History strikes out

When I first heard that Ben Sheets set the Brewers' career strikeout record today I was a bit surprised. Sheets is twenty-nine years old, has never won more than 12 games in a season and because of arm trouble has not been able to start more than 24 games in a season since 2004. I still think of him (wrongly) as a young pitcher on the rise, so it seemed odd for him to be setting a franchise record. But then I took a look at the Brewers' all-time pitching leaders and it all became clear.

Milwaukee Brewers franchise might have the least impressive collection of pitchers of any franchise that has been around for more than two decades. At least the Expos had Cy Young Petey and the Rangers had Charlie Hough and a few good seasons from Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Fergie Jenkins. The Brewers' career wins mark (117) is held by a man, Jim Slaton, who had a losing record (151-158) in his sixteen year career. Slaton also leads the Brewers in innings pitched, hits, walks (760, an astounding 312 more walks than the number two man, Cal Eldred), earned runs and home runs. Slaton was an all star in 1977 when he went 10-14 with a 3.58 ERA, and in 1982 he was a valuable member of a bullpen that helped the Brewers to an AL Championship. Slaton attended Antalope Valley High School in Lancaster, California, which also produced Frank Zappa, Judy Garland and and 1995 AL ERA champ, Kevin Appier. Sheets, Slaton, Appier, Zappa, and Garland would comprise the best rotation in Brewers' history.

Unlrelated to the pitching, did you know Jeremy Burnitz is the Brewers' all-time leader in slugging percentage (.508) and Jeff Cirillo is tops in batting average (.307) and OBP (.398)? Robin Yount leads everything else.

Yost and McLaren: Out (of the box) and proud

Brewers' manager Ned Yost has decided to bat catcher Jason Kendall ninth this season:

"We've done studies on this," Yost said. "It's not just that we come up one day and say, 'You know, Jason Kendall's gonna hit ninth.'

"You've had a lot of smart people looking at it and crunching numbers and seeing if, numbers-wise, it made sense."

Those smart people decided that batting Kendall ninth, a departure from the conventional baseball wisdom of batting the pitcher in the final spot, did make sense. They thought it gave the Brewers an edge, which should translate into an opportunity to score more runs.

"More runs means more wins," Yost said. "Sometimes, you've gotta get outside the box a little bit."

Mariners' manager John McLaren is not disdainful of Bill James:

"It’s intriguing,” McLaren said of James on Friday, “because I like baseball. New things, out of the box type stuff, you’d have to be foolish not to take a look at it.”

James’ genius has been his ability to shake down stuffed-shirt thinking and change traditional bromides with unassailable numbers. McLaren is taking a similar approach in Peoria.

He contemplates a Seattle batting attack that last season was a case study in inefficiency – the Mariners were last in the league in walks, and despite winning 88 games, were outscored by 19 runs – and he’s drawn some conclusions.