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The Brewers shot at post-season play ended tonight with a Cubs victory and a Brewers loss to San Diego. With 2 games left, the Brewers need to win one game to have their first winning record since 1993.
After leading the division for 3/4 of the season the ending is a disappointment; a huge disappointment. So what happened? Those 16 losses in games that they lead by three-runs or more stick out, but that stat begs the question. I mean, how the heck do you do that? A team effort.
A little blame goes to Ned Yost, but baseball managers don't impact the game the way football coaches do. In football, a good coach can take his'n and beat your'n or take your'n and beat his'n. Doesn't work that way in baseball. And by the way, Yost was trashed locally and nationally for supposedly ordering a bean ball of Albert Pujols on Wednesday. Turns out now that MLB agrees that Seth McClung is just a crappy pticher with bad control!
The Brewers biggest shortcomings were poor defense all over and especially up the middle (Estrada, Weeks, and Hall are subpar), weak starting pitching, and inconsistent middle relief. They also lacked a high average hitter. Weeks has to be moved either to the OF or to another team - he can't stay at 2B (I'd like to keep him; he showed real signs of maturing at the plate).
Three of their original starting rotation had WHIP ratios over 1.50 - that's just plain awful - and two of those - Suppan and Capuano were supposed to be # 2 and 3. Sheets was superb, but again missed 9 or 10 starts. You could trace their season by his DL trips. On th bright side they learned that Yovani Gallardo can definitely pitch in the bigs and so, probably, can Carlos Villanueva.
The relief corps was a shambles by the end. You bring back Cordero and Shouse and then clean house.
Jenkins, a good guy and hard player, is done. Contract is basically at an end (it would cost $9 M to keep him). Hall regressed and his swing is a hole waiting to accidentally hit the ball.
Building around Fielder, Braun, Hart, and Hardy shouldn't be that hard, but GM Doug Melvin has his work cut out for him.
Friday, September 28, 2007
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I guess I'm a bit more optimistic about the Brewers, their late-season collapse notwithstanding. There is a very solid foundation here; most teams would give up all their left-armed pitchers to have a nucleus like Fielder, Braun, Hardy, and Hart (who really came on this year, and may have been an even bigger surprise than Braun.) The two young pitchers showed good form most of the season, although I worry about arm burnout/injuries ala Prior with those two if pushed to pitch a lot of innings next year.
ReplyDeleteThe Brewers' problems are three-fold: they are poor defensively in a few key areas (2nd, 3rd base, catcher), they strikeout a ton (killing rallies), and they have a bullpen that went from great early in the season to awful late. They sort of remind me of the Earl Weaver-era Baltimore O', without the great defense and pitching. I think they can get by with their defense if they shore up their pitching (admittedly, the two often go hand-in-hand); I was amazed watching them down the stretch how many ill-advised walks their pitchers gave up, esp. to leadoff batters.
Still, I don't see the need for a wholesale cleaning -- a solid middle reliever would help, as would another lefty in the pen, plus a capable set-up man (watching Turnbow is like watching the Phillies-era Mitch Williams -- almost too much to stomach).
What gives me optimism is that the farm system -- and therefore the organization -- has obviously found a way to deliver very high-quality players to the majors in fairly short order. Given the weakness of the division, I think this could go down as the year the Brewers learned what it takes to win a division. They obviously didn't do it, but the experience of being in first and contending that long provides hope for the long term.
Good analysis. I pretty much agree with it all, except Hall is also a liability in CF. They have a good foundation and if Parra, Gallardo, and Villanueva come through, then they have the starting pitching answer in-house. Beyond those three pitchers and Hart, Hardy, Braun and Fielder and Cordero, I don't see anybody that is essential - except a healthy Sheets,
ReplyDeleteDoug:
ReplyDeleteMove Hall to LF, a less-demanding position, (and dump Jenkins, who I've never liked; strikes out way too much, can't hit lefties, and his alleged strength defensively just doesn't make the difference) and maybe see what the minors can produce for RF (or do it by committee w/ Gwynn, Gross, Dillon, Mench et al.) I really liked Hall's disposition during the season, when he took his benching with a decent attitude and never publicly griped. He's a season away from 39 HRS/100 RBIs, and still in his prime. Hart is a very capable CF defensively. I'd like to see Gwynn or Gross develop into a decent lead-off hitter, until Weeks shows the kind of plate discipline re. extracting walks needed for that spot. Weeks did show some signs of it late, and he's a very good base-stealer. And the rejuvination of Hall could allow the team to put Hart back at leadoff, as opposed to protecting Prince in the 5-spot, and move Hall to 5th in the lineup.
I hope the new owner, who surely should know now that Milwaukee/Wisconsin will support a winner (record attendance this year), invests in some much-needed pitching in the off-season. The team in retrospect was about 5 or 6 pitches away (Cordero's 2-out homer in Atlanta, the Pujols hit-batter, a few others...) from being in the playoffs. In the end, those pitches make the difference between playoffs and not, and teams like the Angels, Indians and others have the pitchers who make them.