Tag Archives: brewers

The Fates of Forty Men 2009: Part 2, Starting Pitching

No one will debate that this was the Brewers’ achilles’ heel in 2009.  The Brewers starters had the worst collective ERA in the National League.  Of their 5-man rotation on opening day, 4 finished with an ERA over 5.00.  2 had an ERA over 6.00.  To put it simply, if they return over 40% of this rotation next year, it will NOT be a good 2010.  Having “innings-eaters” on your team is one thing, but if they’re not giving you a legit chance to win, what the hell’s the point?

* – denotes a player that is a lock to make the 25-man roster for opening day in 2010

** – denotes a player that is a good bet to be on the 25-man

Yovanni Gallardo* – Yo did not start the first game of the season, but was the de facto ace throughout 2009.  After an injury-shortened 2008, Gallardo came back to start 30 games, win 13, strike out over 200 batters, and pitch 185 innings.  He had his bouts of wildness as well, though, and the coaching staff shut him down for the year with a week to go in the season after he eclipsed 3,000 pitches for the year.  He also led the staff with 94 walks.  Gallardo will absolutely be back, hopefully with an extended contract, but also hopefully with some more help at the top of the rotation.  He’s one of only a couple home-grown talents the Brewers can tout on their pitching staff, and one of the best pitchers in baseball.  A top-flight pitching coach (which the Brewers claim to be after) could be beneficial for him.

Jeff Suppan** – A year ago, I grudgingly conceded that the Brewers would have no choice but to bring him back.  Suppan’s albatross of a contract will continue to strangle them for one last season.  After cutting Bill Hall loose and eating about 7 million dollars of that terrible contract, I don’t see them being able to afford another, by cutting Suppan.  However, if I were the GM, I would ask any team if they were willing to go halfsies on Soup’s 12 mil for 2010.  Once again, his 2009 was peppered with flashes of brilliance sprinkled across a wide tapestry of awful outings: there was the Easter Sunday game on national TV against Chicago, where he walked in 2 runs in one inning.  There was the 2-game stretch in late July where he gave up 15 earned runs in 8 2/3 innings against the dregs of the NL in Pittsburgh and Washington.  There was also the July 3 game vs Chicago, when he surrendered just 1 run in 7 innings but the Brewers couldn’t muster a win.  Over the course of a season, though, a 5.29 ERA and 1.69 WHIP speak for themselves.  Suppan looked erratic and overmatched more often than not all season long (even when he was rehabbing in Nashville, he was getting shelled).  I would cry a river of joyful tears if they could find a way to unload him, but it’s not going to happen.

Braden Looper** – As unlucky and awful as Suppan looked all year, Looper somehow bumbled himself to a winning record, and likely secured a spot on the 2010 roster (provided he wants to come back; his option for next season is mutual, so the team has to want him, and he has to want the team).  The guy would be crazy not to return.  He dished up 39 homeruns and racked up a 5.22 ERA but only lost 7 times, thanks to an unbelievable amount of run support.  He also stayed healthy all year, taking the ball 34 times over the course of the season.  No Brewers’ pitcher threw 200 innings this year, but Looper was closest, at 194 2/3.  With starting pitching in SUCH high demand throughout major league baseball, the Brewers would wise to bring him back.  BUT– they have to be willing to show him the door in camp if they manage to get some decent young bodies in here that actually know how to pitch.

Dave Bush* – He started out a little slow in spring, looked fantastic as the Crew cruised to 30-20 by the end of May, and then took a nosedive after getting nailed in the elbow by a line drive in Florida the first week of June.  After that, the David Bush of late ’08 and early ’09 disappeared.  Does he just need a full off-season to completely rehab that injury?  Can he be a steady cog in the middle of a contending rotation?  Will the Brewers use his last year of salary arbitration to find out?  Count on it.

Manny Parra** – Last year this time, I had become a Parra-believer.  I thought the Manny that 7-0 through the middle of 2008 was the “real” Parra, and his troubles down the stretch were bad luck.  Today, I am much less certain.  After a mid-season demotion to AAA, he was usually better, but still had his moments where he couldn’t find the strikezone.  He would cruise through some innings, setting full lineups down in order, then fall apart the next time through.  Worse, watching him in the dugout and listening to post-game interviews, the guy sounds like a total headcase.  How many times can you be told to trust your ability, but just not be able to do it?  Once again, starting pitching is a hot commodity, and Parra is still relatively young (just turned 27).  A team with some average to slightly-better-than-average alternatives could afford to wait for Parra to come around.  The Brewers might not be that team (they sure weren’t with Jorge De La Rosa).  I expect him back, but if a trade partner wanted Manny thrown in to a deal for a more mature, seasoned, older and proven starting pitcher, I would not hesitate to fork him over.

Mike Burns – He was a minor-league fill-in during the dark days of mid-summer when our rotation not only looked awful, but had been decimated by injuries.  Again, here’s a guy that showed some flashes, but in the end showed why he couldn’t cut it in the major leagues.  Don’t expect him back.

Josh Butler – Picked up from Tampa in exchange for Gabe Gross at the beginning of the 2008 season, Butler started ’09 in Class A, moved up to AAA, then later made his major league debut after the rosters expanded in September.  Clearly, the organization thinks a lot of the kid, but I wouldn’t expect him to crack the rotation in 2010.  Maybe 2011 if he does a good job at Nashville next year.

Tim Dillard – Unless the Brewers make more than a trade or two over the winter, Dillard is likely to be one of those guys they throw in there during spring training, just to see if he can stick in a major league rotation.  He spent less time on the big league roster in 2009 than he did in ’08, and he didn’t exactly light the world on fire in 140+ innings for Nashville (4.51 ERA).  Never say never, but I would be shocked if he were there on opening day.

Chris Narveson – Threw in 21 games in 2009 and managed to pull his ERA under 4.00 with a couple nice spot starts down the stretch, after pitching from the bullpen earlier in the year.  With the rotation in dire straits during the month of September, Narveson was the hot flavor of the week to save the rotation in 2009.  Like Dillard, he is likely to get a look (and deservedly, a longer one) in spring training.  Barring trades and injuries, though, they have to come up with a better option.  Narveson could prove to be a valuable guy to have on call in Nashville when the injury bug crops up for Milwaukee in 2010.

Coming Tuesday – a look at relief pitching…

The Fates of Forty Men 2009 – Part 1: Summing Up

I wanted to offer up my commentary and thoughts on the Brewers roster as we close out the 2009 season and prepare to hot stove it to spring training.  Last year, I took about a day to think through what would happen with each man on the Brewers’ 40-man roster in the off-season.  It was a really long post.  This year, I’m going to split it up, and I’m starting today, just hours after the Crew completed their sweep of St. Louis to head into the off-season at 80-82, and out of the playoffs.

Way back on February 10, I posted a short bit about Baseball Prospectus’s 2009 predictions and thought it would be interesting to come back to them at the end of the year, to see how everything shaped up.  Overall, they weren’t very close.  They did not project one division winner in all of MLB, and in at least 4 cases (Arizona, Cleveland, Oakland, NY Mets), they weren’t even remotely close.  Granted, these projections were based on a sum of individual player stat projections, but still– it demonstrates that if using math to project how a season will go is tough, guessing at it can only be tougher.

The Prospectus wasn’t too far off on the Brewers’ record, though.  Only missed by three games.  And it’s been well-documented that the Crew contended with a lot of injuries in addition to their generally spotty pitching.  The pros saw it that way, but as a fan, I didn’t want to.  I still think that if Rickie Weeks, Dave Bush, and Jeff Suppan hadn’t each missed a significant amount of time, we might’ve been a little closer when we got to the end of the season.  I think we would’ve had a winning year, anyway.

With the off-season on the horizon, there are a number of big questions facing the team that have been well-documented:

  • What are they going to do about the starting rotation?
  • What can they get for JJ Hardy?
  • Is it time to trade Prince?
  • Which free agents should be offered arbitration?
  • Are coaching changes really going to make a difference?

Over the next week or so, you’ll find out what I think about all the players currently on our 40-man, and what I think about these and other questions.  It’s going to be a slightly longer off-season, but I think we’ve got a foundation that’s solid, and with the right moves, the Brewers could be playing in the post-season again in 2010.

Pause For a Breather

Been a lot happening in the last week-plus.

  • Michelle got a new job.  She’s going to be working here.
  • As a result, we are going to move.  To here.
  • Meanwhile, we had a whirlwind week of Brewers baseball on their last homestand.  We saw them do this, this, Dave went with me to this, and finally, a nice ending with this.
  • We looked at many apartments.  It was hard to keep them all straight, but I think we have a winner, unless someone steals it out from under us.

Also, it got cold.  I like moving in fall the best, I think.  How about you?

(Fast) Slow Week

Quite a bit of action on the work front this time of year, and not nearly as much at home.  I have been ruminating on a few topics I’m anxious to share with you soon, up to and including a return of the podcast for the 2009-10 season.

One thing I did at home this week was to install the DD-WRT firmware on my router.  It’s got a much more robust feature set than the stock firmware, and I haven’t dug into everything that it can do yet.  Best thing I’ve found so far, though: support for zoneedit.com.  To you, dear reader, that will mean less down time on those occasions when my IP changes and I’m not at home…

Other than that, take a look at the Milwaukee gallery for some shots I took at a baseball game with the Schrubbe boys a couple weeks ago.  We had really good seats!

Great Time For a Day Off

The EAA Airventure is going on in Oshkosh this week.  If you are planning to attend the event, Osh Vegas is definitely the place to be.  If you are planning on doing ANYTHING else in Oshkosh this week, you planned poorly.  Hence, I am glad to have a couple days off from commuting.

My friend Ben, who I knew back in Bozeman, and who hosted Wordy and I in Boston a few years back (and whose photo can be seen here), is on his way across the country to Bozeman once again– this time he’ll be teaching at MSU come fall.  Anyway, he’s staying with me for a day-plus while en route so we can take in a baseball game and a brewery tour.  It’ll be cool to get cousins Aaron and Matt, and Nick Petters in town for the game, too.  Hopefully, the Brewers know what the hell they’re doing, trotting Carlos Villaneuva out there for his first start in about a year and a half.

No matter what, we’re looking forward to a relaxing day in Milwaukee.

Creeping Up On a Deadline

Anyone who’s talking Brewers right now is talking about who, when, and if to make a trade to bolster the team’s starting rotation for the stretch run of this season.  The non-waiver trade deadline is July 31, so that’s what all the hub-bub is about.

The Brewers have been mentioned pretty prominently in the rumors surrounding Toronto’s Roy Halladay, far and away the best pitcher that is ‘available’ at this time.  The Brewers (a) have the excellent minor league prospects that Toronto would like in exchange, (b) they’re less than a handful of games behind St. Louis in the division, and most importantly, (c) they showed last season that they were willing to deal when they worked out a trade for CC Sabathia.

I was talking with a friend about situation yesterday, and wanted to share some of my thoughts.

Honestly, I really hope that the Crew just stands pat with what they’ve got and hope for the best.  The division is too close, and (until just yesterday afternoon) no one else is making moves to suggest they’re going to pull ahead, either.  I LOVED the Lopez deal to solidify the top of the order.  Manny Parra has looked a lot better, and if we get Dave Bush backin the rotation, that could be enough to pull ahead (provided guys get back to the form they showed earlier in the season).

In my mind, it’s not worth it to trade either of their blue-chip prospects (Mat Gamel, Alcides Escobar) for a guy that will be here for a year-and-a-half at most, when his acquisition would in no way guarantee a trip to the Series.  Better chance of making the playoffs this year?  Sure.  At this point, though, it’s hard to look across the Brewers pitching staff and say, “well, we’re just one premium pitcher away from taking this division.”  They’re really not.  And considering the strength St. Louis just added to the middle of their lineup, the Crew should be LESS inclined to make a move, not more.  Halladay might’ve helped us over the hump in a weak division, but if the Cards can more consistently score runs, they become a legit contender.

I feel like the Brewers are better served to ride this out, stay patient, and continue to build for the coming seasons.  The front office needs to do a REALLY good job scouting and developing pitching.  They used 4 of their top 6 picks in the 2008 draft on pitchers, and another 2 of the top 3 (including #1) in 2009.  This has been our achilles heel stretching as far back in recent memory as J.M. Gold, then on to Ben Hendrickson, Mike Jones, Mark Rogers, and most recently Jeremy Jeffress (and there were plenty of other less prominent flame-outs along the way). They need to sign the rock-solid players (Braun = done, Prince, Gallardo) to long-term deals and do a good job of separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff (Escobar will probably supplant Hardy at shortstop next year, might be a good idea to get Gamel some time in right because Hart hasn’t shown the consistency at the plate, etc.).

It’s tough to continue to have a patient attitude, because for so long, the organization built up to this time– when the everyday guys we have now would be in the prime of their careers, and we’d be making strong runs in the post-season.  Well, we didn’t end up with enough young pitching to do that.  The thing to do now is NOT to sell off the farm and grasp at straws to get there.  Stay the course.  We’re now at least a perennially competitive team, and we just have to keep doing a good job with player development; eventually we’ll get lucky enough that the pieces come together.

I would rather have a team that wins 80-90 games every year and always has at least a so-so shot at making a post-season push than one that goes for broke, misses the mark, and ends up back in the cellar in three years.  Now’s the time for Milwaukee’s front office to be really smart, sign your best players for the long haul, and keep those farm hands coming.

Summer Posting

I was starting to feel a creeping “link rot” sensation on the blog here, until I scoped out some of the other folks that I subscribe to.  Here in these northern climes, I think we tend to feel any extra time that’s available this time of year should be spent enjoying the outdoors while the days are long and the mercury is high.  Guilt = subsided.

Speaking of getting outdoors, I did have a chance to do that on the first legitimately warm weekend of the season.  Friday night, Schrubbe and I were at the Brewers’ only win of the weekend.  What a horrific homestand they had!  On one hand, it’s good to know they’re not going to tromp Manny Parra out there again on his next turn, but on the other: they’re not going to get through this season with 4 starters.  I really, REALLY hope he gets himself straightened out…

On Saturday, I got involved with WILS for the first time– I was a chaperone for one of the volunteer sites.  It was a good day.  They’ve got some really good kids involved there, and everybody did a great job.  I’d definitely be willing to volunteer again next summer…

In the evening on Saturday, Michelle and I met up with a group @ Taylor’s to see Praveen off to India.  He is moving back there for what is planned to be about a three-year stay.  It was a nice send-off.  We didn’t even make it to the after-bar and didn’t go to sleep until about 4 AM.

Eventually on Sunday, we did get out to enjoy the weather.  Michelle and I took a bike ride down on the lake front (where there were TONS of people just loafing along on the path; Michelle had to continuously ring her bell to warn the peds we were behind them), and we enjoyed some custard at the new Northpoint snack bar, now being operated by Bartolotta Restaurant Group.  I don’t really have any previous experience there to compare it to, but there were plenty of folks lined up, and the turtle sundae was tasty.

So, back to work on my third week in Oshkosh, then!  Everything’s going well, but I’m thinking I’m going to need to do even better making lists of stuff that I want to do on my lunches, in the evenings, etc.  But then again, it is summer and maybe I should just not feel guilty.  😉

Long Shots

I looked at my sad little list of tweets on the front page today and it made me feel kind of bad.  Really just haven’t had a lot of blogocity flowing of late.

Anyway, later on this evening I will be taking in a second screening of Star Trek with some of the geek men from MKE.  We caught Watchmen as a group, too.  I’m going to turn in a little earlier than I usually would on a Friday, because I have to head over to the Wordell house in the Falls tomorrow to work on a computer; want to get said work done in the AM hours, so I’ll need some good sleep…

Went out and took some pictures last night after the sun went down.  Been meaning to do some night photography with my new camera, but this was my first chance.  Picked up a couple tips from Wordy on how to make some of them look better (I only uploaded a few of the decent ones).  Tip #1: remember that when you’re doing a 5-15 second exposure of a building and you’re zoomed in @ 300mm, you’re asking for blurring.  It’s just gonna happen.  Good point there.

What’s with the Brewers lately, eh?  They started slow, but things are looking up after a 5-1 homestand that came on the heels of a 3-1 road trip.  Brewers have won 6 series in a row, and they go to St. Louis this weekend playing for first place in the Central.  Yeah, it’s still early, but I see signs that the team is more relaxed and grown up than people were counting on.  I hope they don’t lose it, and they remember what is working during this good stretch.  Oh, and having Trevor Hoffman to handle the 9th doesn’t hurt, either.

I’ve got 2 weeks to go @ UWM before heading back to Osh Vegas for work once again!  How bout them apples??

What’s new with you?

Slow Week

So it’s been a wacky few days.  My laptop’s death kind of threw me for a loop and I was shopping around for a good deal on a new one over the last weekend.  Work has been nuts.  Got some excitement on all fronts, though.

I did find an OK replacement laptop at a decent price with my discount from work.  I’ve liked the ThinkPads that I had, and I stuck with Lenovo when buying a new one.  I’m sure I’ll be happy enough with it.  One thing I DEFINITELY wanted to do this time is get a brand new machine, instead of muddling around with a used one.  I STILL have a bad taste in my mouth from a really poor ebay experience like 4 years ago…

Lorch also came into town last weekend and crashed at Casa del Bocko for a couple nights.  He had to fly out of Mitchell at the crack of dawn on Saturday because he was shooting for a documentary on the Honor Flight.  It’s a really cool program, and all three of us (me, Lorch, Michelle) all agreed we wished we could’ve gotten our grandfathers signed up when they were around.  So hey– if you know or are related to a WWII or Korean War vet, check it out.  Seriously.

Anyway, it was nice to hang out with Lorchie and watch the Brewers together.  We had some beers at The Harp, and we grabbed a pizza at BBC.  We talked about getting ready for attending Wordy’s wedding this summer.  I am looking forward to the vacation, for sure.

So, later in the week here, I got a call back from my old boss up in Oshkosh.  She had a good reason to call, as I had been in there on 4/23 for an interview.  I got offered a job as the Assistant Director for Operations back at the old UWO FAO.  It’s a really good professional opportunity, so I took it.  I didn’t say much about it to many people as I decided to apply and go through this process, for a variety of reasons:

  1. It was the least qualified I felt going in to an interview in quite a while,
  2. I knew I’d have to field a lot of questions about my plans for the future, as I just moved down to Milwaukee about two years ago, and I didn’t feel like addressing those until a new job was a sure thing,
  3. I thought I might jinx it.

So, it turned out well.  Here are the answers to some of those commonly asked questions that immediately come to everyone’s mind:

  1. Yes, Michelle and I are doing just fine.  I think we’re really good, in fact.
  2. Having stated #1, no I’m not in a big hurry to move back to Oshkosh.
  3. Having stated #2, yes that means I’ll be commuting for a while.
  4. Having stated #3, yes I’m OK with that.
  5. Having stated #4, yes I’ve thought about what it will cost.
  6. See #4.
  7. This doesn’t mean that I’m “giving up” on any creative aspirations that I’ve had related to my English degree.  It just means that I’ve recognized that I have a strong base of knowledge and experience in this area, and I might as well use it to my advantage.  It’s a stable, well-paying vocation for the time being.  I can work on other things in my free time.
  8. I’ll be starting there June 1.

Anyway, I appreciate your interest, and I look forward to speaking with you soon.  I’m going to do the books for the month and finish watching this ball game…