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Post by James on Sept 21, 2014 6:04:14 GMT -6
Well, all in all the pennant races have fizzled out and even the wild card doesn't seem too exciting. Its like the more things change the more they stay the same. Personally I'd like to see Pittsburgh go deep into the playoffs this year. In the AL I am rooting for the Orioles. Would be nice to get 2 teams in the WS who have not been there in a while.
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Post by James on Sept 19, 2014 13:11:29 GMT -6
The Pirates are now 11-2 over their last 11 games after defeating Boston 3-2 last night. Since going 12-20 from April to early May, the Pirates have posted a 70-50 record from May 6th through today. That is playing at a .583 clip and is the best record of any NL central division team over that time frame. That included the front running Cardinals. The only question that remains is if the season is long enough for the Buccos to overtake the Redbirds.
During Pittsburgh's latest hot streak, Josh Harrison has raised his batting average another 5 points from .312 to .317. Pittsburgh would not even be in the division or wild card race without the play of JHay this season. If the Brewers can take care of the Cardinals in their current series, the upcoming Pirates/Brewers series could decide the division title.
My personal belief is that the Pirates have an overall better team than the Cardinals. Some may point out that the Cards swept Pittsburgh in their last meet. Yes, but the margin of victory was all by just 1 or 2 runs. If they should meet again in the playoffs, the only difference between 1 run games is usually a broken bat bloop somewhere. Over the last 2 years, the Pirates have played the Cards tougher than the Brewers have. For that reason, I'd like to see another Cardinal/Pirate match up. That could only happen if both teams advance into the playoffs and everything lines up for them to face off. Should be a great race to the finish!
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Post by James on Sept 15, 2014 23:22:24 GMT -6
The 3 values are Runs/Hits/Errors Record shown is Milwaukee's play through followed by actual
Game 1
Mil 3 7 0 Cin 4 6 0
HR Lucroy (1st), Hanigan, Bruce Record 0-1, actual 0-1
Game 2
Mil 6 9 1 Cin 9 14 0
HR Lucroy (2nd), Francisco, Bruce Record 0-2, actual 0-2
Game 3
Mil 7 11 0 Cin 2 7 1
HR McGehee (1st), Heisey Record 1-2, actual 0-3
Game 4
Atl 4 11 0 Mil 5 9 2
Jones, Betancourt (1st) Record 2-2, actual 0-4
Game 5
Atl 2 8 1 Mil 3 8 0 in 15 innings
HR Braun (1st), Lucroy (3rd) Record 3-2, actual 1-4
Game 6
Atl 4 14 1 Mil 5 12 0 in 12 innings
HR Freeman Record 4-2, actual 2-4
Game 7
Atl 2 6 1 Mil 3 15 0 in 11 innings
HR McCann Record 5-2, actual 3-4
Game 8
Chi 2 5 0 Mil 3 9 1
HR none Record 6-2, actual 3-5
Game 9
Chi 7 12 1 Mil 2 11 1
HR Pena, McGehee (2nd) Record 6-3, actual 4-5
Game 10
Chi 6 9 0 Mil 7 9 1
HR Barney, Braun (2nd), Fielder (1st), McGehee (3rd) Record 7-3, actual 5-5
Game 11
Mil 4 6 1 Pit 3 9 1
HR Kottaras (1st), Barney Record 8-3, actual 6-5
Game 12
Mil 1 5 0 Pit 4 9 1
HR Doumit Record 8-4, actual 7-5
Game 13
Mil 2 9 0 Was 5 9 2
HR Greinke (1st), Nix Record 8-5, actual 7-6
Game 14
Mil 4 9 1 Was 8 8 0
HR Weeks (1st), Ramos, Gomes Record 8-6, actual 7-7
Game 15
Mil 1 8 0 Was 2 8 0
HR Hart (1st) Record 8-7, actual
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Post by James on Sept 11, 2014 23:00:41 GMT -6
Prayers that the outcome for Stanton is as good as possible after he was injured from a hit by pitch tonight. Hate to see that happen. Haven't seen an update on his condition at this time.
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Post by James on Sept 10, 2014 13:58:20 GMT -6
The Brewers had been in 1st place alone or tied for about 5 straight months and then just like that they ran out of gas. Who saw this coming? I sure didn't, certainly not at this level. Now that I reflect on what could become a historic collapse of epic proportions, I wonder why I didn't see it coming. The Brewers offense is built all wrong and has been ever since I can remember.
In fairness, they are a small market team competing with teams with bottomless purse strings, such as the Yankees or the Dodgers. I guess the reason it really stings, is the fact that they were successful for so long and then hit the wall. Just how were the Brewers able to mask their gaping flaws for so long?
Well for one, if a couple guys were in a slump, there were always 2 or 3 guys that were still raking. Then in the blink of an eye, the entire team essentially shut down offensively. In the last 14 games the Brewers have been outscored 86 to 35. Over that span that are averaging only 2.5 runs per game. Now I realize that this was inevitable for a team built for power at the sacrifice of contact. Power hitters are streaky, we all know this. So when a team has more power type hitters than pure contact hitters, they can go through maddening dry spells.
I talk about the Cardinal a lot and its because of their continued success. They now lead the Brewers by 6 games and the Pirates by 4 and 1/2. In spite of, or maybe because of the fact that they hit fewer home runs than any other team in the National League. They win by simply making contact frequently. Put the ball in play more often and your chances of success increase. Losing to the Cardinals is frustrating because they don't knock you out, instead they simply harass you to death. Its like a death of 1000 cuts. A typical Cardinal rally goes like this: A lead of walk, then a broken bat blooper followed by a seeing eye single. Then a chopper off the plate bounces high enough that everyone is safe. Then a pitch fools the next hitter but he muscles it for a flare to left field. Before you know it, they score 3 runs and you realize they never squared up a ball, yet they always put them in play.
They are also disciplined at the plate. IN that regard they are complete opposites of the Brewers. They do this all without any show boating. Its strictly business to them. They are relentless. So yea, the Brewers are built all wrong. They are built for home runs and when they don't homer they only score 2.5 runs per game. That has led to their 1-13 record over the last 14. Oh sure, you could argue that the pitching has gone south but I would disagree. Take away 2 games where they gave up a combined 28 runs and they have only given up 4.83 runs over 12 games. Ok not stellar, but that is counting unearned runs, of which there have been many. To me the lack of offense has put undue pressure on the starting pitchers to throw shut outs and nobody is relaxed anymore.
Everyone is pressing and so the collapse may continue as it has for other teams in the past. If the Brewers miss the playoffs, this September will be remembered for a long time for all the wrong reasons.
Enough about the Brewers. Unless they turn the tide in a hurry, they will be irrelevant in another week.
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Post by James on Sept 8, 2014 16:00:51 GMT -6
As a Brewer fan, I'd like to see Braun get traded. It would be better for both parties to get a fresh start but nothing I can do about it. It has to be hard for him to be a team leader when he threw people under the bus so to speak. Like yesterday after the Brewers lost their 11th game out of the last 12, they finally had a players meeting. It was said to only last 10-15 minutes and 6 of the veterans said something. That would mean that no one was able to talk more than 2 minutes about their current situation. If they were serious about turning things around I would feel like they would have a 1 hour meeting.
I know there is more to life than baseball and they want to get home to their families. I won't see anymore as I am an outsider and don't know all that goes on. I can say for sure, that as a Brewer fan, watching your lead the division all year only to collapse in the final month is extremely frustrating. IN another week my topic may be about the biggest collapses in baseball history and where the 2014 Brewers fit in.
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Post by James on Sept 7, 2014 16:21:35 GMT -6
Yea the Cardinals look to be on top of their game right now. I don't think the Brewers have anything left. Braun has been ineffective for the last month. His nerve issue in his them makes him a much more defensive hitter and as a result, he has chased a lot more pitches out of the strike zone.
Other Brewer hitters have gone cold as well. All at the same time it appears. Even there defense has dropped off dramatically. Playing poor defense is often more of a mental lapse or lack of focus. They don't have any energy, or it appears that they just are not hungry. Appear is reality sometimes. Its frustrating to watch because in a 2 week span, the entire season is all but lost. Its like none of what they did for the first 120 games even matters now.
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Post by James on Sept 7, 2014 16:14:13 GMT -6
The simple answer is no. The last few seasons team runs per game is less than it was during the 1940's, 50's or 60's. I have taken 2 years from several important decades to illustrate that runs per game average has actually declined since the pure era. These stats are for the National League only. I didn't want to bias the runs per game stats with data from teams with the designated hitter. The DH subject is a separate topic for later.
Year Runs per game
2013 ~ 4.00
2011 ~ 4.13
1963 ~ 3.81
1961 ~ 4.52
1953 ~ 4.75
1951 ~ 4.46
1943 ~ 3.93
1941 ~ 4.23
The peak for runs per game was in the 50's and 60's. I need to point out that during the height of the steroid era runs per game spiked. For example, the year (2001) Barry Bonds set the HR record, average runs per game was 4.7
It appears the runs per game is now close to the level that it was in the 1940's. So why has current run production dropped off from the mid 1990's to the early turn of the century? Its fairly obvious that Steroid use was rampant during that period and the the new testing system has cleaned up the sport. Still, run production is now lower than it was in the 1950's. I believe that is due in part to more refined pitching techniques. I'm not old enough to have seen pitchers in the 1950's, but I suspect that they did not spend as much time being coached about mechanics and working on a 3rd or 4th pitch. Today pitchers are monitored closing and watch video. There is now endless data available about any holes a hitter may have in his swing.
Add to that the amount of defensive shifting possible due to extensive spray charts and a fair amount of hits with RISP are taken away, leading to fewer runs. I have done a lot of testing in a baseball simulation I recently developed ('True to Life Baseball' by Life is Sports Games) and found that even just a 1/2 run higher average per game makes a huge difference in how game play out. With more runs scored per game, there are significantly fewer 1 run games. Because of this, I think keeping average runs per game near 4.00 to 4.20 is in the best interest of baseball. It creates tighter games, which in turn have more drama. This may also be why we now seem to have more parity in the league than ever before.
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Post by James on Sept 6, 2014 1:56:15 GMT -6
Yea!! The Brewers took the lead in a game for the first time in 67 innings. 67 innings? They went on to win to stop their 9 game skid. Hopefully this supercharges them and they can make a challenge on the Cardinals. I have to look up the Cardinals record since they got Molina back. I think this may be their first loss since Molina came off the DL.
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Post by James on Sept 6, 2014 1:53:30 GMT -6
Does that title sound a bit over the top for a game with a final score of 3-2? If it is, then only a little. How does a team seem to dominate while only winning by 1 run? Well it was the defense, then the defense again and still more defense. Very few outfielders make the play Peter Bourjos does in the late innings on Logan Schafer's deep fly out to center field. Throw in a couple of stellar catches by Jon Jay, one coming in and the other over the shoulder, and the Cardinals kept squashing what appeared to be promising innings by the Brewers. On the other side it was a missed opportunity to advance a runner on a bunt play by the Brewers with no one out that helped seal their fate. Maybe that is just how things go when your trying to break up an 8 game losing streak that is now extended to 9 games. I kept thinking that Roenicke might put on the butcher boy play and let Maldy swing away. Maldonado is a decent hitter, .258 BA with some power, .433 SLG with 4 homers in only 97 at bats. Once he popped the bunt up, one could sense the Brewers would not bring a run across. They have now averaged 2 runs per game over the last 9 games. Scoring more than 2 runs only 1 time over that span. See rest of this article here: Brewers dominated by Cards continued...This is from 2 days ago. Tonight the Crew finally broke their 9 game losing streak. Yea!!
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Post by James on Sept 4, 2014 23:31:29 GMT -6
This article will look at 6 top candidates. I have singled out Giancarlo Stanston, Jonathan Lucroy, Josh Harrison, Andrew McCutchen, Clayton Kershaw, and Adam Wainwright. I have used a proprietary rating system that I developed for a baseball simulation game called 'True to Life Baseball'. This rating system rates batters in 3 offensive categories. Then it combines the offensive score with a defensive rating and a base running rating. The pitchers are simply rated in 5 separate pitching categories. The highest possible score for both batters and pitchers is 60. This enables batters and pitchers to be compared side by side for value, albeit subjectively. Though all non-concrete stats are subjective. What I mean by a non-concrete stat would be WAR, (wins above replacement) while a concrete stat would be something like batting average or OBP. (on base percentage) Here are the ratings for each of the players mentioned from highest to lowest: Check out the rest of this blog at: Who deserves NL MVP article
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Post by James on Sept 4, 2014 15:15:38 GMT -6
You can post a link to your baseball blog in this thread. This is the 1 exception to posting links within the forum. It has to be baseball related though. Once you post it in this thread I will add it to the list in this 1st post. You may also post a paragraph or two from your blog (in a new thread in this board) and then display a link to that blog for the full story. I will add links to this list here from those posts as well. This is a way to get the word out on your baseball blog. Lets keep it baseball related please! Baseball Blog List:Life is Sports Games
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Post by James on Sept 4, 2014 14:46:10 GMT -6
The Cardinals won their 5th straight game tonight and are now 3 games ahead of the 2nd place Brewers. How are they doing it? The way the Cardinals always do, with stellar pitching and timely hitting. They are also steady, having played .542 ball in the 1st half of the season and .548 so far in the 2nd half. They are now 13 games over .500 and still have scored fewer runs then they have given up. They have scored 533 runs after tonight's 1-0 victory and allowed 536. According to basic math they should be a .500 club. Again how do the Cards defy the math?........... Read rest of story at Life is Sport Games blog
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Post by James on Sept 3, 2014 16:39:48 GMT -6
Its September 3rd and the Brewers are in disarray. Oh sure, no one within the organization would say as much because those in business spin things optimistically. The fact is, the Brewers currently have their longest losing streak of the year at 7 games. More critically, since May 2nd, the Brewers are 3 games under .500. On May 2nd, they were 21-9. Before tonights game they are 73-65. They played stellar baseball for 1 month and have basically played .500 ball for the remainder of the season.
The Brewers longest winning streak during this .500 run is 5 games. They don't look to be a team that can make up 4 or 5 games on anyone in a couple weeks. That is why tonights game vs the Cubs is paramount. They can't afford to fall 3 games behind St. Louis. Not to mention they have not played the Cardinals all that well this year and have 7 games remaining with them.
I see some deeper problems with the Brewers going forward. Gomez is kind of a case in point. A free swinger that has now unfortunately suffered his 2nd injury of the year sustained while simply swinging the bat. He has one of the most violent swings in all of baseball. I think many coaching staffs would work with Gomez to change his swing, if for no other reason than to protect him for continual injury. When the Brewers manager, Ron Roenicke is asked this very question by reporters he always responds along the lines that the players are who they are, and at this level there is nothing that can be done to change that. I didn't directly quote him only cause I didn't want to sort through all the post game interviews. He has stated something similar to Gomez's swing on at least 2 occasions.
Isn't it the coaching staffs job though? To coach a player either to make him perform better, protect him from injury. Suffice it to say I disagree with Ron's managerial style on several points. One of them is just what I see as an undisciplined team. Free swinging teams like the Brewers rarely go deep into the playoffs. Teams that go deep in the playoffs have patient hitters like the Cardinals. Patient hitters make the starting pitcher work and get a good starter out of the game on high pitch counts. Then they go to work on the middle relievers. Free swinging hitters also translate to an on again off again offense. In their last 7 games, the Brewers have only scored 14 runs. Two runs a game does not win many games. The Brewers also appear to be the most aggressive team on the base paths, which bites them more often than not. Roenicke is known as a players manager. I think he has taken it too far, almost to the point where the players are not even being coached.
Of course I still follow them and root for them but it has to be with a level of detachment because the Brewers often beat themselves. Good teams do not beat themselves. The Brewers are an average team that had 1 outstanding month. Ironically Brewer beat reporters twice ran stories on why Roenicke deserved manager of the year. I'm not sure the writers who wrote that believed it themselves or if it was just written as a sensationalistic story to attract viewers. As much as I don't want to see the Cards win another division title. Its hard to hold a grudge against them, because they always find away to stay in it and then make a push just at the right time.
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Post by James on Sept 3, 2014 14:35:59 GMT -6
Hard to root against Oakland as they have had good teams for awhile. They just haven't been able to go deep into the playoffs. Maybe this is their year.
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