At 7:05 CT, this guy will take the mound.  Some other team will send some pitcher out, too.

Go Brewers!

We're starting Seth McClung, and they're starting Ubaldo Jimenez.  Most importantly, we have CC Sabathia, and they don't.

Game time is 7:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

In a handful of threads on this site, just about every angle of the Sabathia deal has been picked apart.  But, since I am a Brewers blogger, it would seem weird if I let this pass without substantial comment.

First off, go read Two-Fisted Slopper's recap of the press conference, including this gem:

Melvin: I talked to CC last night, doesn't want days at home, wants to be in dugout tonight. It's very encouraging. He knows a few of our players, Riske, who said there's a guy in Cleveland that may be available. I can only listen because of tampering.

More thoughts in more or less random order:

• Also from the press conference, Attanasio confirmed that the move puts us at about $90MM in payroll.  I bring this up because nearly everything I've heard and read from fans reflects what is increasingly the "old" reality of being a small-market team.  Sure, we're never going to be the Yankees, and we'll never have the largest payroll even in the division, but a $90MM payroll is radically new territory compared to the situation just a couple of years ago.
• I bring this up because I think it's a mistake to discard the Brewers' chances of keeping Sabathia.  Melvin said in the presser that most players acquired now-ish are rentals, and that's the focus for now.  But a $90MM payroll is going to include a couple of big dollar guys--as it should, since you usually need superstars to win, even the Brewers can't develop superstars at will, and superstars cost a premium.  I'm not saying that we ought to throw $120MM/6 at CC (really, I have no idea what would be a good max for him at this point), but of all the pitchers likely to be available on the free agent market this winter, he's probably the one worth overpaying for, and the one most likely to be worth it into years five and six.  Certainly he's a better bet than Sheets (but, of course, market price will reflect that).
• Still on Melvin: Setting aside for a moment whether he overpaid, kudos to him for getting this done in time for a start on July 8th.  We could get five starts out of Sabathia before other teams pull the trigger on their deadline acquisitions.
• Amazingly how quickly things change--just a few years ago, the Brewers were an extremely white team, and now there could be days with five African-Americans in the starting lineup.  I wonder whether we'll lead the league in VORP (or Win Shares, or whatever) from black players.
• On to the mechanics of the deal.  Obviously, we're foregoing a huge upside in LaPorta, who would've been cheap, and could very well have been great, for several years in Milwaukee.  I'm finding it hard to be very balanced about this, because (a) I'm really psyched about the deal, and that enthusiasm is completely irrational, and (b) I've never been satisfied with the way prospects are evaluated for deals like this.  It's easy to say that a prospect is "can't-miss," and that LaPorta is a sure-thing .290, 30 HR hitter as soon as 2010.  There is a high probability that he'll do that, sure, but there is a non-negligible probability that he (or another other prospect, especially two or more levels away from the bigs) will fizzle and never make an impact, that he will suffer an injury, or he will arrive and be frustratingly mediocre, like Weeks has often been.  I don't know whether the total probability of those undesirable outcomes is 5% or 25%, but I'm pretty sure they're higher than the probability that Sabathia implodes (or suffers a serious injury) for us.  Names like Andy Marte are important to keep in mind for those of us who are attached to our prospects.
• I wish we could keep Taylor Green and Michael Brantley, but really, guys at that level have substantially higher probabilities of not turning into anything, and I'm perfectly happy accepting a trade of two high draft picks for Green/Bryson/Jackson.
• Regardless of whether we overpaid, or whether we could've gotten CC for less if we had waited a couple of weeks while the Dodgers or whoever didn't come through with a better offer, let's remember that we got the best available player at the deadline.  (I suppose you could make a case for Rich Harden, but remember what I said about probabilities a minute ago?)  Not only did we get the best available player, we got the one who is likely to make the biggest impact on the Brewers, both in the race for the playoffs and in the playoffs themselves.
• Rotoworld saved me some time and came up with a couple of the stat lines I was looking for.  Career interleague for Sabathia: "12-6 with a 3.74 ERA and 167/59 K/BB ratio in 190 interleague innings."  Sabathia since his rocky start: 2.16 ERA with a 109/20 K/BB ratio in his last 104 1/3 innings.  Keep in mind that most of those innings are against American League teams, and National League offenses aren't as strong.  Yowsa.
• This is awesome.
  

Suppan.  Duke.  Win streak.  Go!

Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

With yesterday's win, we crept up to a 89-win pace, at least with rounding.  (It's 88.53, if you're keeping score at home.)  Since the Cubs and Cards are playing this weekend, we were bound to gain ground on somebody; as it stands right now, we're one game out of the wild card, and if the Cubs hold on to an early lead, that could be down to a half-game by the time the first pitch is thrown at Miller Park.

The matchup is Dave Bush vs. Paul Maholm.  At the macro level, that seems to tilt in the Pirates favor--Maholm's ERA is nearly a full run lower than Bush's.  On the other hand, Maholm is a lefty, as as team we OPS about 50 points higher against southpaws.  (For his part, Maholm has an even more dramatic split, and he can expect to see Prince plus a bunch of righties in the lineup tonight.)  Bush, as you probably know, has been considerably better at home, with an ERA of 3.18 at Miller Park.  (Amazingly, that makes his home ERA fourth best among the current starting five.)

Game time is 6:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!

If there is one development in the last couple of years that has drastically improved the casual fan's ability to understand the game, it is the appearance of baseball-reference.com's splits pages.  It's especially true of the team and league splits pages, which provide us with endless data on norms, so that when we look at a player's production in various situations, we know how it compares to league or team average.

My favorite stat on those splits pages is sOPS+.  OPS you probably know.  OPS+ is normalized OPS--that is, 100 is average, better than 100 is better than average, and less than 100 is worse than average.  At the moment, Jason Kendall has an OPS+ of 89 while Prince Fielder is at 117.  (Last year he was among the league leaders at 156.)

sOPS+ takes that one step farther.  The "s" stands for "split," so for any split (say, how a lefty batter does against lefty pitching), sOPS+ tells us how a performance is relative to the average for that split.  For instance, Fielder's OPS against lefties is 727--way below average--but it's better than how lefties typically do against southpaw pitchers.  So his sOPS+ is above average, at 112.

My favorite application of sOPS+ is seeing how players compare to positional averages.  We all know which positions have the most and least offense--you expect a masher to play first or left field, and it's rare to have a middle-of-the-order threat playing middle infield.  But those are only general concepts.  Do you know how catcher offense compares to shortstop offense?  Left field to right field?

So, getting to the point that got me writing today, think about the various production we're getting around the diamond.  Braun is mashing the ball, as is Hart; Hardy is hot, Branyan is giving us more from third; Weeks isn't good by any standard at second, while Cameron and Kendall seem rather middling for their positions.

Here's my question for you: At which position are the Brewers getting the best offense, relative to league average for that position?  In other words, at which position does the Crew have the highest sOPS+?

(Take a guess, I'll wait.)

(I know, it's a tough one.  Don't worry, I'm a patient guy.)

(You haven't guessed yet?  Come on.)

(The Jeopardy theme music is about over.)

(Just pick somebody.)

If you said shortstop, you'd be right.  Through yesterday's games, it isn't even really close.  Brewers shortstops have an sOPS+ of 126.  LF is 117, RF is 114, while 1B and CF are 109 and 108, respectively.  Here's the whole list.

Those aren't the exact numbers for the starters, since no one has played every single game at their position.  But for LF, RF, and 1B, they are pretty close.  What's interesting is just how far Hardy is ahead of the pack.  His OPS+ is up to 117, tied with Fielder and just behind Braun and Hart.  Relative to position, however, his sOPS+ is 135.  That ranks him higher than the shortstops of any NL team except for one (Florida).  He's certainly not the batsman that Hanley Ramirez is, but his defense may well make up the difference.

We all know that Hardy is white/red/so/extremely hot right now, but sOPS+ puts it in proper perspective.  Among non-pitchers, and taking defense into account, it's possible--even likely--that Hardy has been the most valuable player on the Brewers in 2008.

And he's younger than Miguel Tejada, too.

Like battlekow, I am disclaiming all knowledge of events in Arizona yesterday.

A good way to get that taste out of your mouth is to focus on the matchup today: Ben Sheets and his sub-3.00 ERA against Tom Gorzellany and his 6+ mark.  It's best not to think about how Gorzo has pitched against the Crew.

Game time is 1:05 CT, and here's the BR Game Preview.

Go Brewers!