Is anyone still reading?
Alright, the last three weeks have been a bit of a strenuous ordeal. Finally, I’m beginning to pick up some time here and there where I can start blogging again. When I thought I’d have a ton of time to blog — spring break — my computer ended up getting stolen and I had no internet access for a week. I’m still way behind, but that’s enough excuses for now.
Only eight days until Jeff Suppan starts the first regular season game at the Giants against Tim Lincecum. Hmm. This regular season business is starting to sneak up on me, as I haven’t even purchased MLB.TV yet. I suppose that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since I won’t be missing much to look forward to when one of the best pitchers in the game takes on one of the worst.
All of the moves that new manager Ken Macha is making so far have been good ones. Starting Suppan on Opening Day may be counterintuitive, but I don’t mind the decision. Pitchers, forever harped on as slaves to the routine, won’t be messing up their pitching schedules at all just for the sake of realigning the pitching order , and it ultimately doesn’t matter who goes first anyways since every pitcher will be, in theory, starting around the same number of games throughout the season. I have a feeling Macha will be adjusting and tinkering with the rotation anyways during the season, and there’s no way it can be considered safe at all considering the Brewers’ luck with injuries so far during spring training.
Macha’s come into Milwaukee and subtly changed a couple of things with the team that will help the Brewers out in the long run. According to Tom Haudricourt, Mark DiFelice has won the final spot in the Brewers’ bullpen, edging out Jorge Julio and Wes Littleton. It’s especially intriguing to see that DiFelice will win the final spot in the bullpen, considering Julio is signed to a major league contract and probably wouldn’t go to the minor leagues and Littleton is out of minor league options and will most likely be placed on waivers. DiFelice is the only player who can still be sent outright to the minors, so he really had to outperform the other two players to win that final spot.
As I wrote about earlier, DiFeliece is an underratedly studly pitcher who strikes out a lot of people (65 strikeouts in 64 2/3 innings), walks none (8 walks in that same span), and has consistently had an FIP hovering around 3.0-3.25 throughout his minor league career. The only main question is whether or not his tendency to give up the fly ball could hurt him, but considering Miller Park is not a huge hitters park and that DiFelice doesn’t voluntarily put anyone on base, they shouldn’t hurt him as much as a normal pitcher. I project him at having a 3.5-3.75 FIP in the majors, since his junkball-type pitching style implies that pitchers can catch up to him.
His major-league career might not be as good as his minor-league track record would suggest. However, that doesn’t mean he’s a bad choice to make the club. A 3.75 FIP is still much better than the other alternatives (Julio has sported a 4.52 FIP in 450 major league innings, and Littleton has a 4.58 over 100 IP), and there’s nothing wrong with having a 3.5-4.0 ERA guy in the bullpen. For some teams, that would be closer-type material. I’d go so far as to say that DiFelice should be the 8th inning guy while Trevor Hoffman starts the season on the DL.
That means that Macha and the Brewers are in a “win-now” strategy and they think they can make the playoffs again this season. The one problem with this move is that it sacrifices depth in the organization, since there’s a very real possibility that both Julio and Littleton could be released or shipped to another team if DiFelice makes the club. Considering this season, I wouldn’t mind a “win-now” mentality since I have renewed faith that the Brewers will moderately exceed the expectations I’ve had for them this year. I still think Bill Hall is going to turn back into the form that earned him his hefty contract, and that means he’ll be exceeding projections.
Say, does anyone have a solution for porn-bot commenters? I get 20 e-mails per day alerting me of comments written by porn bots.
I leave you with this. I leave you with Estelle.
He doesn’t like this.
I don’t like this either.