That's worth almost as much as Soup himself in 2009.

Back in August I put together a list of six crappy veteran workhorse pitchers and asked you all to pick one of the six to fill out a starting rotation for the rest of the season. Officially, the point was to make everyone think hard about mediocrity around the league, but secretly I just wanted to make people cringe when they found out they picked Jeff Suppan off the dust heap.

Anyway, I thought I'd try the same thing again, only this time using all-time Brewers pitchers and Jeff Suppan. I realize it's not fair to compare raw stats from, say, the early 1970's to those put up today because the game has changed in style over the years. That said, I thought if nothing else this would show how different types of pitchers succeeded in different eras. One of my favorite examples of this is Lary Sorensen. Pitching for the Crew and a host of other teams in the 70's and 80's, he wasn't a great pitcher, though he did win 18 games once. The thing that stands out (to me) about him is that he rarely struck anyone out: he struck out fewer than three batters per nine innings over his career. He makes Kirk Rueter look like a power pitcher! Okay, maybe I wouldn't go that far, but it's still impressive. Sorensen might have been the most extreme case, but he wasn't alone: from 1970 to 1989, 33 pitchers threw over 1000 innings while striking out fewer than four batters per nine innings. From 1990 to 2008, only three pulled it off (can you name them? See end of post for answer). Arbitrary endpoints and all that jazz, the point is the game has changed and you don't see guys like Sorensen much anymore.

Now that I've rambled about how baseball changed styles and pitchers who don't record strikeouts, let's get down to the meat and potatoes of this post: the all-time Brewers pitcher lottery! Obviously, I haven't included every Brewers pitcher, but I have tried to pick a mix of pitchers from throughout Brewers history. Some were successful and had good careers, while others simply looked good compared to the rest of the staff. Excluding Suppan, all of these guys pitched at least 800 innings for the team. Obviously, they were around for a while. That means their names should be familiar to you even if you haven't boned up on your 1970's Brewers trivia for a while.

To try and avoid making it too easy to figure out who's who, I've shrunk each pitcher's career stats down to 200 innings. I've also only used each pitcher's stats from his time with the Brewers: Jeff Suppan's half season in Arizona doesn't apply here (to his relief).

With all that in mind, here are your missions, should you choose to accept them: First, figure out which of these Brewers luminaries is Jeff Suppan (extra points if you do it without looking up his Brewers W-L% or ERA somewhere). Second, figure out which of these guys you'd want to put in your rotation for next year. For that, assume they all put up these numbers over the past few seasons, not 10, 20, or 30 years ago; i.e., forget adjusting for era. Finally, click on the handy link under the list to figure out who's who and/or what historic Brewers hurler you picked!

I know there's a lot of options, I've left out some of the advanced data that people like to use to judge pitchers, and all those numbers tend to blend together, but I hope it's not too difficult and kind of fun anyway. For anyone who's not sure, BAA stands for Batting Average Against. Good luck!

PLAYER A: 200.0 IP, 4.57 ERA, 227 H, 23 HR, 71 BB, 104 K, 7 HBP, .288 BAA, .495 W-L%
PLAYER B: 200.0 IP, 3.74 ERA, 213 H, 20 HR, 44 BB, 67 K, 2 HBP, .275 BAA, .560 W-L%
PLAYER C: 200.0 IP, 4.78 ERA, 234 H, 25 HR, 70 BB, 106 K, 8 HBP, .298 BAA, .500 W-L%
PLAYER D: 200.0 IP, 4.16 ERA, 211 H, 25 HR, 47 BB, 94 K, 5 HBP, .271 BAA, .474 W-L%
PLAYER E: 200.0 IP, 4.51 ERA, 196 H, 25 HR, 83 BB, 127 K, 6 HBP, .256 BAA, .496 W-L%
PLAYER F: 200.0 IP, 3.86 ERA, 203 H, 19 HR, 75 BB, 92 K, 3 HBP, .266 BAA, .492 W-L%
PLAYER G: 200.0 IP, 4.64 ERA, 214 H, 29 HR, 68 BB, 73 K, 7 HBP, .274 BAA, .456 W-L%
PLAYER H: 200.0 IP, 3.99 ERA, 200 H, 24 HR, 73 BB, 86 K, 8 HBP, .261 BAA, .492 W-L%

Stumped? Consider these hints:

• Two of the guys I picked are the only Brewers pitchers ever to top 100 victories for the team.
• One played an inning in right field in 1995.
• The 1994 Brewers' pity All-Star is in there.
• One of these guys holds the team record for most runs allowed in a start.
• Another had perhaps the team's best second half pitching-wise prior to 2008.
• The last Brewer to wear #42 regularly is included.

Sick of playing or angry at me for bewitching you with this impossible task without enough information? Click here for the answers.

It's interesting how some of these guys match up with each other, isn't it? For example, I wouldn't have put Players A & C together in my mind before this. No matter what, I miss Player G.

As mentioned above, here are the three pitchers to throw 1000+ innings since 1990 while striking out fewer than four batters per nine innings: Carlos Silva (3.80), Kirk Rueter (3.84), and Ricky Bones (3.97).