Please feel free to check out Part One and Part Two. 

Now that we understand the power of better baserunning, sacrifice flies, and double play groundouts, I think that we can move on to other runs created exercises, with other areas of production, with hopes of learning the impact of production increases for each player in the Brewers' starting eight.

Keeping with the theme of "little things," I purposefully kept these increases small, with the hopes of drawing further conclusions about runs created (and using runs created) with small increases, realistic increases -- usually within 1% in OBP and SLG categories, and never more than 2%.

To keep things interesting, I eye-balled the statistical lines of 2008, adding and subtracting just a few elements here or there, according to conclusions or general guidelines I put together in the original "Six Questions" appraisal of the offense. Thus, I focused on Hart's HR drop in 2008, Braun's hitting drop, Fielder's 2B drop, Weeks' hitting drop, and Hall's discipline decline (i.e., lower K/BB discipline without the hitting results of previous seasons).

Hardy was an interesting case -- I could not, with an honest mind, project him for any type of improvement, even small, given his luck increase in 2008 (he put fewer balls in play and a higher percentage of those balls in play dropped for hits). So, I turned Hardy into my "counter" case -- I purposefully set him up for a rather large regression, in hopes of seeing how the smaller increases from a few players stacked up against a larger regression from one player.

Outside of the young core, I did a few simple things with Kendall. Cameron was a tough case, given the anticipated playing tiem discrepency between '08 and '09. So, I put together three models: (1) I used his career averages to build a startling regression season; (2) I used his career averages to build a realistic full seaon; (3) I used his 2004 campaign, which was the last full season in which Cameron played in an offensive environment that was near the offensive environment of Miller Park (for this I used Baseball-Reference's AIR index, which is rather intuitive and easy to read and digest).

Here are the results...enjoy!

(1)

Braun (663 PA): .295/.341/.568 (.909) = 107 RC (+.006 OBP, +.015 SLG).

(Braun: +6 H, +3 2B, -2 BB, +2 SB, +2 SF)

(2)

Fielder (694 PA): .282/.378/.520 (.898) = 110 RC (+.006 OBP, +.013 SLG).

 (Fielder: +4 H, +4 2B)

(3)

(4)

Hardy (629 PA): .273/.326/.447 (.773) = 76 RC (-.017 OBP, -.031 SLG)

(Hardy: -5 H, -2 HR, -4 BB, -2 SH, +4 SF, -3 GDP)

(5)

Weeks (560 PA): .239/.348/.412 (.760) = 70 RC (+.006 OBP, +.014 SLG)

 (Weeks: +2 H, +1 2B, +1 HR, +4 SB, +1 CS, +2 BB)

(6)

Hart (657 PA): .268/.298/.479 (.777) = 79 RC (-.002 OBP, +.020 SLG)

 (Hart: +4 HR, +2 SB, -2 CS, -4 GDP)

(7)

Kendall (587 PA): .254/.337/.333 (.670) = 58 RC (+.010 OBP, +.009 SLG)

The results of this survey: from the lowest Cameron estimates for playing time and runs created, to the highest estimates, the Brewers starting eight can be projected to perform anywhere from 4800 to 4806 PA, creating 607 Runs to 620 Runs.

Adjusted for playing time, the lowest runs created projection -- 607 runs -- is pretty much the same offensive output as the 2008 Brewers' starting eight. 620 runs created is basically a runs created increase of 13 runs, which is significant in this model because (a) not all of the gains from the "True Little Things" model (see Part Two) were incorporated, leaving the chance at a few more "here and there" runs created in the shadows behind the main stats; (b) these models include at least one significant regression (Hardy), and standard, average and below average projections for Cameron.

With slight improvements allotted to either Hardy or Cameron, from their 2008 level of production, the aggregate runs created jumps anywhere between 622 to 630 RC; if both Hardy or Cameron improve, that means an aggregate of approximately 633 runs created from the core (these improvements are anywhere between 15 runs and 26 runs above the 2008 core eight).

Remember, all of these improvements occur without assuming any improvement above 2% in either OBP or SLG. In fact, many of the projected improvements were easily between .005 and .015, and hardly any of the projected improvements bumped against the .020 level (Hart's HR correction is the only one that hits a 2% increase).

Marked improvement can occur without break-out seasons, and it can also occur even with a case of one player regressing significantly. Without assuming grand, optimistic positions, we have found scenarios in which the Brewers reach higher levels of runs production from their starting eight. This should favorably shape our opinion regarding the chances of improved runs production, and furthermore, should make our next consideration -- that of break-out seasons -- even more interesting now that we know that the team is not doomed if any of the starters fail to show radical improvement over 2008.