Tag Archives: Carlos Gomez

Let’s Talk Lineups

Posted on April 8, 2010 by | 9 Comments

Posted by Steve

After seeing Carlos Gomez hit in the second spot for the first three games, it’s pretty safe to say he’s Ken Macha’s two-hitter for the foreseeable future. To put it bluntly, that’s a bad idea.

To explain why, I defer to The Book by Tango, Lichtman, and Dolphin. They have a great chapter on batting orders, which they back up with years of evidence. Here are some of the highlights:

  • Your two best hitters should hit second and fourth, with the bigger slugger hitting cleanup.
  • Strikeout numbers or the “ability to move runners over” (ugh) should not be considered.
  • The number three hitter should actually be a lesser hitter than the 1, 2, or 4 hitters. This is because the number three hitter comes up in lower leverage situations more often than the 1, 2, or 4 spots–for example, with two outs and nobody on base.
  • The second leadoff theory–hitting the pitcher eighth–gains you a handful of runs over the course of a season.

The one that should jump out to you is that the number two hitter should be your best or second best hitter in the lineup. Instead, the Brewers hit Carlos Gomez there! You’ll even notice on that page for The Book, they say, “If nothing else, we will consider this book a true success if all thirty teams were to never put a below-average hitter in the second spot. While the proper strategy will only gain you a few runs, why do something that is otherwise clearly wrong?”

Applying this theory to the Brewers lineup using CHONE projections, a near optimal lineup looks something like this (projected OBP and SLG in parentheses)

  1. Rickie Weeks (.368, .449)
  2. Ryan Braun (.372, .568)
  3. Casey McGehee (.326, .412) Mat Gamel’s projections were better
  4. Prince Fielder (.387, .577)
  5. Corey Hart (.333, .456)
  6. Alcides Escobar (.334, .389)
  7. Gregg Zaun (.332, .368) Jonathan Lucroy’s projections were better.
  8. Pitcher
  9. Carlos Gomez (.329, .390) Jody Gerut’s projections were better

A few things jump out from that. First: CHONE thinks the Brewers have only three above average hitters on their team. That’s obviously concerning.

Second: CHONE thinks the Brewers have three players within the organization who are better offensively than current starters (yes Gamel’s hurt, but he wasn’t going to win the job anyway). That’s also concerning.

Third: that is a pretty wacky-looking lineup. I don’t recall anyone suggesting Braun and Fielder be broken up in the lineup, but that’s exactly what The Book suggests. People seem to groan whenever the Brewers hit the pitcher eighth, but I’ve always been in support of it.

I know I’ve discussed lineup optimization in the past, and I admitted that for the fairly negligible difference they make (maybe a win or so over the course of a season), the strong response/backlash they would receive may not even be worth it. But that statement was made when lineups were fairly close to optimal. The current lineup Macha is using is so far from optimal that it would likely cost the Brewers more than two wins if he used it all season.

A perfect “real-life” application of this was seen in yesterday’s game. With nobody out, Rickie Weeks stood on second base and Carlos Gomez was up to bat. With the leadoff hitter on second, that is normally a great RBI opportunity for what should be one of your best hitters. Instead, Macha had Gomez sac bunt the runner to third! Terrible move regardless of who was hitting–that move lowers the run expectancy for the inning–but the sac bunt was only a viable option in Macha’s mind because he was hitting Gomez second. If Ryan Braun was up in that spot, do you think he’d have been bunting?

Since The Book’s lineup will never fly, I’m willing to make a compromise. Here’s my suggestion of a happy medium between Macha’s lineup and The Book’s lineup:

Against Righties

  1. Weeks
  2. Edmonds
  3. Braun
  4. Fielder
  5. McGehee
  6. Escobar
  7. Zaun
  8. Pitcher
  9. Gomez

Against Lefties

  1. Weeks
  2. Hart
  3. Braun
  4. Fielder
  5. McGehee
  6. Escobar
  7. Zaun
  8. Pitcher
  9. Gomez

Of course, if I had my druthers, Gerut would be getting a good chunk of Gomez’s playing time, but I chose to go with who the Brewers have decided are their starters. I’m not a huge Edmonds fan, but he still shows nice on-base skills and is likely to have a higher OBP than Gomez. Hart’s on-base skills have been pretty bad the last couple years, but against lefties his career OBP is a solid .357.

I admit that I can at least see what the Brewers liked in Carlos Gomez. He’s carried the “potential” tag with him for years, and he showed why on Monday. There’s still hope that he could become a good offensive player, but the point is, at this point in his career all he’s been is a below average hitter. There’s no reason to hit him in one of the most important spots in the lineup until he has proven he can hit.

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Posted in Milwaukee Brewers 2010, Projections

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Have the Brewers improved?

Posted on January 6, 2010 by | 2 Comments

Posted by Steve

It’s been quite awhile since I’ve posted, but that’s partially because it’s been quite awhile since there’s been any Brewer-related news to discuss.  Since the Randy Wolf and LaTroy Hawkins signings, the Brewers haven’t done too much.  Look for things to pick up in the next few weeks, as they’ll likely add another pitcher.  I’m hoping for John Smoltz but am expecting Jarrod Washburn or Doug Davis, which frankly doesn’t excite me–especially if it’s a two year deal.

Until something happens though, we need something to talk about, right?  I thought I’d take a look at whether the Brewers have actually improved this off-season.  It’s clear Randy Wolf is an upgrade over Braden Looper and therefore improves the pitching, but does that necessarily mean the team will be better?  If you recall, I thought entering last season the Brewers might stay afloat despite their loss of Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia because of a likely improvement of their offense.  That offense did improve quite a bit, but the pitching was simply too bad.

In 2010, the pitching will most likely be better, but I’m not sure it will be enough to overcome a likely decline in offensive production.

Using an admittedly simplistic method of comparing 2009 win shares of the key players leaving this season to the win shares of the players joining the team can give us a general idea of where the team currently stands in comparison to 2009.  I’m choosing to leave off bit players like Mike Rivera (deptarting) or Trent Oeltjen (arriving) because it’s unclear what role these players will play, or in some cases, who will fill the vacant position.  It’s unclear whether the backup catcher will be George Kottaras, Jonathan Lucroy or Angel Salome, for example.

WAR stands for win shares above replacement.  If a player has a WAR of 1.0, it means the formula finds his performance worth one more win than if a replacement level player filled the exact same role.  At the risk of going off on a tangent, replacement level is defined as the expected level of performance the average team can obtain if it needs to replace a starting player at minimal cost.  In other words, a replacement level player is a scrub–generally a player who spends his career bouncing from the majors to the minors.  Players have generally gone for about $4.25-$4.5 million per win on the open market, which is how Fangraphs calculates their dollar value amounts.  For example, Randy Wolf had a WAR of 3.0, which means (according to Fangraphs) he was “worth” $13.5 million in 2009.

Here’s the 2009 WAR of the players in question.

Departing Players

Mike Cameron: 4.3

J.J. Hardy: 1.4

Braden Looper: -0.9

Mark DiFelice: 0.4

Jason Kendall: 1.2

Total: 6.4 Wins


Arriving Players

Randy Wolf: 3.0 WAR

Carlos Gomez: 0.7 WAR

LaTroy Hawkins: 0.3

Gregg Zaun: 1.8

Total: 5.8 Wins


Now, before you go panicking that the Brewers aren’t any better, there are several things to consider here.  Simply taking all these players’ 2009 performances and translating them to 2010 doesn’t work.  Obviously, some will improve and some will decline.

The Brewers pick up a huge gain in going from Braden Looper, who was actually below replacement, to Randy Wolf (not-so-fun fact: The Brewers actually had two pitchers in their rotation who were below replacement level last year in Looper and Jeff Suppan).  Most, if not all of that gain is lost, however, in downgrading from Mike Cameron to Carlos Gomez.  The Brewers are banking seriously on improvement from Carlos Gomez if they’re willing to hand him the centerfield job, which seems to be the case.  Expecting some improvement from Gomez isn’t unreasonable, as he just turned 24.  Still, he’ll almost certainly be a far cry from Mike Cameron in terms of overall value.

There are other things to consider.  Alcides Escobar’s WAR needs to be considered, but it’s difficult to calculate with just his 2009 numbers.  Simply taking his 2009 WAR and extrapolating it over a full season wouldn’t be too accurate because his 134 plate appearances is such a small sample size with which to work.

I was also unsure what to do with the second base situation.  Felipe Lopez and Rickie Weeks combined for great production from that position.  Lopez is gone, and Weeks is returning from injury, so I wasn’t sure how to use that.

Fangraphs does allow its users to project seasons, so I thought I’d throw this out here for kicks.  These are how Fangraphs’ users (likely just a bunch of baseball geeks like myself, or even geekier) project those players’ performance in 2010.  I’ll add Lopez and Weeks in this version.  This is probably the result we should be more concerned with as far as whether the Crew has improved.

Departing Players

Mike Cameron: 3.6 Slight decline projected for Cameron; not unreasonable at his age

J.J. Hardy: 3.4 Pretty large rebound projected for Hardy, which doesn’t surprise me.

Braden Looper: 0.5 Nobody even bothered to project for poor Braden, but I figured it was reasonable to assume he’d be slightly better than the gawdawfulness of -0.9 he displayed last season, since he’d never been that bad before. I decided on 0.5.

Mark DiFelice: 0.4 DiFelice is unfortunately out for the year, so we’ll stick with his 2009 production, since it still needs to be replaced somehow.

Jason Kendall: 0.9 Fangraphs expects him to be even worse.  Oh Royals, what were you thinking?

Felipe Lopez: 2.6 Lopez’s WAR between Arizon and Milwaukee was an outstanding 4.6 last year, so they’re expecting a decline.

Total: 11.4 Wins


Arriving Players

Alcides Escobar: 2.4 I have to think the Brewers would be pleased with this production in Escobar’s rookie season.

Randy Wolf: 3.0 They expect a very similar year for Wolf.

LaTroy Hawkins: 0.3 Nobody bothered to project Hawkins either.  He’s been between 0.3 and 0.8 each of the last four seasons.  I’ll go with 0.3 to be safe.

Gregg Zaun: 1.4 Slight decline expected from Zaun, but still a pretty safe bet to out-produce Jason Kendall.

Carlos Gomez: 1.1 Another one without a WAR projection, but I’ll base this on Bill James’ projection.  James has Gomez improving a bit offensively, so I bumped him from .7 in 2009 to 1.1 in 2010.  As we know, Gomez’s value, if he’s going to have any, will come from his defense.

Rickie Weeks: 3.9 A pretty optimistic projection for Weeks, one that would require him to finally stay healthy all season in order to reach.

Total Wins: 12.1

At least that looks a little better.  Again, I’m not calling this anything close to foolproof.  It’s still thrown off by the fact that Lopez and Weeks split second base last season, and obviously these are simply projections.  Still, it seems like the changes they’ve made made don’t amount to much more than a wash.  It certainly changes if they add another starter and bump Jeff Suppan out of the rotation, but until then, the Brewers look like a .500-ish team again to me.  I’ll get into this more in the future, but while I figured the offense would improve from 2008 to 2009, it’s almost certain to decline this year.  Not just going from Mike Cameron to Carlos Gomez, but elsewhere too.  Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun are likely to decline some–both had fantastic years that out-produced their projections.  Casey McGehee is likely to decline.  Rickie Weeks is likely not going to put up the numbers that the Weeks/Lopez platoon did last season.  Really, the only regular player with reasonable expectation for improvement is Corey Hart, and even he has become nearly impossible to figure out.

If the Brewers do add a starter, it’s probable that they’ll be an 80-85 win team at that point, which is talented enough to get into the playoffs if some luck goes your way.  Still, they’re very unlikely to unseat the Cardinals as the favorites entering the season.

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Is it really all that bad? Maybe?

Posted on November 6, 2009 by | 1 Comment

Posted by Steve

Brewer fans are already lighting up message boards with anger over the newly announced trade: J.J. Hardy for Carlos Gomez.  If you listen to them, Doug Melvin just mishandled the Brewers most valuable trade chip.

I suppose he may have, but I’m not convinced.  Since Hardy laid an egg this year, I’ve been saying it’s extremely difficult to gauge his trade value.  Of this I’m certain:  nobody was going to give up established starting pitching for him unless it was a bad contract.  Before last season, sure.  But Hardy really hurt the Brewers by slashing his trade value.

As far as Carlos Gomez is concerned…  Well, yeah I admit he was one of the players I mocked the most in baseball.  His offense in the majors to this point has been awful (.292 OBP).  And can’t stand how often he attempts to bunt.  But, just bear with me and consider the following:

  • Gomez is still only 23, and will be 24 this season.  His OBP in the minors was .339, so there’s reason enough to believe his offense could/should improve.
  • His defense in center field is even better than Mike Cameron’s.  He’s blazing fast and will cover a ton of ground in center.  I really like that the Brewers are putting an emphasis on defense.  I was afraid of a Corey Hart/Jody Gerut platoon in center, which would have been a big defensive downgrade from Mike Cameron.
  • This, of course, means the end of Mike Cameron’s run in Milwaukee.  That’s too bad; he is one of my favorite Brewers ever.  But, this means the Brewers save a ton of money.  Between Hardy and Cameron’s salaries, the Brewers have slashed $14.5 million off last year’s payroll.  I say last year only because it’s hard to say what A. Hardy would have received in arbitration or B. Cameron would have required to bring back.  Still, it’s a big chunk of change that can now be spent on pitching.  They could actually afford someone like John Lackey now (not necessarily saying they should, just saying they probably could).
  • I didn’t see Hardy as the Brewers biggest trade chip.  I think Mat Gamel has more trade value, and unfortunately I expect him to be traded.  If he goes, it will definitely be for pitching.
  • The Brewers could do what the Twins did with Gomez.  They often played Denard Span, a superior offensive player, in center field, but subbed in Gomez late in a game when they got a lead.  When the Twins were trailing late, they’d sub in Span for Gomez.  The Brewers could do this with Jody Gerut.
  • Female fans are sure to be devastated, but thankfully this trade is heartthrob for heartthrob.  Gomez was number two to only to All-World, Mr. Sideburns himself, Joe Mauer in Minnesota among the ladies.

So, there you have it.  Obviously you should decide for yourself whether to like this trade, but I am alright with it.  I will say that while I’m “alright with it” as a Brewer fan, I love it from a Twins perspective.  They can play Denard Span every day in center field, and they get what should be a big upgrade at shortstop.  The Twins haven’t had a good shortstop in years.  Of course, this is all dependent on Hardy bouncing back, but their only risk if he doesn’t is giving up a guy who played part time for them.

I’m not pleased to see Hardy go.  I still think he’s the better bet over Escobar to have a better year this season.  But, the Brewers aren’t trading Escobar, and they can’t afford the luxury of keeping two good players at one position when they have such huge pitching needs.

When it boils down to it, this trade was spare part for spare part.  Both players had fallen out of favor with their teams, and each is moving to a team that has a bigger need for him.

Finally, I’d just like to add that I seem to have cemented myself as “that Brewer fan that people know.”  How do I know this?  Because in the first hour after this trade hit the press, my phone lit up with text messages.  I heard from people I haven’t spoken to in weeks, even months in a couple cases.  ”Gomez for Hardy!”  ”What do you think of the trade?”  ”Gomez!?  Really!?” etc, etc.

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Posted in 2010 Hot Stove, Milwaukee Brewers 2010

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