Brewers/Giants Series Review - "They Might Be Giants..."

Results:

Tuesday, 4/16 Brewers 10, Giants 8

Wednesday, 4/17 Brewers 4, Giants 3

Thursday, 4/18 Brewers 7, Giants 2

Win Probability Added stars

April 16th, Rickie Weeks (+.143 WPA)

April 17th, Carlos Gomez (+.342 WPA)

April 18th, Yovani Gallardo (+.164 WPA)

(Apologies on the delay, faithful followers; had a hard time focusing on baseball last night, as many of you were, I'm sure.)

6 days ago, the Brewers were 2-8 and in the midst of a humiliating offensive futility streak. Things at the time looked like they would never be good again.

Today, the Brewers are 6-8 after completing a sweep against the reigning World Series champs, and are riding a 4-game winning streak. Amazing what kind of difference a week can make, right?

Things finally started to click for the Crew this series, and it's possible that the Giants still don't know what hit them, although I imagine that they really just wanted to get back to Constantinople by the end of game 3. Their pitching, a normally stout rotation backed by a nasty bullpen, took an absolute beating at the hands of the Brewers bats (thanks largely in part to the bottom part of the order). When you're getting bludgeoned by two players with a combined .292 career OBP, you know it's not your week.

Yes, Carlos Gomez and Yuniesky Betancourt took it upon themselves to pick up the Brewers at seemingly every turn this past series. Roenicke's benching of Gomez last Saturday may have just done the trick for speedy center fielder, because since then he has gone 10-15 at the plate with 6 runs and 2 extra-base hits. It certainly is a promising turn for him to start producing this way after signing a 3-year extension this past offseason worth $24 million. The Brewers will be the first to tell you that they're not paying Gomez to be a world beater offensively, but they certainly expect him to stick close to the 105 wRC+ he posted with the club last season, which in unison with his good defense in center field valued him as a 3-win player. It also helps when you're getting the benefit of calls like this.

Foul ball? Probably. But hey, long live the "human error"!

Gomez isn't the only Brewer to put an early slump behind him after recently signing a contract extension. Also dating back to the game against the Cardinals last Sunday, Jonathan Lucroy's bat has  come back to life a bit, with his most recent stretch having him go 7-17 with 2 HRs. Luc signed his 5-year extension before the beginning of the 2012 season, but after missing a good amount of time with a fractured hand last year, there's a little bit of an expectation for him to meet in order to feel like he's earned his contract. The reason for Lucroy's early struggles? His line drive % has been down just a wee bit from his career average.

A concern? Not really. His fly ball % has actually been up just a tick, and as one would expect, the cold weather has not been allowing those fly balls to carry much of anywhere so far...unless you're Justin Upton.

The object about to enter this image is now in orbit.

Kyle Lohse Watch: After another nice outing by the Brewers recently acquired pitcher, it is in this blogger's opinion that this Lohse thing might just work out. It's still rather unlikely he'll finish the year with an ERA under 3, but perhaps we all underestimated just how effective he could be. I recalled reading a couple pieces on how Lohse has reinvented himself into a groundball pitcher, utilizing a nice sinker/slider/changeup combo that have been giving opponents fits. His ability to throw his breaking pitches for strikes, though, has definitely been as big of a factor in his success, as this graph will better illustrate from his past three starts.

Mmmmm that's good offspeed.

We'll see just how long Lohse keeps this kind of success going, but continuing to pound the zone is a good way to maintain it, especially if he wants to be a real leader.

MVP: Yuniesky Betancourt

I feel so dirty for typing that. Each letter burned more than the one previous to it.

However, it's hard to argue he didn't play a big role this past series. He did. Whenever there was a big hit, Yuni had it. He put the Giants in a hole each game, whether it was scoring the first run of game two, or tacking on to an already established lead.

Whether I or anyone else would like to admit it, Yuni has been effective as a replacement at first base, and is currently carrying an .805 OPS in this very early season. Will he sustain that number? Definitely not. This is still Betancourt we're talking about. But if the Brewers needed someone to step up in the absence of their two All-Star corner infielder, Yuni has answered that call.

LVP: Alex Gonzalez

Things are definitely going well when it's tough to pick someone for this category. It's really a silly category, actually, since there usually is never one sole hero or goat in a baseball game. You win as a team and lose as a team.

However, I'm not here to talk semantics. I'm here to talk about who has been cold as ice. You might want to put Rickie Weeks here, but I've actually seen promising signs out of Weeks recently, who I'd be so willing to predict is going to break out of his slump as soon as tonight. Gonzalez, on the other hand, looks like a 36-year old utility player trying to keep his head above water. His plate approach is resulting in him making some weak outs, his defense in the field has been surprisingly shaky, and all in all, he just hasn't been very good.

That's not to say he couldn't turn things around, but it wouldn't be too surprising to find that Father Time has finally caught up with old Seabass, and he may not have much left to give even once he does "get it going." The Brewers are certainly fortunate that Jean Segura is playing well early, because if not, the shortstop situation could have been pretty sticky going forward.

Play of the Series: 

Yuni hit a grand slam, Gallardo hit a home run and Segura played some great defense. My play of the series though? Lalli's game-winning hit on Wednesday.

Talk about a cool moment. A minor league journeyman who fights for a roster spot year in and year out gets a big chance, and delivers. Oh, and it was his first hit for the Brewers, to boot. Good for him. We can talk all we want about his value to the club and what not, but it's hard not to root for somebody who's really just willing to do anything it takes to help a major league club succeed.

Hats off to you, Mr. Lalli. Hopefully that's just one of many big hits for you this season.

What's Next:

The Brewers continue their homestand tonight against the lovable losers from the northside of Chicago. The Cubs come in at 5-9 after winning just 2 of their last 6 games. Their best story this season, so far, has been the success of their de facto ace, Jeff Samazaazazaajjazjjsqaza. The Brewers will send Marco Estrada to the mound to face off against him this evening as they search for their 5th straight win.

4/19 - Estrada vs. Samardzija

4/20 - Burgos vs. Jackson

4/21 - Peralta vs. Feldman

Brewers/Cardinals series review - Well at least the bullpen was better

Results:

Friday, 4/12 Cardinals 2, Brewers 0

Saturday, 4/13 Cardinals 8, Brewers 0

Sunday, 4/14 Brewers 4, Cardinals 3

Win Probability Added stars (WPA explanation here)

April 14th, Yuniesky Betancourt doubled to right, Carlos Gomez scores (+.401 WPA)

April 14th, Jonathan Lucroy homered to left (+.385 WPA

April 14th, Carlos Beltran grounded out to shortstop (Burke Badenhop pitching) (-.166 WPA)

As you can see, all of the big plays for the Brewers happened on Sunday. That's because that's the only game they scored runs. If math is to be believed, it also bears reasoning that Sunday's game is the only game they won. The Cards clearly outplayed them in every facet during the weekend, with one lone exception; bullpen. That seems odd, but the Cardinals bullpen actually has a higher ERA than the Brewers bullpen. Most of that is thanks to Cards "closer" Mitchell Boggs, who was shaky on Friday and awful on Sunday. The Brewers relievers, on the other hand, pitched 7 2/3 innings and giving up two runs (zero earned), keeping them in two of the games. 

Friday's game was a pitching duel between Kyle Lohse and Shelby Miller, with Shelby Miller coming out on top as the Brewers' bats failing to show up. Saturday was more of the same, except Yovani Gallardo pitched poorly (as he does against St. Louis) while his counterpart Adam Wainwright threw a brilliant 4-hit shutout with a whopping 12 strikeouts. Both Miller and Wainwright were terrific, but for their part the Brewers' bats swung at too many bad pitches. No offense in baseball was getting to Wainwright on Saturday, but Miller threw a lot of pitches over the plate and the offense couldn't capitalize.

Sunday seemed like a variation on the theme, as the offense couldn't muster anything against Jamie Garcia's soft pitches (his fastball dipped as low as 84 mph during the 5th inning) and Brewers starter Marco Estrada couldn't keep the Cards' bats off the board. The offense finally woke up in the 8th against flamethrowing reliever Trevor Rosenthal, when Ryan Braun hit a two-run oppo-taco to score the first Brewers runs of the series. They added a run in the 9th to tie, and probably should have had more were it not for a series of poor management decisions that led to a popped-up bunt and a baserunning blunder. Lucroy's tater in the 10th gave them the lead, and the combo of Brandon Kintzler, Mike Gonzalez, and Burke Badenhop got through the bottom of the 10th with a big assist to the defensive shift that Carlos Beltran grounded into for the final out. 

All told, it was a pretty poor series for the Crew despite Sunday's win. The offense as a whole was pretty awful despite some solid pitching performances. The Cardinals are obviously a very good team and beating them at home is not easy, but even with how good St. Louis' pitching was it's hard to excuse how bad the offense played. But the bullpen pitching better was a good sign, and both Lohse and Estrada performances were impressive against a tough Cardinals offense. All told, there wasn't anything to be learned from this series besides the Brewers missing Corey Hart and Aramis Ramirez a whole lot. That and the Cards are better at playing baseball.

MVP: Jonathan Lucroy

I almost gave this to Lohse, who threw an excellent game on Friday, but after some further research I had to go with Luc. Aside from his game-winning homer and an excellent tag to nail a runner at the plate, his pitch-framing was unbelievable. Just look at some of these called strikes (click to embiggen).

Obviously not all of it is Lucroy's framing, what with umpires being human and all, but the Brewers lead baseball in extra called strikes and we already know Lucroy is a pitch-framing wizard. Even with only one noteworthy game at the plate in the series, Lucroy's impact behind the plate was evident in every game.

LVP: Yovani Gallardo

Gallardo pitched poorly for the third start in a row. If he's trying to pitch to contact to be more efficient, it's not working. His fastball isn't moving enough at this point to get away with throwing it in the meaty part of the zone. He's still racking up high pitch counts and isn't getting enough whiffs. On the positive side, he's not had a big problem with walks and there's almost certainly some bad luck with balls in play, but he needs to pitch better. He had a tough task in facing a potent lineup on Saturday, but threw too many pitches over the plate and eventually it cost him. Three starts is a very small sample, so there's still plenty of time to turn it around.

Play of the Series: 

Luc's homer won Sunday's game, but it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for Braun's two-run shot. Extra points for going opposite field off a tough reliever. 

What's Next:

The Brewers begin a six-game homestand against the Giants and Cubs on Tuesday. San Francisco comes into town first, and are off to a good start. Milwaukee is fortunate to avoid Giants starter Madison Bumgarner, but there are some interesting pitching matchups nonetheless. Hey, we get to face Barry Zito! 

4/16 - Peralta vs. Zito

4/17 - Fiers vs. Vogelsong

4/18 - Lohse vs. Cain

Brewers/Diamondbacks series review - Everything is broken

The Brewers were lucky to get out of the Arizona series alive, and by that I mean they got swept and three of their best hitters got hurt but at least the bus to Chicago didn't crash. The series went about as bad as it possibly could, although I suppose the D-Backs winning every game 20-0 would have been worse. The pitching continued to struggle, with Mike Fiers and Yovani Gallardo getting knocked around in their starts and the bullpen giving up at least two runs in every game. Gallardo looked a little better than he did on opening day and was the victim of some bad outfield defense, but Fiers was blasted from the start and couldn't draw swings-and-misses. Kyle Lohse had a terrific debut on Friday night, but got little support from his offense and bullpen.

Much of the talk around the series thus far has centered around the failings of the 13-man pitching staff (which led to Kyle Lohse pinch-hitting with the game on the line in Sunday's game), but injuries have taken their toll on the team. Ryan Braun injured his neck prior to Friday's game and sat out the whole series, Aramis Ramirez ended up on the DL with a strained knee, and young shortstop Jean Segura had to leave Sunday's game with a bruised left thigh he sustained from a take-out slide by Gerardo Parra. Segura and Braun are only day-to-day at this point, but with an already short bench it's probably not the last time a pitcher will be forced to pinch-hit at some point.

John Axford blew up again in Sunday's game, escaping the 10th inning despite some loud outs and finally caving in the 11th by giving up a double to a crappy hitter in Cliff Pennington followed by a two-run shot by another crappy hitter in Eric Hinske. Manager Ron Roenicke claims Axford is still his closer, which is pretty incredible, but it's hard to imagine his leash being much longer after giving up four home runs in just 2 2/3 innings.

Awards time.

MVP: Jean Segura

I had a hard time picking between Segura, Lohse, and Nori Aoki, but I ultimately went with Segura despite him being knocked out of Sunday's loss. He hit his first career dinger on Friday, a big shot to straightaway center that ended up being the team's only run. He followed that up with another big game at the plate on Saturday, including a run-scoring double. All told, he went 4-for-9 in the series with a walk, and played fine defensively for the most part.

LVP: Burke Badenhop

Badenhop wins this prestigious award by contributing significantly to two losses. He was charged with two runs on Friday in 1/3 of an inning by giving up a walk and a hit, and while Michael Gonzalez (and Jonathan Lucroy, I guess) allowed those inherited runners to score, Badenhop's job is to get outs and the one out he did get was courtesy of a sacrifice bunt. Burke then followed that up on Sunday by allowing a base hit and a homer in the span of three pitches, putting the Brewers behind by two runs in a game they would lose by one. A pretty forgettable series for the sinkerballer who's ball is not sinking very well.

Play of the Series: It basically came down to Segura's homer and Logan Schafer's sweet throw on Sunday, but I'm going with Segura because first career taters are pretty sweet and Jean's reaction while rounding the bases was priceless. While it was obviously more than one play, Kyle Lohse striking out five straight to start Friday's game was a cool moment as well.

What's Next: The Brewers hit the road for their first trip outside of Miller Park this year. They are fortunate to not have to face Cubs starting pitcher Jeff Samardzija in any of the three upcoming games, but with how banged up the lineup is it's difficult to say the Brewers have any kind of edge, even if the pitching comes around. It's too early to declare anything a must-win game or series, but the team needs to take advantage of weak opponents and getting at least a couple wins against the Cubbies would be nice.

Brewers sign Kyle Lohse; a novella

Doug Melvin is on a train. He doesn't yet know he's on a train, because he's asleep. The train shudders on the track and Melvin awakens. He's confused. "Why am I on a train?", he mutters to himself. His head aches and throbs, as if he is hung over. He looks out the window and sees desert. Sparse vegetation and a couple rock formations. It reminds him of the cover of "The Joshua Tree". "That was a great album", he thinks, the song "Bullet the Blue Sky" now stuck in his head. Bono's imaginary voice soothes the piercing pain in his head.

Then his brain snaps back into focus. He still doesn't know what he's doing on a train, or where he's going. He reaches for his phone, hoping for some clarity. Unfortunately, he isn't getting any reception. But his Blackberry reminds him that his text messages are full, which seems odd. He begins opening the messages one-by-one, and his look of confusion gives way to a look of horror. Fellow front-office personnel, baseball writers, and friends have flooded his inbox. Most say some variation of  "Lohse, huh?" or "Well, someone had to do it!" A few seem positive, such as "Not a bad get!" or "You got a discount!", but even more say "I don't know man" or "Seems like a hefty price". Then there's the messages from his wife Ellen, a seemingly endless stream of variations of "Where are you?!"

He begins to piece things together. He remembers going out to dinner the previous evening with his boss, Mark Attanasio. He remembers the waiter being somewhat incompetent, forgetting things and going long periods without checking on their table. Mark seemed really chatty, and a little nervous. He remembers drinking wine. A lot of wine. And then...nothing. He woke up on a train heading to God knows where, and a phone full of ominous text messages regarding a pitcher he had little interest in.

"Did I make a deal with Lohse while drunk last night?" he thinks to himself. No, there's no way. Melvin wanted no part of Lohse, especially surrendering a draft pick to do so. Lohse was a decent enough pitcher, but Melvin was set on going with the younger guys. This all had to be an elaborate prank. Melvin chuckles to himself a little. "Good one, Mark." he says to no one. Suddenly his phone dings. He has a voicemail from Ellen, which means he now has reception. He quickly calls Attanasio.

Mark - "Hello?"
Doug - "Yeah Mark, it's me. Good one. You got me real good. Got me drunk and had everyone pretend that I signed Lohse"
(Mark doesn't say anything)
Doug - "I don't know where you sent me, but you're playing for the ticket home. And boo for not telling Ellen, she seemed clueless!" (laughs)
Mark - "Um Doug, there was no prank"
"What?"
"We really did sign Lohse"
"WHAT?!"
"Well, I signed Lohse, but I needed you out of the picture, at least temporarily. Just so I could get the deal done without hassle."
"I....I...Mark...."
"You're probably around New Mexico by now, but don't worry, once you get there there'll be a return ticket waiting for you."
"But....I...why?"
"You know I want to win, Doug. And the poor guy couldn't stay out there forever, you know? I kinda felt bad for him. And Scott."
"You felt BAD for them?! Mark, we have to give up our first round pick!"
"I know, but, I mean, what's the likelihood of that pick turning out? I need to sell tickets here, Doug."
"So wait, hold on. Am I fired? Are you just taking over? I just signed an extension. We have a deal, man."
"Oh no, no. Nothing like that. I just planned on getting the Lohse deal done, you're still my guy. I just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible, you know. I knew you'd just exacerbate things."
"......."
"Look, Doug, we needed the arm, and look at the bright side. Wily can start in the minors, and we get some extra service time. And we stole a guy from the Cardinals! You know I love that."
"But we basically give a pick back to them.
"Meh."
"What the f.....okay, how much, Mark."
"Not that much. It was a steal, really."
"How much?!"
"Look, that budget thing was only a leveraging thing, right? So..."
"HOW MUCH"
".....three years, 33 million. The Cards get the 28th pi..."
"AHHHHH*click*
"Doug?"

Doug Melvin jumps off a train.

Best FA Starting Pitcher Options

Hi there, readers and welcome to my first Book of Gorman post.  At this time of year, news in MLB is pretty scarce, aside from yet another signing of a relief pitcher to a 3 year deal that is bound to blow up in some team's face.  The worst consequence of this scarcity of news is that bloggers and "journalists" like "Baloney Oyster" start writing pretty much the same story.

Unfortunately, for you, dear reader, this is...pretty much the same story.  But writing this post was inspired by Andrew Vrchota on Wisconsin Sports Blog, where he advocates that Kyle Lohse is the Brewers best and most realistic free agent option.  I don't agree, for many of the same reasons Jerry wrote about earlier on this blog, but it's worth repeating the most important reason is he's a...wait.  Tom did say we try to be civil here.  Ah well, let's just say I don't like Kyle Lohse very much.  Here are what I see as the best non-Lohse SP options.  

1.  Ryan Dempster  He turns 36 about a month into the 2013 season, but that's not a concern in my view, as long as he's signed to a 2 year deal (or at best, a 2 year deal with an option).  Despite his age, he's had at least 30 starts a year from 2008 to 2011.  He had 28 starts last season, but there's no historical reason to expect anything other than natural decline in stamina in starts or innings pitched.  And aside from his sub-par 2nd half after his trade to Texas, there's nothing alarming beyond it being an anomaly or adaptation to a new league.  His 2.71 BB/9 is pretty so-so, but his 7.96 K/9 was Top 30.  His 3.3 fWAR and 3.69 FIP was very solid, in my view.  He should be signable to a 2 yr/$24 million deal (with a 3rd year option with 175 IP or similar threshold if necessary).  Just to briefly touch on the Lohse issue, the positives of his favorable HR/9 is unduly influenced by a favorable home park.  Plus, his very strong season last year statistically (and being represented by Scott Boras) don't bode well for an affordable contract.

2.  Brandon McCarthy  McCarthy's season ended after a very scary injury when he was struck in the head by a line drive on September 5th.  He suffered a fractured skull and needed emergency surgery.  By all accounts, he has fully recovered and the injury should not affect his pitching.  In that shortened season, he was 8-6 with a 3.24 ERA, 3.76 FIP and a 123 ERA+.  He had a great HR/9 of 0.81, but it was probably affected by pitching at home in a huge park.  Bill James projects a 2013 of 11-9, with 182 IP, a 3.46 ERA, a 1.73 BB/9 and a 0.89 HR/9 (but it's unclear to me whether he makes that projection on the assumption he comes back to Oakland).

3.  Dallas Braden  This one is a bit of a flyer.  He's coming off 2 shoulder surgeries since 2010, but when healthy, he's proven to be effective.  Plus, he's left-handed and is only 29.  Given the history, he's a prime candidate for a low-risk, 1 year incentive-driven contract.  With incentives for GS and/or IP, the Brewers could easily tie their cost for Braden to actually getting production out of him.  That said, I don't think he should be actively pursued unless McCarthy or another reasonable low-cost option can be found.

The Brewers certainly need 1 of the available free agent options.  Doug Melvin has to avoid a Jeff Suppan mistake, but also face the fact the market is going to make him pay more than he'd probably like for what's really going to be a mid-tier starter, at best.  There's only one true top-line guy available (you know who) and he's about as likely to be part of the Brewers as Josh Hamilton.  The upside of all this is the Brewers have a good number of options available to fill out the rest of the rotation.  Could Mike Fiers be "figured out" by the league and ineffective next year?  Sure.  Could the wild Wily Peralta appear?  Sure.  But risks have to be taken and those risks are better taken with low-cost in-system guys than dead-weight debilitating contracts.  

Do not sign Kyle Lohse

It's not secret that the Brewers will be in the market for a starting pitcher this offseason. There are plenty of candidates, and plenty of good ones at that. But there's plenty of time to write about who they should pursue, and right now I'd rather write about who they shouldn't. One name comes to mind immediately, in part because he's the kind of pitcher the Brewers have targeted before. A pitcher who's coming off a career year, eats innings, is fairly low-risk, and is due for a big payday. Due to the title of this article, you already know who that is. But let's look at some blind résumés  for a second.

There's a lot of noise there, but none of those pitchers have career numbers worthy of a hefty free agent deal.  At best they're #4 starters. In order, those pitchers are Kyle Lohse, Randy Wolf, Braden Looper,......and Jeff Suppan. I specifically picked mediocre pitchers the Brewers signed to drive home the point. Kyle Lohse has not been a very good pitcher in his career, and the Brewers have a tendency to overpay for mediocre starters coming off of career years (Suppan didn't have a career year per se, but was coming off of a tremendous playoff performance). And Lohse is indeed coming off a career year, achieving career bests in innings and ERA as well as putting up tremendous BB/9 numbers. 

                                                                                             Not pictured: consistency

Obviously it's not entirely fair to judge a pitcher solely on his career numbers. It's certainly possible that Lohse "turned a corner", or "reinvented himself", or "learned how to pitch", or whatever platitude you choose. But while I'm willing to say Lohse is a better pitcher than his days in Minnesota, there's a more rational explanation to his career turnaround in St. Louis. That explanation being that he pitches in St. Louis. 

Lohse has spent the last five seasons pitching in St. Louis, three of those seasons easily being the best of his career, and one of those seasons struggling with injury. Lohse is a flyball pitcher, and Busch Stadium is very accommodating to pitchers of his ilk. Busch is a moderate pitcher's park according to park factors, but is even more kind as far as suppressing home runs. It's no surprise then that Lohse has put up career low HR/9 numbers while his flyball and line drive rates have stayed fairly static. It's also no surprise that he has had noticeable home/road splits in four of his five seasons in St. Louis. 

                                                                       Not pictured: enough facial hair

  

It's a nice narrative to say that Lohse has been revitalized by the magic of former Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan. But such reasoning falls apart under closer scrutiny, and it also doesn't explain why former Cardinals pitchers have turned into pumpkins upon leaving St. Louis. The more logical explanation is that Duncan simply encouraged his projects to throw strikes and let the ballpark and defense do the rest. It's much easier to pound the strike zone when you know flyballs are for the most part staying in the stadium, and that strategy works in parks like Busch. 

This isn't to say that Lohse is a bad pitcher, or that he doesn't do good things, or even that he won't have success elsewhere. But he does have a specific skill set that works when he's pitching at least half his games in a friendly stadium. It doesn't take a genius to note that he will not be pitching in a favorable stadium if he signs in Milwaukee. He'd be going from one of the better home run parks (from a pitcher's perspective) to the worst. There's a reason why Randy Wolf and Shaun Marcum had problems pitching in Miller Park; it's a shitty park for flyball pitchers. And it's even worse for someone like Lohse who throws a lot of strikes but doesn't strike hitters out. There will be plenty of pitchers who will be available, and of the guys GM Doug Melvin is likely to pursue, Lohse might be the worst possible fit, especially if he's looking for a potential #2 starter.

So Doug, do not sign Kyle Lohse.