Brewer Paradise Lost » electronic

All-Star Break Notes

Cody — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:45:02 +0000

Just some things to think about as we reach the midway point of the season…

*** Milwaukee’s spent the majority of the first half playing slightly above their record. However their recent 3-8 June Swoon has them at the All-Star Break with a negative pythagorean record. BP’s playoff odds say the Brewers only have a 20% chance to make the playoffs despite being 2 1/2 games out of first place.

BP’s playoff odds basically combine the team’s current record and projects their pythagorean record for the rest of the season. Since the Brewers have scored approximately as many runs as they’ve given up, they should be expected to have a .500 record over the rest of the year, according to BP. An 83-win team won’t make the postseason; they’ll either need some luck or better play in order to capture a playoff birth.

*** With that said, this team isn’t as bad as their June has been, and they should pick it up. Most of Manny Parra’s struggles may be behind him, as a fresh look at AAA have seemingly given him more confidence in his pitches — he should return back to the form we expected him soon. Dave Bush is coming back from an injury and pitched really well in a rehab assignment, so there’s no reason to believe he won’t be back to his form.

Remember that when the rotation is back to full strength it will be the same rotation that helped the Brewers get 18 wins in May and a 3.85 ERA. Everybody talks about trading valuable parts of the farm system away to get another starter at the deadline, but if the rotation comes back with full strength than I see no reason to trade away parts for a Jarrod Washburn when the pitchers the Brewers have at the moment are just as good as he would be. If there was a C.C. Sabathia type of pitcher available who wouldn’t cost everything but the kitchen sink to get (i.e. Roy Halladay), then I’d advocate getting someone, but until then, no dice. The pitching staff is just fine where they are; they’ll stop struggling sooner or later. Preferably sooner.

*** A could of weeks ago I wrote about management’s use of Casey McGehee over Mat Gamel in many key situations where it would have been better to put the lefty slugger in over the current hot bat. Well it appears McGehee’s finally cooled off: he’s 2 for his last 14 over this current homestand and has sat in favor of Gamel recently, probably because of the problems he has with his knee.

McGehee might be entering a prolonged slump here. I only say this because he’s a career .283/.340/.429 hitter in the minors and it’s really, really unlikely a 27-year-old would suddenly find his swing. If scouts for the Cubs would have seen this kind of power or discipline at the plate with any kind of consistency, they wouldn’t have placed him on waivers just a few months ago.

Since his knee is still struggling and it’s likely he’s starting to slump at the plate, now is the time to ride Gamel until Casey’s back to 100 percent.

*** The upcoming schedule for the Brewers is incredibly easy and the Cardinals lead just might evaporate pretty rapidly through August. After spending the last couple weeks before the All-Star break playing the toughest and best teams in the NL, they spend the next month and a half taking a break against them. Here’s a quick list of who they play until the end of August:

4 @ Cincinnati
3 @ Pittsburgh
3 vs. Atlanta
4 vs. Washington
3 @ San Diego
3 @ Los Angeles
3 @ Houston
3 vs. San Diego
3 vs. Houston
3 @ Pittsburgh
4 @ Washington
3 vs. Cincinatti
3 vs. Pittsburgh

The only good team the Brewers play until the end of August is LA, and every other series is absolutely winnable. That’s 12 of the next 13 series against .500 or lower teams. With the starting pitching coming back to full strength, I’m not so sure the Brewers need to trade for a pitcher, nevertheless anyone. I’m thinking 14 games against the Padres and Nationals coming up soon might solve some of the sicknesses that have been plaguing Milwaukee since the beginning of the year.

Another thing to consider is that the Brewers essentially started off the season with a 4-9 mark calling for the head of a couple of players. They were patient and waited it out — and were rewarded in May. Let’s wait a little while before panicking for Roy Halladay.

*** Prince Fielder owns.

A lot of people aren’t swooning over Prince as much as I thought they would after bumping up his OPS by over .200 points from last year. His on-base percentage is a whopping .423 — he’s learned to take walks. He’s on pace for about 40 homers. Pitchers are too afraid to throw him strikes now that he just takes the free pass to first — this Dale Sveum hitting philosophy is way better than Jim Skaalen’s.

One more thing I thought about Skaalen: Last year with the Brewers, virtually every single hitter put up mediocre numbers compared to their career norms. After he was subsequently fired, he’s now the coach of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s are currently awfully underachieving due to the offense putting up incredibly mediocre numbers. Is there a coincidence here?

*** Prince Fielder owns.

img courtesy Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

People aren’t giving him enough credit this year for being incredibly awesome. He had a down year last year after his 50-homer season, but has only increased his OPS by 200 points from this year and is getting on base at nearly a .440 clip and is on pace for 40 home runs. Pitchers now fear throwing him strikes with a base open almost entirely and he’s really become a complete hitter.

I don’t think he’ll keep up his .440 on-base percentage; he has a higher batting average on balls in play (BABIP) than he’s had through the rest of his career. But his walk rates are so far up that it’s not inconceivable he could OBP over .410 by the end of the year, which would make him one of the top-5 non-Albert Pujolsian hitters of the game. He’s not getting enough credit for being awesome.

After Fielder signed his 2-year, $18 million contract I questioned his value to the team compared to what other people perceived his value as. He’s since exceeded any expectations I had for him, being a complete hitter and being more than worth his contract. A Fielder for Matt Cain trade I proposed awhile ago would probably have backfired.

Tuesday Techno Fix, 4/7/09

Cody — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:19:41 +0000

I have over 150 new e-mails in my inbox that I simply haven’t had the time to sort through until now due to the lagging computer problems and increased business in school. Some of these releases go all the way back to February, so I’m a little out-of-date. I’ll slowly bring your back into midseason form; just give me a couple of weeks.

Detroit Techno

Duplex released a new tracklist. It’s your average hour-long mix set that will sound excellent assuming you’re in the mood for some Detroit.

Placid released another excellent mix of his entitled 3:03am. Anything I put on here by him is definitely worth a listen.

Here is a cool, awesome new mix too.

IDM

The Chillage Idiots Meets Miles Tillman mix released on March 9th can be taken from right here.

Kyle Cannon has a couple new mixes: a cool techno/deep house mix that I just love and a different mix that I like less but is just as good as the original.

Ambient

The Circular Ruins: Retrospective 2009 is out.

Here is a track by Jacob Newman that needs some press.

Here is a recently-made-free mix by C. Reider and Tarkatak. Check it out.

Oh, and here’s a new Orb-themed blog. Enjoy!

Tuesday Techno Fix, 3/3/09

Cody — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:51:05 +0000

Remember, as usual, all of these mixes are free to download and listen to.

IDM

FMControl released an online album that supposedly took two years to create. The album’s called “Objects 2007-2008,” and it’s really neat; very similar to Autechre during their glitchier days.

Posted below is a video from one of my favorite artists, Blamstrain. Blamstrain is actually Juho Hietala, a Finnish musician who happens to create some of my favorite stuff ever — if you ever see his album Ensi, absolutely pick it up and give it a listen, as it’s some of my favorite stuff ever. Anyways, he released a new track called Galaxy Sports in which he made available in Youtube (in HD! Internet HD video — that’s taking off right now) form so he could be a VJ that reaches out across the world. Oh, and the track is really good too:

Ambient

Mort Deuce released a new little mix, check it out.

Here is a link to a mix released by The Orb. A mix by The Orb? Where have I seen that before?

Techno

Omar S released a new mix. It’s a required download for any techno junkie — Omar S is one of the few guys who you know when you download something you will like. Download directly here.

Here is one of the most underrated mixes I’ve ever heard. This is Detroit techno at its best — slightly minimalist, but still bumpin’. This was done, by the way, by Marco Passarani, a really fantastic DJ in general.

What's the deal with Mark DiFelice?

Cody — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:23:22 +0000

Mark DiFelice is a 32-year-old career minor league pitcher who seemingly can’t find a home, having minor league stints with the Rockies, Orioles, Nationals, Cubs, and now Brewers. So far, he’s been a journeyman minor leaguer who just found his first big-league experience last year in a short 19-inning stint, only getting his opportunity when David Riske got injured.

In his 19 innings with Milwaukee last season, he only put up a 2.84 ERA and a 151 ERA+, which should give him another shot at a cup of coffee, but even the amateur baseball fan knows that 19 innings is a small sample size for any period of pitching time, so the rationale is that DiFelice is an AAA pitcher.

Problem is, he’s not your everyday AAA scrub. He’s a really good pitcher. Last year in AAA, he put up gaudy numbers, which he’s done throughout his minor league career. Last year, in Nashville, he went 5-1 with a 3.22 ERA and 0.90 WHIP, while striking out more than a batter an inning and walking only 1.2. He had a K:BB ratio of 8.13 in AAA last year!

DiFelice is a junkball pitcher, throwing an 87mph fastball as well as a slider (cutter), circle change, and curve. He threw his fastball less than 15 percent of the time in the majors last year. Some have thought hitters will eventually catch up to his lack of an “out” pitch and he wouldn’t be a good option at the major league level, but he’s proven himself at least capable of being a good big-league reliever and if he can at least keep up a really good K:BB ratio he should still be an expendable reliever at least for a year or two.

Let’s say his CHONE or Marcel projections hold to be true. CHONE projects DiFelice to have a 3.41 FIP, while Marcel projections think his walk rates are going to go way up and decrease his FIP to essentially league-average (4.5). I tend to think, at least at the beginning of his big-league career, he’ll be closer to the CHONE projections and be a good pitcher who nobody really knew about. Instead, the Brewers most likely are going to keep Eduardo Morlan who had an FIP of 3.4 in AA last year for Tampa Bay simply because he will have to be offered back to Tampa if he’s not kept on the roster. Morlan is good, and projects to be a future stud in the big leagues, but if the Brewers want to win now they’ll place DiFelice higher up on the food chain than Morlan.

That leaves the bullpen situation looking like this:

Trevor Hoffman
Seth McClung
Carlos Villanueva
R.J. Swindle/Mitch Stetter
Jorge Julio
David Riske
Mark DiFelice

I actually really like that pen. Especially if they keep Tim Dillard and Todd Coffey in AAA. Dillard just isn’t that good, and Coffey could stand to work on his pitches for a little while while being the backup for the pitcher who’s ultimately going to get hurt sometime during the season.

But DiFelice is ready for the bigs. I think he’ll be a great pitching candidate, even if he doesn’t rely on the fastball.

Your Tuesday Techno Fix, Feb. 24

Cody — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:48:23 +0000

Welcome to the first of your two posts today. Check out all this new stuff! Remember, it’s all free to download and check out and not illegal to have!

Techno
Luke Slater released a live mix he played in Glasgow in January. If you’re going to listen to any mix I post today — do this one. It’s 100% rad.

Placid released another mix. The Sounds of Detroit, it’s called, but it’s definitely cool and Detroit-sounding. “Apologies in advance for the sometimes questionable mixing,” he said about it; I don’t care about the technical aspects of it so long as it sounds good. And that it does.

Surgeon released a live tracklist that he played in Leeds. More good stuff.

IDM

Pi.o.tr has a new release entitled Guarded. Cool album.

Idiot Dog Brain released a couple of tracks available for download on his website.

Ambient

Darren Harper released a variant of the Buddha Machine. For those unfamiliar with what the Buddha Machine is, here you go. This is actually a really, really cool variant.

The Orb

The Orb released a new track! OOPA is the name. very ambient and psychedelic, as that seems to be the way that The Orb is going today instead of the dub music that they seemed to hang onto.

Any questions or comments you have, let me know!

Your Tuesday Techno Fix

Cody — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:25:44 +0000

Starting now, on Tuesdays I’m going to put together a little roll of electronic mixes of various genres and types that have recently been released. They’ll always be sorted by genre, and they’re all free to download and distribute, so no worries about this being taken down. If you have something you want me to post, email me at cody at czwief dot com, and I’ll check it out!

Detroit techno new stuff

Echospace – Talking Shopcast Mix: Here’s a little thing released by Echospace last month that’s pretty darn good. You can check out a full interview with the artist here talking about his mix and about a host of other stuff.

Placid released a mix

that’s also worth downloading.

David Powers released

IDM new stuff

Zeno remixed

David Powers

Download those mixes. Let me know what you think.

Monday, Jan. 26

Cody — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:03:03 +0000

Uh oh.

tl; dr version: Prime Brewers shortstop prospect Alcides Escobar’s wife wrote a post on Bleacher Report detailing how Escobar, since getting called up from the minors in the September callup binge, has been abrasive, silent, and big-headed, getting to the point where he skips out on his wife and baby child and supposedly got kicked off the team in Venezuela. He hasn’t made a minor league appearance in winter ball since the end of December, although he’s still on the lineup card.

There hasn’t been any comment from the Brewers organization yet about this, but so far this whole thing needs to be taken with a grain of salt. So far there’s no way to verify it as fact other than the “proof” Leury Escobar “could” verify herself as Alcides’ wife. Assuming the report to be true and valid, it’s a really iffy and unprofessional move to expose this to a half-blog website similar to Deadspin instead of the Brewers organization and/or the police. She didn’t say anything in the report about contacting the Brewers or the league that he plays in, and chances are if management has any shred of respect for decency he would be pulled and demanded to support his child. It’s just common sense to handle things like this internally– the press will get a hold of it somehow if he continues to be an abusive husband.

That’s not to say this post is a total hoax– although it still definitely could be– but there should be some legitimate doubts about the accuracy of this story. Until there’s a newspaper article on it, or there’s comment from players on the team in Venezuela, or the Brewers announce something, I’m inclined to believe that it’s just a hoax. Anyone can put up a picture of Alcides and his wife, claim they’re Leury, and put out a false story in order to get media attention. Don’t worry, old-school professional journalistic cartels, many bloggers are smart enough to realize that it’s not safe to call something true and expand a rumor unless it’s from a totally legitimate source. I want to hear Milwaukee’s and Alcides’ sides to the story.

So far, it’s safe to assume that Milwaukee’s offseason hasn’t gone as planned so far, with “disappointment” being the key word here. I’m not exactly sure what the Brewers could have done differently payrollwise that could have changed more than the fringe of their team– sure, signing Trevor Hoffman was a big purchase, but outside of that, there hasn’t been any room for a major signing or helpful free agent that Milwaukee can work with. Most of that is obviously due to the arbitration increases of some players (Prince’s new 2 year, $18m contract springs to mind), but quite a bit of Milwaukee’s payroll was already wrapped up in long term deals for lesser players who can only be sold for two cents on the dollar in today’s market. It’s difficult to have enough financial maneuverability when you’re a mid-market team with large contracts already on the budget. Milwaukee couldn’t afford Adam Dunn or Juan Cruz because it would make their budget too bloated for today’s unsure economy.

Both Saturday and Sunday I was at the Metrodome volunteering my time at TwinsFest in the Domevision production room, coordinating with the Twins’ main radio network’s “Broadcaster Experience,” a thing where people who pay 10 bucks can go into the press box at the Metrodome and do their best imitations of Dick Bremer or John Gordon, watching the best highlights from the 2008 season and pretending to be a broadcaster. Most of the people doing it were little kids having fun, but there were a few people who tried to be legitimate and use this as a tryout to replace either broadcaster when they retire. Vin Scully, anyone?

Lastly, here’s a youtube for you.

Friday, Jan. 23

Cody — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 05:43:37 +0000

The Brewers are finally starting to do something!

The biggest news of the day comes from Tom Hardicourt. The Brewers have inked a 2-year, $18 million deal with Prince Fielder in order to buy out two years of his arbitration and keep him on the team.

The deal in itself doesn’t sound too bad, as it’s kind of a wash — Prince Fielder rated as about a 2.2 adjusted VORP for 2008. The average win in 2008 was valued at $4.5m. That cost in 2009 might go down due to the struggling economy — unless you’re the Yankees — so Prince’s value can be placed around $9m or so per year. That’s about what he’s worth. Not bad.

However, instead think about this in terms of what these players tend to be worth in the real world. Fielder compared himself to Ryan Howard when originally coming up with an arbitration figure. Last year, an arbitration hearing thought Howard was worth $10 million, and this year, he’s submitting a figure of $18 million. This bloated figure is largely a product of unjustified media hype on a high-strikeout, high-HR lefty with poor defense. They don’t think Prince is quite as good as Howard, however, the comparisons are close enough where during next year’s arbitration, Prince’s salary would climb so high that he would be paid far more than he’s worth. The deal makes sense for Prince, too, because he’s getting this as guaranteed money just in case he unexpectedly loses time due to poor play or injury. It’s insurance for Prince, and good economics for upper management. Other teams might also be more inclined to aggressively try and trade for Prince since his salary is set for the next two years and is less of a wild card because he utilizes Scott Boras as his agent.

As was noted in my pitching preview, Milwaukee’s probably not going to spend any more money. This may be a bit of a rebuilding year/let overpaid contracts die year, but the team’s still not competitive enough to be a playoff contender or threat. Hopefully we can soon rid ourselves of the Suppans and Halls and not get burned a third time. For a mid-market team, to waste that much of your payroll on subpar players won’t get the job done. One of the things I like to see is that owner Mark Attanasio has increased payroll every year since he’s been here, giving a team like Milwaukee a better chance and more leeway to give out bad contract. Florida or Tampa Bay couldn’t give a career 4.7 ERA pitcher like Suppan $44 million over 4 years.

On a different note, over the past year or two, I’ve become obsessed with The Orb. For those unfamiliar with them, The Orb is an electronic music group consisting of Alex Paterson and other guys who have rotated in and out. They started out in the early nineties pioneering ambient house and other dub-induced chillout music. Most of their stuff is ambient, but they tend to go all over the place sometimes, consistently creating fresh, innovative music out of whatever they find. One of their most popular songs, A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld, sampled such things as nature sounds, science fiction radio shows, and Minnie Riperton’s song “Lovin’ You,” for example, and most of their other stuff samples other songs and puts them together nicely.

A different popular song, Little Fluffy Clouds, ripped off an interview with Rickie Lee Jones in their song. Jones got angry and went to court for ripping off her copyrighted material. Eventually they settled, but Paterson has noted fans would go nuts if they found out where the drums came from.

Anyways, being an ambient, downtempo, sample-based band, they have longer mixes and remixes of their songs. On an old internet radio website called Groovetech, The Orb would play a few of these mixes– they came to be called “Thursday Tea Times.” Most were 2-3 hours long and incredibly enjoyable. My boss first alerted me to these mixes — he got a few from a friend, and since he knew I liked The Orb, he sent them along my way. I had four mixes of varying length, and all at terrible quality (96 kbps).

There are more of these mixes. Recently I was able to come across them due to some dumb luck and kindness by an absolute stranger– link to them here. These are my personal favorite pieces of music in the whole world, so get used to them. Download them all and listen to them and buy Orb albums.

The sweet thing is that these guys are still going strong.

New Years thoughts

Cody — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 23:30:45 +0000

While I’m still finishing tinkering this blog, I think it’s about time I start full-out blogging instead of posting here and there. Let’s use this post to outline what you can expect to see in this blog.

Baseball

Primarily I follow the Milwaukee Brewers and, if you’ve been following the last post, you’ll know that I’m halfassedly working on a part 2 and part 3 to the series. I want to wait a bit for more information to fall through though — with Milwaukee’s confirmed interest in Braden Looper, I want to wait a week or two and see how the organization starts to plan ahead 2009′s rotation before I post about it. That’s the problem around Christmastime — baseball is a little bit slow and it’s the first weekend of the NFL wild card. Such is life, I’ll work around it.

Since I live in the Twin Cities, expect some Twins posting as well. You can count me as one of the people who thinks it’s stupid that the Twins are shopping a centerpiece of a trade one year before in order to give more playing time to a speedy outfielder with nothing much else at this point.

Music

Never has there been a more interesting and fun medium for self-expression than music. Over the years, I’ve drifted from liking different genres of music as my personal favorite concepts have shifted. For example, a couple of years ago, I devoured as much 1990s Seattle grunge music as I could because I thought that the main goal of any musical composition was to inflict emotional responses, and there aren’t many bands out there who could possibly come close to doing that.

Over the past couple of years, however, my focus has shifted from the likes of the traditional guitars, drums, and glam to the deeper, fuller sounds of electronic music. Mostly, I focus around ambient and IDM music and its subgenres — read my little blurb on System 7 that I posted last week. To the right is a link to my last.fm page, where you can friend me if you wish. I’ll try to make a band-of-the-week post at least once a week with a couple posts to live performances. Feel free to send me information about a band you think I’d like at cody@czwief.com!

Basketball

In the next couple of months, you’ll for sure hear some NCAA basketball stuff. Usually posts about other sports that aren’t baseball are seasonal only when I begin to care about them. NCAA hoops are my specialty, since I have no real affinity for any NBA team that’s not Golden State*.

*Why I like Golden State over any other NBA team:
1) Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson beating up on Dirk ‘n Co. a couple of years back in the only first-round 8 seed over 1 seed in NBA playoff history.
2) Baron Davis is my favorite player.

I’m an intern for Fox Sports North, so any cool stories I get from the Wild, Timberwolves, or Twins, I’ll be sure and post them here too.