NL Central: Reds, Pirates and others

[Derwood]

8 likes on his first post? Dude should retire. Go out on top

[Bull]

Not a gif but with all the Brewers news recently I thought I'd jump on the Mad Men train

 

 

welcome to the forum!

 

sweet av

Look at the new guy with his fancy “av” getting all noticed by David.

[Cubswin11]

The Brewers had their fan fest thing today and Braun mentioned they've talked about a 1B move and he'd be willing to give 2B a go (guessing it's in jest and just a comment to show he's a team player/not throw a guy under the bus who's about to be traded as it seems Santana is on his way out). But yes Brewers, please try that. Hell even 1B for that matter, he was a horrendous IF defender when he was 24.

[HawkeTrackler]

The Brewers had their fan fest thing today and Braun mentioned they've talked about a 1B move and he'd be willing to give 2B a go (guessing it's in jest and just a comment to show he's a team player/not throw a guy under the bus who's about to be traded as it seems Santana is on his way out). But yes Brewers, please try that. Hell even 1B for that matter, he was a horrendous IF defender when he was 24.

 

Oh man that would hysterical. He was probably the worst defensive 3B I've ever seen, I would love to see him attempt to play second with those brittle old-man joints.

[Cubswin11]

Brewer fans are either unwilling or unable to understand projections, sure they could be low (and even Fangraphs admitted they think the Brewers will be better since they are a tough team to project with limited data/so many outlier years last year) but they are what they are with the data available and projections doesn't equal predictions. The fans should be excited and should have some optimism but they seem to be turning a blind eye and shunning any notion of regression and not having any real star potential players (outside of Yelich). They seem to think they are a high 80s win near lock when I think they could just as easily (even more probably) win 74-80 games and go the way of the Padres a few years ago when they added Upton and Kemp and others or the Angels the year after adding Pujols, Hamilton, CJ Wilson, etc....

 

http://forum.brewerfan.net/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=36333

 

Some good quotes....

 

Ryan Braun a 1.1 win player, LOL, enough said.

- He was worth 1.5 WAR last year and has put up 1.5 or less 3 times between 2013 and last year including a .8 season. He's going in to his age 34 season. This isn't crazy, enough said.

 

Arcia for instance, 277/324/407 line last year and projected 261/313/407. So a top prospect turning 23 in his 3rd big league season is going to get worse? It's far more likely that he improves on that line.

A ~.010 drop across the board is relatively insignificant. He's looking like a contact dependent with average to below average power for the position SS with good fielding. He never put up crazy numbers in the minors to suggest there's a ton more in the bat (unless he has an outlier high BABIP year) and has just okay BB/K rate numbers. He's something like Alcides Escobar 2.0.

 

Domingo Santana turns 25 this season and was a career 282/374/485 hitter in the minors but from 2014-2015 in the minors was more 310/420/525. He posts 278/371/505 this year but is more likely to regress to 258/353/472 than maintain or improve? And his BABIP is going to be .327...the lowest mark by over 30 points in the last 4 years? For him, I honestly think they drew numbers out of a hat as these aren't remotely logical.

- Maybe he's just a guy who can carry an abnormally high BABIP but common sense and the projections systems are telling us it's really hard and rare to carry such a high BABIP with a ~30% K rate. Since 2015 only 10 qualified players had a .320 or higher BABIP with a K rate of 28% or higher, it's hard to do and even harder to replicate (no player replicated it over that 3 year span, they were all unique players). Santana in 1000+ PAs is a 31.7% K rate guy with a career .354 BABIP, last year he was 29% and .363. So it's quite reasonable to project a significant BABIP drop if his profile doesn't change and he doesn't lower his K rate by 5%+

 

Knebel is likely to regress a bit from his absurd season, but 3.19 ERA seems a bit excessive.

- He has a career MLB ERA of 3 and FIP/xFIP of 3.14/3.24 in 167 innings. Seems reasonable, also ERA for RPs is dumb. All it takes is a few blow ups to horsefeathers up the ERA for the season.

 

Hader with his 3.71 is only going to be slightly better than Tyler Webb and his 3.87, LOL!!!

He had ERAs in the 5's in 2017 and 2016 in AAA in over 100IP combined. His FIP/xFIP last year were 3.06/3.66, again it seems reasonable. Especially for a guy who has a BB/9 well in to the 4s at any stop in his career he logged significant innings and again ERA fro RPs is dumb but only a few blow up innings is going to kill the ERA and a guy who can walk the entire ballpark in a given inning is a prime target to have some of those blowup innings.

Edited January 30, 2018 by Cubswin11

[David]

"It's far more likely that he improves on that line" is like the definition of delusion/not understanding any of this.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs have some serious 2017 Giants potential. Very little room for injury/performance issues.

 

[Cubswin11]

The Cubs have some serious 2017 Giants potential. Very little room for injury/performance issues.

 

Yeah I just completely ignored than nonsense

[David]

The Cubs' 2017 Giants season was in 2017. And they still gained something like 12 games on the Brewers in a half season. Edited January 30, 2018 by David

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

The Cubs have some serious 2017 Giants potential. Very little room for injury/performance issues.

 

It's ridiculous. I can't think of a team that has more options/depth for position players, and apart from the Dodgers, there aren't too many with more SP depth either (assuming we sign another SP, which we will).

[Aaron_Kennelly]

This season is going to be hilarious.

[soccer10k]

If you told me I could pick either the Brewers or the Cards to only win 70 games this year, well, I'd definitely still pick the Cards but I'd actually think about it for a second or two.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Watching BABIP regression tank Santana, Pham, Ozuna, and DeJong this season is gonna lead to so many 'who could have seen this coming?' retrospectives I'll have to make a scrapbook out of them.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Also, "I think simply being 25 or under is reason to guarantee a maintained or improved line, also I think the Cubs offense has a high potential for collapse" is some phenomenal logic.

[David]

If you told me I could pick either the Brewers or the Cards to only win 70 games this year, well, I'd definitely still pick the Cards but I'd actually think about it for a second or two.

 

really? i'd pick milwaukee and it's not all that close

[soccer10k]

If you told me I could pick either the Brewers or the Cards to only win 70 games this year, well, I'd definitely still pick the Cards but I'd actually think about it for a second or two.

 

really? i'd pick milwaukee and it's not all that close

 

The last time the Cards won fewer than 80 games was 2007. It’s the only time in the last 18 years they’ve won less than 80. And they still won 78 games that year. In that same 18 year span, the Brewers won less than 80 games 10 times.

 

The second worst win total St Louis had in the last 18 years is 83. The Brewers have won more than 83 games 3 times in those 18 years (‘08, ‘11, ‘17).

 

The Brewers being crap is commonplace. But just once I’d like to see the Cards fall on their faces and just be terrible.

[David]

If you told me I could pick either the Brewers or the Cards to only win 70 games this year, well, I'd definitely still pick the Cards but I'd actually think about it for a second or two.

 

really? i'd pick milwaukee and it's not all that close

 

The last time the Cards won fewer than 80 games was 2007. It’s the only time in the last 18 years they’ve won less than 80. And they still won 78 games that year. In that same 18 year span, the Brewers won less than 80 games 10 times.

 

The second worst win total St Louis had in the last 18 years is 83. The Brewers have won more than 83 games 3 times in those 18 years (‘08, ‘11, ‘17).

 

The Brewers being crap is commonplace. But just once I’d like to see the Cards fall on their faces and just be terrible.

 

ohhh nevermind i thought you meant pick as in predict. my bad. yeah, i'd pick that too.

[weis21]

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[CyHawk_Cub]

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[David]

Imagine the Cubs having to do something like this.

 

It's going to be interesting/funny to see the park packed with Cubs fans despite this effort.

 

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[Cubswin11]

Imagine the Cubs having to do something like this.

 

It's going to be interesting/funny to see the park packed with Cubs fans despite this effort.

 

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That’s sad that they are trying to make our rivalry a thing so hard. This ticket thing won’t even make a difference, all the season ticket holders sell their tickets for Cubs series because it’s the only time they can make any money. Plus I bet there’s nearly as many Cub fans in Wisconsin than there are Brewer fans soooo idk what this will do. Also there’s still going to be thousands of tickets on the secondary market.

[ScrubMD]

I went to Milwaukee for a Cubs game for the first time last year and bought my $20 tickets like 2 weeks before. So...good luck, I guess.

[Cubswin11]

I already have tickets to a game there this year. Was at a charity auction thing and bid on and won a box suite to a Cubs game there for either the April or June series. So me and 10 people (most if not all Cub fans) already have one game there. I’ll probably get to 1-3 more (my uncle has season tickets and usually gives me one Cubs game then I usually buy tickets to 1-2 other ones).

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Brewers: Hey Cubs, you scared that we got Yelich and Cain? Are ya?

 

Also Brewers: We are terrified that our stadium will be overrun by Cubs fans in our most anticipated season in a decade.

[JudasIscariotTheBird]

It really is a pretty clever marketing idea even if it comes off as petty. Cub fans start scrambling to make sure they can get tickets, and Brewer fans, reminded about Cub crowds in their stadium, rush to do the same thing.