure home run hit by Prince Fielder at Miller Park last night? If you haven't seen it, you need to check it out. I efforted every possible way to upload it to this blog, but failed. Bang on that link and you should get it. It was a bomb that would have made Mickey Mantle proud.

Estrada must go

With the pennant race on a ventilator (the doctors are attempting to contact next of kin) its time to start thinking about how to upgrade the team. The number one area that needs upgrading in my mind is position number two.

Johnny Estrada is not the answer at catcher. His defense is lax -- he couldn't throw out my Grandma, and she's got two artificial hips. And he grossly underproduces on offense. What is he good for? Absolutely nothing (say it again).

I can hear all of you right now. What about his batting average? My answer: its an illusion.

Estrada's average is as empty as all the bottles of Pabst I consumed while watching the Crew on Friday night. His secondary average, which basically measures the bases you achieve beyond singles -- in other words the substance behind your batting average -- is an embarrassment. A .151 secondary average isn't acceptable at any position, let alone catcher.

Estrada also ranks among the lowest starting catchers when it comes to Runs Created Above Average at -4.0.

So he's below average on offense and way below average on defense. Why should he be allowed to stick around? His blazing speed? His glowing personality? I don't think so.

Do the Brewers need to upgrade at catcher? To quote Estrada himself, "Next stupid question."

Brewer fans, we are the 1969 A's

The October dream is just about dead... for this season. But there's no reason to get down on this team or mutter "same old Brewers" under your breath. Because these guys ain't.

BrewerNation should be ecstatic about this team and its potential. Anyone with any baseball wit whatsoever can see there will be no denying this Brewer team future October glory. We're on the cusp of a championship run here in Milwaukee.

If you want a historical parallel, look at the 1969 Oakland Athletics, aka "the guys in the ugly green unis". After decades of futility for the Athletics, that team won 88 games but didn't make the playoffs, largely because they had a losing record on the road (sound familiar?)

But the A's of 1969 weren't disappointed. They knew they were just getting started. The team was loaded with young talent and it was all blossoming at the same moment. The 1969 Athletics were a gathering storm that would devastate the baseball world in the early and middle 1970s. They were baseball's last true dynasty.

Here are some of the players the 1969 A's had who were under 25 years old: Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Rick Monday, Joe Campaneris, Catfish Hunter, Joe Rudi, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Gene Tenace.

In that emergent season, the core group of young phenoms helped their former joke of a franchise compete in its first pennant race since the Great Depression (the team hadn't even had a winning record from 1952-1968 -- sound familiar Crew Fans?). They didn't make it to the postseason that year, but within two years they would have won 101 games and a division title, and within 3 years they would have won their first of three straight world championships (commemorated in the above pictured Fleer World Series Cards -- btw, that's how I learned baseball history). And they would have won many more had Charley O. Finley not been so cheap.

But you know what? As good as that '69 A's roster was, and as great as they all became, I think the 2007 Brewers are actually better. Prince Fielder is a better all-around hitter than Reggie Jackson, Ryan Braun is better than Bando, Corey Hart is better than Rick Monday, Rickie Weeks is better than Joe Rudi, JJ Hardy is about the equivalent of Joe Campaneris, Yovani Gallardo is equivalent to Catfish Hunter, and Carlos Villanueva looks like just a slight dropoff from Vida Blue. And the pipeline is hardly dry. Coming soon, dynamic talent like Jeremy Jeffress, who looks like he could set the major leagues on fire when he gets here, and Matt LaPorta, who will add even more prodigious power to the Blue and Gold arsenal. The Brewers are so loaded for bear its scary.

That's why I say the storm is coming, baseball world. So grab shelter while you still can. In the next few seasons you will find out, as you found out about the A's in the early 70s, that these ain't your daddy's Milwaukee Brewers.

A huge, season-saving win for the Crew

I'm too t'ed from drinking multiple Pabst Blue Ribbons in celebration of the Brewers big victory last night over the Atlanta Braves to write anything intelligible, but I'm going to be really busy tomorrow, and I just want to get this on the record. Last night (Friday night, that is) I saw one of the greatest Brewer victories I have ever seen.

With two out in the eighth inning, and four outs to go, and hope fading fast in BrewerNation, the Brewers staged one of the great "midnight rallies" I can ever remember. It was so improbable. They HAD to win this game but, until the big rally, it didn't seem like they possibly could.

Then Brauny singled to left. Then the Fresh Prince of Milwaukee singled to center. Then Corey Hart came up and got the hit of his career so far, poking a Tim Hudson slider to right, plating Braun with the tying run, and sending Derry's on Bluemound into a frenzy (that's the tavie -- right by Miller Park -- where I was watching the game -- I think you could hear me scream "Fuck Yeah!!!" from there to Iowa when Braun scored). I was almost in tears.

The great thing was, the Brewers weren't satisfied with a tie. After the Braves foolishly walked Jenkins to load the bases (they walk Jenkins in order to throw a lefthander at righthanded Joe Dillon??? Nice logic!! Is it any surprise that the Nedly was reared by Bobby Cox?), the Braves bullpen reliever threw four pitches that weren't even close to Joe Dillon. To his credit he took them. That put the Crew ahead to stay. It was indescribably beautiful!

Props to every Brewer involved in that huge rally. Props to starting pitcher Carlos Villanueva for yet another magnificent outing (I said he should be a starter way back in June -- I wish the Brewer brass could have seen it too!!). And props to D Turnbow and Coco Cordero for shutting the door on the Braves. Awesome, awesome, awesome win!

Diesel says Sheets indicated he will go on Sunday

The Diesel was in attendance in Atlanta's Turner Field on Friday and he told me that he got close enough to the Brewers visiting dugout to ask Ben Sheets if he would make his scheduled start on Sunday, and in response to that question Diesel reports that Sheets nodded in the affirmative. I texted him back "Are you serious?" And he indicated that he was. So I'm holding out hope we will see some Louisiana Lightning on Sunday afternoon. Diesel also reports that he fired up Bill Hall before his big game-salting base hit in the ninth... at great personal risk (he was booed loudly by the Southern faithful). So a shout out to Diesel for that effort on behalf of BrewerNation.

Go Crew!

Desperate times for BrewerNation

Sorry there was no morning post. I was tied up with another matter.

As for the game: The pitching was outstanding, the defense was shaky, and the offense was nonexistent.

The Brewers have rarely lost this season when they have held their opponent to 3 or less runs. Go figure they lose last night in a critical game in which the pitching allows the opponent a mere 3 runs. That's life as a Brewer fan.

Now its desperation time. We almost have to win the last 3 in Atlanta, and two of the remaining games are against two of the most difficult pitchers in the National League: John Smoltz and Tim Hudson. Good luck, Crew.

Where did the O go?

I sort of worried that something like last night's feeble offensive show was inevitable. I just didn't think it would happen against Jeff Bennett, of all pitchers.

The Crew hasn't been hitting for average lately at all. They were scoring well because they were hitting for incredible power. Unfortunately, when you rely on power to that extent, if you don't bring it on any particular night, its like going to a gin party armed with Kool-Aid.

Defensive analysis of last night's game

Last night's pitching was outstanding -- another great start for Jeff Suppan -- but the defense was a bit shaky.

Typically, pitchers allow the following mix of batted balls to be put in play: 21% Line Drives, 44% Groundballs, and 35% Flyballs. Line drives are much more difficult to turn into outs, so the fewer of those pitchers allow, the better they have pitched.

Last night the Brewer pitchers allowed a scant 9% line drives, to go with 63.6% groundballs and 27% flyballs. That's a pretty nice effort. The pitchers theoretically made the defense's job easier.

Because on that mix of batted balls the average defense would get 72.2% outs, which is above the normal rate (69.5%). So the pitchers essentially created outs for the Brewers. The problem was the Brewers defense gave them back and then some. They were only able to turn 63.8% of the balls in play into outs. That's too low. Of course, if Joe Dillon had a decent pair of spikes that number would have been a bit closer to acceptable.

Props to Rickie

They weren't all bad, though. Rickie Weeks did some yeoman work at the 2 hole. With his bat and with his glove, he is beginning to look like a young Joe Morgan.

Last night he had his third home run in 4 games, and he recorded 35.7% of the Brewers putouts by himself, an extraordinary number for a second baseman. He also helped engineer a couple of sweet double plays. I guess he can play some defense after all. Keep it up, Rick.

Brewers-Braves series preview

Trivia question: Which city's sports scene is almost identical to Milwaukee's sports scene circa 1954?

Trivia answer: Obviously, Atlanta. But while most folks know that Atlanta got Milwaukee's former baseball franchise the Braves, few know that they also got, via St. Louis, Milwaukee's original NBA franchise, the Hawks -- aka "The team that time forgot".

Brewers-Braves series preview

I'm not going to get too caught up in numbers this time because, frankly, if you saw them Brew Cruisers, they would scare the piss out of you.

So I'm just going to say this. The series breaks down to these five questions:

1. Can the Brewers continue the sterling defensive play they exhibited in Houston?

2. Can the Brewers Young Guns (Gallardo and Villanueva) match the Braves high priced veterans (Smoltz and Hudson) pitch for pitch on Friday and Saturday?

3. Can the Brewers batters continue their unbelievable September power surge (their isolated power number is now at a eye popping .243) against a fairly solid Braves pitching staff?

4. Can Jeff Suppan continue his autumn magic?

5. Will Ben Sheets be ready and able for his scheduled Sunday start?

If those questions are answered in the Blue and Gold affirmative, it will be a successful series. If the answers come back negative, the Brewers pennant hopes may not survive the weekend.

Its as simple as that, Brew Cruisers. Stay tuned.

Time for Ned to get Mench some swings

Nedly said he's going to play the hot hand down the stretch. He has a weird definition of "hot".

Based on September numbers, it appears Gabe Gross mania has run its course. Joe Dillon may have done all he can do as well. Nedly isn't identifying the truly warm guy on his bench: Kevin Mench.

Mench has the second highest OPS on the team for the month of September at 1.278, just behind the incomparable Prince Fielder. He's hitting for average (.378) he's getting on base (.478) and he's hitting for power (.789). He needs to get some swings.

It isn't as if the guys he would be replacing are setting the world on fire. Gabe Gross has puttered out. He had a great run when we needed someone to get hot, but now its time to tell Grossy "Thank you very much, but have a seat." He's not hitting for average (.212) and he's not providing any power at all (.283).

And Joe Dillon, bless his heart, just doesn't have staying power. He's had some key hits, and he is hitting for some power (.483), but he's just not getting on base at all (.303). Its time to end the Dillon Experiment and call on THX 1138 (if you don't get my reference, forget about it).

Last quick point: everyone talks about how great Mench was for that one month of April, 2006, with the Texas Rangers. His numbers are actually better this month. Lets get him on the field and see if we can't take advantage of the situation.

Brewer defense in Houston was outstanding until the end

I know everyone is bummed out about losing the third game in the Houston series, but there is one very positive thing that can be taken from this leg of the road trip. The Brewers, normally a sloppy defensive unit, were outstanding for nearly the entire series.

Up until the moment Dave Bush left the third game, the Brewers fielding had been incredible -- even Brauny had stepped his game up. But then they got just a bit lax, and that made all the difference. The loss was clearly on the bullpen, but had the defense continued their excellence, the story might have been different. (I explain below).

Defensive breakdown of each game of the Houston series

If an average defensive team sees an average mix of batted balls put in play (21% Line Drives, 44% Ground Balls, and 35% Fly Balls), they will turn 26% of line drives into outs, 72% of groundballs into outs, and 89% of fly balls into outs, which translates into converting 69.5% of batted balls into outs, which corresponds with the longstanding MLB average "Defensive Efficiency Rating" of .695. But some nights teams will see a different mix of batted balls, so you have to adjust your expected conversion rate accordingly.

I discovered a quick way to do it. On MLB Gameday, they give a description of every ball put in play, so you can quickly calculate what the team's DER should have been and what it actually was. Here's a quick rundown of the Houston series:

Game One

Yovani and Spurling allowed 26 balls in play. They were divided this way: 19% Line Drives, 42% Ground balls, and 39% Fly balls. Given that mix, the average defense would have converted 69.8% of batted balls into outs. The Brewers defense converted 73.0%.

Game Two

I discovered the reason I may have gotten the impression that the Astros were laying down for the Brewers in Game Two. Of the 22 balls they put in play, the Astros did not hit a single line drive. That's pretty incredible, but probably speaks more to the Brewers outstanding pitching than it does the Astros effort. Here's the batted ball mix from that game: 0% Line Drives, 60% Ground Balls, 40% Fly Balls. On that mix, the average defense would have converted 78.9% of batted balls into outs (see how pitching can make a difference). The Brewers did even better than that, converting 82.4%.

Game Three

Last night's loss falls on the bullpen, but they weren't helped by the defense.

The bullpen came into a game that Dave Bush had well in hand and started allowing line drives at an enormously disproportionate rate.

When Bush left the game he had given up the following mix of balls in play: 17% Line Drives, 35% Ground Balls, and 48% Fly balls, of which the defense would be expected to convert 72.1% into outs, the Brewers defense had converted 82.3% into outs. The Brewers were cruising.

Then the bullpen came in with their gas cans. But the defense did not help them out. The bullpen collectively allowed the following ugly mix: 46% Line Drives, 34% Ground Balls, and 20% Fly Balls. Given that mix, the average defense could be expected to turn only 53.3% into outs, but the Brewers defense could only muster a 46.6% conversion rate.

And that may have been the difference between a huge sweep and a good but not great trip to Houston.

Notes on a Brewer loss that hurt

After last night's loss the Brewers are playing uphill again, back to being one game behind the Chicago Cubs. They nearly swept the Astros, but nearly doesn't get it done anymore. A couple of thoughts:

...I was curious as to why Ned Yost let Dave Bush hit for himself in the top of the seventh, but then didn't send him to the mound to start the bottom of the seventh. Yost said he planned to send Bush out for the bottom of the seventh, but that Bush gassed himself running the bases, so he decided to relieve him then. Ok, I accept that, but I kind of wish he would have either (a) thought ahead and pinch hit for Bush or, (b) at least pinch ran for Bush after Bush got on base. I thought Bush should have scored from first on Joe Dillon's two out double, and I think a pinch runner would have. And while I know Bush got a hit, if there was a possiblity he was going to be removed from the game anyway I would have liked to have seen what Kevin Mench would have done against the Astro lefty.

...I've been touting Brian Shouse as a bullpen stalwart, or at least I had been, and I should have known better. Yeah, he was having a fabulous season, but it was sort of an illusion. His past numbers said he was living on borrowed time, and I should have seen it. Or I should have inferred something from the fact that he's been signed and released by nine different organizations. There's probably a good reason why.

...Turnbow came into a tight situation in the eighth and didn't get out of it before he allowed two inherited runners to score. But this time it wasn't really his doing. He induced a lazy groundball to the shortstop position that should have been at least one out, but the Brewers were in some kind of defensive rotation that left shortstop empty. And the ball rolled right through there for the ultimate seeing eye single. Whatever defensive manuever the Brewers were executing didn't make much sense because the batter was righthanded, and I always thought you didn't vacate shortstop with a righthanded batterd nor second base with a lefthanded one.

...I can't defend Matt Wise anymore. You can't come into a big game that is tied and walk the first guy you face. You have to be more aggressive than that.

...Scott Linebrink's got good stuff, but last night he wasn't fooling any of the Astros. The first batter, Carlos Lee, hit a clean single up the middle. The second batter, Hunter Pence, hit a screamer to Weeks that Linebrink was fortunate to have turn into a double play. Then Ty Wigginton hit a scorcher down the third base line that Counsell nicely snared but then threw wide on. Three batters three hard hit balls. Then he threw a really wild pitch that put Wigginton, the tying run, in scoring position. Not a great night for Linebrink.

Tantalizing but frustrating Brewer bullpen arms

Have you ever seen anyone blow cheese with as little effort as Seth McClung? He sort of flicks the ball, yet it absolutely explodes out of his hand at like 98 mph. I love watching him pitch, but somehow I just don't quite trust him.

There are several Brewer bullpen candidates who fit that same description.

Derrick Turnbow

This guy should be frustration's poster child. Do you realize he has allowed two extra bases in the last month? That's awesome! Until you learn that he has simultaneously walked 11 men in a mere 32 ABs. That's why his secondary numbers absolutely blow (.402/.333) and, even though his stuff can be bananas good, you just can't trust him. BTW, the "Turnbow Two Rule" I established held last night. He walked the first guy, but got the next three to preserve the rule's validity (if Turnbow allows more than one baserunner, he will allow multiple runs; if he does not he will allow zero runs).

Matt Wise

As you know, I'm obsessed with secondary numbers. I was shocked to learn that Wise has some of the best secondary numbers on the staff, second to Coco (.090/.068). He has given up 1 extra base in the last 22 ABs faced, and he has walked one. So why do I get so nervous when I see his little beard strolling out of the pen? Because, in that same time, his ERA is huge. He is bleeding singles everywhere, but he isn't getting hit hard at all. While opponents are hitting an astronomical .406 against him in the last 28 days, their slugging percentage is only 43 points higher than that. You never see that combination. I have to blame the defense behind him. Indeed, his BABIP is an ungodly .600. Its like he's pitching Home Run Derby. And he isn't a line drive pitcher at all, so you can't blame him (line drives are far more difficult to convert into outs). Which makes that all the more baffling.

Seth McClung

As I wrote earlier, I love watching this guy pitch. He's like one of those big ass 80s set up guys who just comes in and blows gas (like Eric Plunk, for instance). And he doesn't give up many walks. Unfortunately, if hitters get wood on the ball, its gonna travel. He's been smucked around the park. But I still like him and wouldn't mind if he found his way into the mix. That said, he's been very effective over the last 28 days. His Secondary Average Against is .166 (NL average=.262), and when you adjust that to account for strikeouts his numbers fall to .129 (NL average=.224). However, his career SAA is a whopping .362, and adjusted for strikeouts its still an extremely high .305. Is he for real? Ned should gently try to find out.

Chris Spurling

I don't think many people like this guy, but I do. The problem with him is he's a groundball pitcher who pitches in front of an infield that hates groundballs. So, what would usually recommend him is actually something to worry about. His SAA over the last 28 days is an okay .250, and a nice strikeout adjusted .212. Those are slightly better than his career numbers. Yet I kind of like him. I guess there's no real logic behind my argument.

Babbling heads not picking the Beermakers

What happened to the "trendy darkhorse pick" out of spring training, the Milwaukee Brewers? Suddenly no one thinks they can overcome the Cubs lea... wait, the Brewers have the lead (with two more games than the Cubs they effectively control their own destiny)! You wouldn't know it if you listened to ESPN.

ESPN's baseball "GM" Steve Phillips (if he was such an astute GM wouldn't his name have come up in connection with some job somewhere?) picks the Cubs to win the NL Central, and so does ESPN babbling head Jayson Stark. I heard both of them this morning on ESPN Radio's "Mike and Mike in the Morning".

Phillips reasoning is that Ben Sheets is hurt, and the Brewers can't win without a healthy Sheets. Hello? Has he been following the Brewers at all in the last month? Sheets hasn't done squat, and the Brewers have still bailed out their boat and gotten back in the pennant race. Its called Gallardo, Villanueva, and Suppan... and a whole lot of Fielder, Hart, and Braun. Learn it Steve!

Starks, on the other hand, didn't even bother to give a reason why he was picking the Cubs. He was too busy tripping over his tongue to start talking about the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Looks like the Brewers are, in the immortal words of Cassius Clay, "gonna shook up the world" in the next 11 days! (countless African American athletes wrongly misquote him after upset victories by saying they "shocked the world". Clay said he "shook up the world" when he beat Liston.)

Footnote: BTW, the Diesel asserts that my post about the Astros dogging it amounted to a jinx. If it did I hereby repudiate it in advance of the third Astro game. There, its on the record.

ESPN reporting Sheets injury not serious!

ESPN's resident baseball nerd Tim Kurkjein is reporting that he just talked with Beermaker's GM Doug Melvin who reports to him that Ben Sheets latest bizarre injury is "not serious". Sheets is therefore still penciled in to start on Sunday against the former Milwaukee team, the Braves. Melvin would not confirm or deny that Ben Sheets is in fact made of tissue paper.

Just kidding, he's a bulldog. He just has to resist the temptation to overthrow. He's torquing his body all to hell for no reason. He's not in competition with Yovani Gallardo or Carlos Villanueva, he's in competition with the Brewers opponents. Just pitch like you know how, Benny!

BTW, preliminary reports also suggest the Mequon Diesel will be in attendance for the Atlanta series and will be intermittently shouting "Fear the Beer! '07 is our year!" at Braves fans when the action on the field permits.

If we make the playoffs, I will have official "Fear the Beer" t-shirts on offer.

Astros the Dogs

When Houston management decided to pitch three first year players against the Milwaukee Brewers they sent a message loud and clear throughout the clubhouse: this series don't mean dukey. And the Astros have played like it.

They've basically rolled over and played dead. I mean, the Brewers pitching is improving, but to score only one run against them in 18 innings? In your home park? A notorious hitter's park?

The Brewers have lost plenty of large leads this season, but at no time did last night's lead ever appear in any danger. And we had Claudio Vargas and Seth McClung on the mound for the majority of the game.

Here's hoping the Astros stay dead for another day. A sweep on the road, even against a breathing corpse, would be huge for the Brewers. At this point... its any way at all.

The Electric Company

If you look at the statistics over the last seven days, the Brewers batting average is near the bottom of the Major Leagues at .235. So how have they won 4 of 6? How have they jumped back into first place in the National League Central? Power and power prevention.

Here's what I mean. A good measure of a team's power hitting is the difference between their slugging percentage and their batting average (which leaves you with extra bases per at bat). I call it the team's "Power Factor" (its actually called something else, but I have no idea what that is and what does it matter anyway?).

Over the last six days the Brewer hitters lead the Major Leagues by far in Power Factor at .226 (National League average Power Factor for the year is .157). Meanwhile, the pitching staff, which was giving up a "Power Factor Against" in August of .195 (it wasn't all the defense's fault -- the pitchers were getting somewhat bashed) has the lowest Power Factor Against in the Major Leagues over the last seven days at .080. That's an incredible Power Differential of +146.

Which is just a continuation of what the Brewers have done all September. They lead the National League by a long distance in Power Factor at .231 (the second best PF is the Florida Marlins at .215). They are second in the National League in PFA at .141. And they lead the National League in Power Differential at +90. Its been a big month thus far for the Crew.

And, don't get too excited, but look which team's are near the bottom of the National League. Two of the three teams the Brewers have left on their schedule.

National League "Power Differentials" (PF-PFA) in September

1. Milwaukee (+90)

2. NYMets (+83)

3. Chicago (+47)

4. San Diego (+32)

5. Arizona (+30)

6. Colorado (+17)

7. Florida (+14)

8. Los Angeles (-5)

9. Philadelphia (-8)

10. San Francisco (-12)

11. Pittsburgh (-16)

12. Washington (-26)

13. Atlanta (-64)

14. Cincinnati (-64)

15. St. Louis (-64)

16. Houston (-74)

Update: A reader has helpfully informed us that what I am calling "Power Factor" is actually called "Isolated Power". I knew it was something like that. Tomato, tomahto. Its the information that matters. Actually though, I like the name "Isolated Power". It sounds like a cool boxing term.

Net Runs Above Average revisted

When Ned Yost started Craig Counsell at third base and sat Ryan Braun on Sunday, many considered it a risky move. Technically, it wasn't risky at all.

Ryan Braun's glove has now officially outstripped his bat when it comes to net runs above average. His bat has produced a whopping 27 runs above what the average third baseman would produce, but his glove has cost the team 29 runs that an average third basemen would have prevented.

Meanwhile, Craig Counsell's glove has saved the Brewers 17 runs and his bat has cost them only 10.3 runs. So he's technically created more runs (+6.7) than Ryan Braun (-1.9). All that said, from a public relations and strategic standpoint, it would be stupid to sit Braun on a regular basis in favor of Counsell.

Keep in mind, the numbers I am presenting are numbers accumulated over time. They don't translate exactly to game situations. That's why in most situations you want Braun starting the game. Offensive opportunity is certain, defensive opportunity is random. You know Braun will have a chance to impact every game with at-bats, and you can hope he will not have to impact it with his glove.

My numbers merely suggest what impact players are having over the course of time.

Net Runs Above Average explained

Here's how I determined each Brewers NRAA. First I looked at their Runs Above Position, as calculated by Baseball Prospectus. That gave me offensive runs above average. To figure out defensive runs, I had to do a little more work.

First I looked at each Brewers "Zone Rating" on Hardball Times. Zone Rating is the number of plays made per chances in each fielding zone. Then I compared that to the average number of plays made per chance at each Brewers respective position. I did the same thing for "Out of Zone" plays. That produced a number either above or below the average number of plays made for each Brewer.

For instance, the Hebrew Hammer has made 55.6% of plays on 196 chances. The average third baseman would be expected to make 68.2%. So, while the Hammer successfully made 109 plays, he should have made 134. That puts him at -25. On those 109 chances, the Hammer made 21 plays Out of his Zone. Pretty good, except that the average third baseman would have made 32 plays out of zone on the same number of in zone chances (16.3%). So the Hammer is down 11 there as well, for a grand total of 36 plays he owes his pitching staff.

Then I had to translate missed or made plays into runs. I did that by referring to this page where they provide the average run value of a play made at each position. I then multiplied each Brewers number of plays below or above average times the run value of a play made at his position and I came up with the Brewers defensive run contribution.

For instance, the value of a play made at third base is .80 runs, so the Hammer's 36 missed plays cost the Brewers 29 runs.

Here's the rundown for each Brewer, with the first number being offensive runs, the second being defensive runs, and the third being Net Runs Above Average.

Net Runs Above Average for each regular Brewer

1. Prince Fielder (+36) (-6) (+30.0)

2. Corey Hart (+16)(-5) (+11.0)

3. JJ Hardy (+3)(+5) (+8.0)

4. Craig Counsell (-10.3)(+17) (+6.7)

5. Gabe Gross (-1)(+5) (+4.0)

6. Rickie Weeks (+8.9)(-5) (+3.9)

7. Geoff Jenkins (-1.1)(+3) (+2.9)

8. Kevin Mench (-6.1)(+6.0) (-0.1)

9. Ryan Braun (+27)(-29) (-2.0)

10. Bill Hall (-6)(-3) (-9.0)

Discussion

As you can see, all Brewers are now in the positive Net Runs category except Braun and centerfielder Bill Hall. According to Net Runs Above Average, Yost's decision to bench Hall was entirely justified. He is the only player on the team who is costing the Brewers both offensive and defensive runs.

Another thing that jumped out at me was the great season Corey Hart is having. His offense has been way above par, and his defense has not actually been as bad as the -5 would indicate. He's actually above average on the routine plays, his negative numbers come entirely from his inability to make plays on balls out of his zone. In other words, he's a steady outfielder who simply lacks range (Bill Hall is exactly the opposite -- which I actually find more maddening).

Rickie Weeks has also stepped up his game. If I remember correctly, he was in the negative Net Runs department last time I did these calculations. But since then his defense has picked up a bit, and his offense has picked up a lot.

Isn't it a bit ironic that Jenkins and Mench have both saved themselves from negative numbers (Mench is essentially at zero) through their defense and not their offense?

Finally, I should make note that there is only one Brewer who has positive numbers on both sides of the ledger: SS JJ Hardy. He's had a better campaign than I think he gets credit for.

The moronic unwritten rules of baseball

Last night the Brewers got a gift run handed to them by Houston SP Matt Albers in the opening inning.

With one out and one on and Prince Fielder on deck in the top of the first inning, Albers thought it would be a good time to retaliate against Brewers 3b Ryan Braun for a perceived indiscretion that related back to the last time the two faced off.

If you remember back to the Astros-Brewers series at Miller Park a couple weeks ago, Braun absolutely crushed a pitch from Albers and deposited it up above Friday's Front Row Grille in the leftfield stands. Braun then proceeded to strut like a peacock, strolling out of the batter's box, and even looking into the Brewer dugout while the ball was still in flight.

Albers didn't like the display. So he put his first pitch to Braun last night squarely on Braun's thigh. There was no doubt that the location of the pitch was intentional.

But what did he achieve with this? He unneccessarily put his team in a first inning jam, with one of the best hitters in the National League coming up. Indeed, it cost the Astros a run after Fielder doubled into the rightfield gap. Essentially, Albers gave the Brewers a free run.

But no one on his team seemed to beef with him about it. Why? Well, I'm sure all of them figured, Albers was just following the dictates of one of those illogical "unwritten rules" of baseball. Under the relevant rule, two weeks after a perceived infraction against a pitcher by a hitter, its accepted procedure for the pitcher to mete out punishment, irrespective of situation, irrespective of whether that act effectively penalizes your team.

Yet if I was one of Albers teammates, I would have been pissed. I would have wondered why he couldn't just get over the incident. Why would he retaliate by rewarding the Brewers?

In basketball, if someone dunks on you and then starts stylin in your face, you don't retaliate by intentionally fouling him and putting him on the free throw line. That's just giving him free points. You retaliate by going at him on the other end of the court.

If Albers truly felt trespassed upon by Braun, why didn't he apply basketball justice? Why didn't he retaliate by striking Braun out and then doing some strutting of his own? What did he gain by giving Braun a free base?

Yo, this kid can pitch

On my favorite show, HBO's The Wire, there's a scene where the fledgling drug captain Preston "Bodie" Broadus tells one of his young minions in the trade, "If you stay with me, you'll do nothin' but rise." Then he explains why. "Man, you don't rattle."

I get the same vibe from young Brewer starter Yovani Gallardo. Dude does not rattle. He doesn't even seem to sweat.

Last night he blew away the Houston Astros, completely shutting them down for the second time in his last three starts. With a pennant race in the balance, Gallardo has allowed a mere 2 runs in his last 28 innings, and zero in his last 21.

He simply doesn't rattle. If you saw him matchdown Lance Berkman last night with two on and two out in the third, you saw what I mean. It took him three pitches to set down one of the better hitters in the National League. The third pitch was a fastball on the black of the outside corner that just froze Berkman and put him down looking.

Coco Puffs has gone absolutely cuckoo

When I'm evaluating the performance of a pitcher independent of his defense, I add up all the things I think he is mostly responsible for when he is on the mound: extra bases, walks, hit batsmen, and net stolen bases (he's arguably less than half responsible for SBs, but I include them anyway).

Essentially, I charge him with every base the opponents get off him except for the first base they get on any kind of hit. I eliminate first base in order to eliminate singles from the pitcher's total. Singles are random and highly defense dependent, so I don't consider them the pitcher's responsibility. I then divide the pitcher's sum total of bases by the number of at-bats he has faced and I come up with an overall number for each pitcher.

I found that the average number for a National League pitcher on my scale is .262, just about the same as the National League batting average. When I adjust for strikeouts (by adding the pitcher's strikeout total to his at-bat total prior to dividing the pitcher's total base sum into it), that average dips to .224.

In the last month and a half Coco Puffs Cordero's average is a microscopic .081. Adjust that for strikeouts and his number dips even further to .061. Remember, the National League averages are .262 and .224 respectively.

What I'm saying is that Coco has given the opposition hitters exactly bubkus in the last month and a half. One extra base, three walks, and one hit batsmen in 61 mostly tension filled at-bats.

It has been a relief performance streak for the ages, and it appears he will have to continue it for at least 14 more days (and hopefully more). When Yost called on Coco to make two four out saves in the last two days he signalled his intent to ride him right to the finish line.

Sunday awesome Sunday

I don't have much time, but I have a few quick thoughts on a great victory on Sunday... Carlos Villanueva was outstanding again. I don't mean to be a carp, but I wrote back in early June that the Brewers needed to fit him into the starting rotation. Where would they be now if they had?... Don't you have to find a spot in the lineup for Joe Dillon? What a game that guy had. Two humongous two-out extra base hits. Four huge RBIs. Plus he plays solid defense. Ned has to consider it at least... Where would this team be without Coco Cordero? To say he has been great in '07 is like saying the moon landing was kind of memorable.

Gotta fly. Go Crew! Fear the Beer! And way to go Pack, too.

Brewer defense watch

Check it out. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel claims there is no correlation between the Brewers defense and Brewer victories. They are flat wrong (mainly because their claim is based on the false premise that defense can accurately be measured by number of errors committed).

I prefer to look at defensive efficiency rating, a quick and dirty and readily accessible way to evaluate a team's defense. Last night the Brewers defensive efficiency rating, as provided by MLB.com, was .724, which which was 10th in the National League, and above the National League season average of .692. And it was a rating well above the Brewers abysmal season rating of .679 (good for second worst in the National League).

As you know, the Brewers won last night and held their opponent to 3 runs.

In the two previous games, both losses, the Brewer ratings were .664, for the Sheets loss, and an unbelievably bad .493 for the Bush beatdown.

As I've been saying for weeks, if the Brewers could just get average defensive play from their fielders, the team would be an awesome force and would be poised for October. Just average is all we need.

Live Blog: Reds v. Brewers Game Two

Top of 6th: Milw 4, Reds 1

When the sixth inning started, I decided to start live blogging. The last time I did was Opening Day, and the Brewers won that one.

If you remember that post, I tend to just type free form thoughts when I'm Live Blogging, so there will certainly be some lavatory phrases used throughout, which I apologize in advance for.

Okay, here's where we are at: We are into the sixth, and Jeff Suppan is spinning yet another nice ballgame. He's given up his standard one plus hits per inning, but the key to his success is that, in those hits, he has only given up two extra bases, and he has only walked 2 batters in 20... make that 21 at bats.

Oop, he just let a guy on with one out in the sixth.

We need this game badly. The Cubs look like they will win two.

Fuck me, JJ just made a terrible error. He booted a tailor made double play ball and then compounded the problem by firing it WAY over the head of Rickie Weeks. Goddamn.

The defense rears its ugly head again.

ALL RIGHT! Suppan just gave Hardy a shot at redemption and he cashed it in with an inning ending double play. Kudos to Nedly for setting it up with an IBB. But I still generally hate IBBs.

SPECTACULAR PITCHING BY SUPPAN!

Top of 7th: Brewers 4, Reds 1

Nothing happened in the bottom of the sixth.

Suppan is still on. He's only at 82 pitches.

Suppan just walked a guy, but he clearly got screwed. The batter went 3/4s of the way around, and the ump called it a legit check.

Oh, oh, get Suppan out of there. He just gave up an extra base hit and he tends to fade at 85 pitches, which he has passed. Oh, shit. The Reds just scored on a base hit. BREWERS 4, REDS 2.

Ned, get him out. He just retired someone on a grounder. I couldn't tell who, my girlfriend was talking to me.

Supp gets pulled. Brilliant stuff from Suppan. Linebrink coming on.

Check that, its Shouse. He's worked Griffey 0-2. Come on Big Bri.

Oh, he got screwed. Fastball on the black, couldn't get the call.

Oh, oh. Shouse has gone full to Griffey. Man on third, one out. Cannot let him score.

Popped him up! Nice work Shouse! What an adventure on that popup for Ryan Braun. He nearly botched it.

Now Linebrink is coming on to pitch to... I think Adam Dunn. No, no... its someone else.

Two down. Man on third. Linebrink facing, uhhh... Brendan Phillips. Bill Schroeder just suggested that Ned Yost should have walked Phillips and had Shouse face Dunn. What?! Walk the tying run on so you can get to their most dangerous hitter. Yea, good strategy.

Shit, that blew up. Linebrink gave up a hit. Its a one run game with a man on and Dunn batting. BREWERS 4, REDS 3.

Dunn hit one to the Dew Deck off of Linebrink during the last Cincinnati series at Miller Park, so Nedly thought better of the matchup and is calling on Sweet Baby Ray King. He better deliver.

Sweet Ray starts Dunn strike one. Dirtball, 1-1. Dunn fouls past first. 1-2. Come on Ray! Huge AB. Mow him down. Dunn goes down on a beautiful change of pace from SWEET... BABY... RAY!

Bottom of 7th: BREWERS 4, REDS 3

Braun got on, I have no idea how. My GF is bugging me here. She went to the Badger game and she has to show me her damn pictures. I know what you and your mom and your aunt and your cousin look like! Away woman!

Alright, got my focus back here. By the way, nice game for the Badgers. They were playing the Citadel and they gave up 31 points?? Pathetic. Ok ,focus here. The Prince of Milwaukee is up. Fielder just flyed out. Why do the fans always cheer obvious fly ball outs. Depth perception issues at Miller Park?

Oh yes, the Cards took a 4-3 lead on the Cubs. And Hart just walked. Man on 1st and 2nd, one out. The Milwaukee Clipper is at the bat. Come on boy-o, your due!

BTW, the Brewers are facing the ancient Mike Stanton this inning. Didn't he pitch in the '91 World Series? He's going to pitch until he's on Medicare. More power to him, I guess. He can be the opening act for the Strolling Bones next geriatric concert tour. How long are those guys going to keep touring, anyway. What is Keith Richards... 90?

What the fuck!!! Yost just tried a double steal and ran us out of the damn inning!! Fucking stupid!! There's your small ball bullshit. We're a power team, dumb ass.

Hesus H am I pissed off at Yost!

Two outs, Braun erased. Hart on third.

Now they're speculating that Braun took off on his own. I doubt that. Why did Hart advance as well if Braun was freestyling?

Oh Jenkins whiffs. Damn it. I don't like how this is setting up Brew Cruisers. We got Turnblow coming on with only a one run cushion. Scary stuff.

Top of 8th: Brewers 4, Reds 3

Here we go. Six outs to get and we need this game badly.

Who we gonna see, Dr. Derrick or Mr. TurnBLOW?

Buckle up. Counsell in for defensive security. Throw strikes Turnbow!

Encarnacion leading off for Cincy. He grounds to Hardy for one away. Five to get.

Ooooh, Turnbow's got his good shit tonight. When he does, as i said, he's Goose Gossage. You can't touch him.

Lifted in the air to left, can of corn for Jenkins. 4 to get Brew Cruisers!

High gas. Ball one to the catcher. Didn't catch his name. Oh, that bender was way high. 2-0. It barely broke. Oh, he just blew some gas by him at 94. 2-1. Oh, he missed inside. 3-1. Dangerous pitch here. Fuck! He missed. Ball four.

Ok. One more baserunner and Turnbow must be pulled. The Turnbow Two Rule if you saw my post.

Valentin up, and Turnbow is way high for ball one. I don't like how this is setting up.

Way high again. Ball Two. The fans are getting restless, and with good cause. Throw strikes, Turnbow.

Hitters count for Valentin. Can Turnbow wriggle off the hook?

MOther Fucker he missed for the third straight time in the exact same spot. Hesus! Walked him. PULL HIM!!

He's gone. Now we have to go to Cordero for a four out save. What is Turnbow's deal?

Two men on , two down when Coco Puffs comes on. Let's hope he's got his good stuff.

Turnbow really let us down. If Coco can't get all 4 outs, were screwed.

One and one to Hopper. Men on first and second. Got him to reach for a slider. 1-2. Come on Coco Puffs! Fans getting up and making noise. Fouled away. BLEW HIM AWAY!!! I'M FUCKING CUCKOO FOR COCO PUFFS!!!

Bottom of 8th: Brewers 4, Reds 3

What a Houdini for Coco in the bottom of that last frame. Let's just hope it doesn't negatively effect his chances next inning. But first things first. We need a rally.

They just cut to Davey Nelson for commentary. I'm sorry, he seems like a great guy, but I haven't heard him say anything interesting all season. He just told us "Turnbow came in and got two quick outs, and then he threw eight straight balls." Ahh, Davey... we all saw that.

I'm raggin on Davey and I missed the Brewers first out of the inning. Who made it? Oh well, JJ's up now. He was screwed out of a Grand Salami in the first by a few feet.

Hardy to left and deep!!! Get out of here, baby!! Its gone for Hardy's 25th of the season!! Huge.. Huge.. Huge!! Dynomite JJ!! BREWERS 5, REDS 3

Lance Nix just went down rather quietly. That guy has a AAA bat and that's it. But he does play defense and that's what he's in there for.

Weeks is up. He's got a full count on him. Rickie walks. That should be his nickname: Rickie Walks. Get it, Weeks... Walks. Aah, maybe not. Anway, his BA may be low, but he has a beautiful OBP, and that is quite valuable too.

Weeks steals. Thus he has effectively turned his walk into a double. Nicely done Rick.

Now Billy Hall is up. He of the season long slump. Come on Billy. Ooo, they're going to walk him. I don't like the IBB strategy. I read somewhere that an IBB has something like a .277 run value, so you are playing with fire. Let's burn him Brewers.

Its Counsell now. Come on Craiger. Ball one. Ahh, shit. The strategy paid off for the Reds manager. Counsell popped up. Well... on to the ninth! We got three to get, Brew Cruisers.

Top of 9th: Brewers 5, Reds 3

Coco is going to have to earn his save tonight. Damn. He's got the heart of the Reds order to face down, including Griffey and Dunn.

Koeppinger just hit a lazy pop fly to JJ Hardy. TWO TO GET! COME ON!

Now we got Griffey. Don't fuck with him Coco. He went right at him with a heater, which Griffey was late on. Griffey scares me. Inside ball one. 1-1. Remember when Griffey was unquestionably the best player on the planet? He's still pretty good. Got the bender by him. 1-2. Just got him to swing at a 50 foot curve ball. BYE BYE! Man, he made a great hitter look stupid. ONE TO GET!

Now we've got Phillips. 1-1. Come on Coco. I miswrote when I said Dunn followed Griffey. Fouled away. One strike away! We are about to be 2-for-2 in games I Live Blog (I did Opening Day, too). Coco missed. 2-2. Fouled off. Still 2-2. Come on Coco babeeeee... Oh this Phillips guy is spoiling pitches. Annoying. Take your whiff boy.

THERE IT IS!!! THE BIG WHIFF!!! ITS IN THE BANK AND EARNING INTEREST FOR THE CREW!!

FINAL SCORE: BREWERS 5, REDS 3

Stars of the Game:

Jeff Suppan: Yet another brilliant outing for Supp. Wow has he been great. He's pitching like the postseason ace we thought we were getting when we signed him. Shades of Don Sutton 1982.

Coco Cordero: Is this guy something or what? A four out save. Man did he save the day when Turnbow set the Reds up perfectly. Coco to the rescue. If you read one of my previous posts, I provided statistical evidence showing he has been brilliant over the last five weeks.

JJ Hardy: He had a couple of hiccups in the field, but that home run put this game on ice, and made Coco's job that much easier.

BREW CREW VICTORY!!!

Brewers basically need a miracle now

Last night's game was not one the Brewers could afford to piss away. They may need a miracle to get it done now.

The problem for the Brewers is they have eight games left against two quality opponents, Atlanta and San Diego, and four of those games are on the road.

Meanwhile, the Cubs have only losing teams remaining on their schedule. And the Cubs are playing better than the Brewers at the moment.

It looks like an uphill climb from here for the Beermakers.

Sheets isn't holding anyone on base

When I was doing some research for a different post, I noticed something disturbing. In his limited number of appearances, Ben Sheets has allowed 16 stolen bases without a single caught stealing.

While I realize Johnny Estrada absolutely sucks as a defensive catcher, no other pitcher on the staff is getting raked at near that rate. So some of it is clearly on Ben Sheets. He's not holding anyone on base.

The Cincinnati Reds obviously saw the same numbers I saw. As I write, we are in the second inning and the Reds have already stolen an incredible 5 bases on Sheets. In two innings! Oh, it just cost him a run. Great.

He has to do better. His lax attitude toward baserunners is effectively turning singles into extra base hits.

The Seattle Pilots live on in BrewerNation

Living four blocks from Miller Park (I use "to" in the blog title because it implies I'm headed that way -- "from" merely implies proximity), I think I have my finger on the pulse of BrewerNation. Every game night the streets around here are packed with its citizens. This season has been like an ongoing sociological experiment.

The one trend I have definetely picked up on for '07 is the wearing of the colors. In years past, you would see Cubs fans wearing Cubs gear, but outside of that most of the people going to Miller Park were indistinguishable from people headed to Summerfest.

Not this year. The overwhelming majority of people I see going to the game are wearing Brewer gear (in fact, while I'm always chastised for not wearing red to Badger games, this year is the first year anyone has ever chastised me for not wearing Brewer gear to a Brewer game).

This trend has also led me to another important conclusion -- BrewerNation overwhelmingly prefers the original Brewer colors. Its not even close. The exact colors sported by this blog are the ones Brewer fans identify with, the original blue and gold. I love it.

The irony of this is that "original blue and gold" are not indigenous Milwaukee colors. Those are the colors the team inherited from the ill-fated Seattle Pilots. In fact, if you look back at the 60's Milwaukee Brewer pins Bud Selig and his baseball corporation used to promote the team before it even existed, you will notice that Bud intended the team to wear the same red and blue that the Milwaukee Braves had. However, because of the hasty manner in which the team was snatched out of bankruptcy court and transfered to Milwaukee, there was no time to change the uniform design. So the team just went with the Pilots blue and gold.

I'm glad they did. I wish they would go back to those colors again.

Remember how long it took the '57 Braves and '82 Brewers

I sense a distinct lack of passion here in Milwaukee for this pennant race. Brewer fans have rocked the turnstiles in record fashion this year, but I just get the feeling nobody around town is expecting too much just yet.

Maybe its because history has taught Milwaukee to be patient with an emerging young baseball team.

The Milwaukee Braves emergent season was 1953, their first in Beertown. They had been abysmal in their last seasons in Boston but they had a young team that gelled as soon as they moved cities. And yet, even with all the Hall of Fame talent they had on their roster, they had to knock at the postseason door four times before they finally kicked it down in 1957.

The same held true for the first good Brewers team. After eight initial horrible seasons in Milwaukee, the Brewers finally emerged in 1978, winning 93 games that summer. But it still took them 3 1/2 winning seasons before they saw any October baseball, and four to get to the World Series in 1982.

Obviously, its easier to crack the postseason nowadays. But, after so many years of absolute futility, Milwaukee fans might once again have to endure a couple of "almost" seasons before we see any postseason play.

I'm still pulling for them to do it this year, though.

Braunmitzvah? I hope I heard that wrong

As I was driving to Madison yesterday I was listening to one of the local Milwaukee sports radio networks, and I swore I heard them advertise some sort of Ryan Braun related station promotional that included something about giving away "Braun yamikas" and holding a "Braunmitzvah". I was distracted, so it was entirely possible I misheard or misunderstood the spot, but I know I didn't make it out of whole cloth.

It kind of bothers me. Don't get me wrong. I love the nickname "Hebrew Hammer". Its descriptive, its clever, it invokes past Milwaukee greatness, and its got great alliteration. But this radio promotion, if I took it in context, rubs me the wrong way. The whole idea behind it seems tacky and exploitive and even a little creepy. Its almost like they're defining him by his Jewishness instead of recognizing him as the greatest rookie this town has seen since Lew Alcindor, who happens also to be Jewish.

Anyway, that's my soapbox spiel for the month. I'll try to have a preview of the second Big Red series up later in the day if I get time. Until then, Fear the Beer, '07 is our year!

Dave Bush is basically a rented mule

With all the hulabaloo surrounding yesterday's reemergence of the evil Mr. TurnBLOW, I hope we in Brewernation are not overlooking the fact that David Bush laid yet another egg in another crucial start. What or who is to blame for his miserable performances? Lately, if you read this rag, you'll know I've been into blaming the Brewers shitty defense for everything under the sun ("Global warming?... Brewers shitty defense. Credit crunch?... Brewers shitty defense.) But not in this case. This time the majority of the weight must fall on Mr. Bush.

I assign blame according to the type of baserunners a pitcher allows. If a pitcher is giving up an inordinate amount of singles, I'm blaming the defense. Why? Because I think singles are out of the pitcher's control. They are basically determined by randomness and the soundness of the defense behind the pitcher. And, since randomness tends to be constant, if a pitcher suddenly starts accumulating more singles than usual, the fault probably lies with the defense.

On the other hand, if a pitcher is giving up a higher than normal amount of extra base hits, the blame lies mainly with him. Extra base hits normally imply hard hit balls, which, to me, is a sign of poor pitching. Others will disagree with that notion, contending that a pitcher has no control over how hard a ball is hit. I don't buy it. If a pitcher has no influence on how hard balls are hit, then there ought to be no difference between the type of balls hit in batting practice and the type of balls hit during the game. Obviously, if you've ever watched batting practice, there is.

A good way to isolate hard hits is by subtracting a pitcher's slugging percentage allowed from his batting average allowed. By doing this, you flush out the singles and are left with only the "extra" bases a pitcher has given up. This statistic has a particular name, but I can't remember what it is. I'll just call it the pitcher's "Power Factor" for now.

The average PF in the National League is around 162. For the season, Dave Bush has a PF of 174, meaning he normally gets hit a bit harder than usual, but not too bad.

Now brace yourselves for these numbers. In the month of August, the dark month for the Brewers pitching staff, Bush had a PF of 226, way above the norm. And this month has hardly gotten better, with a PF of 220. He's been getting clobbered.

But if you think that's bad, get this. Over the last seven days, which comprises his last two starts, Bush has a PF of 321! That is unbelievable. He must be giving up only hard hit balls.

So, you can see, the vast majority of Dave Bush's recent problems are centered around Dave Bush. He's been horrible. Someone better tell him were in a pennant race. He needs to step up his game.

Historic season for the Hebrew Hammer?

As one of the most charismatic and talented Jewish athletes in recent memory, Milwaukee Brewers 3b Ryan Braun appears on the cusp of superstardom. And he has gotten there on the barrel of his mighty bat.

Since coming up from AAA Nashville in May, Braun has electrified the city of Milwaukee and the baseball world with his productive skills and raw power. To Brewer opponents, he has come to be known as the Hebrew Hammer... the Kosher Krusher. (for Brewer pitchers, of course, his glove has become known as "The Skillet of Doom", but that's a discussion for another day).

All summer long we kept expecting him to slow down, and it never happened. He has just kept knocking cover after cover off of ball after ball. And in doing so, he has put together one of the most historically significant offensive rookie campaigns in baseball history. The National League Rookie of the Year award had better be a foregone conclusion, his accomplishments clearly transcend that.

Indeed, if you use "Adjusted OPS" as your ranking criteria, I believe Braun's rookie season is not just the best this year, it is among the top ten best of all time. My composite list is featured below.

Bear in mind when you're reading the list that I tried my best to identify and consider each and every huge offensive rookie season in baseball history. I then ranked them in order, according to each player's rookie year adjusted OPS (in parenthesis):

Greatest Offensive Rookie Seasons in Baseball History

1. 1911 Shoeless Joe Jackson, Chicago White Sox (OPS+ 192)

2. 1987 Mark McGwire, Oakland Athletics (OPS+ 164)

3. 1964 Richie Allen, Philadelphia Phillies (OPS+ 162)

4. 1939 Ted Williams, Boston Red Sox (OPS+ 160)

5. 2001 Albert Pujols, St. Louis Cardinals (OPS+ 158)

6. 2007 Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers (OPS+ 156)

7. 1964 Tony Oliva, Minnesota Twins (OPS+ 150)

8. 1934 Hal Trosky, Cleveland Indians (OPS+ 149)

9. 1930 George Watkins, St. Louis Cardinals (OPS+ 143)

10. 1956 Frank Robinson, Cincinnati Reds (OPS+ 142)

Footnote: If I have omitted anyone who ought to be on this list, please comment. I did my best parsing lists of rookie record holders, but I certainly didn't peruse every single rookie campaign in history, although with that said I am still pretty confident in the list's accuracy. BTW, I did not ignore Ichiro. But he is just a singles hitter; I was looking for all around offensive excellence.

I have a solution for schizo Turnblow

What could have been a great road trip just turned into a so-so road trip thanks to yet another Derrick Turnbow floodgate routine in Pittsburgh. Now we have to live with a 3-3 trip, when I wanted 5-1, or 4-2 trip at worst.

Turnbow is one maddening dude. He can look like Rich Goose Gossage one day and Mitch Wild Thing Williams the very next. Literally. One day he blows guys away with filthy stuff and the next he looks like he couldn't find the plate with an Army map. So how do you maximize the Goose, and minimize the Wild Thing? I have an idea.

Yost needs a "Turnbow Two and You're Gone" Rule

I've studied the outings of Derrick Turnbow this season to try and find some pattern that can help predict his meltdowns before they happen. I think I have found one. I call it the "Turnbow Two" rule.

I've noticed that Derrick Turnbow will either pitch scoreless frames or multiple run frames. He never has an in-between outing. He usually spaces his multi-run outings every fifth game, but that's not exact. There is a better way to sense danger with Turnbow.

If you look at Turnbow's bad outings, a blackletter rule presents itself. If Turnbow allows two baserunners, of any kind, he will allow multiple runs. Its as true as Truman. Any time Turnbow lets two guys on, he never works out of trouble on his own, so if you leave him in there, you're going to pay for it. But, if he limits his baserunners to one or less, you don't have to worry, because he will almost certainly pitch a scoreless frame.

Ned should heed this and manage accordingly. Anytime he puts Turnbow in the game, he needs to have an emergency option warm in the bully. Then, the minute Turnbow lets a second runner on base... yank the f'er as fast as you can!

If Nedly follows that rule, he will be able to maximize Turnbow's effective outings while limiting the kind of disastrous outings that happened today.

Otherwise he might as well just put Turnbow on ice for the season. We can't take anymore outings like today's.

Gallardo is Brewers best starter

Last night's brilliant performance was just a continuation of a month of excellence for the young Brewer SP Yovani Gallardo. I did some calculations and based on my findings I would argue that he, not Ben Sheets, has been the Brewers best starter over the last 30 days. In fact, I would argue that the Brewers staff turned itself around when Yovani and Suppan simultaneously got right, not when Sheets came back.

Rating the Brewer Pitchers Over the Last 30 Days

In an effort to rate each Brewer pitcher's individual performance independent from the performance of the Brewer defense behind him, I have taken Bill James "Secondary Average" ("SA") statistic (normally applied only to hitters) and applied it to the pitching staff. I call it "Secondary Average Against" ("SAA").

I think it does a good job of separating a pitcher's performance from that of his defense, because it does not penalize pitchers for giving up singles, as those are to a great extent determined by the defense, but it does penalize him for getting hit hard (ie giving up extra bases), which I think is somewhat within his control, and for walking batters, which I think is completely within his control.

The formula for SAA is the same as the formula for SA, but in reverse: (Total Bases against - Hits against + BB + HBP + net stolen bases allowed)/ABs. Accordingly, the National League average SAA is the same as the National League average SA, which is, by a statistical peculiarity, virtually the same as the National League batting average, and that is .263.

With that average number in mind, here are the results I got for Brewer pitchers for the last 30 days:

1. Francisco Cordero: .100

2. Brian Shouse: .113

3. Matt Wise: .133

4. Yovani Gallardo: .217

5. Jeff Suppan: .230

6. Seth McClung: .260

7. Scott Linebrink: .264

8. Claudio Vargas: .266

9. Ben Sheets: .294

10. Carlos Villanueva: .308

11. Dave Bush: .309

12. Chris Capuano: .366

13. Derrick Turnbow: .388

Discussion

My results show just how dominant Coco Cordero has been over the last 30 days. He has allowed 1 extra base and 1 walk and 1 hit batsman in his last 30 at bats faced... Brian Shouse would have been far better, but he sort of blew up this week, maybe it had to do with his wife having a kid... Remember when I said they should get rid of Wise? Wrong again... Yovani Gallardo's performance last night was just a continuation of the brilliance he has shown over the last 30 days. He has really recovered well from some early struggles, and is now the Brewers best starter... Suppan has been superb for the last 30 days, he's giving up just singles basically, and isn't really walking anyone... My results show that Ben Sheets has not been quite as good as everyone might believe he has been. This is mainly because he has given up an uncharacteristically high number of walks since coming back from the DL... Villanueva has been pretty good, but he has to be careful, he's playing with fire -- he's been getting hit hard and giving up walks... Same goes for Dave Bush, except Bush hasn't really been that good, but I do believe he is capable of being good (for the season his SAA is much lower)... I've been trying to defend Capuano, and actually, prior to the last month and change, he was pretty good -- his season SAA is only around .260 -- but lately he's been horrible... The irony of Derrick Turnbow is, he would be up at the top of the list if he just didn't give up walks -- he gives up virtually no extra bases -- but in the last 30 days he has really struggled with his control.

Yost has Brewer outfield mixed up

Brewers manager Ned Yost made the right move when he benched Bill Hall in favor of an outfield featuring Corey Hart and Gabe Gross. Hall was costing the team runs with both his sporadic offense and his erratic defense. But Yost has Gross and Hart playing the wrong positions.

He has Corey Hart playing centerfield and Gabe Gross playing rightfield. Fielding statistics show that the best defensive lineup for the Brewers would feature the opposite arrangement.

Over the past two seasons, Gabe Gross has played 279 innings in centerfield (256 of them last season) for the Milwaukee Brewers. In that time he has proven himself an outstanding defensive centerfielder. He is far better on the routine balls than Bill Hall, and he has exhibited far more range than Corey Hart.

According to Hardballtimes.com, Gross has turned 72 chances in his centerfield zone into 67 outs, for an above average Zone Rating of 93.0% (Hall's ZR was well below average at 85.3%). He has also played 14 balls out of his zone into outs for an above average "out of zone" / "balls in zone" percentage of 19.7 (Hart has only played 4 balls out of his zone on 57 balls in zone for a below average percentage of 7.2).

Meanwhile, somewhat paradoxically, Corey Hart has proven himself to be a steadier rightfielder than Gabe Gross. He has a far better Zone Rating than Gross (91.5% vs. 85.7%), albeit with a bit less range than Gross (OOZ/BIZ of 16.3% vs. 24.4% for Gross).

Why the apparent paradox?

If Gabe Gross is the superior centerfielder, shouldn't it follow that he is also the superior rightfielder? After all, centerfield is generally rated as the more challenging defensive position.

Not necessarily. Centerfield and rightfield are two different animals. Balls hit to centerfield will have a "true arc" (no slice or hook to them) whereas most balls hit to rightfield will have a pronounced slice, due to the propensity of righthanded hitters in baseball.

I can vouch for the difference. When I played, I had a very easy time defending centerfield because I had a knack for instantly determining where a batted ball with a true arc would probably land. As a result I could aggressively track balls right off the bat (which made up for my lack of speed). However, as soon as I moved to rightfield I was on rollerskates because I had terrible difficulty "reading" balls with slice action on them. That bit of indecision cut my rightfield range down considerably.

That might also be the case with Gabe Gross. In fact, I have seen first hand evidence of this. On at least a couple of occasions I remember him overrunning balls in rightfield that were hit by righthanders (one particular ball he misplayed in Arizona comes instantly to mind). That's why he might be a better centerfielder than he is a rightfielder. Statistics indicate he is.

Brewers defense terrible last night

Brewers DER: 48.1% (Last in the National League for yesterday's games)

As part of my continuing quixotic campaign to highlight the importance of defense, and the significance of the Brewers lack thereof, I am going to start posting the Brewers "Defensive Efficiency Rating" the morning after every game. The statistic is provided by mlb.com.

The Defensive Efficiency Rating ("DER") simply calculates the percentage of outs a team made on batted balls put in play. Its not quite as precise a defensive measurement as the "Zone Rating", because it doesn't discriminate between balls that should have been played and balls that were statistically unplayable. But, over time, those things even out, so DER is still a pretty good indicator of defensive acumen. Plus its the only daily defensive statistic to which I have access, so I'm going with it.

By DER standards, the Brewers defense was simply terrible last night. The Major League average Defensive Efficiency Rating is .692, meaning most teams on most nights will turn at least 69.2% of all batted balls put in play into outs. If you clicked on my link above, you will have seen that the Brewers DER last night, at below 50%, was last in the National League by a long shot. The Pirates, meanwhile, ranked first with a robust 84.6%. The results, a 9-0 Pittsburgh victory, logically followed.

Flat Brewers bageled at PNC

This is what I feared.

The conditions were perfect for a letdown. The Brewers were coming off a huge series win over Cincinnati, they were playing a Pittsburgh team that they beat down with ease just a week or so earlier, the Pirates were throwing a starting pitcher who has had success against the Brewers, and all of this was taking place in front of a crowd that contained fewer people and less energy than the crowd that showed up for my niece's dance recital.

But postseason teams have to overcome those things. The Brewers did not.

They basically did not show up for the first game at PNC Park, and therefore the pressure is on them now to win both of the remaining games in the series.

Otherwise, what looked on Sunday like it was going to be a glorious road trip for the Blue and Gold could turn into just another in a long line of Brewer road disappointments.

Brewers can't go soft in Pittsburgh

No letdowns. The Brewers would ruin everything they accomplished in Cincinnati this weekend if they went and laid an egg in Pittsburgh this week. I think they have to win at least two of the three games to feel good about the trip. They should win all three. The Pirates are a poor team in disarray, playing for nothing, and the Brewers have generally dominated the hell out of them this season.

It won't be cake, though, because of location. The Brewers have lost 3 of the 4 games the teams have played in Pittsburgh this season, and have lost 39 of the 57 games since PNC Park opened.

Plus the Pirates just spanked the Cubs, who might have taken them lightly. So the Brew Crew better bring it strong.

Here's the pitching matchups for the series, with each pitchers "vs. the other" statistics:

Game 1:

Villanueva (ERA: 1.08 WHIP: 0.48; K/9: 8.64)

Armas (ERA: 4.91; WHIP: 1.27; K/9: 9.00)

Game 2:

Gallardo (ERA: 4.66; WHIP: 1.34; K/9: 8.68)

Bullington (N/A)

Game 3:

Bush (ERA: 3.46; WHIP: 1.06; K/9: 6.92)

Gorzelnanny (ERA: 4.00; WHIP: 1.48; K/9: 6.50)

Brewers shock and awe the Reds

When I looked at the Sunday matchup between the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds, I knew it was money in the bank for the Blue and Gold. Cincinnati was scheduled to start a guy I had never heard of, who possessed statistics that suggested he would shortly never be heard from again.

A fellow by the name of Phil "The Show Killer" Dumarait took the bump for the Reds in the Sunday finale against the Crew. Having given up 34 hits and 26 runs in just 18 innings of work, he was sporting an ERA of 13.00. After the Brewers jumped ugly on him, his ERA now stands at... let me get my calculator... "One milleeeon!"

Watching the Brewers take him apart on Sunday afternoon was a lot like watching a lion pride kill a zebra on the National Geographic channel. The first couple of batters took him down, the third one made the kill, and the rest of the lineup just kind of picked at the carcass to see what they could get.

Boom... boom... boom!

Rickie Weeks, who had an heroic series in Cincinnati for the Brewers, turned Dumarait's third pitch of the ball game into a souvenier. Then came JJ Hardy. There went another Dumarait offering. The Hebrew Hammer was on deck. You can guess what happened. Brewer bomb number three. When the feeding frenzy finally ended, Dumarait staggered off the mound and toward the Reds showers, having surrendered 5 loud hits and 4 earned runs without recording a single solitary out. We may never hear from him again.

In winning the crucial Cincinnati series, the Brewers now own sole possession of first place in the National League Central Division, and have signalled that they intend to compete for the division pennant until the bitter end. I love it.

Comparing Ned the Stupid with Pinella the Great

I'm not a Ned Yost hater. I'm a Ned Yost critic. There's a difference. He's far from a perfect manager. He sometimes makes curious decisions. But I don't think he's the horror show everyone makes him out to be.

Yet every call in-show features slews of callers who believe the Brewers would be so much better off with a "playoff tested" manager like Chicago's Lou Pinella (or, God forbid, Bob Brenly).

Well, no one has ever proven to me that a baseball manager makes any difference whatsoever when it comes to wins and losses (see Stengel, Casey). But, for the sake of argument, let's say managers do make a difference. Where would the manager's marginal value reveal itself? It seems to me that anyone can coax wins out of a good hitting and a good pitching team, so the mark of a good manager ought to be one who gets wins even though he doesn't have that.

Comparing Ned the Stupid with Pinella the Great

Pinella the Great, the manager of everyone's wet dream, came to the Cubs after utterly failing in Tampa Bay, and then basically quitting on that team because, he claimed, they didn't spend enough money on players.

Yet he was still for some reason a very sought after managerial candidate. So last winter the Cubs came after him hard. But he would only agree to manage them after they agreed to spend an exorbitant amount of money on player salaries. (Does anyone recognize the irony in this? The great manager will only manage teams that have enough talent to make his management irrelevant.)

So the petulant Pinella got his expensive team to manage. And what has this brilliant strategist, this great molder of players, this manager of our collective dreams done with his new toy? To this point, not much. He's good at throwing temper tantrums, top shelf, but I haven't seen any evidence he's good at much else.

If anything I would argue he has cost the Cubs wins. The Cubs rank in the top half of the National League in batting and pitching, they have a terrific defense, and yet somehow Pinella the Great has barely gotten them above .500. By rights, they should have run away with the NL Central weeks ago.

Meanwhile, Ned the Stupid, the man who can't seem to get out of his own way, has somehow taken a Brewer team with a middle class payroll and virtually no experience, a team that ranks in the bottom half of the National League in both hitting and pitching and has a terrible defense, and gotten them to a winning record.

That in itself is a noteworthy accomplishment. Only five baseball teams rank in the bottom half of their leagues in both hitting and pitching. Texas AL (67-74), Chicago AL (61-81), Pittsburgh NL (62-80), Houston NL (62-80), and the Milwaukee Brewers (72-69). Of those, only Ned's Brewers have a winning record, and the Rangers are the only other team even close to having one.

I'm not saying any of the Brewers victories are due to the management of Ned Yost. I'm just asking how the options everyone always mentions would have done any better.

Journal-Sentinel misses the issue about Brewers defense

In today's Sunday Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel sports section, on page 10c in the middle of the fold, there is a little subcaption entitled "Letting the Error Out". It contains a statistic that shows that the Brewers record is about the same during games in which they commit an error and games in which they don't.

The caption reads: "Strong defense is key to winning, but the Brewers record shows little difference in games in which they went error-free vs. games in which they committed an error".

This completely misses the issue, and feeds the misconception that the Brewers problems are solely the result of poor pitching. Wrong, wrong, wrong! It is not the errors that are killing the Brewers. Those come and go. It is the numerous routine plays that are not made that are killing them. The plays that the average major leaguer at the given position would have turned into outs that Brewer players are allowing to become "hits". Missing those type of plays is the mark of a bad defense.

Yet those type of plays don't show up in the "error" category. Under baseball's statistical scoring system they are generically recorded as "hits". If a ball rolls a few feet to Ryan Braun's left and gets by him into the outfield, that ball will be scored as a "hit", not an "error", even though that was a ball that most third basemen would have converted into an out. That "nonconversion hit" is every bit as harmful as an error. Yet, because of baseball's scoring system, the net result will look like a pitching problem when in fact it was created by a defensive problem.

The proper defensive statistic to cite, therefore, is what is called the "Zone Rating". That tracks the path, speed, and trajectory of each batted ball, and then determines whether it was a ball that at least 50% of major leaguers at the corresponding defensive position would have converted into an out. Then it records whether the particular Brewer at the position converted it into an out.

If this statistic were cited by the Journal-Sentinel, rather than "errors", it would have shown the true impact the Brewers poor defense has had on their record. It would have shown that the Brewers record is far better when their Zone Rating is above the Major League average, and far worse when it is below.

Take for example the Cincinnati series. Friday night, in a horrifying defensive display, the Brewers converted only 66.7% of batted balls into outs, a number far below the Major League average. They lost 11-4. On Saturday night, in a virtuouso defensive display, the Brewers converted 86.5% of batted balls into outs, a number far above the Major League average. They recorded one of their biggest wins of the season, 4-3.

Defense, not starting pitching, is the absolute key to the Brewer's success. The mainstream media won't tell you that. That's why the real True Blue read "Four Blocks to Miller Park".

Footnote: Technically, errors are not necessarily even related to bad defense. Sometimes they penalize defenders for having exceptional range. If Ozzie Smith ranges far into the hole to play a batted ball -- without diving -- but when he plays the ball he bobbles it, that will be scored as an error, even though 90% of the other shortstops in baseball would not have even made a play on the ball. Is this a sign that Ozzie Smith is a bad defensive shortstop? On the contrary.

Umpire Froemming did the right thing

In the seventh inning of last night's Brewer-Reds game, just prior to the Brewers game-tying rally, Milwaukee native and home plate umpire Bruce Froemming rang up Brewers 3b Ryan Braun on a pitch that was clearly outside the strike zone. In response, Braun bellyached at the legendary hall-of-fame ump. He didn't have to. Froemming's a professional from the old school.

Froemming evened out his mistakes when he blatantly refused to call two pitches -- one borderline and one clearly in the strike zone -- as third strikes against the Brewers next batter, Prince Fielder. It was an obvious example of a make-up call, but it was the right move.

The call was crucial to the game's outcome. Fielder eventually reached first base on a walk. Fielder advanced to third on Bill Hall's double, and then scored the tying run on Geoff Jenkins sacrifice fly to right.

Supper pitching and brilliant defense

Jeff Suppan pitched last night like the 2007 NLCS Jeff Suppan. He had a masterful teardrop breaking ball that seemed to hang in slow motion and then suddenly accelerate downward. He was able to move his change up in and out of the zone, up and down, in and away. He got the Reds to reach for breaking balls off the plate. He didn't rattle, either, even when the Reds touched him early for 3. It was a postseason worthy performance.

And if you know the pitch-to-contact Suppan only gave up 2 hits and 3 runs, which he did, you can infer that the defense behind him was nearly flawless. It was.

What a difference a night makes. On Friday, the defense converted only 19 of 28 batted balls into outs for a 66.7% mark, and the team lost 11-4. On Saturday, the defense converted 20 of 23 batted balls into outs, for an 86.9% mark, and the team won 4-3.

If the Brewers get that kind of defense for the rest of the season, they will not only play in October, they will play in the 2007 World Series. The question is, will they?

Brewers biggest win in... forever

I know a lot of you get extremely frustrated by the Brewers and from time to time just say to hell with them. I know it. I watch the daily hit numbers. (They move like a rollercoaster with every Brewer high and every Brewer low.)

Frankly, I don't blame you. This team is maddening, but I'm telling you: stick with these guys. They're interesting as hell. You can't predict what they will do from game to game. Tonight was a prime example.

The matchup was one everyone with a brain had pegged as a loss for the Brewers before it started. Brewers against the Reds? Suppan vs. Harang? On the road? After Milwaukee got pasted the night before? No chance the Crew will win.

Then the Brewers fell behind early on a 3 run home run. Game over, right?

Wrong. Suppan set down the next 12 in a row, the defense behind him (led by Counsell at short) was nothing short of brilliant, the Reds only got 2 more hits all night and they never scored another run, and the Crew slowly chipped away at and eventually disposed of Harang, then they tied the game against the Reds setup man, and then they tallied the go ahead run with a spectacular Rickie Weeks triple.

With the 2007 Milwaukee Brewers, you just never know.

This pennant race is a fraud

A caller to one of the local sports radio stations yesterday chastised Brewers fans for seeing the glass half full. "If I would have told you in April it was September 7th and the Brewers were in first place, you would have been ecstatic," the caller said "But all I'm hearing from Brewer fans is complaints."

I appreciate the caller's sense of optimism, but one look at the wildcard standings reveals the problem with his argument. It shows that he is severely overvaluing the significance of "being in first place" in the National League Central.

The Brewers and Cubs are both listed together in the Wild Card standings with an asterisk saying "Tied for Central Division" lead. The standings look quite odd, because these two "leaders" are in fifth place among a group of second place teams. There it is, for all to see. First place in the NL Central is worth 5th place in the wildcard standings. What a joke.

That's why first place is nothing to pee your pants over. Any objective observer would say, compared to the rest of the National League as a whole, the Brewers are a mediocre team. The only reason they are sniffing the postseason at this point is because they are in a regional division that is full of similarly mediocre teams. The postseason is no longer reserved for the elite.

If it were, the Brewers and the Cubs shouldn't even be able to think about participating. Only because of Bud Selig's keen sense of what the public wants, they both can. Sort of a cheap way in, if you ask me. Its kind of like the professional equivalent of the annoying "everybody plays an inning" rule that was all the rage in Little Leagues across America in the 1990s. It devalues excellence.

But, hey, don't get me wrong. I'll take the postseason any way I can get it. Its just that I have no illusions about how we might get there. The NL Central is not a true pennant race. It is an economically driven contrivance.

Brewers not ready to play... again!

Okay, I couldn't watch the game because I was speaking, but the box score line from Dave Bush is as ridiculous as it is improbable. He gave up 8 hits and 9 runs before the defense could record two measly outs (Bush took care of one himself with a strikeout)? This is the third time in three weeks that something eerily similar has happened to a Brewer pitcher. Statistically it should never happen at all. And yet they all happen under similar circumstances. It suggests another cause other than the one I keep hearing: "the starting pitching".

Its nearly impossible to do what the Reds did in the first

I'll try to explain the BABIP concept as it has been told to me. Voros McCracken famously proved that the number of batted balls put in the field of play (non home runs) will fall for hits at only a .309 rate. That percentage can only be influenced by a pitcher on the margins, alot of it is luck, but generally it is most greatly affected by "the quality of a pitcher's teammates".

That's why what happened in the first inning should not be blamed exclusively, or perhaps even primarily, on SP Dave Bush, as I know it will. Its so far off the statistical norm, baseball's or Bush's personally, that it doesn't make sense to blame him. He may not have had his best stuff, but he did induce 10 batted balls in the field of play. Several were hard hit, that's true, but nevertheless his defense should have gotten him out of the inning much sooner than they did.

Yet for the third time in less than a month, they left their starter lurching. For the third time in three weeks, the Brewers have had an opening inning on the road where nearly 80% of the batted balls put in play have fallen in for hits. That doesn't even happen in Little League. And it CANNOT happen three times in the span of three weeks to three different major league pitchers in the opening inning of three different road games unless there is something seriously deficient with the Brewers defense and/or its professional preparation for the game. Its like they leave their gloves and their minds at the hotel.

The evidence couldn't be more clear and convincing

I keep beating on this point, because it is so obvious and rarely does the defense ever get taken to task for their shortcomings. All I ever hear about is how bad the Brewers starting pitching is. Its not the case. Its not the case at all. Bush isn't Bob Feller, but he was doing his job decently enough to be more successful than he was. He wasn't walking anyone. He was forcing the Reds to put the ball in the field of play (with the exception of the home run he allowed). That's what he has to do. But he needs his defense and especially his infield to back him up.

Last night they clearly did not.

If you remain unconvinced by the BABIP argument, consider this. With all the balls Dave Bush and Chris Capuano put in play last night, they both combined to record one measly ground out. One ground out. Both are frickin' groundball pitchers! You're going to tell me that between the two of them they induced one frickin' playable groundball in the shower of umpteen batted balls? Its ludicrous. It defies reason.

Then there's the runs

Since time immemorial a baserunner who reaches base on anything other than a home run has a no better than a 34% chance of scoring, give or take a few percentage points. Go and do the calculation -- (Hits + Walks + HBP - HRs) / (Runs - HRs) -- for any season in Major League history, and you will always come very close to that 34% number. Indeed, if you do the calculation for the whole of baseball history (which I did thanks to the cumulative totals on baseballreference), it will come out to 34%. Its as undeniable a law as gravity.

So how the hell is it possible that Dave Bush put 8 guys on the paths and 7 of them scored? And,in the same vein, how the hell did Claudio Vargas allow 6 baserunners to turn into 6 first inning runs in San Francisco on the 24th of August? Or how did Yovani Gallardo allow 5 straight singles to turn into 6 runs the following night? There is one common denominator in all of these debacles.

Are these guys properly prepared?

All three times these statistically improbable events occured, they did so on the road in the opening inning. And I'm blaming the defense. They are guilty of a serious lack of preparation. They need to show some urgency and stop listlessly flailing at balls as they go by. They need to play on the balls of their feet, not their heels (watch them some time). They need to anticipate the ball's trajectory and speed better off the bat so they can shrink the ridiculous gaps in their coverage. They need to do something. They have less than 24 hours if they want to hang onto this season.

Early preview of the gigantic Brewers-Reds series

I think the Milwaukee-Cincinnati series this weekend will be decisive for the 2007 Brewers. The Brewers as a whole have a chance to show they can win important games on the road, and the pitching staff and defense have a chance to show they can shut down teams that have good offenses.

Thus far they have not been able to do either. The Brewers are the only playoff chasing team with a losing record on the road, and the big hitting Reds have taken 6 of 9 from the Crew in thunderous fashion. The Reds are batting .310 against Brewers pitching, and they are getting on base at a .387 clip. This will be a formidable challenge for Milwaukee.

A lot is riding on the outcome. If the Brewers lose the series, particularly if they revert back to the way they played against Cincinnati last month at Miller Park, then the season is effectively over. They can't rebound from another beatdown series like that one. On the other hand, if they can conquer the Reds, especially if can do so decisively, they will show they can win on the road against good offenses, and I think the confidence they will gain from that will carry them in the race to the very end.

Brewers who are HOT against the Reds in 2007

1. SP Chris Capuano -- Yost has to bring Cappy out of mothballs this weekend. He is one of the few Brewer pitchers who has had any success at all this season against the Reds in 2007. ( WHIP1.10; ERA 2.70).

2. 3b Ryan Braun -- Who doesn't the Hebrew Hammer do well against? (.423 BA, .457 OBP, 3 home runs)

3. 1b Prince Fielder -- Who doesn't the Prince of Milwaukee do well against? (.303, .395, 1 home run)

4. CF Bill Hall -- What luck. Hall is just getting hot and now he has a chance to feed more coal into his furnace when he faces off against a pitching staff he has shown he can definitely handle. (.360, .385, 2 home runs)

5. RF Gabe Gross -- Keep an eye on this guy over the weekend. He could be the Brewers X factor. He has abused the Reds pitching staff this season and, like Hall, he's already on a roll coming into the series. ( .545, .545, 2 home runs)

Brewers who are NOT against the Reds in 2007

1. 2b Rickie Weeks -- His batting average against the Reds is under his already disappointing season average, and he isn't making up for it with OBP (.200, .314, 1 home run)

2. LF Geoff Jenkins -- The Clipper is hitting poorly against the Reds pitching staff and has shown little power, but he is getting on base (.200, .345, 1 home run)

3. C Johnny Estrada -- One of the games in this series will certainly be "Miller Time". Estrada is in the lineup solely for his offensive contributions, and he has made none against the Reds (.136, .136, 0 home runs)

4. RP Brian Shouse -- Shouse is just getting settled into his expanded relief role and now he has to face one of the only two teams he has struggled against this season (WHIP 1.31; ERA 5.10)

5. RP Francisco Cordero -- The bullpen ace has gotten pounded by Cincinnati. That's just great. If there are any close late inning games this weekend, I hope my Grandma the Brewer fan pops one of her nitro glycerine pills. She may need it. (WHIP 3.00; ERA 8.50)

6. SP Dave Bush -- Aaah... isn't he our scheduled starter for the opening game? Against the Reds, he's made the opposition basepaths look like a revolving door (WHIP 1.84; ERA 6.97)

7. SP Jeff Suppan -- Aaah... isn't he scheduled to throw as well? Looks like the Crew has their work cut out for them this weekend. Check out Suppan's WHIP against the Reds... if you have a strong heart. Ouch. (WHIP 2.06; ERA 6.75)

Is Villanueva the Brewers ace in waiting?

Have the Brewers accidentally found their next ace in Carlos Villanueva? They have resisted using him in the starting rotation all season long, but if you analyze his potential according to the significant minor league markers identified in a study done by a baseball research blog, the Brewers could be sitting on a future star.

The study I refer to can be found on the baseballthoughtsresearch blog (hereafter "BTR"). It uncovered a way to distinguish between those pitchers who are mere minor league wonders and those who may be legitimate future stars.

Building on a similar analysis done by Dayn Perry, BTR found that the minor league statistics that distinguish a potential ace from a 4A wannabe are the following: H9, HR/IP, ERA, and BAC (batting average after contact). Amongst those statistics, BAC was the most determinative and should be given the most predictive weight.

How Villanueva projects under BTR's model

I analyzed Villanueva's numbers using this model. For Brewer fans, the results were quite promising. With the notable exception of HR/IP, Villanueva sizes up extremely well. And in the decisive area of BAC, he really shines. His minor league BAC is .293, well below the .304 cutoff point BTR has established for elite pitchers (Ben Sheets minor league BAC was right at .304).

H9: 7.5

Carlos posted a lower hits per nine innings in the minor leagues than the following elite pitchers: Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, Carlos Zambrano, John Smoltz, Tim Hudson, Johan Santana, and Curt Schilling.

HR/IP: 0.93

This is Villanueva's only obvious red flag. His 0.93 is significantly higher than any of the elite pitchers listed in the BTR study. The typical HR/IP amongst the elite group was around half of that.

ERA: 3.27

Villanueva's ERA is very comparable to the mean ERA of the elites. Its lower than some, but higher than many.

BAC: 0.293

Villanueva's BAC is outstanding. Amongst the elites, Villanueva's .293 ranks in the top half.

Conclusion

According to this model, Villanueva clearly has the potential to be a star. Whether he will deliver on that potential or not is yet to be seen. He has to mind the walks, and obviously keep the home run rate down. If he does that, the sky appears to be the limit for this guy in the Major Leagues.

In the near future I will project each of the other young Brewer pitching prospects using the BTR model and provide you with my results.

Yost's new ideas pay off

In a close race, one good managerial move can mean the pennant. Last night Ned Yost made three.

1. Starting Carlos Villanueva

I hope this is a permanent development. I've been pushing for Villanueva to be added to the starting rotation since June.

In 47.2 innings as a starter (over two seasons) Villanueva has allowed only 43 hits (0.91 hits per inning -- lowest among Brewer starters) and only 57 baserunners (a WHIP of 1.21). Of those, only 18 have become earned runs (31%, second only to Ben Sheets among starters).

Given the weak alternatives, Yost has to stay with him in this role until he proves he can't do it.

2. Going to Brian Shouse in the eighth

People often think you need to be some wicked flamethrower to be effective out of the bullpen. Its not so. Think about it. You're merely asked to get three outs. On average, a major league pitcher can get 7 out of every 10 batters out merely by inducing them to put the ball in play. And on average, it will take the opposition nearly three baserunners to score a single run. Therefore, if a reliever simply avoids issuing walks, more often than not he will get three outs before the opposition scores.

So, with a BR/ER of 27.3%, a walk rate of one every 15 plate appearances, and a home run rate of 0.00, journeyman Brian Shouse simply has to pitch as he has pitched all season long and he should be a very effective set-up man for closer Cordero.

3. Using Craig Counsell as a defensive reliever at third

This is baseball's strategic equivalent to a neutral zone trap. Yost has shown a lot of courage in employing it. Because even if Counsell makes every play at third and the team successfully holds the lead, Yost will never get credit from the fans. On the other hand, should Counsell make the occasional error, or should the team lose the lead and then need Braun's offense, Yost will surely catch hell (as he did yesterday).

But its the right move. Late in games where the Brewers have the lead, Braun's defense is so bad that Counsell's ability to prevent runs greatly outweighs Braun's ability to create them. Besides, Braun does most of his offensive damage early in games. In innings one through six, he is batting .352 with an OBP of .402. From the seventh inning on, his average drops to .273, and his OBP drops to .314. So the downside in offensive production is more limited than many would assume.

Brewers reacquire Sweet Baby Ray

When Ray King first pitched for the Brewers, I remember one time he came into the game and some guy sitting all by himself at Miller Park kept yelling "Sweeeet Baby Ray! My man!". If that dude is still around, I guarantee he has a smile on his face today.

In a move that I hope signals a desire to free Brian Shouse from "situational lefty" to a more general relief role, the Brewers have reacquired the ultimate situational lefty, the ageless Sweet Baby Ray.

King was pitching for the Washington Nationals this season, and he has still proven extremely effective at getting out left-handed hitters (but not righties). This season lefties are only hitting .219 against him, including a batting average after contact of only .196 (the MLB average is .309). Meaning, lefties are barely touching him.

The Brewers had King a couple of years ago but traded him to Arizona as part of the Junior Spivey, et. al. deal.

Odds of a Blue and Gold October

Even though the Brewers are only a game and a half behind the Cubs, those with mathematical knowledge still contend it will be an uphill battle for the Beermakers to break their long, long postseason drought.

Clay Davenport's "Postseason Odds" feeds statistical data into a computer program that then plays out the remainder of the season one million times. He posts his outcomes daily along with the corresponding odds of each team making the playoffs via either a division championship or a wild card berth. At the moment he gives the Crew a 25% chance of winning the division and a less than 1% chance of winning the wild card. The overall odds of seeing a Blue and Gold October he puts at just over 1 in 4.

Coolstandings.com does much the same thing (don't ask me to explain how either program works, because I have no clue. I'm especially perplexed by how they set their odds since each has the Brewers expected win total within 3 games of the Cubs.). According to their model, the Brewers chances of winning the division are even worse than Davenport's, less than 20%, and their chances of winning the wild card are similar to Davenport's at 0.3%. Overall, Coolstandings pegs the odds of a Blue and Gold October at only about 1 in 5.

All of which makes yesterday's agonizing -- and completely inexcusable -- loss all that much harder to take.

Is Yost really more scrutinized than Torre?

In mounting a partial defense of his embattled manager, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio complained that Yost's managerial moves are more scrutinized than those of managers of teams in larger markets. "You don't see that daily analysis," Attanasio told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, referring to scrutiny of managers in other cities he's lived in such as Los Angeles or New York, "What is with the daily analysis?"

This is a novel criticism. Is he actually trying to make the case that the scrutiny on a Brewer manager is greater than the scrutiny on a Yankee, Met, or Dodger manager? Common wisdom holds that the opposite is true.

I've never heard anyone speculate about whether a manager or player could handle "the pressure of playing in Milwaukee." And I have never seen Ned's face attached to any lurid back page photos in Milwaukee like I've seen Torre's face attached to in New York's Daily News and Post. In fact, we have no tabloid newspapers in this town, so there are no back page sports sections to put his face on.

So I don't know who he thinks is providing this unreasonable scrutiny of his manager, unless he's intercepting text messages to me from the Diesel. Other than that, I'm not aware of any daily Ned-hating that's going on in Milwaukee. We question his more questionable decisions, but what fans wouldn't? And if we didn't, how could we be considered real fans of Attanasio's True Blue Brew Crew?

Attanasio gives Yost dreaded "vote of confidence"

Asked in his press conference whether Ned Yost would be back as the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers next season, Brewers owner Mark Attanasio responded, "I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be", which of course is not the same at all as saying, "He will".

Anyone who follows politics will recognize Attanasio's response as a "non-denial denial" and anyone who follows sports in even a cursory manner will recognize it as a form of the dreaded "owner's vote of confidence" that normally is followed by a completely unforeseen decision by the team to "go in a different direction." Cue the vultures.

To make matters even more ominous for Yost, when Attanasio was asked whether Ned should be worried about his job status, he had a second opportunity to provide categorical assurance to the skipper and instead he chose once again to avoid doing so by replying, "Ned should be focused on winning games [I'm paraphrasing his response from memory]".

But none of that should be news to Yost. He's a big boy. He knows how these things play out. Expectations have been raised, and if he they are not fulfilled, the baying mob will want heads in recompense. And you can bet Nedly's will be the first on offer. So its "win or else" time for him and he knows it.

Which makes his eighth inning Aquino move all the more curious. If your job were on the line, would you stick with the veteran you trust who has come through for you all season, or the greenhorn nosepicker who's never been in this situation before and whose only demonstrable advantage is that he happens to throw with the statistically proper arm?

I still don't get the Aquino move

I've been trying for hours to figure out the logic behind Ned Yost's decision to pull one of his best relievers -- Brian Shouse -- in favor of one of his greenest -- Greg Aquino -- in a tight spot in a crucial game with the outcome on the line. The result was a disastrous comedy of pitching errors... and a horrible loss.

Sometimes I think Yost is too much a slave to his beloved system. Before every game he predetermines in his mind that he will only use certain pitchers in certain situations. He doesn't even think of any alternative courses of action that events might require.

He has to stop this narrow minded thinking immediately. He needs to expand his mind and see the possibilities. From now on, if he has a lead late in any game, the only thing he should be beholden to is preserving it.

Accordingly, he needs to shorten his bullpen and start leaning heavily on a select few pitchers who have proved reliable -- like Cordero, Shouse, and, to a lesser extent, Linebrink -- or conditionally reliable -- like Turnbow and Carlos Villanueva.

Then, he should be protecting any lead by getting one of those guys in the game late, and at the first sign of danger, getting them out of there quickly. The just-as-important corollary to that is: If they are succeeding, KEEP THEM IN THE GAME. Just because an inning ends doesn't mean you have to substitute relievers. I'm sure these guys can take going two or, heaven forbid, three innings. Why not ride your hot pitcher as long as you can, and pull him only when he shows signs of losing it?

Had he been following this thinking yesterday he would have left Shouse in the game after he induced the flyball second out. Shouse was the reliable veteran who was the better statistical bet to get the third out without giving up anymore runs, and that should have overrode the value of any left-right statistical advantage Aquino may have had against Hunter Pence.

Or, if Ned was dead set to play the left-right game, he should have gone to Cordero for a four save out. I mean, why not? Cordero has pitched to more than 3 batters in a single game on numerous occasions. So why couldn't he do it over two innings and extend himself for 4 outs? Think outside the box, Nedly.

Extreme labor pains at Miller Park

There's almost nothing more painful to watch in sports than a baseball game where your team blows a comfortable lead. Its a special kind of slow, agonizing, maddening, rage-inducing form of torture. And the Brewers have put there fans through it now... what... 14 times? They simply cannot salt away leads and its going to cost them the pennant.

Turnbow... throw frickin' strikes!!

I'm being honest when I say I don't get that upset when a pitcher gets knocked around. It just means the hitters are better than him on that day. But there is no excuse in the world that will mollify me when a pitcher comes into a game with a three run lead and starts walking guys like Derrick Turnbow did on Monday. You can't do it! If the other team is going to beat you, make them do it with hits. Make them earn it. That's all I'm asking. Why pussyfoot around the strike zone when you have a 97 mile per hour fastball and a nasty breaker? Why?

Another giveaway day at Miller Park

I thought Sunday was the giveaway day at Miller Park. They must have extended it. Because on Monday the Astros were able to turn an eighth inning triple and a single into 4 runs, thanks to two walks, a wild pitch, a sac fly, and a passed ball. As a result the Brewers 7-4 lead morphed into an 8-7 deficit. Uhhhhhh! How can this keep happening? If Turnbow would have just thrown strikes, or if Aquino would have just come close to the glove, or if Estrada could have just blocked the ball, we could have gotten out of the eighth with the lead and delivered the game to a hot Cordero in the ninth. Uhhhh!

Why not use Shouse more extensively?

I just don't get why Ned Yost restricts Brian Shouse like he does. Especially when the alternative is Greg Aquino or Chris Spurling. Shouse has great numbers, some of the best on the team. Use him! I can't stand the whole "situational leftie" tradition in the Major Leagues. Its so stupid. Why carry a guy just to pitch to a specific minority of opponents. Especially when he has proven he can get out both lefties and righties?

If you keep Shouse in there at 8-8, and leave him in unless and until the Brewers get the lead, you give yourself a much better chance to win than if you put the game in the hands of Aquino and Spurling.

Brewers have a Righty problem; Lefties have a Brewer problem

When I was looking up Ryan Braun's stunning numbers against lefties, I discovered something I probably should have known before. Almost every Brewer batter, most notably Braun, hits much better against lefties, and much worse against righties.

That's why I'm curbing my enthusiasm about the weekend offensive uprising. It may yet be a mirage. The Pirates started a righthander, Tony Armas Jr., on Friday. The Brewers squeaked by him, 3-2. Then they finished the series with a pair of lefties whom the Brewers clobbered, 12-2 and 7-4. I want to see the Brewers pound some righties before I get too excited.

They haven't done so all season long. While they've feasted against lefties, batting .290 with an OBP of .364, they've gone hungry against righties, batting .251 with an OBP of just .314.

Frankly, its the last number that disturbs me the most. The low OBP suggests that a lot of Brewers just aren't functioning at all against righties. My guess would be they don't like breaking balls away. Well, if they don't learn to deal with them, that's all their going to see.

Reserving judgment on the New Bill Hall

That's also why I'm going to reserve judgement on the supposed resurrection of CF Bill Hall I've been hearing and reading so much about. Going into Saturday's game, he was 2 for 10 in the prior 6 contests. Then he had a two day Labor Day Weekend lefty picnic. Its not surprising he did better. He is batting .287 with an OBP of .367 against lefties; .242 with an OBP of .302 against righties. I want to see if he can carry that production against Roy Oswalt on Monday before I declare him resurgent. In fact, I want to see if the Brewers as a whole can tee off on Oswalt. Then I'll believe they're in this pennant race to stay.

Should you sell the Hebrew Hammer short?

If Ryan Braun were a stock, I would sell him short.

Ryan Braun's putting up terrific numbers, certainly, but with the exception of home runs, they are all built on the ridiculous numbers he has amassed against lefthanded pitching. And mathematical logic says those numbers have to fall.

For instance, he is batting .283 against righthanders but .325 overall because he has an unsustainable .441 average against lefties. That will certainly fall.

The same is true of his OBP. Its just .314 against righties but a hearty .371 overall because he is getting on-base against lefties at the mind-boggling rate of .514. That has to fall as well.

The one area that has been a bit more balanced for Braun, however, is his home run bat. He's got 14 homers against righties and 11 against lefties. But if you look closely its not that balanced. Braun is hitting a home run every 18 at bats against righties, and a home run every 8 at bats against lefties.

I'm not saying Ryan Braun is a fraud. What I'm saying is, there's an element of fortune at play in his high average. Balls simply don't fall for hits at the rate they are doing for him against lefties. The numbers eventually will even out. Its called regression toward the mean.

It might not happen this season. But the odds are high you will be reading moronic "Sophomore Slump" articles regarding Braun next year. And it might just be that he's hitting every bit as well then as he is hitting now.

Footnote: I've been trying to figure out who originally dubbed Ryan Braun "The Hebrew Hammer". According to an article on Salon.com, it was Chris Liss of rotowire.com.

Terrace view, Miller Park (multi-topic post)

I was out at the ballpark for Sunday's tilt between the suddenly resurgent Brew Crew and the Pirates, and here's what I saw from my vantage point (the cheap seats -- terrace reserved, which actually aren't as terrible as I imagined they would be. You get a nice panoramic view of the action. I would liken it to watching football game films).

Does Yost read this blog?

IF you have read this blog in the last week and a half, you know I am weirdly obsessed with the defensive value of Craig Counsell, especially when replacing Ryan Braun at third. The Catch-22, of course, is that Counsell can't hit and Braun, ahhh... can. Conundrum: How to balance the two to maximize value? The Nedly may have hit on a way. Use Counsell as you would a relief pitcher. Its brilliant. And it paid off huge on Sunday.

After Braun helped the Crew establish a 7-4 lead through six, Nedly pulled him to start the seventh. The FIRST Pirate batter in the seventh, Sanchez, hits an absolute rocket to Counsell's back hand. If Braun is in the game, its a guaranteed double. Instead, Counsell makes a beautiful pick for the first out. The play saved the Brewers at least one run for sure (Nady's subsequent double would have scored Sanchez easily), and I believe more.

If Counsell doesn't make that play, I believe Linebrink comes apart. And if Linebrink comes apart, all bets are off.

Consider also, prior to Counsell entering the game, there were 4 singles to the left side of the Brewer infield and zero putouts. After Counsell entered, there were zero singles and 4 putouts. He makes a difference.

The Hebrew Hammer

I give Braun a lot of crap for his defense, but he is one of the greatest hitters I have ever seen. The way he pounds lefties is incredible. He absolutely wears them out. His OPS against lefties is a Nintendo like 1.428.

From the cheap seats its almost impossible to distinguish between Braun and Paul Molitor... except Braun has a ton more power. His opposite field home run in the fifth off Gorzelnanny was a majestic piece of hitting.

Suppan was okay

YOU look at Jeff Suppan's pitching line yesterday, and it doesn't look very impressive. But he really wasn't that bad. Sure, he gave up a lot of hits. But he's going to give up hits. He has to limit the walks and prevent runs.

And truth be told, with all the baserunners he let on, only one should have scored (the first inning homer). In the second inning, he was victimized on back-to-back plays by some terrible outfield defense. First RF Corey Hart, and then LF Kevin Mench, failed to cut off balls in the gap. Each time the ball got to the wall for a double, when it should have been fielded for a single.

On the first ball, it looked like Corey Hart took a terrible angle on the ball. He tried to cut the ball off at a 3'oclock angle, when the properly judged play would have been to take an immediate 5 o'clock angle. On the subsequent ball to leftfield... how can I put this?... Kevin Mench took NO angle. I'm not even kidding. His reaction to the ball was so slow, he didn't appear to even move until the ball just about rolled to the warning track. I don't know if he was napping or what. The ball landed in mid leftfield and rolled from there. He must cut that ball off.

In the 5th, Suppan was again victimized by some substandard support. This time it was Prince Fielder's boneheaded decision. The Big Wheel fielded a groundball hit right at him and tried to turn two with it when he had absolutely no play at second. His throw to second hit the runner in the back and all hands were safe. Had he made the right play, Suppan would never have had to face Bautista, who's single to left with two outs and the bases loaded plated two Pirates.

Jeffress IS the new Doc Gooden after all

When the Brewers used their first round pick last year on high school pitcher Jeremy Jeffress I said it was a risky move. I was refering to the risk of injury or underdevelopment... I never considered the risk that the guy might be featured on next week's episode of Intervention.

According to MLB.com, Jeffress has been suspended for 50 games after he tested positive for a "drug of abuse".

Drug of abuse? You mean like coke? He risked his career just to get his buzz on? This guy needs some schooling. Nobody gets suspended for positive narcotics tests anymore. That is so very very very 80s.

The irony of this whole thing is that when Jeffress was drafted many people compared him to Doc Gooden. At the time I said that was a bit of a reach. I see it now.

Who or what caused the Brewers second half collapse? Suspect Number One

At the All-Star break, the Brewers were in great shape. They had a 49-39 record, their defensive plus minus rating was above average at +4, their pitching was adequate, and their offense was powerful.

Now things don't look so good. The team has scuffled. They have the worst second half record in all of the pathetic National League Central, the defense has played so atrociously their plus/minus rating has fallen to -40 in little over a month and a half, and the once mighty offense has sputtered.

So it would be easy to just conclude "same old Brewers" and then turn your attention to Packer football. But I don't want to do that. I want to know specifically who or what has caused this nightmare to occur so hopefully we can all find the right people to blame during the offseason.

So over the next few days I will line up the suspects. Here is suspect number one:

1. Replacing Counsell with Braun at 3rd killed the defense and pitching staff

This is a tough one. Its like a Faustian tradeoff.

As I said, the Brewers were an above average defensive team at the break. Their pitching staff was performing adequately. But in the last month and a half, its all come apart.

What caused it? At first I thought it was too easy to blame Ryan Braun. I knew he contributed to the downfall. He's clearly below average defensively. But it didn't make sense to blame him primarily, I thought. He isn't that far below average.

Then I realized my analysis was wrong. The proper comparison is between Braun and the man who played third base for the majority of the first half -- Craig Counsell. Once I did that, the picture became clear.

The dropoff between Braun's level of defensive play in the second half, which has been well below the average third baseman, and also well below what Braun himself was doing in the first half, and Counsell's level of defensive play, which was way above the average third baseman in the first half, almost singlehandedly explains the Brewers drop in defensive rating and defensive efficiency.

In the first half of the season Ryan Braun successfully played 46 of the 76 balls that came into his zone. That's .605 percent... below the .685 percent you would expect from a normal third baseman, but not horrible for a rookie. Plus, he made 13 plays out of his zone, which, on 76 "in zone" chances, is actually a slightly above average rate. In short, Braun was erratic and inconsistent in the first half, but he showed promise.

In the second half, he has been an unmitigated disaster. He has successfully played only 51 of 92 chances in his zone, for a horrendous .554 percent. On top of that, Braun has almost completely stopped making plays outside of his zone. In his 92 second half "in zone" chances, he has made only 5 "out of zone" plays. That is 10 fewer out of zone plays than the .163 rate the average third baseman would be expected to make.

Things get even uglier when you compare Braun's second half performance to the first half performance of Counsell.

As the primary third baseman in the first half, Counsell had a fielding percentage of 1.000 and he successfully played .80 balls in his zone... well above the normal .685 rate for the average third baseman. He also fielded balls out of his zone at a very high rate. His .232 OOZ rate was much higher than the average rate of .165.

Now, if you were to assume that Counsell was out on the field in the second half instead of Braun and got the exact number of chances Braun has gotten, you can speculate that Counsell would have made 74 plays "in zone", and 21 plays out of zone. That translates into 39 more plays made with Counsell in, or, put more bluntly, 39 extra outs for the pitching staff because Braun was playing third base and not Counsell.

What was each extra hit worth?

It has been established that every play made at third base is worth .80 runs for the defense. Therefore, it can be said that Braun replacing Counsell cost the Brewers roughtly 31 runs (39*0.80). You subtract 31 runs from the second half earned run totals, and suddenly second half ERA goes from 5.71 to 4.51. Given the Brewers penchant for winning nearly every game they play when hold their opponent under 5 runs, that could have been a significant difference.

What about Braun's bat?

Of course none of this takes into account the runs Braun created on offense that Counsell would not have created. But that can be calculated as well.

According to Hardball Times, Braun has "created" 71 runs in 355 at bats, for a rate of .20 RC/AB, while Counsell has only created 25 runs in 251 at bats, for a rate of .10 RC/AB.

That means that in 181 second half at bats, Braun has created somewhere in the neighborhood of 36 runs, whereas in the same number of at bats Counsell would only have been expected to create 18 runs. However, if you compare that to the theoretical amount of runs Braun's defense has cost the team, his net runs over Counsell is -13.

Of course, this is all a thought experiment. It would be ridiculous not to play Ryan Braun. He is the future of the team. I'm just pointing out that there is a cost to pay for doing it that few of us ever account for.

Parra can do it

On paper the pitching matchup in the rubber game tonight between the Brewers and the Cubs looks like a decided advantage for the Flatlanders. The scheduled throwers are greenhorn Manny Parra, making only his second Major League start for the Brewers, against high priced veteran Ted Lilly, who has pitched masterfully all season for the Cubs.

But I wouldn't necessarily sell Parra short. Of all the potential starters on the Brewer staff, he's probably throwing third best at the moment (behind Suppan and now Sheets).

If Brewer pitching coach Mike Maddux's assertion that "bad pitching is contagious" is true, Parra has proven himself immune. In the month of August, the Brewer staff as a whole has been allowing 40.8% of baserunners to score earned runs, while Parra has only allowed 28.5% to do so. The Brewer staff has given up 1.29 hits/inning, while Parra has only given up 0.93. And the Brewer staff has an Earned Run average of 6.10, while Parra's is only 3.60.

So, of any possible Brewer starter other than Sheets and Suppan, he's the one I want out there tonight. He's throwing the best at the moment. Plus, I've heard the Cubs struggle with lefties who throw a lot of breaking balls, and that describes Manny.

Still, there's room for worry. Parra's sample size is not large enough to confidently predict success. Gallardo was going just as well as Parra until he entered the House of Horrors known as Coors Field, and he hasn't been the same since. Plus, Parra needs to keep his walk total down if he is to succeed.

So a good performance by Manny isn't a led pipe cinch. But its certainly possible, and, given the state of the Brewer pitching staff, that's more than you are going to get on most nights.

Debunking the "Scuffle in the Dugout" theory

If there's one thing that fascinates me about the world of sports, its the love of irrational cause-and-effect reasoning. Its what I call the "correlation without a discernable connection" fallacy.

Specifically, if one unusual event occurs, and an outcome follows, sports fans will always conclude that the event caused the outcome, no matter if there is any logical connection between the two at all. Its maddening.

I'm talking here about the "The Cubs were motivated to win by the Zambrano scuffle in the dugout" theory that nearly everyone, most notably the dunderheads on ESPN, repeats ad nauseum.

I wish for once one of these talking heads would stop and think: is there actually any logic behind this cockamamie thesis? If there is, what would it be? Are we meant to believe that the embarrasingly unprofessional sight of two teammates fragging each other in the dugout can serve as motivation for the the other members of said team to pick up their level of play? How is that line of reasoning even remotely plausible? ( I guess the thought process would go -- "Hey man, I just saw a fight! I was kind of sleepwalking the season away, but I'm going to really try hard now!").

The obvious truth is its not in the least bit plausible. It makes for a good story. But it doesn't make for a sound theory.

The more rational explanation is that the Cubs were underperforming their expected win total prior to the incident, and that a correction was likely to occur with or without the occurence of a teammate vs. teammate confrontation. As I pointed out just after the scuffle (but before the team's surge took hold), and as anyone who looked at the numbers could have seen, the Cubs -- at that point -- should have had more wins than they did, and thus were likely to start winning more games in the near future. Their runs scored/runs allowed numbers made that clear. It just happened that this mathematically predictable result occured after the time of the fight. Coincidence, people... its called a coincidence.

But that's not very interesting. Rational explanations rarely are.

Dr. Strongglove, or How I learned to love having Counsell in the lineup

Last night, on Milwaukee's Sports Radio 1250 AM's Usinger's Postgame Show, Will Allen, one of the keenest Brewer analysts going, went off on Brewer manager Ned Yost for starting Craig Counsell at shortstop and sitting JJ Hardy. He called it an example of Yost's annoying penchant for "overmanaging" the Brewers.

A month ago I would have been right there with him. Counsell? He couldn't hit his way out of a paper bag!

But in the past month, my mind has changed. I have come to see the precious value of sound defense. Like the chick from The Wire who looks like a dude once said, "I been schooled, dog."

If this painful past month should have taught Brewer fans anything, it is this: Defense Matters! As I have noted previously, if the Brewers' limit their opponents to 5 runs or less, they win. Plain and simple. Nearly all of their wins have occured when that has happened, and nearly all of their losses have occured when it has not.

And, as I showed last week, no one on the roster prevents more runs with his defense than Craig Counsell. In fact, if you consider offense and defense together, he has effectively "created" a nearly equal amount of runs over the average player as Ryan Braun has (Counsell is negative offense, overwhelmingly positive defense; Braun is overwhelmingly positive offense, negative defense). One does it with his steady glove; One does it with his explosive bat. But the runs are all worth the same.

And that's just demonstrable runs. It doesn't take into account the immeasureable psychological value Counsell brings to the pitching staff. With him anchoring the infield, I am certain the pitchers feel much more confident when it comes to challenging hitters in the strike zone and allowing balls in play. That means fewer baserunners, which also mathematically translates to fewer runs. Its the significance of the dog that didn't bark.

To appreciate Counsell you have to understand that baseball is a game ruthlessly governed by predictable events. It is uncanny how accurately you can numerically forecast the effect a play made, or a play not made, will have on the outcome of a game. Every routine out that a field defender converts, and every extra out that he converts that others would not, has provable value.

So when Counsell slides over and effortlessly plays a groundball into an out, it may look like a mundane act made without much scoreboard consequence. But its not. That act by itself greatly reduced the likelihood that the other team would score a run, or, more accurately put, if that act wasn't successful, the likelihood that the other team would score a run would have increased substantially.

And a run prevented is every bit as valuable in determining the outcome of a game as a run scored. That's what Craig Counsell brings to the party. Defensive offense. And it is something the skillet gloved young Brewers desperately need.

I am convinced that in this 30 game race to the finish, the mediocre NL Central will be won by the team that avoids the most mistakes. That's why having Craig Counsell in the lineup ought to bring comfort, not consternation, to BrewerNation. Counsell may not be Casey at the bat, but he's Steady Eddie with the glove. And that matters, Crew Fans. It just does.

Ueck takes a burn at the Cubs

I was on the road last night so I had to catch the Brewer-Cubs game on the Brewer Radio Network. During the Postgame Show Jim Powell said "If this season has a happy ending we'll look back on tonight's game."

To which Bob Uecker replied, almost matter-of-factly, "Oh, it'll have a happy ending. These guys (meaning the Cubs) aren't gonna win anything." He didn't sound like he was joking.

I've heard Ueck take burns at individual players (normally hot dogs of one sort or another), but in all the years I've been listening to his broadcasts, I really can't remember him taking a burn at a whole team before.

His annoyance with the Cubs stems from some childish locker room comments made by various Cubs after Tuesday night's game. They claimed Uecker's insertion of the words "Root, root, root for the Brewers" into the traditional Wrigley Field PA rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" inspired them to their three run seventh inning rally. If they meant what they said, its kind of pathetic if you ask me. (That was really their source of motivation? Are they professionals... or high schoolers?)

Of course, Ueck's been around the superstitious world of baseball all his adult life, so he probably buys into that kind of illogical cause-and-effect reasoning. I think he may actually believe he was in some way to blame for the Brewers seventh inning collapse. Suffice to say I wouldn't be expecting anymore seventh inning karaoke from him any time soon.

Big Game Ben comes up huge at Wrigley

When you consider all the circumstances surrounding it, I don't know how you can describe Ben Sheets performance at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night as anything other than one of the greatest clutch pitching performances in Milwaukee Brewer history. Granted, there haven't been many, but that was clearly one of them.

What he did was astonishing. He came off a month on the disabled list, without any minor league tune-ups, took the ball in a virtual must win situation, and dominated the Cubs over six beautiful innings.

You can't understate the effect his performance had on BrewerNation. Had he failed, after all the organization and its fans had invested in his return, all hope would have been lost. Because he didn't, we march on. That's the definition of clutch.

Footnote: The only bigger clutch pitching performance by a Brewer that I can think of would be Don Sutton's masterpiece in Baltimore against the Orioles when he won the fourth game of a four game series that ended the 1982 season, after the Orioles had cut the Brewers 4 game lead to one by winning the previous three. That was mega clutch. But what Benny did was, in its own way, just as big.

Ned may have been right

Last night I criticized Ned Yost for removing Jeff Suppan in the seventh inning when he had thrown only 82 pitches and appeared to be cruising. I said it wasn't the correct statistical play.

Turns out it was. I just looked at a breakdown of pitching statistics based on pitch count. When Suppan hits 91 pitches, he comes all apart. When Ned has left him in past that mark, he has allowed 21 hits, 6 walks, and a whopping 20 earned runs. In other words, he has gotten tenderized with a hammer.

So Ned made the correct percentage play in removing him when he did. Just because it didn't work out doesn't mean it was wrong. I just wish he would expand his mind when it comes to using Brian Shouse in Linebrink's role. He's been much more effective.

But the team did bring Linebrink in to be the bridge to Turnbow/Cordero, so I can't really fault Yost for using him for that purpose. If he's ineffective, that's really on Linebrink and on the guy who traded for him.

Is Doug Melvin losing his touch?

At one point in his tenure as Milwaukee Brewers General Manager, Doug Melvin was King Midas. Every trade he made turned to gold. But now you could argue that the last two big trades on his jacket have been less than stellar. The Canadian may be losing his touch.

The Scott Linebrink trade

Scott Linebrink has been less than advertised. Last night he blew yet another lead in yet another crucial situation. Meanwhile, Will Inman has been lights out for his San Diego farm team. The Brewers seem to have paid a high price for a lemon.

Forewarned is forearmed. A quick look at Linebrink's statistical resume and the Brewers might have seen that they were getting a pitcher whose better days were behind him.

Three years ago Linebrink allowed a phenomenal 18% of baserunners to become earned runs. That was in keeping with his career numbers. But in the past two seasons those numbers have slipped drastically. Last year Linebrink allowed 28% of baserunners to become earned runs, a shocking decline in performance. And this year the bad trend continued, as his BR/ER with the Padres slipped even further to 35%. With the Brewers he has posted a 33% rate, but for the month its up to 41%. That's atrocius. And we gave up our number two prospect, pitcher Will Inman, for this guy.

And to make matters worse, Inman has looked very sharp in a Padre minor league uniform. He is 3-0 since joining the organization and has allowed only 9 hits in 18 at bats. He looks like he has a ton of potential.

This is exactly what I worried about when this trade was made. Brewer fans may come to rue the short term, flawed thinking that went into the Linebrink deal.

The Doug Davis trade

Brewers television commentator Bill Schroeder is prone to naked assertions. During the recent Arizona series he declared that the Brewers "definitely got the better" of the off-season deal that sent pitcher Doug Davis to the Dbacks in exchange for pitcher Claudio Vargas and catcher Johnny Estrada (the other principles in the deal were mere throw-ins). But did they?

Doug Davis is an under appreciated talent. He doesn't blow guys away, but he doesn't let them score either. For two years in a Brewer uniform he led all starters with a BR/ER of 28.7% and then 32.8% (no current starter is lower than 35%), which is about his career average. Those numbers are both well below league average (34.5%). Thus, he's generally very stingy and difficult to hit hard, and in three of the last four years he's posted an ERA well below National League average.

But he's also prone to weird "off years". After he had one in 2006, when his BR/ER slipped to 35.6%, and his ERA ballooned to 4.61, the Brewers cut him loose. But he was only 31, and if they looked at his history, he's proven very resilient in bouncing back after bad years. But the Brewers thought he was through.

He wasn't. This year with Arizona he has once again bounced back. He's having an excellent season. His BR/ER is back down to 28.2%, and his ERA is down below league average as well. He's proven to be an effective starter for the Dbacks, and those are hard to come by.

And what did the Brewers get in return? Claudio Vargas and Johnny Estrada. Vargas has always been easy to hit and easy to score on. Granted, he's a survivor, but he's always lived on the razor's edge. His career BR/ER is a whopping 37.6%, well above National League average. Even in the minor leagues his BR/ER was quite high for a future major leaguer -- 35% -- so you know his doesn't fool many batters. Only once has he posted an ERA that wasn't above the league average, and that was six years ago in his rookie season with Montreal. This year he has posted a lot of wins, and as far as things go, he has been among the Brewers most effective starters. But that's almost by default. I would trade him for Doug Davis in a heartbeat.

As for Estrada, he's overrated. People look at his high average and think he's a really productive offensive player. He's not. If you look at his meager secondary average, and his equivalent run total, its obvious his decent average is really a hollow average. He hits for no power and is near the bottom among starting catchers in the National League when it comes to run creation.

And his defense is just horrible. He is throwing out a meager 10% of baserunners. He might as well just give the bases away. That's by far the lowest CS% in the major leagues.

So, while some may disagree with me, I think the Brewers came up short on both of those deals. What happened to the Canadian's magic? Let's hope he gets it back soon.

This is what we waited 15 years for?

For the past 15 summers, I've pleaded with the baseball Gods, "Please, just one lousy September pennant race in Milwaukee." Then this year happened. I feel like one of those guys who was granted wishes by a Genie, but asked for them in a slightly wrong way, and ended up with a head made of gold or something.

This is a pennant race? Its more like a potato sack race at a retirement home. Whoever can get to the finish line standing upright wins.

Each of the three pretenders is fatally flawed. The Cubs have a solid pitching core and an outstanding defense, but they're a bunch of banjo hitters. The Cardinals are so phony they're mascot should be a three dollar bill. They haven't caught up in this race so much as the Brewers and Cubs have backed into them.

And the Brewers? They don't even resemble a good team, let alone a postseason team.

Its like someone's idea of a sick, cruel joke. I mean, how many times have you seen a team pull a reversal as drastic as the Brewers have this season? I realize it happens where teams who were good early on going through a summertime swoon. I've seen that happen. But I've never seen a team that led by so many games suddenly turn so incompetent. Only the Brewers could pull a Jekyll and Hyde act of this magnitude.

In April and May they looked like worldbeaters. We were all going to piss our pants. Remember? Today they don't look like they could beat that Arizona team from the Little League World Series. Now we don't know whether to laugh or shit ourselves blind.

And so we are stuck in the middle of the most miserable alleged pennant race in baseball history. As I've said elsewhere, watching the Brewers finish out this once promising season is like watching that chick from the Olympics try to finish the marathon after she had a seizure. Just painful. Oh well, I guess its all part of being Brewer fans. You've got to take the bad with the worse.

Yost panicked

I was hoping the Brewers would rally against the Cubs on Tuesday night so I could write this post without sounding like a cheap second guesser. But they didn't, and I'm going to write it anyway.

I think Ned Yost lost his grip a little when he pulled Jeff Suppan with no one out in the seventh and replaced him with Scott Linebrink. Statistically, it was the wrong move.

I understand Yost's reasoning. He pulled Suppan because Dave Bush got in trouble in the seventh in San Francisco after having cruised along and Bush lost the lead before he could get anyone warm enough to relieve him. Thus, when faced with what looked like an analagous situation on Tuesday he acted preemptively because he didn't want to see what happened on Sunday occur again. I get that.

But his logic was flawed. It was based on a false analogy. Suppan is not Bush. Bush is always a threat to give up the lead, but right now Suppan really is not. For the month of August, Suppan has been very good. In his last 6 starts, Suppan has allowed only 30% of his baserunners to turn into earned runs. He's been pitching as well as he did two years ago with the Cardinals when he recorded an ERA of just around 3. Bush on the other hand has always allowed a steady 40% of his baserunners to become earned runs. He's a rally waiting to happen, Suppan is not.

Plus, Suppan was really dealing. To that point, he had allowed only 5 baserunners, all on singles, I believe, and just one earned run. His pitch count was at 82, and he was tattooing the strike zone. Thus the smart move was to leave him in.

But if he absolutely had to pull Suppan, it should not have been for Linebrink. Unlike Suppan, Linebrink has struggled mightily in the past couple of weeks. In August he is allowing nearly 50% of his baserunners to score earned runs, and Yost was bringing him into a situation where a man was already on base. By making that move, I would argue that Yost greatly increased the Cubs scoring chances. Indeed, Linebrink allowed the inherited runner to score along with two of the three men he put on. The whole thing backfired miserably.

The proper move, if one had to be made, was to go with Brian Shouse. Yost treats him like a "situational lefty", but he shouldn't. Shouse is one of five men in the bullpen who have, statistically, been stingy with the earned runs of late. He, Turnbow, Wise, Parra and Cordero all have BR/ER%s below 30 for the month. That's very good. Therefore, he should not be held in reserve for lefty vs. lefty confrontations. He's too valuable for that. Put him in in the seventh if you must, and then go with Turnbow/Cordero to close.

But the bottom line is I just don't think he should have pulled Suppan in the first place. It was a panic move.

The Bad News Brewers go to San Francisco

After the Brewers frittered away all three games against the bottomfeeding San Francisco Giants, it became obvious to me that we are officially in "Wait till next year" mode in Brewernation. After fifty years of being dependable as clockwork, the "Every 25 years and Milwaukee is in the World Series" streak finally looks broken.

This team is clearly not playoff caliber. Its got too many fatal flaws, and they have spent the entire summer exposing them. Since game 34, the team is now 41-55. That ain't good. In fact, its now in serious doubt whether they will even break their long streak of non-winning seasons. How far we have fallen.

The defense rested again for The Crew

I know I've been harping on this for a couple of weeks, but I have to write about the pathetic defense again. It was in full effect on Sunday and it pisses me off.

I didn't see the game on Saturday night, but looking at MLB Gameday, I found it hard to believe the team allowed 5 straight singles in the first inning of that game without a single groundout, especially after they had allowed 7 of 8 balls put in play by the slap hitting Giants to go for hits in the opening frame of Friday's game. Since time immemorial, batted balls put into the field of play in Major League baseball have only a 30% chance of falling in for hits. Its a constant, like zero degrees celsius. Yet on Friday the Giants had 7 of their first 8 balls turn into hits, and on Saturday night at one point they had 10 out of the first 15 balls they put in play land as hits -- with 9 of them being singles! Statistically, that's simply hard to do.

So Sunday I was paying special attention to the defensive performance, looking specifically for plays that ought to have been made but weren't. Its difficult to tell on television whether a ball should have been handled by the infield because you normally only get a glimpse of the play as the ball bounds into the outfield (which feeds the common perception that its all the pitcher's fault). That said, here's my take on some of the hidden, and not so hidden, defensive lapses that cost the Brewers:

1. Braun should have played Ray Durham's soft bounding double that led to the second run.

After making an excellent diving play to his left in the previous inning, Ryan Braun completely failed on a fairly easy chance the next inning. Ray Durham hit a very playable ball to his right that he didn't even come close to fielding, and it went for a double. The ball took a Sunday bounce off Durham's bat, but Braun nonchalantly moved laterally to his right and just flailed at the ball. And the ball wasn't hit very hard at all. As I mentioned, it bounced right off of Durham's bat. It was an example of one of the most insidious defensive lapses to spot, because on TV it simply looked like a ball that got by him. But it wasn't. It was softly hit and eminently playable. All Braun had to do was retreat at a four o'clock angle, play the bounce, and throw out the slow moving Durham by a step and a half. Instead, he gave an amatuerish effort and the ball got down the line for an undeserved double. The collapse was on.

2. Jenkins should have caught the subsequent ball off the wall.

After that play, Randy Wynn hit a ball the opposite way that bounced off the wall and drove in the guy pinch running for Durham. It was sharply hit and wasn't an easy play, but Jenkins and Hart gave chase and closed on it enough so that one of them should have caught it. Neither did. It appeared there was some miscommunication, as Jenkins yielded to Hart even though he appeared to have the much better angle on the play. I don't know if Hart was more confident than he should have been and called Jenkins off the ball, or what happened. I just know the ball should have been caught. That cost the Crew an important run.

3. Hardy was overpositioned and couldn't get to the slow roller to start the disastrous eighth inning

I notice on Brewers Str8up that the team's management charts every ball hit by an opponent batter and then aligns players accordingly. I think they may be outthinking themselves. In the eighth inning, Scott Linebrink induced a slow, two out ground ball slightly to the shortstop side of second base, but JJ Hardy was not anywhere near the play and it went for a single. Hardy was positioned so far in the hole, it exposed a huge hole up the middle and badly limited his range. If he were in normal position, he would have easily vacuumed the soft single up for the third out. The ball was hit so softly, in fact, it stopped before it got to centerfielder Bill Hall. It has to be turned into an out. When it wasn't, it set up this...

4. Corey Hart capped a horrible afternoon Bad News Bears style

Cue Bizet's "Music from Carmen". It was Bad News Brewers time in rightfield. This mishap was the most obvious. Corey Hart, who had a horrible day being "aggressive" on the basepaths (in other words, running himself into outs), somehow allowed a high pop down the rightfield line by Rich Aurilla to drop. My Grandma could have caught that ball, and yet it dropped, allowing the winning run to score. Hart compounded the mess when his throw to the plate went way up the line. An accurate throw would have easily cut down the runner. Instead, a poor throw cost the team the game.

Yost must be listening to too many talk radio shows

I know this is way off point, but I have to get this gripe in before I sign off. Ned Yost is obviously listening to way too many sports talk callers who want him to "be more aggressive" on the basepaths. Yost utilized this questionable strategy throughout the weekend to successfully run the Brewers out of rally after rally.

First, on Friday night, with the Brewers in the midst of a big first inning, for some reason he tried to score glacier footed catcher Johnny Estrada from first base on Barry Bonds error in leftfield. Estrada was out from me to you.

I mentioned Corey Hart's mishaps on the basepaths. Twice he tried stealing second, once with another guy on and nobody out, and both times he was cut down easily.

Finally, with runners on second and third, one out and Rickie Weeks at the plate and the infield playing in, he had catcher Damian Miller running from third on contact. Boneheaded. Why not wait to make sure its through before sending him? Do you have that little faith in your offense? Miller was also out from me to you.

Bill Schroeder commented "Well, on a play like that, you're sending the runner home because unless the ball is hit right at someone he's going to score." Well Bill, why not wait and make sure the ball is not hit right at someone before you send him? Because if the ball is hit right at someone, Miller is Thanksgiving turkey. But if it isn't, hesitating will not hurt you -- he can score on any other ball but that.

Typical corporate spiel from the TV booth. Oh well, it seemed like an entire weekend of wrong ideas for the entire Brewer organization.

On second thought... Braun is nearly a liability

Last night I had to revise the Brewers "Net Runs" analysis I did yesterday. If you read it, I was comparing each Brewers runs created against their number of runs allowed (as compared to the average player at that their position) and I called the result the player's "Net Runs above average." I thought it was a pretty interesting measurement of each player's all-around contribution to the team. But after some thought I had to tweak it a bit.

That's because my defensive "runs allowed" only took into account chances made on "Balls in fielding zone" (BIZ) but neglected chances converted outside of each player's fielding zone (OOZ). In other words, I was counting the routine plays and ignoring the spectacular. In fairness, I had to rectify that. Once I did, my Net Run numbers changed drastically, and Ryan Braun's defensive shortcomings came into even sharper view.

For OOZ plays, I calculated the average percentage of "OOZ" plays made per "BIZ" chance for each position in the National League. That assumes the number of OOZ chances per BIZ chance would roughly be the same for every player, which is a little bit of a contrivance, I realize, but a lot of otherwise random occurences in baseball tend to settle on a uniform rate over a large sample size, so I think I'm on safe ground.

Here's an example of an OOZ calculation: JJ Hardy has had 277 chances on balls hit into his defensive zone. He has made 51 plays on balls hit outside of his defensive zone. The average shortstop makes .151 OOZ plays per BIZ chance, which means the average shortstop would be expected to make only 42 OOZ plays on the same number of BIZ chances. Thus JJ Hardy has made 9 extra plays than the average shortstop. One play made at shortstop has been found to be worth .800 runs, so JJ Hardy's extra OOZ plays above average equate to 7.20 fewer runs allowed, which I count as 7.20 additional "Net Runs Above Average" for JJ Hardy. Thus Hardy's Net Run total went from yesterday's +4.32 to today's +11.52.

Here is the rest of my revised list, with some observations underneath (please go to yesterday's post if you want to know what the numbers originally were):

1. Prince Fielder (+44.00 RC) (-6.37 RA) +37.63 runs

2. JJ Hardy (+7.00) (+4.52) +11.52 runs

3. Geoff Jenkins (+5.80) (+0.95) +6.75 runs

4. Ryan Braun (+27.00) (-21.60) +5.60 runs

5. Craig Counsell (-9.50) (+14.31) +4.81 runs

6. Corey Hart (+7.00) (-4.42) +2.58 runs

7. Gabe Gross (+0.70) (-0.13) -0.57 runs

8. Kevin Mench (-7.68) (+6.06) -1.62 runs

9. Rickie Weeks (-0.50) (-7.07) -7.57 runs

10. Bill Hall (-2.20) (-7.08) -9.28 runs

Ryan Braun is almost a liability

Can you believe Ryan Braun's numbers? Its just as I suspected. His brutal defensive performance almost eliminates his spectacular offensive production. If my numbers are to be believed, Counsell -- through his solid defense -- contributes nearly as much as Braun, and Counsell can't hit a lick. Its unbelievable. No one is even in shouting distance of Braun when it comes to Runs Allowed above average. He doesn't make the ordinary plays (BIZ) nor does he have the range to make plays out of his zone (I saw that up close one night at Miller Park -- he looked geriatric on a play barely to his left). One thing is for certain, if Braun doesn't continue to produce big numbers offensively he will begin to be a net liability for this team.

Brewer defense can obviously get much better... except Braun

Here is the list of Brewers who are simultaneously below average defenders when it comes to routine plays, and yet above average defenders when it comes to extraordinary plays: JJ Hardy (he's an incredible +9 above the average shortstop on making OOZ plays), Prince Fielder (Big Daddy's got more range than I suspected), Rickie Weeks (this actually didn't shock me), Gabe Gross (but he's only marginally below average on BIZ and marginally above average on OOZ), and Bill Hall (he's always been that way, even when he played the infield). That tells me there's a bit of a lack of concentration going on. If you can make the great plays, you should also be able to make the regular plays. That has to be the Brewers focus for the pennant stretch. Make the ordinary plays. If they can just do that, and take away maybe one run a game, it would make a huge difference.

Counsell should get some time

Craig Counsell has been spectacular in the field. I was shocked. If you trust my numbers, and they're solid, he is nearly as valuable to the team as Braun, but for opposite reasons. He makes the routine plays, and at every position he plays on the infield he is above average on OOZ plays. He's brilliant. If he could just hit.

Is Braun worth it at third base?

The Brewers are caught in a dilemma. Their two best offensive players are, statistically, their two worst defensive players. I'm referring, of course, to Prince Fielder at first and Ryan Braun at third. I often wonder whether their awesome bats are enough to offset their hideous gloves. To answer that, I decided to determine the following: How many net runs is each Brewer producing compared to the average number of net runs a player at the same position would be expected to produce?

By net runs I mean the sum total of runs the player is creating on offense compared with the average player at his position and runs he is allowing on defense compared with the average player at his position. That number, I thought, would be a good indication of how each Brewer's overall contribution compares to the contribution we would be getting if we had Joe Average player at that position.

My formula for determining the answer to that is explained below. Here are my results (with runs created compared to the average in the first parenthesis, runs allowed compared to the average in the second parenthesis, and then the sum of the two, or net runs above average, being the last number) :

1. Prince Fielder (44.00) (-9.57) +34.42 runs

2. Ryan Braun (27.20) (-14.40) +12.80 runs

3. Geoff Jenkins (5.8) (+2.52) +8.33 runs

4. Corey Hart (7.0) (-1.68) +5.32 runs

5. JJ Hardy (7.0) (-2.25) +4.75 runs

6. Gabe Gross (0.7) (-2.52) -1.82 runs

7. Craig Counsell (-9.85) (+2.0) -7.0 runs

8. Rickie Weeks (-0.5) (-8.2) -8.7 runs

9. Kevin Mench (-7.68) (-1.68) -9.48 runs

10. Bill Hall (-2.2) (-9.26) -11.46 runs

Discussion

As you can see, both Braun and Fielder are more than offsetting their defensive liabilities with offensive production. But, especially in Braun's case, they are having to work very hard to do so because of their sloppy defense.

You will notice too that Jenkins is the only player on the team who is both creating more runs than the average leftfielder and allowing fewer runs than the average leftfielder. Jenkins platoon buddy, Kevin Mench, on the other hand, is in the red in both categories. That platoon should end. We need Jenkins out there full time. Ditto for Corey Hart. I didn't realize how strong his offense is.

The most astonishing negative result was Bill Hall's. He is killing the Brewers. His poor defense in centerfield is allowing runs the average centerfielder would have prevented, and at the plate he is producing fewer runs than the average centerfielder would have produced. That's the daily double, and not in a good way.

Hart should start in centerfield

That is why I would put Corey Hart in centerfield when he returns from injury, and move Hall to second base. Each has shown he can prevent runs better at those positions than the respective starters, and each has offensive numbers that would be above average for his new position.

For instance, if Corey Hart were the team's centerfielder, he would be +13.21 in runs created compared to the average centerfielder, and his defense (assuming his zone rating doesn't change) would be right on average. Then, if you project Hall to second base, his offense would be +1 in runs created, and if you assume he would play the same level of defense he played at second base last year, his run prevention would be +3.

So, if you figure Gross would replace Hart in right, that would be a -7.0 runs (although with Gross' hot streak his current numbers are deceiving), and Hall with Hart in center, which would be a +23.45 runs (Hall's current numbers minus Hart's projected numbers), and Weeks with Hall at second, which would be a +11.34, that is a combined total net result of +27.79 runs above the average, and that doesn't even factor in Gross' current run production numbers. I would make the switch in a heartbeat. Of course the Brewers won't.

How I arrived at my "Net Runs above Position" total

Runs Created Above Average at the position: To determine the amount of runs created by each player as compared to the average at his position, I first went on baseballprospectus.com and looked at Clay Davenport's brilliant "equivalent runs" statistic. Basically, his statistic quantifies how many runs each player "created" for his team. Then I looked at each player's "equivalent runs above position". That told me how each Brewers run production compared to the average amount of runs a player at his position would be expected to produce in the same number of outs. All of this together told me how many runs above the average player each Brewer was producing for the team.

Runs Allowed above average at the position: First I determined the amount of chances each player had on defense. I determined this by using STATS, Inc.'s "Balls in Zone" statistic. BIZ tells you how many balls were hit in an area around the fielder where you would expect most fielders at the position to make an out. Then I determined how many BIZ chances an average player at the position would have converted into outs, and compared that with the number of chances the particular Brewer converted into outs. The difference between those two equaled the number of chances the average player would have made that the Brewer did not make (or in the rare case, the number of extra chances the Brewer converted into outs that that the average player would not have converted).

Now I needed to determine the impact of each missed chance (or, in the case of two Brewers, the benefit of each extra conversion above average). I found that at "The Baseball Think Factory". They have a way to measure the impact that every converted chance has on the number of runs allowed, broken down by position. For example, they have determined that every missed chance at third base costs the team .800 runs, and every missed chance at shortstop costs the team .753 runs.

So, to get my runs allowed total, I took the number of chances converted above/below the average by each Brewer at that Brewers position, and then I multipled that number by the cost of a missed conversion by a player at that position.

Here it is in practice: Ryan Braun has had 161 chances in his zone at third base. He has converted 92 of those chances into outs. The average third baseman would have converted 110 of those chances into outs. So I charged Braun with 18 missed chances. Each missed chance in turn cost the Brewers .800 runs. So Braun's defense has yielded 14.40 runs above the average.

Footnote: I did not evaluate catchers because I don't have reliable runs allowed information. But if I did, I am almost certain Estrada would be well in the negative. His run creation is below average for his position (and that's supposedly his strong suit) and he throws out only 10% of those attempting steals. That's an atrocious percentage, and it is solidly at the bottom of the major leagues.

How do you earn a save in a 27 run win?

If you needed any proof that some official baseball statistics are meaningless, check out last night's boxscore from the historic Texas Rangers beatdown of the Baltimore Orioles, 30-3. Wes Littleton of the Rangers actually earned a save in the game. In a game in which he entered the ninth inning with a 27 run lead! How is that possible?

I looked it up in the baseball rulebook. In order to earn a save, you must meet only one of the following conditions: (a) enter the game with a lead of no more than 3 runs and pitch at least one inning; (b) enter the game with the potential tying run on base, at bat, or on deck; or (c) pitch the last three innings of a victory.

Littleton obviously qualifyied under the last condition. My question is: Why does that condition exist? There are plenty of times when a pitcher will pitch the final 3 and even more innings of a blowout win and yet not come close to facing the tying run. Why should the rulebook automatically assume a save in such situations? It leads to disingenuous results like we got last night. Oh well, that's baseball... the game where one man can be credited with a victory or a loss when at least 8 other men contributed substantially to that outcome.

Footnote: You think Doug Melvin knew something when he traded Nelson Cruz? Cruz has struggled badly in his Major League career with the Rangers, and last night he was one of only two Texas Rangers not to drive in a single run.

Brewers get an A for effort

You will rarely beat the 2007 Milwaukee Brewers scoring only 3 runs. It had only happened 5 times coming into last night, so I take my hat off to Brandon Webb and the Arizona bully. They earned the win. But if last night's effort by the Brewers is indicative of the defensive focus and pitching efficiency they are going to bring the rest of the season, Milwaukee will be a postseason team.

Last night the Brewer defense did what they had to do -- they made the ordinary plays (that should be their defensive motto for the rest of the season). That's all they have to do to help their pitching staff prevent runs and keep their offense in position to win. Ironically, it was the normally stout Arizona defense that made crucial mistakes behind Webb. Gabe Gross' double to deep centerfield in the sixth should have been a caught ball. The Dback centerfielder circled it and lost it like a drunken flagwaver on an aircraft carrier. The Brewers, on the other hand, gave away no obvious hits (though I felt a couple of those soft humpback liners that grazed the infield should have been caught -- but that's being picky). As a result, they helped a very mentally tough Jeff Suppan keep the Dbacks to 3 runs on 7 hits.

Suppan got in trouble very early but toughened up and worked smoothly out of it. The first Dback hitter took him yard. The next Dback hitter tripled. While the results were bad, I liked the approach. When you are facing a weak hitting team, you must challenge them up in the zone. That's what Suppan was doing. He got burned out of the chute, but he stuck with his game plan and it worked. He had one of his better outings of the season (and he even induced a walk out of Webb that nearly led to a big rally).

Finally, what can I say about the indomitable Gabe Gross? He is the Brewers offense at the moment. He led every run scoring rally the Brewers had last night. No one can get him out.

As for the Brewers, its on to San Francisco and lets win there.

No room for errors tonight

On the face of things, its hard to see how the Brewers can win tonight's game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The pitching matchup features Jeff Suppan against Arizona's reigning Cy Young, Brandon Webb. If ever a team's defense and a pitcher were perfectly matched for success it is Webb and the Diamondbacks. And as I have chronicled, if ever a team's defense and a pitcher were not, its Milwaukee and Suppan.

Taken alone, Brandon Webb is exceedingly hard to score runs on. He records an above average amount of strikeouts, he allows very few home runs, he gives up few bases on balls, and he induces an incredible percentage of grounders (66%, the MLB average is 45%). But pair him with Arizona's incredible fielding defense and he becomes baseball's Rock of Gibraltar. Everything he allows in play they vacuum up. They are the perfect defensive storm.

Accordingly, scoring chances will be few and far between for the Crew. Therefore, the Brewers must do what they are worst at if they are to win. They have to prevent runs. They must be defensively stout if they are to have any chance at all. Suppan will yield his normal amount of balls put in play -- no doubt about that -- so its up to his defense to do what it hasn't done all year... turn every legitimate chance into an out. There is no margin for loose play or for errors tonight.

That was super Gross!

Two guys who a couple weeks ago were riding the bus down in the minors are now driving the bus for the Milwaukee Brewers. In the last 7 days, with Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder slumping, the unlikely duo of Gabe Gross and Rickie Weeks have stepped up. Gross is batting .467 while Weeks is batting .375. And Gross has a secondary average of .515, meaning he's white hot.

Last night they took it to a new level. Weeks tripled in the fourth to drive in the Brewers second run, and then walked and scored in front of Gross when the rightfielder ripped open the 3-2 game in the sixth with a long grand slam home run off of, statistically, one of the better relievers in the big leagues, Arizona's Tony Pena. It was a beautiful moment.

Bushida with a nice start and a great escape

Credit for last night's great victory must also be given to starter Dave Bush. He allowed only 7 baserunners and struck out 6 batters over 6 strong innings. He had a two hit shutout working until he got into some deep trouble in the sixth (doesn't that happen every night to Brewers starters?). But he kept his composure and worked out of a bases loaded one out crisis to finish his night with only two runs allowed. It was an escape worthy of Houdini. First he reached back and snapped off some wicked benders to strike out Upton, then he made some quality pitches to induce a flyball from Montero and that was the end of that.

Welcome to the Brewers

I have been contending for about a week that the Milwaukee defense is what is killing the Milwaukee pitching. Here's an example of what I mean.

Last night new reliever Seth McClung started the ninth for the Crew, and he came out of the bullpen smoking. He was tickling 100 on the radar gun with a very heavy fastball. He disposed the first two Dbacks. Then, on a defensive two strike swing, Dbacks lefthanded hitter Orlando Hudson flared a little pop fly halfway down the line in leftfield. It would have been a tough catch for Geoff Jenkins, but he has to make it. He didn't, and then compounded the problem by failing to bend over enough to pick the ball up, thereby allowing it to get by him down the line. Inexcusably loose effort from a guy who is a lot better than that. The play was scored as a triple, but it should have been a caught ball or a bloop single at worst. Then McClung gave up an ordinary single to left. So one run was in that should never have scored. The next batter up hit a deep ball to right. Gabe Gross was playing very short and then took a horrible angle on the ball and let it get over his head. That ball should definitely have been caught. So two runs are in, neither of them deserved, and Yost has to go get Cordero. And McClung is saddled with a huge ERA and what looks like a terrible performance when in fact he pitched superbly. Defense matters.

Who's this new Brewer reliever?

In a pretty surprising move, the Brewers sent middle reliever Carlos Villanueva down to Nashville for some "polishing" in expectation of a September pennant drive. At one point this season Villanueva was, possibly, the best pitcher on the staff. He has certainly struggled lately, but the move was unexpected nonetheless.

In his place the team called up recently acquired reliever Seth McClung. He has had some nice outings since joining AAA Nashville, but I wouldn't get too excited about his potential. In 70+ big league innings, McClung has a very high ERA (5.75) and a very high WHIP (1.62), especially for a reliever. His problem is he tends to walk a lot of batters (5.1 per 9) and his home run total is too high (around 1.5 per 9). He needs to do better than that if he is going to be an effective performer for the Brewers. But I'm open-minded.

Yovanni got his groove back

A shutout victory for the Brewers. Yovanni looks like his groove is back. And the team is tied for first place. How sweet it is. Now if the Brewers could just grab themselves by the ears and fully dislodge their heads from their poopshoots, they will be able to recognize that, despite their struggles, they are perfectly positioned to take control of this race and bring this thing home.

Last night was a great start. The Arizona series looked daunting on its face. The Dbacks are the hottest team in the National League, and the Brewers were coming off one of the ugliest homestands in living memory. But, looking strictly at the numbers, I thought I saw an unlikely opportunity for the team and its pitching staff to get right.

First of all, the Dbacks are something of a fraud. If you look at their pythagorean win expectancy and compare it to their actual record, they are the only team in the league whose numbers are off by double digits. Based on their production, they should have 11 fewer wins. No other team is off their expected win total by more than +/- 5 games. A correction is due.

Second, for a first place team, their offense is weak. They are in the lower half of the league when it comes to run production -- just the opposite of most of the opposition the Brewers staff has had to face in the last couple of weeks.

Finally, while everyone lauds their pitching, its actually their defense that's keeping other teams down. If you look at Hardball Times +/- ratings for defensive efficiency, the Dbacks are nearly the mirror image of the Crew. Their defense takes away a ton of hits, whereas their pitchers allow balls to be put in play that ought to be tough to turn into outs -- in other words, their pitchers are getting hit much harder than the numbers show. Remember yesterday when I said that the Brewers pitchers were a +3 and their defense was a -37. The Dbacks pitchers are a -31 and their defense is a staggering +48. That means the pitching staff is an extremely lucky bunch. Their ERA is currently a very low 4.05, but their FIP suggests it ought to be around 4.60, a huge difference. That's a dangerous discrepancy to have when you are facing a power team like the Brewers, and that danger was in full view last night. That said, you have to get to their starters. Their bullpen is no joke. That is their strength, and that is the key to their anamolous victory results. So the Crew must jump the Dbacks early, as they did last night.

So I'm saying the Brewers have a chance. If their pitching staff can continue to hold the weak Arizona offense down, this could be a trampoline series for the Blue and Gold. The key is to keep them under 5 runs. If they can do that, the Brewers will most likely win. In games in which the pitching staff has allowed less than 5 runs, the Brewers are a staggering 51-9 (you can do the math and determine how bad they are when they allow 5 or more). So that's the key. Now they just have to get it done.

Capuano and friends should sue for abandonment

Chris Capuano, David Bush, and Jeff Suppan all rank among the worst pitchers in the National League in ERA. Capuano and Bush are in the bottom 10, with Capuano 3rd worst and Bush 6th worst, and Suppan is not far behind his mates. Yet none of them deserve to be there. They can blame the defense behind them that they are.

If you compare ERAs against FIPs (fielding independent pitching, ie the ERA the pitcher would have if he had an average defense behind him), only one person in the Major Leagues, and no one in the National League, has gotten screwed worse by his defense than Chris Capuano (Bush and Suppan are among the top 10 worst screwed). His ERA projects as 21st best if he merely had an average defense backing him up.

Indeed, until just recently he has done everything a pitcher can do to keep the opposition off the board. There are three basic methods a pitcher can use to do this: get outs on his own (strikeouts), prevent home runs, and limit walks. Capuano is 13th in the National League in strikeouts per game, he is 21st best in home runs per game, and is 31st in walks per game (a bit high on the last one, but not third worst by a long shot). All in all, he's doing okay. He's not pitching anywhere near as badly as his raw statistics would lead you to believe. I hope Brewers management sees this. If the Brewers foolishly give up on Capuano without looking beyond the numbers, some other team will see his great value and scoop him up at a bargain rate.

The same holds for Dave Bush. He hasn't dominated, but he has pitched effectively enough to be much more successful than he has been. Like Cappy, the defense has let him down big time. His ERA is 6th worst, while his FIP is 27th best. He is 21st in strikeouts per game, and 3rd in walks per game. Granted he is also in the bottom 10 in home runs allowed, but nevertheless he clearly deserves better results than he has gotten.

So does Jeff Suppan. His FIP is 24th best, while his ERA is 12th worst. He's a bit different than the other two. He doesn't strike many guys out, he also doesn't give up home runs or walks. Thus, of the three, Suppan depends the most on his defense. He knows he's easy to hit, so his entire pitching strategy is on walk and home run prevention combined with solid defense. He knows he's going to give up hits, so he tries to maximize the number of hits the opposition needs to score. He's gambling his defense can make three outs before they can do that. Its usually not a horrible percentage gamble, but it has been with the Milwaukee Brewers.

But what should we make of Vargas?

Meanwhile fellow starter Claudio Vargas is the 15th most fortunate pitcher in the National League when it comes to defensive support. He gives up a lot of home runs, doesn't strike that many people out, and yet leads the team in wins. What gives?

I have a theory. Suppan, Capuano, and Bush are among the top 25 in groundball percentage, while Claudio Vargas is 5th from the bottom. Normally, the more groundballs you induce the better, because ground balls are statistically much easier to turn into outs. But in this case, ground balls are poison because of the Brewers porous infield. The one solid part of the Brewers defense is in the outfield corners. Vargas is thriving by limiting the infield's exposure, and putting his outfield corners in play.

All evidence points to the Brewers defense

Sometimes a team becomes infinitely more interesting in collapse than assent. For the past two weeks, I have been obsessed with answering this question: Why has the Brewers pitching been so bad?

Emotionally, I want to blame it all on pitcher incompetence (as I did yesterday). The media certainly has. But intellectually, that indictment doesn't make sense. Every pitcher on the staff is struggling, or, more precisely, every pitcher on the staff has experienced a decline in his normal numbers. That doesn't make sense. Are we to believe that every one of them, just suddenly and en masse, lost their ability to pitch effectively? That's X-files stuff.

It makes more sense to focus on a component common to all of them: the defense. If that goes bad, it effects every single pitcher.

Last week I dug up some circumstantial evidence that showed that the defense was in fact to blame. I found that the team's "Defensive Efficiency", or the number of hit balls the defense turns into outs, was well below the league norm, and I found that several of the Brewer fielders had subpar "Zone Ratings", meaning they weren't turning balls hit into their zones into outs -- balls that statistics show the majority of players at their position turn into outs.

But one issue was still bothering me. Neither defensive rating accounted for the type of balls hit. Line drives are more difficult to field than grounders, etc. So the possibility still existed that the Brewer pitchers were giving up an inoridinate amount of unplayable balls, and thus they were to blame.

So I searched for a statistic that could sort that issue out. I found that statistic, and a whole lot more, on a site called "Hardball Times". Here is what I found:

1. The blame goes almost entirely to the Brewers sloppy defense:

Hardball Times has a defensive statistic called "+/-" that fleshes out a team's defensive efficiency. It assigns blame/credit separately to the pitchers and to the hitters for the team's defense being above/below the norm. In other words, it tells you how much of the team's defensive efficiency is caused by difficult-to-field balls yielded by the pitchers, and how much is caused by the fielders inability to field their positions adequately. Across the Major Leagues, the average blame is -2 for the pitchers (meaning, on most staffs the pitchers are slightly to blame) and +3 for the fielders (meaning that normal team defenses take away balls that should have been hits). That's not the case for the Brewers. The Brewer pitchers are a +4, meaning they actually beat the norm when it comes to yielding hard-to-field balls. They are taking away hits, not giving them up. The Brewer defense, on the other hand, rates a -37, meaning they are giving batters many, many hits that other teams would have turned into outs.

2. The Brewer staff should be the fourth best in the National League:

Hardball Times also has a statistic called FIP, meaning "Fielding Independent Pitching". It isolates the pitcher's performance from their defenders and suggests what their ERA would be if they had a defense of average competence behind them. It turns out the Brewer pitching staff would have the 4th best team ERA in the National League if they had a merely decent defense behind them. On the other hand, the Cubs pitching staff, which has an excellent ERA, would actually have a below average ERA if they had a merely average defense behind them. Meaning, the Cubs defense is taking away balls that would normally be hits, and that is saving the team runs, whereas the Brewers defense is giving away hits that would normally be outs, and thus are costing the team runs.

3. Jenkins is the only above average fielder on the team.

On Hardball Times you can compare each fielder against the other fielders in the Major Leagues at the same position. I did so and found that the only Brewer who has an above average "Zone Rating" is Geoff Jenkins. He has in fact been excellent (remember when his defense was a liability?). Every other field player on the team is in the bottom half of the Major Leagues when it comes to defense, with many of them landing near the bottom (JJ Hardy is close to the midpoint line, but everyone else is much lower). I have already established how bad the infield is; It turns out that centerfield and rightfield are equally bad. Bill Hall is a brutal centerfielder. He is way, way below the norm. Corey Hart, whom I mistakenly said had an average fielder rating, is actually in the bottom five as well. And Ryan Braun is the worst fielding third baseman in the majors.

4. Ironically, Brewer pitchers need to avoid groundballs at all costs

Normally pitchers want to induce groundballs because they are much easier to turn into outs. Not pitchers for the Brewers. The pitchers who induce the most groundballs: Capuano, Bush, and Suppan, are the guys who are getting screwed the worst by the defense. On the other hand, the pitchers who induce the fewest groundballs: Sheets, Vargas, and Parra, are actually being helped by the defense. The first three all have groundball % in the mid 40s. The last three all have groundball % in the low 30s. The latter 3 should be doing worse than the former 3. But because of the Brewers porous infield, Capuano, Suppan, and Bush are getting raked over the coals. Btw, Cappy and Suppan should actually have above average ERAs, and yet they are both saddled with well below average ERAs. All because of the sloppy defense.

Are the Brewer pitchers deliberately scuttling the season?

Is this an organized attempt by the Brewer pitching staff to give this once promising Brewer season a Viking funeral? Because no group of allegedly Major League quality pitchers can really be this bad for this long unless they were deliberately setting out to be bad. Their numbers are laughable.

In the last 30 days the Brewers have lost 18 of 27 games and have seen their season fall apart. During that time, the pitching staff has an ERA of 6.14, last in the National League. They have given up 188 runs, last in the National League by a staggering 27 runs! I'm not finished. They have a batting average against of .305, last in the National League. They have an on-base average against of .375, last in the National League. They have a staff WHIP of 1.76, last in the National League. And they are yielding more than 11 hits a game, dead last in the National League. How can they possibly be this bad?

Now we got trouble

After blowing another large lead and losing to the Reds 7-6 to end a disastrous homestand, the Brewers are swimming upstream for sure. Now they have to go on the road, where they have been awful, and play the Arizona Diamondbacks, who have been sensational. This could get much uglier before it gets any better.

On the other hand, I've seen this Brewer team lift their play when faced with dire adversity. And brother, they're facing dire adversity. Maybe they'll do it again. One possible note of hope. The Dbacks are not that strong offensively. But I'm sure the Brewers room service pitching staff will take care of that.

Proving my point

A couple of days ago I said how embarrassing it was that the Brewers are making such a monster deal out of their runner-up 1982 team. I said it was essentially the sign of a loser. I said that the Packers try to bury the memory of their second place finishes, not commemorate them, because second place is a disappointment to a championship organization. Check out the print they are selling at the Packer Hall of Fame. Notice anything missing?

Sheets on the road back

Ben Sheets, a man who is suddenly being prophesied as the savior of the season, has finally been cleared to take his first steps on the road back. He is throwing a simulated game tomorrow.

That's all real good, and I'm just as excited as anyone to see Sheets come back, but I think its a little ironic that everyone is counting so much on a guy who has shown that his one fatal weakness is he can't be counted on.

Does Melvin value defense at all?

The other day I was thinking that the long term plan at third base is not Ryan Braun. Its too important a position and he is too hopeless a defender. Shift him to the outfield and let the next prospect in line take over. Then I found out in this morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the next prospect in line is a guy (Matt Gamol) who has somehow compiled 50 errors, that's right Five Oh, in just over 100 games. It is really, really hard to be that bad. I'm convinced he must have been using a frying pan instead of a glove. So much for giving the position to him. We could put a trained seal at the hot corner and get a better fielding percentage than that.

Gross, Weeks more valuable to Crew than you think

Local sports radio callers always get angry when Ned Yost turns in a lineup card that includes Gabe Gross and they've been frustrated with Rickie Weeks all season long. Brewer management must concur because both would be riding the bus in the minor leagues right now if it weren't for timely injuries to other Brewers.

But are those people underrating each players' overall offensive contributions? I think they might be. If you consider the statistic Bill James dubbed "secondary average", it shows that both players, but particularly Gross, make surprising contributions to run production and hence are much more valuable to the Brewers offense than their poor batting averages suggest.

Secondary Averages

"Secondary average" is a statistical tool that captures a player's offensive contributions independent of his batting average. It was created by Bill James and meant to give a fuller picture of offensive value. The formula is (Total Bases - Hits + Walks + Stolen Bases - Caught Stealings/At bats). You may notice that secondary Average provides similar information to OPS, but I like SA better because its an easier statistic to understand. A good secondary average is roughly similar to a good batting average... whereas OPS is a bit more esoteric.

Secondary average rewards power, plate discipline, and speed, by crediting the player for bases not accounted for in their batting averages: extra bases, stolen bases, and bases on balls. As such, if you read secondary average and batting average concomitantly, you get a pretty interesting picture of the impact a player is actually having on a team's offensive output.

Sometimes the combined picture reveals hidden truths. Here's an example of what I mean. Remember a few summers back when Brewer CF Alex Sanchez was leading the league with a batting average of .361, yet he somehow still didn't seem that good? That subconscious shrug you were doing at Sanchez's accomplishment was your brain intuitively recognizing that his secondary average was a paltry .061. He may have been collecting a ton of bunt singles but those really weren't doing much to help the Brewers score runs. On the other end, where a player's batting average is not so hot, SA can tell you if the player is making a greater contribution to the team's run production than his batting average reveals. That's the case with Gross and Weeks.

Milwaukee Brewers Secondary Averages

1. Prince Fielder .460

2 Ryan Braun .410

3. Gabe Gross .404

4. Rickie Weeks .344

5. Corey Hart .341

6. Geoff Jenkins .321

7. Tony Graffanino .294

8. JJ Hardy .267

9. Craig Counsell .257

10. Bill Hall .251

11. Joe Dillon .250

12. Kevin Mench .210

13. Damian Miller .197

14. Johnny Estrada .154

Those are all of the Brewers secondary averages. Now here is the result you get when you score the sum of each player's batting average and secondary average:

Milwaukee Brewers Combined Offensive Averages

1. Ryan Braun 753

2. Prince Fielder 732

3. Joe Dillon 726

4. Gabe Gross 646

5. Corey Hart 616

6. Geoff Jenkins 597

7. Rickie Weeks 554

8. JJ Hardy 536

9. Tony Graffanino 532

10. Bill Hall 513

11. Craig Counsell 480

12. Kevin Mench 477

13. Damian Miller 445

14. Johnny Estrada 430

Observations

Combining his secondary average with his batting average shows that Gabe Gross is contributing much more to the team than common wisdom believed. In fact, he has been so productive Ned Yost simply has to find him some more field time. You can't have your fourth (really third) most productive all around offensive player sitting on the bench. Likewise, Rickie Weeks has made a much greater contribution to scoring runs than his .210 batting average would lead you to believe. He sets up scoring opportunities by drawing walks and stealing bases and occasionally flashing some alley power. He has struggled with the hits, sure, but he's doing it in other ways. Now, is he doing more for the offense than JJ Hardy is, as my Combined Offensive score would suggest? Probably not. But his relative contribution has certainly been much closer to Hardy's than many Brewer fans would probably believe.

On the other side of the coin the numbers expose some highly overrated offensive players, beginning with Johnny Estrada. I thought he shored up the catcher's spot in the lineup, but I guess I was wrong. He is actually the least productive offensive player on the team. He has what you would call an "empty" batting average of .276. It looks decent, but its hollow. It masks his paltry contributions to run production. Sure, he gets his singles, but he doesn't get extra bases, he rarely walks, and he never steals. The other obviously overrated player is Kevin Mench. Looking at his average, you would conclude that he should get more playing time than Gabe Gross. But he shouldn't. Mench's secondary offensive numbers are terrible. He is contributing much less than his .277 average would lead you to assume.

But in most cases the numbers simply confirm what we already suspected. Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are phenomenal offensive players. Geoff Jenkins and Corey Hart are making solid contributions to the cause. Bill Hall has regressed badly this season (in fact, I would sit him and play Hart in center, Jenkins in left, and Gross in right). And Craig Counsell is basically doing about what you would expect. As a team, however, Secondary Offense is actually keeping the Brewers afloat.

National League Team Averages

I did a Team Secondary Averages and Team Combined Offensive Averages for the entire National League. In the parenthesis next to each of the Combined Averages I listed the position each team ranks in terms of Run Production and Batting Average, respectively. Of the three measures, the highest correlation to Run Production ranking was provided by the Combined Averages. As you can see from the rankings, the Brewers are very high in both Secondary Average and Combined Offensive Score, and since they have a mediocre team batting average, it is probably true to say that their strong Secondary Offense is keeping them in the pennant race. Here are my results:

National League Team Secondary Averages

Philadelphia .311

Florida .286

Milwaukee .284

New York .279

Cincinnati .278

Colorado .272

Arizona .268

Atlanta .259

San Diego .257

Houston .254

San Francisco .245

Chicago .240

Los Angeles .234

Pittsburgh .233

St. Louis .230

Washington .227

Combined Offensive Averages (Team BA + Team SA)

1. Philadelphia 586 (1) (3)

2. New York 553 (5) (4)

3. Florida 553 (4) (8)

4. Colorado 548 (2) (1)

5. Milwaukee 546 (6) (9)

6. Cincinnati 538 (7) (10)

7. Atlanta 535 (3) (2)

8. Arizona 518 (12) (15)

9. Houston 510 (9) (12)

10. Chicago 509 (8) (7)

11. Los Angeles 501 (11) (5)

12. St. Louis 501 (13) (6)

13. San Diego 501 (14) (16)

14. San Francisco 496 (15) (14)

15. Pittsburgh 492 (10) (11)

16. Washington 479 (16) (13)

Enough with the '82 team already

I know everybody loves "Harvey's Wallbangers" and the pinstripe uniforms and the multicolored batting helmets, and the endless DVDs and bobblehead nights, and field celebrations and newspaper medallions.... But, the funniest thing... I just checked Wikipedia... guess what?...you'll never believe it... THE 82 BREWERS LOST THE WORLD SERIES!!! Its true. I even verified it on mlb.com. But you'd never guess that around these parts. We celebrate that team like it was a dynasty on par with the '27 Yankees. Its embarassing.

Let's give it a rest while we still have some of our Crew fan dignity left. I mean, how ridiculous and loserish must it seem to visiting teams like the Cardinals, fresh off an actual World Championship that we are celebrating an also-ran team from two decades ago? I can just hear them now "Aaaaah, why are they celebrating second place??"

Its so silly if you think about it. It would be like the Bucks celebrating the anniversary of the 1974 team that lost in seven games to the Celtics. Or the Packers celebrating the 1997 team that lost Super Bowl XXXII to the Denver Broncos. Would you expect those franchises to give out endless bobbleheads in commemoration of those 'we almost did it' teams? Have the Bucks scheduled Mickey Davis bobblehead night? Have the Packers got a Eugene Robinson field celebration coming up? Hell no. They don't want to remember those teams... they're too busy trying to forget them!! Why? Because those two franchises have tasted actual championships, and when you've done that, second best is nothing to cherish, its a painful memory to forget.

But the Brewers act as if second place is something special. "Hey, 25 years ago we almost did it!!" It does more to underscore the tradition of losing in Brewernation than it does to celebrate the brief accomplishments of those Brewer teams of the early 80s who were nothing more than, to quote Ron Wolf, "a fart in the wind".

Brewers infield: Four fisted sloppers

Before you jump ugly on Brewers SP Chris Capuano, consider this. He is a strikeout/groundball pitcher whose defense cannot produce groundball outs to save their lives.

Last night Capuano recorded six strikeouts in only 4 1/3 innings of work. Generally a pitcher will not record better than a strikeout per inning unless he has at least some of his pitches working. Capuano also got a lot of the groundballs he wanted, many of which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been converted into easy outs. Unfortunately, the Brewers infield isn't an "ordinary circumstance". Its an extraordinarily bad circumstance. They ought to be called "The Four Blocks of Granite". They cannot get to groundballs other infielders can get to, and if they do get to them, they often cannot field them. Thus a pitcher who lives on groundballs like Capuano is treading water without a life preserver. Groundouts become infield singles, singles become runs, and before you know it, you are beaning everyone in sight (what was up with that? He must have hit three Cardinal batters. Do you think it was a case of displacement? Were those balls subconsciously meant for his infielders?).

How bad is the infield defense? The worst in the Central

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Brewers miserable defensive efficiency rating (ie, the percentage of struck balls that the Brewers converted into outs) in comparison with the rest of the National League, and I speculated that the fault for that lies with the infield. I was only guessing at the time, basing my speculation on the low number of groundball outs the team records. Now I can back up my hypothesis with proof.

The Brewer infield is never in the Zone

STATS Inc has developed an exclusive defensive statistic they call "Zone Rating". A player's Zone Rating is the percentage of balls hit into a designated area of the field surrounding his position that he successfully turns into outs. It is somewhat subjective, in that the statmakers have to delineate a common "zone of fieldability" for each position (in other words, that area of the field that the average player at that position ought to be able to cover). Also, the statistic doesn't take into account how hard each ball is hit (as anyone who has ever taken fungo knows, harder hit balls are more difficult to reach). Nevertheless, it is very useful for determining how large the gaps are in certain areas of a team's defense. If you're fielders are having trouble getting to balls other similarly situated fielders are successfully turning into outs, your pitching staff will suffer. And since the Brewers infield is a complete sieve (the outfield is actually pretty good, especially on the corners where Jenkins, Mench, and Hart field their zones quite well) the pitching staff has done plenty of suffering.

In case you doubted that the Brewers infield is the place where singles are born, take a look at these "Zone Ratings" for each of the Central Division starters at each infield position. Please note that the Brewers starters are buried in dead last at every position.

1B

Pujols, St Louis (.903)

Hatteberg, Cincinnati (.900)

LaRoche, Pittsburgh (.899)

Lee, Chicago (.856)

Berkman, Houston (.841)

Fielder, Milwaukee (.800)

2b

DeRosa, Chicago (.856)

Kennedy, St. Louis (.828)

Philips, Cincinnati (.815)

Biggio, Houston (.771)

Sanchez, Pittsburgh (.768)

Weeks, Milwaukee (.723)

SS

Everett, Houston (.870)

Theriot, Chicago (.846)

Eckstein, St. Louis (.842)

Gonzalez, Cincinnati (.842)

Wilson, Pittsburgh (.831)

Hardy, Milwaukee (.808)

3b

Rolen, St. Louis (.849)

Ramirez, Chicago (.775)

Encarnacion, Cincinnati (.770)

Bautista, Pittsburgh (.763)

Ensberg, Houston (.733)

Braun, Milwaukee (.707)

At every single infield position, the Brewers are buried at the bottom of the Central Division when it comes to defensive range. And this doesn't even take into consideration fielding percentage, which is another matter altogether.

I think the strain of the gaping infield has finally taken its toll on the pitching staff. When a pitcher has no confidence in his defensive support, he begins to press, trying to make precise pitches, trying to do it all himself. And, particularly when he has an infield of fuddlefingered statues, he elevates his pitches, trying to stay away from groundballs. And then he gets burned. There is no other way to explain the sudden meltdown of the Brewer pitching staff. The Nintendo numbers they are yielding are otherwise illogical. The team has to shore up their infield.