Some may see it as merciful, others (like me) will lament the fact there won’t be meaningful baseball in Milwaukee until April. There are now only four games left in the season, which the Brewers will close out with a final game against the New York Mets and then a weekend series against the Reds, who will be resting up for their first playoff appearance since 1995. Just because this game doesn’t mean anything for the playoffs doesn’t mean, however, that it won’t have any implications whatsoever. Draft slots will be up in the air this weekend, so let’s take a look at how the Brewers fit into the draft standings as of right now.

Courtesy of Baseball-Reference

With 75 wins currently, the Brewers can finish anywhere between 75-87 and 79-83. That means that they can’t possibly finish worse than the Indians, who already have 91 losses, and they can’t possibly finish ahead of the Tigers, who already have 80 victories. So that means that the Brewers are guaranteed to finish in the bottom 15 of the league, which is good news in the sense that they will have a protected first round pick in 2011. That means that if they sign a Type A free agent, the most they will be forced to give up is their second round pick, which comes after not only the first round of the draft but the supplemental round. If the Brewers want to go after a guy like Carl Pavano, this means that the costs will be much lower in terms of future draft pick value.

The Brewers are already guaranteed the 15th pick due to their failure to sign Dylan Covey, their 2010 draft pick. The Diamondbacks are guaranteed the 7th pick for failing to sign their first rounder and the Padres are guaranteed the 10th. That means that an 8th-worst finish (“highest” possible) would result in the 9th overall pick. Any finish between 9th worst and 12th worst will be pushed back two spots, and any finish between 13th and 15th worst will be pushed back three spots.

Personally, I think the value of winning these four relatively meaningless games is kind of fuzzy – I don’t think I would suggest tanking, and there’s a chance that a franchise would see a tangible benefit from winning 79 games as opposed to 76 or 77. However, I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to letting September callups see a majority of the playing time in these final four games. Still, the Brewers should be sitting pretty in what looks to be a deep draft, as the Brewers are probably looking at two top-15 draft picks and may even see a top-10 pick if some other teams can find a way to win this weekend.

Realistically: absolutely not. However, Yovani Gallardo probably has a better MVP case than you might think, and it all goes back to these two posts I wrote about Gallardo’s offensive value – a substantial part of his game. Gallardo currently has a .374 wOBA against the pitcher average wOBA of .172. That means that he’s been worth 12 runs above average this season, or about 1.5 WAR as a hitter. Add that onto his 4.9 WAR (according to FanGraphs) as a pitcher, and that puts Gallardo’s value on the season at 6.4 Wins Above Replacement. That’s 0.3 more than Troy Tulowitzki and about one win fewer than Ryan Zimmerman, Joey Votto, and Albert Pujols. Gallardo compares quite well to other MVP candidates and has another start remaining to add some more value, and so while I wouldn’t vote for Yovani as my number one candidate for MVP, he has performed at a level very close to other MVP candidates.

Of course, by that logic, there are other pitchers that we should consider for the award – say, Roy Halladay, Josh Johnson, Adam Wainwright, and Ubaldo Jimenez. Let’s take a look at their hitting lines in the same fashion.

Halladay – 6.8 pitching WAR, .132 wOBA, -0.1 batting WAR, 6.7 WAR total
Johnson – 6.2 pitching WAR, .086 wOBA, -0.3 batting WAR, 5.9 WAR total
Wainwright – 6.2 pitching WAR, .212 wOBA, +0.6 batting WAR, 6.8 WAR total
Jimenez – 5.9 pitching WAR, -0.1 batting WAR, 5.8 WAR total

So Halladay and Wainwright probably have MVP candidacies close to those of Pujols, Votto, and Zimmerman, right in line with Matt Holliday and his under-the-radar 6.8 WAR season, and above Gallardo and Rockies stalwarts Carlos Gonzalez and Tulowitzki.

Now, I know some people consider the MVP award to be a position players only vote, and that’s fine – the awards can mean whatever they want to you or the writers voting on them or anybody else. However, as far as tangible value goes, I posit that Gallardo fits into the top 7 or 8 players in the National League, and given that MVP ballots run 10 deep, I would probably put Gallardo somewhere on my ballot, behind, in some order, Zimmerman, Votto, Pujols, Halladay, Wainwright, and Holliday, and if Gallardo goes nuts in his final start before the end of the season, he could move his way up the list.

With Sunday’s loss to the San Francisco Giants, the Brewers have officially been eliminated from 2010 playoff contention. To say that this has been anything but a disappointing season would be a lie, as the Brewers have been down and out since May, essentially. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy watching, but everybody knows it’s more fun to watch a playoff team.

Let’s take a look at just how depressing 2010 was with the help of a graph. Baseball Prospectus provides playoff odds on their website, and they provide reports dating back to the beginning of the season. Using that, we can produce the following graph detailing the Brewers postseason odds at any point in the season. The overall height of the graph is the overall playoff odds, with the blue detailing the odds of the division and the yellow the extra odds of reaching via the wild card.

The Brewers had a chance in the early going, starting up around a 17% playoff probability and reaching as high as 36% after an okay start at 8-7. Again, after a solid west coast swing put them at 15-16, the Brewers were looking alright, at a 26.1% playoff odds. Then came the nine game losing streak which put the Brewers at 15-25 with a mere 5% chance of making the postseason and enticed me to write this slightly premature “Season Over” post.

The worst was yet to come, as the Brewers went 8-9 until June 7th, famously known as The Exorcism around these parts, sitting at 23-34 and with a meager 0.6% playoff odds. The release of Suppan galvanized the team, who went 11-7 in their next 18 to put a bit of hope back in the team at 3.6% odds, but the Brewers couldn’t capitalize and limped into the all-star break at 40-49 with a mere 0.8% playoff odds, and really, from that point on, it was just going through the motions and trying to figure out who would be around for 2011.

There are bright spots, as former Brewer and current blogger Seth McClung points out in his blog. However, as far as performance on the field goes this season, there was little else but disappointment, and nary a reason for optimism since April. Alas, such is life and such is baseball. Without the lows, where would the highs come from? As long as there’s a team in Milwaukee, I will watch, and I will have hope, and I’ll remain excited regardless of whether or not there’s a reason to be or not.

On July 7th, 2008, the Brewers completed one of the seminal trades in their history, acquiring CC Sabathia in exchange for Rob Bryson, Zach Jackson, Matt LaPorta, and Michael Brantley. Given how magical the 2008 playoff run was, I doubt too many people would undo this trade, but that trade did dent one of the better farm systems in the league at the time. Let’s take a look at how these four players have fared in Cleveland.

Rob Bryson, RP, age 22

Bryson has put up some ridiculous strikeout numbers in the minor leagues. Between both levels of A ball and a stint at AA, Bryson struck out 13.5 batters per nine innings this year in an impressive return after only throwing three innings in 2009. He hasn’t quite looked as good in AA (3.85 FIP), but he’s only 22 and he still looks like he has big time strikeout stuff. However, his value is inherently limited by the fact that he’s a relief pitcher, so unless he turns into a big time closer, the Brewers aren’t exactly missing out on a whole lot of value here.

Zach Jackson, SP, age 27

Jackson is out of the majors, now back in the Toronto Blue Jays system where he has posted a very unimpressive 5.75 ERA and 5.44 ERA in AAA. I feel pretty safe declaring Jackson as done, even though it’s kind of sad to say that about a 27 year old. He just doesn’t have the stuff to strike enough batters out and his struggles with the home run ball are the killer.

Matt LaPorta, 1B/LF/DH, age 25

LaPorta has been simply unimpressive in the majors. Between 2009 and 2010, he’s put together a slash line of .232/.306/.384, and even if you assume his BABIP of .261 will improve (it probably will), he’s not much more than an average hitter. He just hasn’t showed the power that he needs to become an elite hitter, and although there’s still time for breakout, I wouldn’t bet on him becoming much more than an average MLB player. At this point, I’ll take Mat Gamel over him.

Michael Brantley, OF, age 23

Brantley has just been terrible in the majors. He has a .262/.313/.325 line in the majors so far and UZR doesn’t like his defense in the outfield. As such, he’s been worth -0.8 WAR in the majors to date. However, he has solid recent numbers in the minors and he has the tools to play center field well. I certainly wouldn’t give up on him yet, but, as with LaPorta, he certainly hasn’t done anything in the majors yet.

At least so far, the Brewers haven’t lost much due to the Sabathia trade. Throw in that LaPorta was blocked by Fielder, Hart, and Braun, and there was no reason not to do the trade at the time. It looks even better now that the only player in the deal who has been successful to date is Bryson, and he’s still a ways away from the MLB.

Today, against the Astros, the Brewers bullpen pitched 5.2 innings, allowing only an inherited runner on third base to score. That included 1.2 innings from Kameron Loe, an inning each from Mike McClendon and Mark Rogers, and two innings from closer extraordinaire John Axford. Overall, the group struck out three batters, walked only one, and induced an insane 11 ground balls against four fly balls and, most remarkably, not a single line drive.

After putting up 6 runs on Dave Bush in the 5th inning, the Brewers bullpen was effectively unhittable after receiving the call. This just more of what we’ve been seeing over the last 30 days: the Brewers bullpen has a 2.65 ERA over that stretch, and that’s supported by a solid 3.45 FIP and 3.55 xFIP. As a unit, they have struck out over a batter per inning. They’re still walking batters – 4 per nine innings, but they more than make up for it with what is by far the highest ground ball to fly ball rate among bullpens in the league.

Brewers relievers have allowed only 28% of balls in play as fly balls this month while inducing over 56.7% ground balls. The second best GB/FB ratio is the Braves at 1.64; the second best ground ball rate is also the Braves at 50.7%. The Brewers have just been utterly superior at inducing ground balls, and although we certainly can’t be sure that it will continue, it’s a fantastic sign for both the Brewers and pitching coach Rick Peterson.

I’m very excited for the 2011 bullpen. John Axford, Kameron Loe, Zach Braddock, Carlos Villanueva, Todd Coffey, Mike McClendon, Manny Parra, Brandon Kintzler, and more make this Brewers pen one of the highest-potential bullpens and, for at least the past month, one of the most effective bullpens in the league.

Yovani Gallardo’s start against the Chicago Cubs on Sunday wasn’t exactly transcendental, but it’s hard to argue with seven shutout innings, with six strikeouts and only seven baserunners scattered throughout those seven innings. When you throw in that Gallardo doubled and scored the first run in a 2-0 shutout, one could even make the claim that Gallardo basically won the game by himself. The statistic Win Probability Added would back up that statement. A team starts a game with a .500 win probability and wins if they reach 1.00 – therefore a winning team would have a total of .500 WPA in a game. In Sunday’s game against the Cubs, Yovani Gallardo compiled .464 WPA as a pitcher and .055 WPA as a batter, bringing his overall game total to +.519. He won it by himself.

This is not the first time that Gallardo has accomplished this in his career or even this season. On May 28th, Gallardo threw a complete game shutout against Johan Santana and the Mets and went 1-3 at the plate, compiling a total of +.644 WPA, a truly fantastic performance.

One of Gallardo’s more memorable do-it-all performances may be his first start of 2009, against the San Francisco Giants in which he hit a 3-run home run and gave up only 2 runs in 6.2 innings. However, his pitching performance wasn’t quite good enough for his overall line to eclipse +.500 WPA, as he finished at +.427 WPA – a first inning Mike Cameron homer stole some of his thunder.

Staying in 2009, Gallardo just missed the +.500 mark against Atlanta on July 25th, but he did hit the mark on two occasions. On May 25th against St. Louis – the game in which Gallardo dueled Chris Carpenter for eight innings followed by a Bill Hall run-off double in the 10th inning – Gallardo was 0-2 but pitched 8 shutout innings, good for +.531 WPA. His magnum opus of the year came against Pittsburgh on the 29th of April. Once again, Gallardo threw 8 shutout innings, but this time, he also broke the tie, hitting a solo home run off Ian Snell in the seventh inning. Overall, Gallardo compiled a stupendous +.736 WPA in that game.

Gallardo never managed to accomplish the feat in his injury shortened 2008 nor his debut season in 2007, but one can hardly fault him for that. In what has been a fantastic season for Gallardo, this is simply one more item for which to shower praises upon the Brewers young ace. Four times over the last two season, Gallardo has won a game with little or no help from his teammate. That makes him an utterly dominant force, and once again, Brewers fans should be thankful that he will be around until 2015.