Statis-Pro Analysis Confirms Brewers Desperate to Add Starting Pitching (Dodgers 1st, Yankees 2nd, Astros 3rd)

The urgency for the Brewers to pick-up "Thor" (Mets starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard) or some other starting pitching after Dallas Keuchel chose the Brewers is apparent to me as I continue to play off the season with projected player cards in my free Statis-Pro baseball game.

Adjusted for ballparks, the Brewers have one of the better offenses (despite the weaker bottom of the linte-up) and fielding, with one of the top relief corp and base running teams - but ranks as only the 20th best starting rotations. This played out out in a series split I played Sunday that left the Brewers in almost the exact spot in the NL Central as they are in actual play. Even though I use injured players like Jimmy Nelson when I play - playing series after series with all teams just feels like they cannot get to the bullpen with a lead enough unless they add starting pitching.

Here are the two games I played out and the current standings in my game - counting down the final two weeks and who might be picked up. Of the 101,000 who have clicked on my site these first couple of years, more than 11,000 have clicked on this link to how to play the game with another link to the google sheet of all MLB players and likely players.

Most recent Statis-Pro Games and NL Central Standings

Chicago Cubs 4, Milwaukee 1 (Darvish vs. Nelson) - After Yelich singled and scored on a Moustakas single, but bryant and Schwarber drive in runs to make it 4-1 Cubs, the pitching settled  down with Kimbrel getting the save.

Milwaukee 11, Chicago Cubs 7 (Woodruf vs. Lester) Lester took 5-0 lead into 6th, but Brewers hit 4 HRs the final 4 innings (Moustakas 2, Grandal, Yelich) to salvage split and stay just 2 games behind the Cubs in NL Central.

Cubs      27- 21    0

Brewers               22-20     2

Reds      20-22     4

Cardinals              22-26     5

Pirates  16-20     5

Rating all MLB Defenses (Brewers 11th of 30)

As I played the NL Central this week in my current season (all updates and standing here), the first place Cubs avoided a sweep against the Cardinals due to two great defensive plays by two great defenders with Clutch Defense 5 rating - Rizzo (1b) and Heyward (RF).

I calculated who seemed to to have the best Statis Pro cards this season (see Statis Pro card of all players based on projections of all players here) by creating the first table below showing the starting player's CD of 1 to 5 at all eight positions for each of the 30 teams - but multiplying the shortstop rating by five, the third baseman by 3 and the second baseman by 2. The Giants had the best overall CD with 63 of a possible 75(if all eight players were a CD5).

The Dodgers nudged ahead of the Yankees for first and the Astros nudged ahead of the Nationals for third in their overall rating (second table below) that also weighted each team's starting line-up OPS (x4), starting rotation (x2), top six relievers (x1), these clutch defensive ratings (x2) and team speed (x1). (see post on original ratings before adding defense here.

This isn't perfect of course, for example I give only gold glove winners the top rating of "Clutch Defense 5" which means Lorenzo Cain only gives the Brewers the next best rating of "4" at centerfield even though his stats point to him being a 5.

	Team	C	1b	2b	3b	SS	LF	CF	RF	Total CD
1	Giants	4	4	8	15	25	1	4	2	63
2	Cardinals	5	5	8	9	20	4	3	3	57
3	Padres	4	5	10	15	15	2	4	1	56
4	Rockies	3	1	4	15	20	2	1	3	49
5	Athletics	2	4	4	12	20	1	2	3	48
6	Dodgers	3	1	2	12	20	3	3	4	48
7	Indians	4	1	8	6	20	3	2	3	47
8	Yankees	3	1	2	12	20	3	2	4	47
9	Angels	4	1	6	3	20	4	4	4	46
10	Braves	1	4	6	12	10	5	5	2	45
11	Brewers	4	3	4	6	15	4	4	3	43
12	Cubs	4	5	4	6	15	1	3	5	43
13	Rangers	4	1	8	6	20	1	2	1	43
14	Astros	1	1	8	12	10	2	4	4	42
15	Blue Jays	4	4	6	3	20	3	1	1	42
16	Mets	2	1	8	12	10	4	1	3	41
17	Royals	4	1	8	3	15	5	4	1	41
18	Mariners	1	1	2	12	15	1	3	4	39
19	Nationals	1	1	8	12	10	1	1	4	38
20	Pirates	2	1	4	3	15	4	3	3	35
21	Diamondbacks	3	4	2	3	10	3	5	4	34
22	Marlins	1	1	2	9	15	1	2	3	34
23	Rays	4	2	4	3	10	4	5	1	33
24	Red Sox	4	4	4	3	5	4	4	5	33
25	Reds	4	4	2	9	5	2	1	4	31
26	White Sox	1	1	4	12	5	3	2	1	29
27	Twins	3	2	4	3	5	1	4	4	26
28	Phillies	1	1	2	3	10	3	3	2	25
29	Orioles	2	4	2	6	5	2	1	1	23
30	Tigers	2	3	4	3	5	1	1	1	20

Ranking Potential for all 30 Teams Based on Projected Playing Cards for 2nd Half

With the fielding rankings above incorporated into the previous rankings, the following is our current ratings of how good each team's Statis Pro cards look with the Dodgers ranked in first by averaging a ranking of almost 6th in the league once all aspects are averaged together, and the Orioles the worst with an average ranking of just better than 28th of 30.

Overall	Park Neutral Cards	Line-up OPS	rnk (4)	rotation era	rnk (2)	6 relievers	rnk (1)	OBR/SP Rnk (1)	Total CD	rnk (2)	Wt Ave
1	Dodgers	0.817	1	3.72	8	3.54	5	25	48	6	6.2
2	Yankees	0.786	7	3.68	7	3.38	1	12	47	8	7.1
3	Astros	0.813	2	3.99	15	3.7	14	3	42	14	8.3
4	Nationals	0.778	9	3.49	3	3.69	13	4	38	19	9.7
5	Padres	0.764	14	3.88	11	3.57	7	6	56	3	9.7
6	Cubs	0.786	6	3.9	12	3.59	9	24	43	12	10.5
7	Red Sox	0.789	5	3.46	2	3.75	16	22	33	24	11
8	Cardinals	0.783	8	4.1	18	3.74	15	29	57	2	11.6
9	Braves	0.771	11	3.76	9	3.85	20	15	45	10	11.7
10	Indians	0.74	25	3.37	1	3.59	8	2	47	7	12.6
11	Brewers	0.768	13	4.24	20	3.47	4	9	43	11	12.7
12	Angels	0.804	3	4.27	21	4.21	28	28	46	9	12.8
13	Rockies	0.744	21	3.77	10	3.77	17	1	49	4	13
14	Phillies	0.796	4	4.05	16	3.67	11	16	25	28	13.1
15	Mets	0.763	15	3.64	5	3.62	10	20	41	16	13.2
16	Rays	0.752	18	3.67	6	3.54	6	14	33	23	15
17	Giants	0.745	20	4.28	22	3.44	3	26	63	1	15.5
18	Athletics	0.761	16	4.35	24	3.78	18	19	48	5	15.9
19	Pirates	0.759	17	3.92	13	3.69	12	17	35	20	16.3
20	Reds	0.77	12	3.97	14	4	25	18	31	25	16.9
21	Diamondbacks	0.742	24	3.57	4	3.43	2	23	34	21	17.1
22	Twins	0.773	10	4.16	19	3.85	21	27	26	27	18
23	Blue Jays	0.745	19	4.3	23	3.92	24	21	42	15	19.7
24	Rangers	0.714	28	4.05	17	3.85	19	13	43	13	20.4
25	Mariners	0.743	23	4.5	27	4.09	27	10	39	18	21.9
26	White Sox	0.744	22	5.05	29	4.01	26	5	29	26	22.9
27	Royals	0.707	29	4.46	26	3.91	23	7	41	17	23.2
28	Marlins	0.726	27	4.38	25	3.88	22	30	34	22	25.4
29	Tigers	0.731	26	4.61	28	4.32	30	8	20	30	25.8
30	Orioles	0.702	30	5.28	30	4.28	29	11	23	29	27.8