Wednesday's Frosty Mug

Though the pregame ceremonies were so long, I’m pretty sure I fell asleep somewhere in there, so I may have missed something.

Someone said last night that Wilson is like the Giants’ Nyjer Morgan. I disagree. I think Wilson’s weirdness is much more calculated (especially now that he’s realized how much endorsement money it can net him), where Nyjer is more of an all-natural nut.

He’s a just slightly less annoying Lady Gaga, as far as I can tell, the difference of course being that Wilson has some talent. They’ve formed their public identities around being weird, and now they feel that they have to continue doing stupid crap just to keep it up. Just look at how they dress for big events. Lady Gaga wore a meat dress thing to whatever awards show because she had to be weird, regardless of whatever else she claims the reason was. Brian Wilson wore a tuxedo leotard to the ESPYs for the same reason. He’d be a lot more likeable if he didn’t come across as being full of shit at this point.

Patrt of a rough Google translation of a Tweet of his was “new team battlecry.” I think Boras prepared him for this and has him motivated to cash in during the offseason. If he’s focused on that, the Brewers are going to get a great rental out of him.

Don’t forget… using the backup catcher as a PH.

And use him like the Reds had been using Aroldis Chapman – for ~3 outs of dominance anywhere in the late innings when the bats need to be quieted.

It doesn’t preclude the Brewers from upgrading at SS. The PTBNL are still of concern.

the PTBNL won’t be top top guys:

Brewers GM Doug Melvin told Jim Memolo and Mel Antonen of MLB Network Radio that the list of five minor league players the Mets will choose from in September does not include the Brewers’ “top top guys,” but they are “players that could play in the big leagues.”

:)

Since we can’t complain about the prospects being traded because we don’t know who they are, we can complain about Latin America because of the money being given to K-Rod.

You have a point, was just wondering how the “we’re not thinking about the future!” people would have a problem with the deal.

An organization that has Braun, Weeks, Hart and Gallardo locked up long term and money to spend will be competitive.

And the Brewers have already proven that they can develop players. Brett Lawrie turned into Shawn Marcum, Cutter Dykstra turned into Nyjer Morgan, a middling outfielder turned into a stud pitcher that carried this franchise on his back into the playoffs. They may not havedeveloped their entire team that is taking the field right now, but they are reaping the benifits of a superior minor league system. Without that system in place, these players are not on the team.

We play against teams that can afford both to grow their own quality talent and buy whatever they need each year. Basically when our window opens we need to jump through it or it’s gone for another decade.

There’s plenty of evidence that suggests most relievers show little consistency season to season which is why high-priced multi-year contracts are always such a gamble. I’m curious if relievers tend to do consistently well within a season, on average.

Also, I have this gut feeling that most of the statistical measures have a tough time quantifying the value of a relief pitcher. (NOTE: I prefaced this by saying it’s a gut feel – I have neither the time or patience to really dig into the mathematics right now, and I definitely have the hubris to just go ahead with my gut feel and assume I’m right!).

Look at it this way – the Crew have 70 games left this year. Let’s make some very broad sweeping assumptions, and then evaluate what the possible effect of having K-Rod pitching over, say, K-Loe might really be. OK, of the 70 games, I’ll say that said RP might appear in 40 maximum (K-Loe has appeared in 46 of 92 games so far this year, K-Rod only 42, so this seems like the absolute high end). For the sake of simplicity, I’ll assume 1 IP per game, so 40 IP. Of those 40 IP, I’ll make the assumption that 30 of them are in very high leverage situations (within +/- 1 run late). This is an arbitrary assumption, but seems like the ABSOLUTE maximum that would be possible.

So, we have 30 IP to work with. I’ll just use FIP for no particular reason – K-Rod’s for the last 2 years is ~2.75 (around 2.96 career) so I’ll use that, and K-Loe’s is ~3.6 in the last 2 years (4.29 career, but much of that was a long time ago). I’ll use 3.75 for K-Loe just to make it easy. So, there’s a 1 run differential in FIP between the two.

Over our 30 IPs, a 1 run FIP (or ERA or xFIP or whatever) equates to a difference of a little over 3 runs. Doesn’t sound like much, huh? I have no idea how to calculate WAR, but I would imagine that a 1 run difference in FIP (or ERA) over 30 IPs would not be above, say, 0.4 WAR difference, right?

HOWEVER – let’s think about this in real terms. If all 3 of those runs happened in tie game and/or games that were close enough that 1 run made a difference (assuming that there are 3 separate games with 1 run difference between K-Rod and K-Loe, instead of say, 1 game with 3 runs different), you could really be talking about a 3 GAME difference in win-loss record, not 0.4.

Now, I understand that a reliever giving up a run in a tie game should not get -1 WAR for that game – that’s not what the statistic is for. I’m just saying that I think that WAR and some other stats COULD maybe underestimate the impact of a really good relief pitcher in terms of actual W-L record of a team.

Feel free to have fun hacking apart my entirely shoddy analysis, but the moral is this – this trade could be a BIG deal if K-Rod is content enough and pitches as he should.

but it wouldn’t surprise me. Sounds like something Joe Buck would say.

In the pregame he said something to the effect of “It’s obvious the AL is the better team.” I don’t know to whom that should have been obvious, but he was bound to it for the whole game. This is why PBP announcers should leave the editorial at home in a national broadcast.

poor babies

Was that Roenicke would absolutely mess this up and make it as complicated as possible.

Doug didn’t get the memo that you can’t go “all-in” with a train wreck managing the squad.

I’m sure that either RR will get the message, or K-R’s deal will be restructured to make it possible, or technically it will be true but not in equal quantities.

This could end up being a pretty good scenario if used right. Obviously, we should never have a tired closer, for one. And for two, this could give RRR more freedom to play matchups with K-Rod and Ax. If a bunch of free swingers are up in the eighth, put Ax in. If it’s a bunch of guys who crush fastballs but have trouble with breaking stuff, pitch K-Rod. Again, I don’t trust the Brewers’ coaching stuff to be this smart about it, but it’s not ipso facto a bad thing.

As for K-Rod’s vesting option, I’m not worried. Ax has finished 35 of the Brewers’ 92 games so far – 38%. At that rate, if you split those duties down the middle, each guy finishes 13 games the rest of the way. K-Rod would have to pretty much take over the closer role to hit that option.

Barring an injury to Axford (one of the reasons to make this move, actually), the Brewers aren’t likely to have more than 40 or so closer situations over the rest of the season. A 50-50 split (ugh) would still mean K-Rod won’t vest his option.

I’m guessing K-Rod gets chances to close in an effort to keep Axford rested, but he will come nowhere near his 55 GF.

I’m still 100% they don’t let the option vest, but that’s really annoying for Axford who has been one of the best closers in baseball this season.

Yost can try to bring the band back together in KC.

and here I thought the worst thing that could happen to me today was the rearview mirror falling off my car…

i saw it coming, sort of, the June he had + the Rangers having 8 zillion pitchers and pitching prospects in the org didn’t do anything for his chances. well if Thomas Diamond could pick up a job after getting released with the sort of 2011 he was running McClung can too

For a moment, I was like “That did not come from Morgan’s twitter account. He hasn’t tweeted anything on K-Rod yet”

and then take a punch to the face.

I am now sticking my fingers in my ears and shouting LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA

Brewers’ next targets: SS, 3B

Changing the chemistry a little (by addition and not subtraction) could stir things up just a tiny bit for the road trip and shake them out of their jinx.

Maybe they can sneak Tulo out in one of their suitcases as they’re leaving town.