In 2013, power rankings), and have a 4.5 game lead over the St. Louis Cardinals for the division lead in the NL Central. If they didn’t have anything to play for this year, continuing to throw Estrada out there every fifth day would be easy to live with. Since they’re in contention though, handing the ball to arguably the worst pitcher in baseball every fifth day becomes a tougher pill to swallow.

Estrada is pitching for the Brewers tonight against the Washington Nationals, and he may have a good start - the Nats haven’t scored more than four runs in six straight games - but one good outing isn’t enough to keep him in the Brewers’ rotation. It’s time to call-up Jimmy Nelson.

Nelson made a spot start for the Brewers on May 25th this season against the Miami Marlins, replacing Yovani Gallardo who injured his ankle. He threw 5.2 innings, giving up five hits, no runs, three walks, all while striking out six. It was a solid performance, and good enough to earn him his first major league win.

He was sent back down to AAA after his start, and has been pitching well there ever since. In 90.1 innings in AAA this season, Nelson has 96 strikeouts to 27 walks with a sparkling 1.79 ERA. Nelson’s strikeout percentage (K%) is 27.0%, which is best in the Pacific Coast League for pitchers with at least 70 innings pitched. His walks plus hits divided by innings pitched or WHIP, is 0.95 and unlike Estrada, he’s not giving up the long ball (only three in his 90.1 IP). He’s dominating at AAA and he pitched well in the majors against a strong offensive team in the Marlins. Time for him to take over for Estrada.

Based on Estrada’s numbers in 2012 and 2013, he should be capable of being a back of the rotation starter in the majors. His ERA was 3.64 in 2012 and 3.87 last year, with a lower FIP than ERA in both seasons, and he showed the ability to strike hitters out while putting up low walk totals. Maybe the Brewers are looking at his 266.1 innings pitched over these two seasons and not his 89.2 IP this year when considering keeping him as a starter.

I generally always agree that examining a larger data sample is the way to go when evaluating talent, but Estrada’s numbers are so far in the negative extreme this season that his past performance should probably be ignored. The argument can be made that he’s not hurting the Brewers since they have the best record in the NL, but looking at his wins above replacement (fWAR), his rating of -0.8 actually is hurting them, and will only continue to do so if he stays in the rotation. Maybe the Brewers offense is good enough to help mask Estrada’s inefficiencies for the time being - they have scored 49 runs in his 6 wins this year - but they can’t be relied on to bail him out every time he’s on the mound.

Call up Nelson and move on from Estrada before he breaks Bert Blyleven’s record for most home runs given up in a season (50).