Truly desperate times by Tom H.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And, make no mistake about it, these are desperate times at home for the Brewers.

Manager Ken Macha loosened the pitch-count leash on his starting pitcher Saturday merely to get him into the sixth inning and lessen the burden on an overtaxed bullpen. It didn’t work, with either starter or relief corps, which is how things are going for the Brewers at Miller Park this season.

Letting yet another close game get away in the latter innings, the Brewers’ home woes continued with a 10-6 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies as a second consecutive sellout crowd watched in dismay.

…

Before watching his woeful pitching staff take another beating – the Brewers have surrendered 47 runs during this 0-5 home stand – Macha admitted that continuing to lose games at Miller Park was bad for business, bad for morale, bad for him, etc.

“Our organization is driven by attendance,” said Macha, well aware that the team has no chance for a third consecutive season attendance of 3 million if this madness continues.

Is it just me, or are people really reaching with this team?

It’s the middle of May… the Brewers are 6 games under .500. All it’s going to take is two weeks of hot baseball and the Brewers are right back in it.

And two weeks of hot baseball is just itching to come out. Take a look at the ‘worst’ (keyword: unluckiest) pitching staffs in baseball, sorted by both BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) and HR/FB% (Home Runs/Fly Ball rates). These stats average out to about .300 and around 10.5%, respectively:

5 ‘worst’ pitching staffs, by BABIP:
Brewers – .336
Pirates – .327
Astros – .325
Angels – .322
Diamondbacks – .322

5 ‘worst’ pitching staffs, by HR/FB%:
Diamondbacks – 14.0%
Brewers – 13.2%
Angels – 12.3%
Pirates – 11.7%
Phillies – 11.6%

These will get better. Doug Davis has a .415 BABIP against him, despite having consistent peripherals compared to the rest of this year.

The Crew has had an unlucky month-and-a-half pitchingwise so far. Leave it up to the media to overreact to it. I’d be willing to bet they’ll be over .500 by the end of June.

Numerous times I’ve pointed out on BPL that the Brewers made the right move by not making any major trades for a Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay since the Brewers were blowing smoke and mirrors during their hot stretch at the beginning of the year and they’re too flawed to justify overspending for a band-aid to heal a broken arm.

They haven’t overpaid for any starting pitching yet which tells me they realize they’re more than one egg short of a carton and instead have dealt for two relievers, Claudio Vargas and now David Weathers, in addition to buying Jesus Colome. Brewers relief pitching isn’t that great but is hardly a cause for concern. Not only are the starters much worse and pitch many more innings, but the difference between Trevor Hoffman and Todd Coffey and Chris Smith and Seth McClung is pretty significant. A large difference in quality between your high-leverage relievers and your low-leverage ones might put a dent in your bullpen’s ERA, but it doesn’t actually take much away from their overall quality, since I tend to measure bullpen performance in terms of what guys are performing in high-leverage situations.

So then why did the Brewers go out of their way to get three relievers instead of address the starting pitching they so desperately need?

David Weathers is an old veteran who’s now with his second stint in Milwaukee. He tosses an 88-mph fastball, slider, and changeup, which is pretty typical, and his career 4.24 ERA looks like an average pitcher to bolster the bullpen. This year he actually has a 3.32 ERA, which means he’s doing pretty well for himself in a homer-happy park in Cincinatti.

His peripheral stats are a different story, though. This year’s been a bit different than his normal. His strikeouts and walks have stayed the same, but he’s suddenly developed a home run problem that makes his low 3.32 ERA pretty misleading and his peripheral stats actually worse than past years, so he actually should be getting worse, not any better. He’s sporting an ugly FIP over 5, so we shouldn’t be surprised if he gets much worse as the season progresses and his stats regress to his career numbers. He’s not really an upgrade over what they have right now, and he’s a little pricey for a reliever anyways, so the move definitely doesn’t make much sense if the Brewers are planning on contending this year.

Read what Weathers had to say about it:

“I had no idea; it was a total shock,” said Weathers when reached by telephone. “I’m excited. I loved it when I was in Milwaukee and I’m excited to be coming back.

“I know the Brewers are still in the race and that’ll be fun. I haven’t pitched as much as usual this year so I feel really fresh. I feel like I can finish the season strong.

“I know a lot of the guys there and I’m ready to get out there with them.”

See why the Brewers got him? The pen has been overworked by anyone’s standards and a fresh arm is just what they need so they can get some R&R the rest of this season.

Jesus Colome was a DFA pickup after getting released by the Nationals after sporting an ugly 7.88 ERA and a WHIP of nearly 2 in 16 innings for the Nationals. 16 innings really isn’t really a big enough sample size to judge one pitcher, but he’s been a career 4.62 ERA pitcher with a poor strikeout to walk ratio and a seemingly average-to-poor reliever that Doug Melvin just loves to grab from the scrapheap. He can be counted on to eat some innings since he’s had a nice extended break this season and has only pitched a few innings.

Claudio Vargas is another ex-Brewer coming back for his second stint with the club. Considering he wasn’t doing much with the Dodgers and it only took a backup career catcher at best to get another fresh reliever on the club, it wasn’t a bad move to try and keep the rest of the bullpen rested for the stretch. Claudio used to start for the Brewers and would always frustratingly nibble on the outside corner, and lots of walks and poor pitching in general is what makes up Milwaukee’s starting rotation is something the Brewers tend to gravitate towards so he’ll be able to spot start whenever necessary.

Milwaukee hasn’t really upgraded their pen any by gathering a few middle relievers who sport frustrating ERAs, and the Crew have only fallen out of the race further, being 6 games back with 51 to play, their furthest back in quite some time. I suspect all three of these moves are related just to give the bullpen a break and provide Ken Macha with some more flexibility in the 6th and 7th innings. I don’t think it’s an attempt to bolster the bullpen for a playoff run.

Over the offseason I spoke briefly about Jorge Julio shortly after he signed with the Brewers for a one-year, $750k deal. I said that I approved of the deal, as the price was right and the Brewers were probably going to be smart enough to use him in non-leverage situations since he’s made an entire career out of blowing late-inning games in being generally really frustrating. Last night, Ken Macha made the mistake of putting him on the mound in the 6th inning of a 4-2 ballgame. Of course, after a single, HBP, walk, error, a should-have-been error, and another HBP later, Julio cost the Brewers the lead and ultimately the ballgame; Todd Coffey came into a bases-loaded, no out jam and only gave up two more runs to give Julio 4 earned runs (and 5 total) in no innings to bring his Brewers ERA to 7.79 on the year.

Due to tonight’s performance Julio now has more walks than strikeouts this year and seems more out-of-control than he normally is. Including his hit batsmen, he’s now allowed 19 men to reach base and has accompanied that with only 13 strikeouts. His strikeouts are down, his walks are up, and he’s had two months now to figure something out. Perhaps Macha’s erratic use of Julio prevented him from getting into a groove. Maybe he’s just pitched poorly to start out the year. Either way, he’s done terribly and has been a black hole in the Brewer bullpen. Here’s what some notable Twitter accounts had to say about Julio:

Fake Ken Macha:
“The truth is that I found out Jorge Julio is on Tony La Russa’s fantasy team”
“I figured if Suppan was doing alright, maybe the laws of goodness and badness had reversed themselves. Turned out I was wrong.”
“LOOK AT ME! IM TAKING OUT ALL THE GOOD PLAYERS AND PUTTING IN JORGE JULIO!! I’MMMM CAAARAAAAAYZAYYYYYYY”

Tom Haudricourt
“Jorge Julio faces six hitters and record no outs. Marlins fans might call that returning to the scene of the crime.”

WI Sports Page
“Why in god’s name did Macha put Julio into a 2 run game?”
“Big surprise, the 1st 2 batters Julio faced have now scored and the bases are still loaded.”
“Macha gave this game away by putting in Julio. I am so pissed. And julio hits a batter for another run.. 5-4 Marlins”
“I swear Macha called Yost before the game and asked who he would use in a tight ballgame. There is no other explanation for Julio going in”

P.S.: Since we’re on the subject of Twitter, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter. I’m cool and I don’t spam…much. I’m cool.

Anyways, it’s obvious that at this state, Julio has no business being on a major league roster. The problem with Julio is that he isn’t good, so Macha’s relegated him to mopup duty. Unfortunately, he’s not even good at that, since due to his high walk and strikeout totals he can only manage to throw two innings before he hits 40 pitches. He has little use on a Brewer roster that has a good enough bullpen to be able to hold the role of a one-inning guy, and with R.J. Swindle continuing to tear it up in the minor leagues, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that Julio might not deserve a roster spot anymore.

Swindle’s had a high ERA in the bigs himself so far this year but it’s pretty deceptive and a small sample size to boot. Hitters are batting over .500 on balls put into play, and he hasn’t even pitched three innings. In AAA, he’s dominated this year with a 2.54 FIP, a strikeout per inning, and only 7 walks in 22 2/3 and zero home runs. He could serve as a second useful LOOGY but even then his splits against righties aren’t too bad. A homegrown R.J. Swindle and Mark Difelice bullpen in the 8th would be unstoppable if they each got to face their respective hitters on their own sides of the plate. Wouldn’t calling up the better pitcher and jettisoning the poor one be the best move here?

In other news, Mike Cameron left the game with “left knee irritation.” Let’s hope he’s not out long, that would definitely be brutal…

The news came out last night that Trevor Hoffman is on track to join the Brewers after tossing 18 pitches in a rehab assignment for Triple A Nashville in a successful outing. He should be on track to join the team this weekend in Houston if all goes according to plan.

As with any other reliever coming off the DL, this leaves the Brewers with a little bit of a decision to make as to who they demote back to the minors when Hoffman makes his next big-league debut. The most logical choice is R.J. Swindle, the LOOGY brought up when David Riske hit the DL last week, solely because he was the last man brought up to the team and should be sent down since he still has options remaining before he has to stick with a big-league team. Besides, the Brewers already have a LOOGY ready to go with the name of Mitch Stetter, so keeping Swindle is overkill.

Not so fast. Swindle is most likely going to be one of the most effective relievers the Brewers would have on the team. But how? He’s a lefty sidearmer with a fastball that tops out around 85 mph as well as a cutter, changeup, and my favorite pitch in the game, a 55 mph grandma curveball that’s sure to make even the most patient hitters walk the dog and take a nap before swinging at it. His cutter and changeup both stick in the 70 mph range. He has no dominant pitch. Despite this, he still has posted a career 2.32 ERA in the minors along with a spiffy 1.85 FIP that would make any team in need of a closer (hmm…who needs a closer right now?) salivate.

People tend to assume that Swindle is a LOOGY as well due to his awkward sidearm delivery. It’s true, he does get lefties out at an astounding rate (quick minor league numbers vs. lefties: 52 2/3 IP, 92 K, 9 BB, 0.55 FIP), he can also get righties out at a decent enough rate to justify keeping him in the lineup against them. He has more experience fighting off righties, tossing nearly 100 innings and putting together a sweet 6:1 K/BB ratio and a 0.98 WHIP and only 4 HRs in that same span. This guy is for real, as in a not-insignificant sample size he’s able to throw a 2.54 FIP to right-handed hitters and an incredible way of dominating lefties, and at 25 years old, he may not need any more seasoning in the minors anymore.

But how in the world can a lefty who can barely touch 85 on the gun be so effective? Shouldn’t hitters be able to catch up to his stuff sooner than later and turn him into a scrub in the span of a few games?

One of the things that Michael Lewis’ Moneyball touched on was pitcher deception. A pitcher’s raw stuff never equates to success in the major league level, but instead is correlated to how well you can deceive a hitter. To prove this point, they used pitcher Chad Bradford, a right hander with uninspiring stuff but an awkward delivery that caused hitters to think twice about the pitch and that slowed them down just enough to make Bradford effective. Swindle appears to be that type of pitcher; his fastball goes up and in to left-handed hitters and his awkward delivery screws with the hitter just enough to keep them on their toes. When scouts say he doesn’t have the stuff to stay on a major league roster, I’m inclined to disagree until I see him consistently be terrible in action.

But the opportunity for a dominant pitcher is just too great to ignore here.

Besides, there are much worse pitchers period that the Brewers could send down to Triple-A instead of Swindle. Jorge Julio is a prime example of everything that is wrong with Brewers pitchers right now: high ERA, high walk totals. His tmiserable 5th inning helped Philadelphia break the game wide open and Julio is notorious for blowing up the bases with free passes and that’s what made Julio a replacement-level pitcher over his career.

Dropping Jorge Julio would unquestionably make the Brewers a better team right now, but it’s not that simple. Swindle has minor league options remaining while Julio was signed on as a free agent at the beginning of this year and in order to get Julio off the 25-man roster he would either have to be placed on waivers or DFA’d outright, which means that he would likely not be a Brewer for much longer. This would be another hit to the depth of an already-depleted bullpen suffering from injuries enough as it is. There isn’t any additional depth in Triple-A.

Despite all this, I’d still be quite alright with sending Julio to waivers. Money’s not a big deal, since Julio doesn’t hit $1 million, and another replacement-level pitcher can be found in Triple-A. Not to mention that a scrub at Triple-A like Tim Dillard will knowingly be placed in mop-up duty and take less high-leverage innings away from awful pitchers like Julio. If tonight’s 5th inning was pitched entirely by R.J. Swindle I’m pretty sure there wouldn’t have been a 4-pitch walk to the pitcher. Walks are bad, mmkay?

So what do you think? Keep Swindle and DFA Julio? The other way around? Send down someone else?

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.

The Brewers made the playoffs for the first time in 26 years mostly off of the pitching staff’s second-half excellency. It’s been well-documented how incredible CC Sabathia was, so we don’t hear that again. With the loss of Sabathia and (assumingly) Sheets to free agency, the rotation is going through a major change (and downgrade). Let’s take a look at the projected pitching staff and figure out just what we can expect from them in 2009.

Starting pitching

Last year’s starting pitching was obviously anchored by two of the best starters in the game. They are now gone. Doug Melvin has done nothing to try and replace those guys, but instead is relying on his young pitching staff to recreate their performance. Let’s break down the projected rotation starter by starter.

Yovani Gallardo
Gallardo was injured for most of the year, as everyone knows, so his contributions to the club were minimal in 2008. Luckily his problems were entirely related to a freak play where he hyperextended his ACL and not a continual arm problem due to poor mechanics or overuse. He threw only 24 innings the entire year, including a 4-inning stint to start off the 2008 postseason for Milwaukee.

He throws a low-90s fastball with an excrutiating curveball and good slider. A young, cost-controlled, three-plus-pitch pitcher with little to no injury history due to mechanical problems? Sign me up.

Projections for Gallardo vary wildly to the point where one could project any combination of innings pitched/ERA and it’d be a reasonable projection based on one of the three main ways numbers are determined (Bill James, CHONE, and Marcel projections). For example, Bill James expects Yo to throw nearly 200 innings of wonderful ball, with more Ks than innings pitched and a 3.15 FIP ERA. Marcel, on the other hand, doesn’t think he’ll appropriately rebound from his injury last year, and will throw 79 good innings with a 3.65 FIP ERA. 79 innings means he’s either injured, demoted, or both; judging by the numbers he’s going to put up, I don’t see him getting sent down to AAA for seasoning any more.

While most people think of “projections” as what experts and computers “think” a player is going to do, that’s not actually true. Projections are merely a mean of “what-if” seasons played. For example, if you imagine a million hypothetical Brewer seasons next year, it’s possible that Gallardo throws 220 innings with a 2.65 FIP ERA and 11 K/9. It’s also possible that Gallardo has continual arm problems through the year and struggles mightily with only 60 innings and a 5.5 ERA. It’s a projection based on average seasons, so these things are inaccurate. With that said, we can reasonably expect Yovani Gallardo to be Milwaukee’s #1 starter in 2009.

Manny Parra
Parra emerged last year as a legitimate #3 starter behind Ben Sheets and CC Sabathia, posting pretty good numbers, except for his high walk totals. Last year, Parra was doing pretty well until his final few appearances of the year, which may have been related to fatigue, as he had a substantial innings-pitched jump from 2007 to 2008. Usually anything over 25 additional innings pitched in a year is cause for concern, because not only is the pitcher deflated, it also leads to poor mechanics which makes for a high injury risk.

Last year, Parra threw 166 innings, which is far more than he has at any point in his career, which is a bit concerning to me because he came off rotator cuff surgery in 2005. What’s most concerning about Parra is that he’s had only one other season of 100+ IP since joining the minors, so his workload is a little concerning, especially since rotator cuffs have a tendency to reoccur. Projections for Parra don’t get any higher than 150 innings, so it’s imperative that Milwaukee has depth at starting pitching as it’s not unlikely that Parra will go down sometime throughout the year with a major injury or a reirritation of his rotator cuff.

I also don’t like the mechanics he displays in this picture don’t make me too happy, either. There’s too much stressed being placed on his shoulder when he whips it around. That tells me that I might see more headlines of “Shoulder soreness lands Parra on DL” than I’d like to see.

Jeff Suppan
Jeff Suppan is Milwaukee’s version of the overrated, overpaid pitcher who gained instant credibility due to a good run pitching in 2005′s playoffs for the St. Louis Cardinals. Hidden behind that small stretch of good pitching, however, is an “innings-eater,” which, in other words, means a below-average pitcher with a rubber arm who is only out there because he’s dependable. It’s kind of like sending Brett Favre out to play with the Jets — he might be good, he will probably be bad, but you know he’s going to go out there and play. Whether or not you’re satisfied with 22TD and 22INT in a season is up to you to decide.

Considering the state of 2009′s rotation, I don’t mind seeing Suppan in there at all. Losing CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets and keeping Suppan in the rotation is obviously a blow, but it’s not as if the Brewers have the immediate resources to compete in 2009 anyway, so having a below average starter who will post around a 4.7 ERA while tossing 200 innings in a transitional period isn’t the biggest cause for my concern. Unless, of course, we can pawn him and his contract off to a sucker team who thinks that he’s above average. But I don’t think that’s likely, because everyone who’s well as anyone knows that Suppan is what he is– a rubber arm who can give you 175-200 innings a year, which is still a valuable commodity to have.

Dave Bush
Comparing 2008 with his other major league years, Dave Bush had a career year in 2008. He posted a 4.18 ERA in 185 innings last year, including a great stretch run that helped propel Milwaukee to the postseason. Dig a little bit deeper, though, and it’s clear that his season was very lucky and fluky.

Despite Bush’s lowest ERA of his career since his short stint coming up from AAA with Toronto in 2004, his FIP was the highest it’s ever been. His low ERA was largely driven by an incredibly low .245 BABIP last year, which over the course of two seasons should be impossible since his LD% has been fairly consistent at just below 20%. His BABIP should be on the other side of .300, and an extra 70 points (or more, if he’s unlucky) on opposing batters would make an incredible adjustment to Bush’s actual pitching performances.

Even more, Bush’s ground balls were down and fly balls were up in ’08. More fly balls will generally mean more home runs, and since Bush pitches to contact and doesn’t strike many out, he will need to rely on the ball staying in the park more often, so the more ground balls, the merrier.

Hopefully Bush will continue on his hot stroke of luck, but I doubt it. Instead, he should work on either striking out more batters or working on his home run ratios. Having Mike Cameron in the outfield will unquestionably help him with his BABIP, thank goodness. His lucky year last year is netting him a nice payday.

Seth McClung/5th starter

Milwaukee hasn’t officially designated a 2009 rotation yet, and the 5th spot has been mysteriously vacant so far all year. Nobody in the minors is ready to make an appearance in the big leagues, but Tom Hardicout made a subtle hint that Seth McClung might be next year’s 5th starter simply because he left McClung out of his bullpen preview.

McClung would probably make the most sense to fill the vacant 5th starter spot out of everyone remaining, as he was a starter with the Devil Rays before coming to Milwaukee and has experience starting baseball games. Carlos Villanueva also has experience starting, but by now Milwaukee has found a place for him in the bullpen simply based on his small sample size of doing well in the 7th inning.

McClung was given a chance when he was incredibly young with the Devil Rays and posted abysmal results. Hitters were able to tee off on him when they were able to tell differences in his mechanics while pitching. An excellent analysis of McClung was already posted on Brew Crew Ball analyzing his performance and why it changed from the 6.00 ERA guy originally found on the old teams of Tampa Bay.

Since coming to Milwaukee and he’s shored up his delivery, he’s turned into quite the acceptable pitcher. His FIP ERA was at about 4.5 over a not-insignificant 105 innings, which is pretty good. He strikes out his fair share of batters, but walks far too many to be a truly legitimate #3 starter. One of the problems that will plague Chucky throughout the rest of his career as a starter will be his tendency to walk and strike out many a batter, thus making his pitch count not efficient enough to throw more than 6 or 7 innings. If you don’t mind pretty consistent 5IP games, McClung is your guy to fill the back end of that rotation.

Overall, the starting rotation is going to enter 2009 with a lot of question marks and not a lot of depth. Yovani Gallardo is coming off a major injury after logging a very few amount of innings last year– remember, in 2007, Gallardo had to be shut down near the end of the year because he had eclipsed the proverbial innings limit for a young pitcher. Milwaukee still has to worry about the strength of their young stud after posting only 24 innings the year before. He isn’t quite ready to become the team’s ace yet.

Also, McClung isn’t going to be able to log very many innings due to his high pitch counts, and Suppan/Bush just aren’t very good. With no depth in the organization outside of bullpen necessity Carlos Villanueva or Tommy John Surgery rehab guy Chris Capuano, Milwaukee will be searching for some depth in case of injury or poor performance from the scrap heaps of Triple A or the literal scrap heaps of pitchers who didn’t get signed.

One more thing to worry about for the season: with all of the high pitch counts (McClung, Parra) and poor, wild card pitchers (Bush, Suppan), tat most likely means that the bullpen will be overtaxed at different periods of time as the pitching staff hits a rough spot during the season– if normal 5-6IP starters have a bad outing, that means they’ll be limited to 4-5 innings through rough stretches, and it’s not going to be nice if a bullpen like the Brewers has to throw 4-5 innings by themselves over a period of a couple of weeks. Poor starting pitching ultimately harms the bullpen just as much as the team.

The bullpen
2009′s bullpen is going to be very similar to last year’s as both are a consortium of spare parts and dejected major leaguers looking for a new home. Take a look at the comparisons: each bullpen has a large free agent signing with the intention of taking over the closer’s role (08: Eric Gagne 09: Trevor Hoffman), each has former pitchers ridiculed for their performances even though it was probably their manager’s fault for placing those pitchers into high-leverage situations in the first place as they don’t have the talent to be a big guy in the bullpen (08: Gulliermo Mota 09: Jorge Julio), and a general consortium of average to below-average pitchers thrown together from scrap heaps in hope that they will perform acceptably.

Thus, there are not many returning bullpen members, with the losses of Eric Gagne, Brian Shouse, Gulliermo Mota, and Salomon Torres. To replace those guys, we’ve gotten Trevor Hoffman, R.J. Swindle, and Jorge Julio to shore up the bullpen along with Todd Coffey as an addition from the end of last year.

Hoffman is Hoffman (and MUCH better than Gagne, thank God), and R.J. Swindle is more than enough of a replacement for aging, expensive Brian Shouse; seriously, when Ryan Howard is up with the bases loaded and 2 out in a one-run ballgame in the 7th, you’re going to be glad Ken Macha went with Swindle instead of Carlos Villanueva. He murders lefties. Jorge Julio is an average pitcher who has succumbed to teams thinking he has more talent than he actually has and therefore will be a serviceable reliever as long as he’s relagated to low-leverage situations or games where it’s not all that close. David Riske is coming back from an injury-plagued year last year where he just couldn’t quite get to full form seemingly all year, but early on in the season performed acceptably as a reliever.

Riske is definitely overpaid for a middle relief guy (3 years, $13m plus a 2011 option and incentives) who you can develop through the minors or pick up for cheaper on a free agent market, but he’s still good to have on the team. I could easily see Riske becoming the 8th inning guy for Ken Macha, keeping Hoffman in the closer’s role and Villanueva in the 7th inning spot. That bullpen isn’t half bad, and when your better relievers are set for the high leverage situations while guys like Julio or Coffey aren’t, the bullpen should be slightly improved in 2009. Whether or not they crumble from overuse due to short starting pitching stints remains to be seen. I don’t want to see Riske getting injured in 2009– I’d want to run him out of town then.

The overall pitching line of Milwaukee doesn’t sound too bad, however, the depth and reliability of the rotation leaves quite a bit to be desired. The difference between the rotation when it’s healthy and when it’s not is contention for a playoff berth, so the health of the rotation is crucial in determining the result of the 2009 Brewers. It’s not going to be surprising, though, if someone gets injured and Milwaukee starts giving up 10+ runs more than it should.

It’s about time Suppan earned his huge contract as well. It’s time to earn their paychecks one more year.