packerbacker87 Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 Piss poor management of the pen. We are also reaching a little to late by acquiring old has been s that arent good anymore. Oh well ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 (edited) Granted, I didn't watch it and am looking at the box score now, but these are my specific thoughts on that game and my more general thoughts on the bullpen I'm all for pulling Anderson after 2 times through the order. Counsell screwed that up in his last start series by letting him go 5 batters too long, and by then the game went from a laugher to a fire man situation almost instantly. With the expanded rosters, every SP should be on a 2 times through the order cap. I don't really have any problem with going to Soria in the 8th. You brought him in to be able to get zeros in situations like that. He gets 2 outs right away, and all the damage comes after that. He's one pitch away the entire inning. I don't really have a problem with Jennings coming in against Soto either. You could argue the play is to intentionally walk him and leave Soria in, but Soria just walked Rendon and another walk would tie the game up. So if Counsell thinks you have to pitch to Soto, and you kind of do, and by now you're reasonably confident it's a bad day for Soria, yeah a change makes sense. You traded for Cedeno to help get lefties out, but you already used him in the 6th (and he went 3 up 3 down), so it's not like there is a non-Hader lefty out there for you either. So why not Hader? Counsell said he's at 67 IP on the year, and they used him too hard early in the year. He's the most valuable reliever on the team. He might be the most valuable player in the organization period. So when Counsell says his workload is too high, I take it at face value. Even though it sucks to lose the game, I'd rather lose that game than have him need TJS. And the fact is, we don't exactly have a ton of data on this fireman reliever work rate. It's not like a CL, where you say "yeah 60-65 IP is okay". Andrew Miller keeps getting hurt. Dellin Betances completely lost it. Those are really the only 2 guys who have done his job, and we have him under team control for the next 5 seasons, which coincides with the competitive window Stearns has opened for us. Obviously I don't like losing the game, but the Brewers know more about Hader's day to day energy levels and overall health than we do. You could try to criticize Counsell for not managing Hader's early season workload better...but you really can't. Counsell was over-reliant on Hader in the early part of the year, but we were also nearly 20-0 in the games he pitched at one point. So it's tough to imagine we'd be in a better overall W/L situation now if you shift some of his appearances from the start of the year to now. And I've said criticize Counsell throughout this post, but let's be honest, Counsell isn't acting alone or going rogue by managing Hader's workload. That's coming from the front office, along with the medical/training staff. Do we really think if Counsell had the blessing of the FO to use Hader more, he wouldn't? He's the mouthpiece and he's the guy who has to find the second best option in those spots, but this is an organizational decision. If I'm mad at anyone over our general handling of the bullpen, it's Corey Knebel. This bullpen was set up to have him be the closer, Hader be one fire man guy, and Jeffress be the other. We can't have one fire man manage that entire workload, it's impossible. But Jeffress has had to become the closer, which makes him unavailable for situations like this which he was money in during the early part of the season. And, naturally, when the fire man spots come up the reaction is "let's pitch Hader" because he's amazing and because that's the rough situation that it calls for. But Counsell can't pitch him every time that comes up. It's not a 1 man job. If I'm also mad at anyone for losing that game, it's Soria. We have a 2 run lead in the 8th. That should be a W. Doesn't matter how it's managed, doesn't matter who comes in, a chicken with it's head cut off should be able to manage that team to a win. Full stop. Edited September 2, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 (edited) The question, "is Josh Hader overworked?" is hard to answer with limited knowledge. But we can definitely look for evidence. Just from watching him, his velocity drops when he gets tired, so that's where I started: So there's Josh's FB velocity ranges for each start, with the 5 game rolling average. To me, this chart more or less coincides with the story that Counsell has been telling us. He got overworked in the early part of the year (as you can clearly see the density of the lines decrease over time). His FB velocity started decreasing through mid April or so, then he got some rest, and it's kind of oscillated back and forth, but is still decreasing sharply if he is used too frequently even though the appearances have gone down. To me, this data looks like it generally supports the idea that Hader needs this rest. It doesn't prove it, obviously, but it's not like he just pops right back up. To check this, I plotted the minimum FB velocity in each of his starts. Fangraphs doesn't plot that, it just lets you export the data, so excuse the ****ty excel plot. I see the same story here. If Hader pitches too frequently, his minimum FB velocity gets into that 91-92 range, and he needs a rest. It's notable that the second to last appearance Hader made (August 29th) had a velocity just over 91, which is the lowest we've seen out of him since early April. And those early April dots could be a dead arm period, so we could realistically be talking about Josh Hader being at his most fatigued all year. To me, this all suggests he's tired and the Brewers aren't blowing smoke when they said they overworked him. And if that's the case, I think they looked at him and said that he needs one of those extended rest periods of 3-4 days to bounce back. Again, this doesn't prove anything. I'm just trying to figure this out with limited information and stupid looking excel plots. Edited September 2, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugger Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 11 hours ago, beekay414 said: Hader is LITERALLY the only guy CC pretends to protect. He's literally costing us games because he is flat out stupid. No kidding. CC has no problem using Jennings day after day but not Hader. Hey Counsell - we are in a freaking WC chase. What in the hell are you saving your best lefty for? Halloween?? I've been complaining about CC for weeks now. I still can't believe we hired him in the first place. It reminds me of when the Packers hired Starr because he was one of them. smh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 (edited) 25 minutes ago, Pugger said: No kidding. CC has no problem using Jennings day after day but not Hader. Hey Counsell - we are in a freaking WC chase. What in the hell are you saving your best lefty for? Halloween?? The question "is Josh Hader overworked?" is somewhat complicated, and we have to recognize that while there is room for disagreement, the team has more information than we do. The question, "why was Josh Hader not used last night?" has no room for discussion. He was unavailable because Counsell (realistically, the entire organization, but Counsell is stuck defending it to the media) thought he needed rest. You can disagree with the reasoning, but he has been blatantly clear about his/the organization's rationale. To argue this point is to admit you're not listening. And, while this wasn't you, questioning the sincerity of Counsell's answers, which has been done to death on the internet, doesn't stand up to 4 seconds of critical thinking. Counsell's job is the manage the team so that we win games. Josh Hader is basically a human form of a win button - Counsell hits the win button, Brewers win, everybody's happy. In what universe is he not hitting that thing every time he conceivably can? Edited September 2, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 Give Yelich all of the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugger Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 5 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said: The question "is Josh Hader overworked?" is somewhat complicated, and we have to recognize that while there is room for disagreement, the team has more information than we do. The question, "why was Josh Hader not used last night?" has no room for discussion. He was unavailable because Counsell (realistically, the entire organization, but Counsell is stuck defending it to the media) thought he needed rest. You can disagree with the reasoning, but he has been blatantly clear about his/the organization's rationale. To argue this point is to admit you're not listening. And, while this wasn't you, questioning the sincerity of Counsell's answers, which has been done to death on the internet, doesn't stand up to 4 seconds of critical thinking. Counsell's job is the manage the team so that we win games. Josh Hader is basically a human form of a win button - Counsell hits the win button, Brewers win, everybody's happy. In what universe is he not hitting that thing every time he conceivably can? Could there be a stamina issue with Hader? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 (edited) 35 minutes ago, Pugger said: Could there be a stamina issue with Hader? Maybe but would that change how we feel about any of this? Hader has pitched a bunch, not as much recently, and Counsell says he's not good to go. I'm not sure how the Brewers could have predicted how Hader's arm would bounce back relative to a normal bullpen arm. And LIS, we have very few references for modern day fire men, so it's not like we can say he's a closer on pace for 55 IP. This is an unknown for everyone. And after all this we go 2-1 in Washington. Edited September 2, 2018 by ramssuperbowl99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packerbacker87 Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 CC says they have to have him ready to pitch through October ?. Yes!! We are going to win the division!! I knew it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packerbacker87 Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 6 of the next 9 against the cubs. Have to win 5 of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slinky Posted September 3, 2018 Share Posted September 3, 2018 Rams dropping knowledge and taking folks to school as usual. I doubt your manager is keeping Hader out just because. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 A shtoinker single, then an error, then a bad throw lets the Cubs score. Aguilar misses a home run by inches. Kratz hits a would be run scoring double right at Bryant for an out ..yep, it's a Cubs series. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 Cain <3 Yelich <3 Hader time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramssuperbowl99 Posted September 3, 2018 Author Share Posted September 3, 2018 16 pitches through 2 IP for Hader...man it's tempting to give him a 3rd inning, but if we pull him now we might get him for game 3 (though tbh that's the Quintana game). Soria, then Jeffress presumably gets you home. Soria gets the bottom of the order which helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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