While a Yovani Gallardo reprise is neither big nor exciting, it does serve as a cheap, effective way to shore up the back of the rotation and replace Matt Garza, as Nicholas Zettel argued at BPMilwaukee. But the Brewers’ other addition, Jhoulys Chacin, has a bit more wild card in him, and at the price of $7.5 million for two years could turn out to be a bargain signing.

It’s easy to look at Chacin’s spotty career to date, or his home/away splits in 2016, and prematurely call this signing a bust. After all, Chacin was only good at home in 2016, and he’s making just about the most extreme pitcher’s-park-to-hitter’s-park transitions that a pitcher possibly can. But this is a lazy, surface reaction. Chacin is an eight-year veteran, and he has posted better numbers at home throughout his entire career, including the five years he called Coors Field, aka The Ninth Circle of Pitcher Hell, home. How can you explain that? Sometimes, home/away splits reveal a great sabermetric truth. Sometimes, a dude just likes pitching in front of his home crowd better.

Meanwhile, another thing Chacin has been for his entire career is a groundball pitcher. His single-season ground-ball rates range from 40 percent to 51 percent, and he’s at exactly 50 percent for his career. Both times that he failed to pitch to replacement level he did so with a groundball percentage of less than 45 percent. If he avoids that he’s good, though. He’s exactly the type of pitcher who can survive in a homer-drunk home park like Coors or Miller, and his evolution as a pitcher in 2016 and 2017 further supports this.

Last year, the Padres experimented with Chacin’s repetoire. His fastball was largely shelved, and he upped the usage on his sinker to compensate:

With the sinker as his primary pitch-to-contact weapon Chacin is, without a doubt, a more effective weapon on the mound. His bread and butter when he’s been successful has been getting ground ball outs. The sinker is unmistakably more effective at doing that than his fastball ever was:

Chacin’s worm-burning sinker is complemented by one of the most beautiful sliders in the game. If the sinker is the pitch-to-contact offering, the slider is his strikeout pitch, and he loves to use it to make hitters look bad:

Is it any wonder that when Chacin started throwing more of that, he turned from back-end flotsam to a useful rotation piece? He’s hardly the first star-crossed pitcher to finally put it together after his thirtieth birthday, and a look under the hood tells us that there was very little luck involved in that. He’s a homebody, but the sabermetrically-inclined Brewers can turn that into an advantage, too, manipulating their rotation and using the depth available to pitch Chacin at Miller Park as often as possible. If Coors Field wasn’t a problem for him, Miller Park won’t be a problem.

Journeyman starters north of thirty aren’t the sexiest signings a team can make, but finding useful pieces on the cheap is what this offseason is all about. Throwing his most effective pitches most often, and pitching at home as often as the team can swing it, Chacin will be in the best position to succeed that he has ever been in. He might not inspire the immediate oohs or aahs that signing someone like Jake Arrieta would, but if the Brewers use him properly he could be a big part of a 2018 playoff run.

Photo Credit: Aaron Doster, USAToday Sports Images

Because of this, the centerfield job should be somewhat open to competition when the players report next spring. It should not be, by default, an opportunity to develop Lewis Brinson at the MLB level. If one player improves his game significantly during the next few months, then comes to Arizona as a brand-new ballplayer, that absolutely will change things. If that player is Brinson, great! But if that doesn’t happen, there’s another answer that the team should consider: a traditional right/left platoon between Broxton and Phillips. (While this scenario will consider Broxton and Phillips, it should not be construed as a dismissal of Lewis Brinson’s place on the roster. Rather, it is a recognition of the fact that a team contending for the playoffs should prioritize building a championship MLB roster over everything else, and that now applies to the Brewers.)

Phillips, who bats left-handed, has already shown the beginnings of a strong platoon tendency. Forecasting this off of 98 plate appearances is far from exact, and should thus be taken with a grain of salt, but Phillips’ OPS against right-handers in 2017 was .855; against lefties it was .311.

That might not be enough to establish a pattern but it’s certainly a trend that bears watching. Still, an .855 OPS in 87 plate appearances at the top level is impressive. When it comes attached to a base-stealer who plays elite defense, that’s even better.

Phillips’s struggles against lefthanders might be a small-sample-size mirage, or his swing-and-miss issues could be further exploited as pitchers learn how to attack him. If either of those comes up they can be addressed then, and not now when they’re nothing but hypotheticals. Plans can always change. But the Brewers have a perfect candidate in-house to fill out the other side of the platoon, so why not take advantage of the setup?

Keon Broxton’s role with the team has been a point of discussion for a while, but limiting his exposure to right-handed pitching might just be the answer to maximizing his value while minimizing his problems. Phillips doesn’t have enough MLB experience to generate a platoon splits graph on his BP player page, but Broxton does:

For his career, Broxton has a slash line of .286/.406/.500, with a .315 True Average, against southpaws. Turn the pitcher around and those numbers all fall off a cliff, to .210/.315/.379 and .250. BP’s defensive metrics graded Broxton as costing the Brewers just shy of seven runs in 2017, but he’s graded positively by those same numbers dating back to 2014 in the minor leagues. Plus, Broxton’s defense passes the eye test with flying colors:

Broxton’s baserunning aptitude is what truly sets him apart, though. He was the 27th-most valuable player in all of baseball by that metric in 2017. His exit velocity numbers, too, paint a picture of a ballplayer who could be elite in the right circumstances. By platooning him with Phillips and limiting his exposure to right-handers, who keep him off the basepaths at a critical rate, the Brewers are optimizing his ability to make a positive contribution and minimizing his chances of getting dragged into a vortex of failure.

As if the strategy wasn’t appealing enough already, Phillips and Broxton both have skill sets that make them valuable off the bench, too. Whichever one doesn’t start can be used as a pinch runner, defensive replacement, or pinch hitter against an opposite-handed reliever.

The National League Champion Los Angeles Dodgers have employed platoon splits heavily since Andrew Friedman was hired as general manager, and it is a huge reason they have been so consistently excellent. Putting your players in the best position to succeed is what every team’s management personnel and front office strive towards. The Brewers have an opportunity to do just that from the get-go with their two center fielders in 2018.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USAToday Sports Images

Rehabilitation from the shoulder surgery Nelson underwent last month will keep him out of action for most of the 2018 season. If he comes back at all next year, it will likely be in September, after rosters expand. The same thing happened with Boston and David Price this past season, and the Red Sox used Price as a reliever this year rather than get him stretched out to pitch deep into games that close to the playoffs. It’s not unlikely that the Brewers will follow a similar plan of action with Nelson. With this in mind, where are the Brewers going to find four pitching wins for the 2018 season? If Milwaukee wants to get over the hump and participate in October baseball next year, it’s not a question that can be ignored.

Given that the wounds are still fresh from the last three times Milwaukee signed free agent starters and ended up with Randy Wolf, Kyle Lohse, and Matt Garza, the Brewers might decide they would rather explore the possibility of trading for a starting pitcher who is set to hit free agency after the 2018 season. A short-term rental would, naturally, come with a more modest cost in terms of prospect compensation in a trade than a player under team control for years. But the looming return of Nelson, plus the development of Milwaukee’s young pitching prospects, mean that the team might not need this rent-a-player beyond 2018. The Brewers’ farm system has been built deep for exactly this reason.

The Quiet Options

These two pitchers are longtime MLB veterans who have never put up a season of 3.9 wins. However, their situations couldn’t be more perfect for a trade to a team like the Brewers. Milwaukee could acquire either or both of these guys cheaply, and try to make up the difference in WARP elsewhere on the roster.

J.A. Happ

Happ is turning 35 years old and is part of an aging Toronto core that stumbled to a finish behind both Boston and New York this past season, missing the playoffs entirely. The lefty has aged with a grace rarely seen in big-league players. His career trajectory has gone from “Rookie of the Year runner-up” to “fifth starter on a last-place team” to “serviceable veteran mid-rotation option,” all the way to a peak in 2016 when Happ’s 20-4 record, 3.18 ERA and 1.17 WHIP gathered him 14 votes for the American League Cy Young.

Happ’s ERA and WHIP regressed back toward the average in 2017, but not by much, while his DRA and FIP both settled into the respectable 3.70-3.75 range. Happ also struck out nearly a batter per inning and he’s had a BB/9 below 3.0 for four consecutive seasons now. Meanwhile, in an fascinating reversal of expectations, Happ has actually gained velocity as he’s aged:

Happ’s surface stats weren’t Cy Young-competitive again 2017 but he was worth three PWARP, a career high. And unless the Blue Jays plan to spend wildly on replacing their aging offensive core, selling Happ’s final contract year makes a ton of sense for them, even if his age, contract status, and unsexy history mean he’s not going to get a ton on the trade market. The Brewers easily have enough redundancies built into the farm system to part with something for Happ that Toronto can feel good about themselves for adding to the franchise, without doing any serious damage to the team’s long-term plan.

PECOTA likens Happ to a post-2013 John Lackey, which falls short of replacing Nelson but does come awfully close. Then again, he’s also closely comparable to Kyle Lohse after his first Brewers’ season. That’s not a road any of us want to drive again.

Jason Hammel

While Happ is about to turn 35, Hammel passed that milestone just as the 2017 season was drawing to a close. His best years came in the NL Central with the Cubs in 2014 and 2015, though he took a step back in 2016. Last year, pitching for the Royals, Hammel put up an ugly 5.29 ERA that both DRA and FIP agree shouldn’t have crossed that 5.00 milestone. The thing is, if it’s a stretch to imagine J.A. Happ replacing Nelson’s production, it’s a hallucination to picture Hammel doing it. He’s a twelve-year veteran with nine career pitching WARP, and the 2.9 he posted for Baltimore in 2012 is his season high.

Those trying to look at similar players for an insight into his history won’t have much luck. Hammel’s PECOTA similarities run the gauntlet from 2011 AJ Burnett–who still had a pair of five-win seasons chambered–to 2016 James Shields, who might have been one of the most ineffective pitchers to ever start 33 games in a year. Even Ben Sheets makes a cameo–the 2013 version, which was the version that retired before he could pitch that year.

Twenty years ago, overpaying for Hammel, the former division rival who might be good but is definitely not great, would’ve been the primary target for the Brewers’ front office. Thankfully, the team is no longer run by such bad baseball minds. Hammel really only makes sense if the Royals came to Milwaukee’s front office actively wanting to swap him for a younger, more controllable, but less proven back-end starter. Taylor Williams, Brandon Woodruff, and even Brent Suter are all pitchers whose low ceiling makes them expendable to the Brewers, but whose youth makes them more appealing to the rebuilding Royals than the aging Hammel. Even Suter, undoubtedly the best of that threesome, was just a half-win better than replacement level in 14 starts and 8 relief appearances. Hammel should be better than that.

The Bold Options

These two pitchers come with the potential to outperform Jimmy Nelson. They also come with major, major question marks. Either one might very well be done, or unable to touch that potential again. Both are on teams close enough to contention that their price tag might be entirely unreasonable. But they also represent a possible avenue to make up Nelson’s missing production, plus at least the one win keeping the team out of the playoffs in 2017. Their price tags, of course, should be commensurately higher.

Garrett Richards

In 2013, the Angels moved Richards from the bullpen to the starting rotation full-time. Since then,  he established himself as one of the most quietly excellent pitchers in baseball, accumulating 13.3 WARP for the Angels during that stretch. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with a torn ligament in his throwing elbow just six starts into the 2016 season. Richards opted against Tommy John surgery, choosing instead to try a newer biometrics surgery, but the experimental decision backfired. After just one start in 2017 Ricahrds was shut down due to a nerve issue in his bicep. He made it back for five starts in September, including a promising performance on September 22nd, when he one-hit the formidable Astros over six innings, walking one and striking out six.

On the one hand, Richards is not even thirty years old yet, and has the talent to be a front-line starter. He’s posted back-to-back five-win seasons, but he also chose a more difficult path back from his UCL tear that has already caused complications and could cause even more down the line. Projecting what to expect from him next season is just about impossible, so figuring out his value isn’t much easier. Maybe he’s a front-line starter. Maybe he’s a shell of his former self.

That being said, Richards isn’t like the two quiet options. Not only does he provide a higher impact, his team is in the unique position of almost contending, but not quite contending, with absolutely no farm system to speak of but a once-in-a-generation talent on the roster. The Angels’ plans to cut into the postseason in 2018 hinge on a successful Richards comeback. However, if they could leverage his value into an improvement somewhere else on the roster without giving up anything that was helpful in 2017, well, they’d have to seriously consider that.

The Angels’ second base situation was not pretty in 2017. Danny Espinosa started the season there, but played his way out of town in spectacularly terrible fashion. By the end of the season, waiver claim Brandon Phillips was manning the position, and he’s set to hit free agency. Jonathan Villar’s value ceiling (he was worth 4.7 wins in 2016) is close enough to Richards’ to make that a good starting point for negotiations, especially since Villar doesn’t hit free agency until 2021 and both principals offer an extreme level of risk and variance for 2018.

Cole Hamels

Hamels’s peak performance is every bit as good as Richards. He was worth 6.3 wins in 2007, and more recently a combined 5.2 in 2015 between Philadelphia and Texas. But he comes with a much more reliable track record: other than a suddenly bad 2017, Hamels has been worth at least 3.7 wins above replacement every year of his Major League career.

Last season was a problem, however. Hamels’ velocity was way down across the board for the first time in his career:

Conversely, his strikeout rate fell to just 6.4 K/9, and it sapped his all-around effectiveness as a pitcher. His 4.20 ERA was the highest he’d posted since 2009, and both DRA and FIP agree that it should’ve been even higher. It would be nice and convenient if Hamels had just gotten unlucky in 2017, but that wasn’t the case. He was a shell of his former self.

It’s hardly unprecedented for a pitcher to bounce back from losing zip on his fastball, and struggling to punch batters out. In 2014, Justin Verlander saw his strikeout rate dip to 6.9 K/9. By 2016 it was back up to 10 K/9 and he looked like a Cy Young candidate again. But Verlander was 31 that year, Hamels will be 34 next season.

PECOTA is far from confident that Hamels has anything left in the tank. His first comparison, AJ Burnett, bounced back and enjoyed a late-career resurgence. Verlander did too, of course, and Hisashi Iwakuma was hardly done in 2014. But Josh Beckett, Adam Wainwright, Erik Bedard, Johan Santana, Kelvim Escobar, Roy Oswalt, and Jake Peavy were all very good pitchers who were done being effective pitchers by the dates listed in Hamels’ comparisons.

The Rangers were just three games below .500 in 2017, and they might be hesitant to part with Hamels until it’s more certain that they’re out of the playoff picture in 2018. But his dour performance last year might inspire their front office to try and move him before he craters his value even further–if he looks like a lost soft-tosser out on the mount again next spring nobody is going to see him as an “improvement” to their rotation. PECOTA says he’s a long shot to regain his prior dominance, but even assuming those 30 percent odds are close there’s a price at which taking a flier on Hamels makes a ton of sense.

Photo Credit: Jim Young, USAToday Sports Images.

Related Reading: American League Rooting Guide

Today: The National League

Los Angeles Dodgers

Regular Season Results: From August 26th, against the Brewers, to September 11, the Dodgers lost 16 of 17 games. They still managed to finish 104-58 overall, the best record in baseball. At no point this season were the Dodgers considered anything less than 60 percent favorites to win the division.

Remember, that’s the division that both of the wild-card teams came from. In case you couldn’t tell, these guys are good.

Brewers Connection: There’s no cross-pollination to speak of between the two rosters, but I dug deep. The playoff-bound 2008 Brewers rostered a reserve outfielder who was coming out of retirement named Gabe Kapler. Today, Kapler is the Farm System Director for the Dodgers. Also, the seemingly-immortal Ryan Braun for Yasiel Puig trade rumors sorta count as a connection, I suppose. That being said, if you’re basing your playoff loyalty on former Brewers, the Dodgers basically score a .1/10.

Why You Should Root For Them: In a lot of ways, the Dodgers are the model 21st century franchise. They amass stupid amounts of depth, treat their players very cautiously with regards to injuries, and stubbornly refuse to err on the side of overtaxing their pitchers. Clayton Kershaw is the kind of player you’ll tell your grandkids about seeing. Yasiel Puig is controversial and fun in all the ways that Brewers fans are fond of. Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger are both young and exciting. Austin Barnes is a C/2B, which feels like a positional combination picked by a video game AI at random and I immediately love it.

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: I’ll refer you to the graph of every team’s projected World Series odds:

The 2017 Dodgers are a testament to the immutable fact that, given a financial advantage and competent people calling the shots, victory is all but certain. Save for a three-week stretch late, this was a team that won because they were supposed to win. Cleveland might be a trendier bandwagon pick at the moment, but if so that’s only because picking the Dodgers was so mindlessly easy for most of the season. They’re not the trendiest bandwagon pick, but they’re undoubtedly the easiest.

Plus, Wisconsin sports fans generally tend to absolutely loathe the West Coast, and California in specific. That alone is going to be a dealbreaker for a good number of people. If it makes you guys feel any better, my wife and I have been out here five years now and the cheese still sucks.

Washington Nationals

Regular Season Results: 97-65, winning the NL East with a 20-game cushion. If the Braves’ current iteration of a rebuild turns out to be a dud, these guys could own the division for a decade-plus. Jose Fernandez and the Marlins were basically the best shot to do it in the next year or two, but Fernandez has been gone for over a year and Miami is shopping Giancarlo Stanton (Note: Brewers front office staff who might be absentmindedly skimming this article in your downtime, this is the moment you should perk up and pay attention.).

Brewers Connection: Adam Lind, baby.

Lind’s 2016 with Seattle was a nightmare, and the Nationals were able to scoop him up on the super-cheap this year: $1 million with a mutual $5m option in 2018. With playing-time incentives that $1 million ended up turning into $1.8 mil. Whoop de do. For this meager compensation, all Lind did was slash .303/.362/.513 in part-time action, filling in both at first base and in the outfield as the Nationals were ravaged by injuries.

Why You Should Root For Them: Bryce Harper, Anthony Rendon, and Daniel Murphy are all .300/25 guys with .900+ OPS numbers across the board. Max Scherzer is the most fun pitcher to watch this generation, and it’s a joyful bonus that his unique mound presence is paired with one of the filthiest arsenals a starter has ever deployed. Their bullpen was literally improvised and constructed through trades in July when the first half was a neverending parade of late-blown games. But most importantly, they’re playing the Cubs in the first round.

Oh, and you know you’ve got your old #AdamLindAppreciationSociety membership card buried in a drawer around here somewhere. That thing never expires, hombre.

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Remember what I said back in the beginning of this section, about the rudderless mess that is the rest of the NL East? If the Braves are following the Marlins path, only five years later in time, the Nationals should be able to win this division every single year for the next decade. There’s a really good chance that you’re going to be completely sick of seeing these guys every October in another three years.

Beyond that, Bryce Harper throws a helmet like 50 Cent throws out a first pitch:

Yeah, that’s right. Throw at Harper if you dare this postseason. Your second baseman will suffer the consequences.

Chicago Cubs

If you’re planning to root for the Cubs this October you can just go right ahead and drop off all of your Brewers apparel in a garbage bag in front of the turnstiles at Miller Park. The Cubs are the worst, the Cubs’ fans are the worst, and the moment the Cubs are eliminated from the playoffs will easily be one of the top-5 highlights of 2017 for me. Remember, this is a guide to the playoffs for Brewers fans. If you consider yourself a Brewers fan, and you want to adopt the Cubs as your bandwagon team, you can’t come back.

In fact, to enjoy the postseason while staying faithful to the Milwaukee Nine, you might want to go the opposite route instead by forgoing one steady bandwagon fling and shamelessly flirting with whoever is playing the Cubs at that given moment, then following the team that beats them the rest of the way out of loyalty.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Regular Season Results: The Diamondbacks won 93 games, second-most in franchise history, but never stood a chance of winning their division thanks to the wire-to-wire stompfest the Dodgers unleashed upon the NL West. Still, you could make a very strong case that the Diamondbacks’ 93 wins in the West was far more impressive than the Nationals’ 97 wins in the moribund East. The advanced metrics support this: Arizona ranked second in the NL to the Dodgers in team WARP, and first in the league in team DRA.

Arizona won the Wild-Card Play-In Game on Wednesday. They opened up a 6-0 lead on the Rockies, saw the lead evaoprate to 8-7, and then finally won 11-8. The Diamondbacks were very nearly a case study in “how to get hosed by a stacked division.” Instead, they’ll get a best-of-five chance to upset the Dodgers and make that regular-season dominance a mere historical footnote.

Brewers Connection: Yesterday, we caught up with our old friend C.C. Sabathia. But he’s not the only former Milwaukee ace on a potential adopt-a-team. Zack Greinke came into Spring Training throwing slower than he ever has, but the veteran made it work with a 3.20 ERA, 9.6 K/9, and 5.8 wins above replacement, anchoring a vastly-improved rotation.

The Diamondbacks also employ Jorge De La Rosa, a 36-year-old who pitched for Milwaukee from 2004-06. It’s a deeper connection than you’d think originally. De La Rosa appeared in 61 games for the Brewers, starting just three of them. The Royals and Rockies, his employers from 06-16, used him almost primarily as a starter. This year, De La Rosa made 65 relief appearances for the Royals.

So, hey! Zack Greinke on the hill, with Jorge De La Rosa coming in out of the ‘pen when he starts to lose his shine! That sequence of events never once happened, never even came close to happening, but just roll with it. You can pretend that it’s a version of the Brewers that Kim Jong-Un “expertly” recreated for a North Korean propaganda film.

Why You Should Root For Them: There’s David Peralta, a onetime minor-league pitcher who evolved into Arizona’s leadoff hitter. There’s Paul Goldschmidt, a superstar for years, making his first postseason appearance. There’s J.D. Martinez, who was cut by the Astros when they were perennial 100-game losers before resurrecting his career in Detroit. And there’s one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, start to finish. Greinke, Robbie Ray, Zack Godley, and Taijuan Walker can go toe to toe with anybody else’s playoff rotation. After them Fernando Rodney, Archie Bradley, and Andrew Chafin lock down the back innings.

Clearly, the Dodgers are the superior team. But they’re not superior enough to where it’s difficult to see Arizona taking three games. And rooting for the second-place finisher over the powerhouse is what playoff bandwagoning is all about! How often can you do that and feel somewhat confident in yourself?

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Because lovable as Zack Greinke might be, he’s overshadowed by the thick vines of St. Louis Cardinals connections dangling from this roster. Tony La Russa’s their Chief Baseball Analyst, Daniel Descalso plays second base when Brandon Drury isn’t there, notable Brewer-killer Jeremy Hazelbaker appeared in 41 games for them, and Shelby Miller is injured and on the roster.

On the one hand, yeah, they’re a fun underdog taking on the Dodgers, with better odds than you might think of pulling something magical out of their ass. On the other hand, for the same reasons you can’t root for the Cubs as a Brewer fan, you probably shouldn’t support the Western Annex of the Cardinals, either.

Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez, USAToday Sports Images

This year, in a promising sign for the Great Brewers Rebuild, that process almost didn’t have to occur. The Brewers were in the playoff hunt right up until Game 161: Team 11, the last remaining squad left on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs. This leaves Brewer fans like me, who are used to adopting a temporary rooting interest for the playoffs, in the old familiar “oh crap, I forgot to do my homework” situation.

Fortunately, I brought enough crib notes for the whole class. Let’s have a run over our options, and I hope we can make things a little bit clearer for you, and a little bit more enjoyable over the next few month. Because just thinking “someday the Brewers will be here” to yourself over and over is a really crappy way to spend a month.

Today: The American League

Cleveland

Regular Season Results: A 102-60 record and the AL Central championship. Cleveland is coming into the playoffs on an unbelievable 33-4 run dating back to August 24.

Brewers Connection: In September of 2008, as they were making their own push into the postseason, the Brewers sent a minor-league outfielder named Michael Brantley as the player-to-be-named-later in the C.C. Sabathia deal. Nine years and fifteen wins above replacement later, the Brewers really wish they had insisted on a different player being thrown in to complete that deal. Featured prospect Matt LaPorta was a bust, but it could be argued that Brantley more than makes up for that in the deal from Cleveland’s perspective.

Brantley is good when he’s healthy, but he’s not healthy often, and he’s been injured for most of August and September. He was activated from the disabled list on September 30th, but manager Terry Francona isn’t exactly confident that Brantley isn’t rushing back before he’s ready.

Here's Francona on Brantley being activated from the disabled list. pic.twitter.com/9qhlp89bxE

— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 30, 2017

There’s a more recent, but weaker, connection that bears mentioning as well: the vetoed Jonathan Lucroy Trade Number One of the 2016 deadline.

Why You Should Root For Them: There was some initial animosity between the fan bases after the ill-fated Lucroy deal, but that seems to have dissipated in light of the way things have gone since then. The Brewers got a bigger package for Lucroy, and Cleveland avoided making one of the worst deadline purchases in baseball history. Plus, they’re the team that gave us Sabathia, and I think a lot of Milwaukee fans will be forever grateful for that.

Going beyond the Brewer-specific, this is a fun team. They’re on a 33-4 run! Corey Kluber is one of the two serious contenders for the AL Cy Young. Their rotation is deep enough to banish Mike Clevinger and Danny Salazar to the bullpen, and those two guys would be in the rotation of at least 25 teams. And their lineup, while not standing out in any one facet of the game,  is an overall top-five unit in all of MLB by VORP.

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Picking the team that’s been basically unbeatable for over a month doesn’t seem very sporting. PECOTA agrees, and gives Cleveland 24.4 percent odds of winning the World Series.

Throw in the fact that they lost the World Series in an extra-innings Game 7 last year and the bandwagon potential here is off the charts. If you’re picking them, you’d better be comfortable with steering into all of those fair-weather fan jokes.

Plus, Cleveland almost screwed up the Lucroy deal, then they couldn’t keep the Cubs’ drought going. If, as a Brewers fan, you feel skittish because these guys have let you down a lot lately, that’s perfectly valid.

Boston Red Sox

Regular Season Results: 93-69, good enough to squeak past the Yankees in the AL East by two games, despite a run differential per game of exactly a half run lower than their bitter rivals. Don’t you just love the modern twist that sabermetrics brings to feuds like this? Yankee fans now have a valid reason to trash-talk their rivals who just beat them by two games, but Red Sox Nation can still shut it down with the equivalent of the old “scoreboard” chant. Do any of them care that they don’t “deserve” the division championship? Absolutely not. Even the most rational and logical Sox fans care only that they have it, and the Yankees don’t.

Brewers Connection: They gave us Travis Shaw last offseason for a pitcher who hasn’t appeared in a game yet due to injury. Thanks, guys! You shouldn’t have! No, seriously, you really shouldn’t have. They made that trade because they wanted Pablo Sandoval to play third base, not Shaw. Sandoval gave them 108 plate appearances of uselessness before they released him. It’s all good now, as rookie Rafael Devers has slashed .284/.338/.482 since his call-up in July, but for a good part of the season the Sox really looked like they had shot themselves in the foot.

Tyler Thornburg, the former Brewer that Boston now has as a result of that deal, underwent surgery on his shoulder in June. He’s not going to pitch this post-season.

Why You Should Root For Them: Because Mookie Betts is one of the most excellent, complete players in all of baseball. He’s a first-round fantasy talent who contributes in all categories, and he’s a joy to watch in the outfield.

Additionally, if Corey Kluber does not win the AL Cy Young, that will be because Chris Sale stepped his game up to Kershawesque heights in 2017. He struck out just shy of 13 batters per nine innings, walked barely more than a tenth of that, and only Kluber and Max Scherzer had a better DRA this year.

But probably the best reason for a Wisconsinite to root for the Red Sox to win it all this year is that third baseman Rafael Devers turns 21 on October 24th. If they win the Series, he’ll be bathing in champagne while 21 in less than a month.

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Because they’re the Target to the Yankees’ Wal-Mart and you’ve got choices beyond those two identical-but-for-their-colors giants. This summer’s slapfight over sign stealing is the perfect example of that dichotomy. Both teams accused the other of using Apple Watches in order to steal signs and, personal opinion, both teams were probably guilty as hell (if you think otherwise you know little of human nature and/or baseball history). Despite that, both sides were stunned that the other guys could pull such treachery, while acting as if they were the victims and hadn’t been counter-surveiling in the exact same way. There are other teams out there you can adopt who aren’t staffed and supported by such self-important hypocrites.

Houston Astros

Regular Season Results: They were the sure-thing team to hold home field in the American League until Cleveland caught fire and edged them out by one game. Still, 101-61 was good enough to have the division basically locked up by the All-Star Break. Houston’s team OPS was best in the league by a 35 point margin, and only the Yankees’ pitchers accumulated more PWARP in 2017. Houston’s staff ERA of 4.12 should be lower according to both DRA and FIP advanced metrics.

Brewers Connection: Remember Mike Fiers? He was in the Astros’ rotation until about a month or so ago. He probably won’t see postseason action, though. He was bumped from the rotation in the first week of September, and his season ERA of 5.22, with a 5.32 DRA suggesting he wasn’t unlucky at all, might mean his time in Houston is over. Former Brewer Nori Aoki got 224 mostly mediocre at-bats for this team before they released him, but he did pitch an inning!

On the flipside of the equation Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, and Jonathan Villar are all former Astros. As is general manager David Stearns, who clearly knew to start his own rebuild with the scraps of the previous one he worked on.

And, of course, it must be mentioned that these two teams were once division rivals. They never had any overlapping periods of competitiveness in the NL Central, but it still counts for something. More recently, the Astros had their internal data hacked by the sanctimonious turd-sniffing Cardinals, and that’s gotta be good for a handful of sympathy points.

Why You Should Root For Them: The Brewers’ general manager learned his craft in this front office. What does it say about Milwaukee’s future if they cap off a championship? The Astros’ sabermetrically gifted baseball operations department has turned a slew of top prospects into a great team. Carlos Correa was a consensus top-two guy, as was his neighbor on the left side of the infield, Alex Bregman. George Springer was a top-20 prospect. Yuli Gurriel was a high-profile international signing. And then there’s Jose Altuve, the tiniest superstar in all of sports. Altuve slashed .346/.410/.547, and finished just one home run shy of joining the 25-25 club despite being shorter than my wife. Altuve was never a “real” prospect, but you could make a great case for him being the 2017 AL MVP.

Houston is also the big sentimental favorite this year in the aftermath of hurricane season. Local pride is great, and in times of crisis teams can inspire national pride as well. But the Astros represent Team Humanity going up against Team Nautral Disaster! How do you galvanize a divided people better than that?!

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Because you think it’d just be that sweet for David Stearns to win a World Series before his old team. Or because your fantasy team wasted a high draft pick on Carlos Gomez in 2016. Or maybe you just don’t like short people, so Altuve’s at-bats piss you off.

New York Yankees

Regular-Season Results: As I already touched upon, the Yankees outperformed the Red Sox sabermetrically, but finished two games back in the division. Still, 91-71 was good enough to secure the first wild-card game berth, and the Yankees overcame a first-inning implosion by starter Luis Severino to beat the Twins in that game Tuesday night.

Brewers Connection: The Yankees acquired Class-AAA first baseman Garrett Cooper from the Brewers this July, though he’s unlikely to feature on the playoff roster. More significantly, onetime Milwaukee postseason hero C.C. Sabathia will feature in the Yankees’ postseason rotation. Sabathia looked done after 2014 and 2015, but he has reinvented himself as a viable back-end starter the past two years, significantly outpitching his advanced metrics both seasons.

Why You Should Root For Them: Because even though the Brewers couldn’t keep C.C. Sabathia, and were right to not pay him the $25 million a year he wanted in 2009, he’s still family. And the Yankees have paid him well after he destroyed his arm getting us to the postseason. So in a roundabout, vicarious way, the Yankees are family too. Ugh, that sentence hurt to type.

Going beyond that, if you can shut out that they’re the Evil Empire, this is a young, exciting team. Aaron Judge is an MVP candidate and might not actually be human, Gary Sanchez is a stud catcher who gets shafted of the proper recognition for his skills because of the presence of Judge, Brett Gardner’s been about five different players over the course of his career but they’ve all been fun to watch, and the Didi Gregorious Breakout has been one of the most criminally underrated subplots of the 2017 season. And that’s before you even get to the bullpen, which is the strength of this team, the reason they survived the wild-card game, and the reason they’re built to excel in the postseason.

Why You Shouldn’t Root For Them: Because unless you were actually born and raised in New York you should never, ever root for the Yankees.

Photo Credit: Bob DeChiara, USAToday Sports Images

#Brewers pitching prospect Nathan Kirby, out two years with pair of elbow surgeries, is pitching in squad games in instructional ball.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) September 26, 2017

His BP profile page might not reflect it yet, as it still sits vacant dating back to 2015, but one of the Brewers’ most intriguing mothballed minor-leaguers is finally getting his professional career off the ground.

Nathan Kirby was drafted in the supplemental first round of the 2015 amateur draft, 40th overall, by the Brewers out of the University of Virginia. At the time, it was considered a great value pick by the Brewers. Kirby had been a candidate to go in the top 10, or even the top 5, just months before the June draft. But inconsistent stuff and command, plus a strained lat that sidelined him for a time, plagued his senior year and he slipped to the supplemental round.

Just five appearances into his professional career, the Brewers shut Kirby down for Tommy John surgery, which is a fate that surprised few, given how he had regressed as a pitcher in 2015. Kirby missed all of 2016 rehabbing from the surgery, and this spring the team elected to keep him at extended spring training when the season started. But something still felt wrong.

#Brewers team doc William Raasch diagnosed Kirby with ulnar neuritis. So, he had ulnar nerve transposition surgery today by Raasch.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) May 9, 2017

Thanks to this latest setback, Kirby is just now getting to a mound again in late September, and has lost two full years of development since getting drafted. Going forward, it’s impossible to say what to expect from the once-promising lefthander.

In 2013, Kirby’s freshman year, he pitched primarily out of the bullpen for Virginia, making 22 relief appearances and 2 starts. His strikeout ratio aside, he didn’t really look the part of a future star that year, and three other freshman pitchers–Brandon Waddell, Josh Sborz, and Trey Oest–all saw more innings than Kirby. But that summer he pitched for the Keene Swamp Bats of the New England Collegiate League, won a spot in the Swamp Bats’ starting rotation, and went 3-0 with a 1.67 ERA in seven starts and a relief appearance. Kirby’s 12.56 strikeouts per nine innings were enough to turn some heads, too, and the sophomore was able to ride the momentum into Virginia’s 2014 starting rotation.

That year, Kirby made his case for a future career in the Major Leagues. He struck out 112 batters in 113.1 innings, posted a sterling 2.07 ERA, and issued just 2.63 walks per nine innings. And in those 113-plus innings, he surrendered just one home run. On April 4, 2015, he recorded probably the best pitching performance of the 2015 season by a collegiate hurler: an 18-strikeout no-hitter against the Pitt Panthers.

But just as quickly as Kirby had emerged, the hype was extinguished. Kirby’s walk rate spiked in 2015, from 2.62 to 4.5 BB/9, and he missed significant time with what was called a strained lat. Despite Virginia’s triumph at the College World Series, despite his polished surface stats, Kirby’s draft stock tumbled. When the Brewers found him available at 40 overall, it was too tantalizing to pass up.

Looking back, it’s not hard to isolate the significant factors which led to Kirby’s arm problems. As a 19-year-old college freshman in 2013, he pitched just north of 75 innings combined between spring and summer. He pitched out of the bullpen for the Cavaliers in the spring, and averaged fewer than seven innings per start for the Swamp Bats in the summer. One year later, in the above docu-short about Kirby’s historic no-hitter, his coach looked at the camera straight-faced as can be and said “It’s just amazing that you throw a no-hitter, and you have 18 strikeouts, and only throw 120-some pitches.”

(I added the boldface myself to highlight one of the most irresponsible butcherings of the English language I have ever heard come from the mouth of an adult human. “Only” 120-some pitches. He actually effing said that. That’s like going in to the doctor for your physical, and he wants to test you for STDs, and you tell him that you don’t need to bother because you’ve “only” had 50 new sexual partners in the year since your last physical. These are not contexts in which use of the word “only” is correct. But I digress…)

In addition to this sudden and violent acceleration of workload, Kirby the college pitcher had the type of mechanics that are all but guaranteed to result in serious injury.

Why isn't Nathan Kirby bouncing back from Tommy John surgery? Call it Terrible T. https://t.co/COKVjHTPOl And @mayoclinicsport teaches it. pic.twitter.com/KUNOXHT6bo

— Chris O'Leary (@thepainguy) May 23, 2017

That “Terrible T” that Chris O’Leary refers to in the tweet and the blog post it links to also appears in Tucker Blair’s BP Eyewitness Report on Kirby, which was written on the one-year anniversary of his 18-strikeout no-hitter that “only” took 120-some pitches. Blair calls it an “exaggerated stab,” not a “terrible T,” but the straight-arm pause pictured above is what both writers are communicating through very different phrasing. As O’Leary, a former collegiate hitting instructor who counts several current and former professional players among his clients, concedes in his blog post, this technique is effective in creating rapid, short-term velocity gains for young pitchers, “but those velocity gains are achieved by overloading the arm. It’s like running a car engine past the redline. It works. For a while.”

By the time Blair was scouting Kirby, his arm was already the equivalent of a dying engine that idles loudly and struggles to generate the power it’s capable of. Blair harshly graded his command as “fringe” to “fringe-average” across all three of his pitches, and repeatedly hammered his mechanics throughout the report, even suggesting bluntly that they “are in much need of work.” But don’t take his word for it. You can see the problem yourself in this video shared by FanGraphs in the leadup to the ’15 draft:

If you’re wondering why I cued the video in at the six second mark, well, it’s because that point marks the first of eight consecutive pitches in 40 seconds from the exact same camera angle; perfect for watching a pitcher’s mechanics over and over. And wouldn’t you know it, on each and every pitch thrown by Kirby his pitching arm comes to a complete stop in that exaggerated, straightened position before whipping forward wildly. Rather than his throwing arm working in sync with his lower body, that exaggerated stretch back and extended pause cause his lower body to come out of the stretch ahead, and his arm has to work overtime to catch up. This is exactly what O’Leary calls “running the engine past the redline,” how a pitcher can overstrain his elbow and shoulder to bleed extra velocity out of his arm. It’s simply not sustainable long-term.

That the Brewers are taking their time with Kirby, by keeping him in extended Spring Training early on this year, and now working him out patiently in the instructional league, is a good sign for the team, and its fans. He can still be a successful Major League pitcher. Fans would be foolish to expect that he will be a successful Major League pitcher, but he’s still just 23 and has proven himself capable of pitching at a high level. His fastball, slider, and curveball have all flashed plus at various points throughout his young career, and his changeup is capable of generating a lot of ugly, swinging strikes off of said fastball. Two years ago, before noting that his mechanics need refinement, Tucker Blair assessed in his conclusion that “there is a feel for pitching” in Kirby, and while you can teach proper mechanics, you can’t teach that. Put that whole package together and you’ve got a pitcher who could potentially help a Major League rotation someday. But it will be a far longer, and far less certain, journey to that destination than anyone foresaw in June of 2015.

But as the calendar turns to August, there are several reasons to believe that this blazing start to Hader’s career is a smokescreen about to evaporate. Hader’s command, which has been a fairly constant concern throughout his rise as a prospect, has been less than acceptable. His 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings are somewhat mitigated by an average of 5.85 walks per nine. That’s simply not sustainable for any pitcher this successful, and Hader’s luck numbers back this up; they’re all strained well past the point of credulity. Hader’s .175 BABIP, 4.5 percent HR/FB rate, and 97.4 percent strand rate are each, on their own, spectacularly unsustainable. Combined together, they form a house of cards.  DRA says that Hader is a 5.18 pitcher, and if he’s going to regress to that point after 20 innings of 0.90 ball it’s going to be really ugly.

Still, though the extremely short-term future could be less than pleasant, Hader is showing exactly the skills that are supposed to make him a key part of Milwaukee’s competitive near-term future. He’s relied very heavily on his fastball, throwing it over 80 percent of the time (including 87 percent of the time to right-handers). Opponents are hitting .148 against it and whiffing on it at a 36 percent clip. With results like that does it really matter if the hitter knows what’s coming? (Well, provided you don’t miss the strike zone four times in a row. But I digress.)

Hader is 23 years old, and has ample room left to grow and mature as a pitcher. Two big, big questions remain unanswered about who he ultimately will be: can he improve his command to acceptable levels, and can he develop his slider and changeup into serviceable options that he’s confident in using? Using these two questions we can approximate four different career paths for Hader.

Path 1: The Flash in the Pan (command doesn’t develop, secondaries don’t develop)

If Hader remains the thrower he is today, his Major League career will be very short indeed. His fastball has caught the league off-guard, but the league will not fail to adjust in time, and his command problems will make him much more beatable once hitters start turning some of those whiffs into foul balls and prolonging at-bats.

If Hader remains just a chucker, throwing ill-commanded gas with no variety into his prime, his ceiling is as a Quad-A pitcher. This is the type of guy who can look lights-out against weak competition and inspire hope, then dash that hope to smithereens at the most inopportune second. There is still a chance that this could happen, which is why the Brewers were so willingly shopping Hader and his shiny ERA at the trade deadline this year. You don’t have to squint too hard to see a future in which this is the apex of his value.

Applicable PECOTA comparison: Keyvius Sampson was a Top 10 prospect with the Padres. Then, they DFA’d him the following winter and the Reds pounced on him. He made 14 starts and 17 relief appearances from 2015 to 2016, and he cost the Reds 1.2 wins, despite striking out nearly a batter per inning. As it turns out, you need something of a breaking ball to start in this league.

Path 2: The Unpredictable Swingman (command doesn’t develop, secondaries develop)

This is by far the hardest scenario to project for in the bunch. Scouts have said that all three of his pitches have plus potential. If he could develop them into a full arsenal, and develop the confidence to throw any of those pitches in any count, he would be one of the most special pitchers in the game.

It’s easy to say that developing these secondary offerings would be enough to move Hader into a starting role, but his command might be too precarious to support that without improvement. Even Nolan Ryan walked just 4.67 batters per nine over the course of his career. It’s hard to imagine Hader having any sort of sustained success without finding his command first. He could, perhaps, become a contributing high-leverage bullpen arm, but the type who you can never relax around, lest it be one of “those” outings and you need to hook him quick.

Still, a three-pitch mix as good as Hader’s could be will keep teams holding out hope long enough for him to put together a career, and, inevitably, it will be an interesting one. But unless he gets the walks under control it’s going to be one of those careers we remember as “snakebit,” one of those players who always should’ve been better than they actually were. Or he could be one of those guys who doesn’t exactly last in the league but etches his name in history with a stylish six-walk, one-hit-batsman no-hitter that nobody can ever forget.

Applicable PECOTA Comparison: Matt Magill was the Dodgers’ #6 prospect in 2013, just one spot below Joc Pederson. The first knock on him in the “weaknesses” section of that year’s write-up is that his “overall command is fringe,” and that turned out to be just as prophetic as “shows baseball skills” for number three prospect Corey Seager. Magill started six Major League games that year, and pitched in relief five times in 2016. He’s issued 33 walks in 32 innings. In 2017 he finally figured out how to find the plate, dropping his BB/9 to 3.9, but doing so took a chunk out of his strikeout rate.

Path 3: The Power Reliever (command develops, secondaries don’t develop)

If Hader learns to command his pitches, he will succeed at the Major League level. The question is, can that happen? His unorthodox delivery makes finding a consistent release point nigh impossible, and makes correcting the problem much harder from a mechanical standpoint. Brooks Baseball tracks release point data, and backs this up: the 95 percent confidence interval range on Hader’s horizontal and vertical release are larger than any other Brewer reliever, even Corey Knebel, the second-wildest arm in the bullpen.

(Note: don’t be fooled by the size of the graphs. Look at the scale, and look at the confidence interval numbers. The visuals are misleading.)

Hader’s optimized comparison has always been Chris Sale, whose delivery and release point suffered the same nitpicking once upon a time. Sale has walked less than two batters per nine the past three seasons. While he never struggled with command to the extent Hader does, he did not have that kind of pinpoint aim earlier in his career. Even if Hader can cut, let’s say, two and a half walks per nine from his current total he’ll be able to shed the “wild” label and become a very capable out-getter.

But the hard truth of it is, a one-pitch pitcher has no chance of making it in a starting rotation. In fact, even a two-pitch starter is a liability. If you don’t have at least three weapons to choose from, hitters will become familiar with your offerings in a hurry as you pass through the order multiple times. By the third time up they’ve seen literally everything you have to offer, and they’ll be ready for you. Following this path, Hader fails to crack the starting rotation but develops into one of the most electric bullpen arms in the game, with a fastball that takes no prisoners and the ability to take control of every at-bat he’s in the game. We’re playing in an era in which the relief ace has far more value than ever before, so that’s hardly a bad result for Hader or the Brewers.

Applicable PECOTA Comparison: Archie Bradley, who was converted to the bullpen by the Diamondbacks this season and has become an elite high-leverage option for them. Bradley’s got a decent curveball that he still uses, even out of the ‘pen–so this isn’t the most accurate comparison. But even beyond Bradley, the trope of “elite starting pitcher prospect doesn’t develop enough pitches to start and excels in the bullpen” is one that plays itself out every single season. For a local example, just remember Will Smith.

Path 4: The Really Good Starter (command develops, secondaries develop)

Hader doesn’t like to throw his changeup or slider often, but they’re not bad pitches. Hitters are 1-for-5 against his change (with the one hit being the only home run he’s surrendered in the bigs), and 0-for-8 with two strikeouts against his slider. His slider actually generates a whiff rate of nearly 48 percent. But they both come in as balls approximately 50 percent of the time, which makes the hitter’s job much easier.

If Hader can not only get his fastball under command, but take control of his other two pitches as well, then the sky is the limit, just as it has been through his rise up the minor league ladder. If that happens, keeping him in the bullpen would be a waste and a mistake. With his arm capable of pitching deeper into games, three plus offerings, and no significantly threatening control issues in play, Hader is a no-brainer to attempt the rare bullpen-to-rotation transition. He wouldn’t be the first pitcher in history to squeeze out a roster spot from the need for a reliever, only to claim a starting job at the first opportunity; in fact, Chris Sale himself made 79 relief appearances before converting to the rotation.

Hader’s deceptive delivery and big-time velocity make him tough to hit. If he could complement that mid-to-high-90s fastball with an improved slider and changeup, both in the low 80s range, it will add two whole new dimensions to the challenge for hitters and make things even more difficult. If he could further limit the walks he allows he still has the potential to be the best pitcher on the Milwaukee staff.

Applicable PECOTA Comparison: Hader can actually count a sizable number of interesting starters among his PECOTA comparables. There’s Carlos Carrasco, Jake Odorizzi, and Zach Davies on the first page, three high-strikeout-rate guys who might not be aces, but are dependably good mid-rotation guys who can crank it up and compete with almost any pitcher in the game. The second page features Gio Gonzalez, Matt Moore, and David Price, three guys who are having down years in 2017 but have all been marquee starters for most of the decade.

Conclusion

Obviously, there are not just four specific storylines that Josh Hader’s career can follow. Maybe reality will follow a fifth path, and Hader will drop his slow slider in exchange for a hard cutter, attempting to become the left-handed Mariano Rivera with it. Maybe he’ll suffer a traumatic arm injury and come back with “heat” in the low 90s. I sure hope not, but we can never know for certain.

But through 20 innings of a big-league trial, it’s clear that Josh Hader has the stuff to be a superstar. Or a bust. Or any number of things in between.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

Related Reading:
Brewers Claim Vogt
Brewers Revolving Waiver Claims

If there was any doubt before, the Vogt claim certainly cements the fact that David Stearns, who I’ve affectionately called “the thrift-shop GM” in the past, has an affinity for this process, which essentially gives teams a free trial on somebody else’s flotsam. The David Stearns who runs a contender has a recognizable M.O. if you’ve been following the David Stearns who built that contender from the rubble. But the Vogt claim reflects a subtle shift in strategy from previous waiver moves, which tells us that the team is trying to compete in 2017.

Up until now, the Brewers’ waiver claims have shared a common thread of unseen, or unrealized, potential. Nick Franklin is a former top prospect who just turned 26 years old at the start of the season. Junior Guerra was a total lottery ticket that turned into a jackpot. Jhan Marinez and Rob Scahill weren’t good enough for someone else’s bullpen, but were young and promising, and, hey, Milwaukee had the roster space to stash ‘em. All of those pickups came with a potential payoff that was pretty big which is essential to consider when you’re building a contender from the ground up.

Stephen Vogt, however, is unlikely to appreciate in value. He’s a catcher in name, but he’s sorta crummy behind the plate. And by “he’s sorta crummy,” I mean “deployed regularly, he’ll actively cost your team a dozen or more runs per full season:”

But for the past three years, that’s just been the cost of doing business with Vogt’s bat. His career isolated power mark of .158 is borderline elite by catcher standards. His career True Average is .266, which is not great, but also not exactly mitigating the value of all that power. Vogt has been bad this year, but he’s also been a little bit unlucky (evidenced by a .242 BABIP versus his .276 career mark).

You’ve heard him referred to frequently in the past few days as “two-time All-Star Stephen Vogt,” and in light of that casual fans could be forgiven for assuming that we just inexplicably got a superstar for free. But that’s not the case. At his best, Vogt is a little bit better than replacement level. If a change of scenery is enough to kick him back to that level, the Brewers just upgraded their backup catcher spot. And if not, they can move on from Vogt in a couple of weeks, recall Jett Bandy from AAA, and forget this whole thing ever happened.

Vogt’s career ISO is a hair lower than Bandy’s (by .012) but his TAv, BB percentage, and K percentage are all significantly better. And as Jack Moore showed at BPMilwaukee earlier this week, Bandy has deteriorated from a top-tier backup to, well, a guy who needs something to change. Thankfully, the demotion seems to have energized Bandy, who launched a monster grand slam in his first game with the Sky Sox:

Jett Bandy grand slam HR in his 1st game with the #SkySox. pic.twitter.com/hmIRyEeAuR

— Brewers Prospects (@BrewerProspect) June 28, 2017

Vogt has played in just 477 Major League games, but he’s 32 years old and a catcher. For all we know, he could be finished. But if he’s not, and he’s an improvement over Bandy, that makes the Playoff Stretch Brewers just a little more capable of hanging with the Cubs and Cardinals. And, obviously, it gives the team a capable, three-deep depth chart behind the plate.

Andrew Susac, once thought to be the team’s catcher of the future, is off track at Colorado Springs. Susac is slashing just .190/.241/.410 and striking out a ghastly 32.8 percent of the time. If an injury were to sideline Manny Pina for any extended period of time, calling that up to the big-league level in the heart of a playoff race is simply not acceptable. Adding Vogt might seem targeted at Bandy, and there’s no doubt that getting him back on track is essential, but it’s also a buffer against Susac being forced into big-league duty before he can fix whatever’s wrong.

Like David Stearns’s prior waiver-wire gambles, this is a smart bet, made with a player that could provide a payoff on this particular roster. The big difference is the time frame of the move. Milwaukee’s front office, in claiming Vogt, has said, if tepidly, that winning in 2017 is a priority. It will be interesting to see how that mindset shapes the rest of the summer’s moves.

On Sunday evening, the Brewers’ Chase Anderson had himself a nice vengeance game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, who traded him away prior to the 2016 season. Anderson pitched six innings, surrendering one run and striking out eight. It was all he could do to endure a classic pitchers duel and keep the Brewers in striking distance, and it was needed desperately. Milwaukee’s offense largely got their lunch money taken by emergent Arizona ace Robbie Ray, who struck out twelve in six and two-thirds shutout innings.

Anderson was relieved by Carlos Torres, who was relieved by Neftali Feliz, who was relieved by Wily Peralta, who was relieved by Rob Scahill. And what the Brewers got out of them was no relief, whatsoever. If Anderson’s performance was a beautiful work of art, well, the four misfits of Milwaukee’s bullpen did the equivalent act of covering that painting up with imaginatively vindictive and vile vandalism. Five runs apiece in the bottom of the seventh an eighth buried the Brewers for good. Keon Broxton’s leadoff ninth-inning shot could’ve been a huge, game-changing, maybe even season-swinging event had the Brewers’ bullpen been able to keep the Diamondbacks at bay, but Arizona’s slugging offense simply highlighted a point that everybody was already painfully aware of–Milwaukee’s bullpen is a tire fire right now.

It could be argued that the glowing Goodyear atop the blaze, burning brightest and hottest, is free-agent import Neftali Feliz. Feliz was impressive last season pitching in a setup role for the Pirates, and the Brewers paid him $5.35 million to come in and be the 2017 closer. That experiment lasted all of six weeks before the unquestionably-more-effective Corey Knebel was given the car keys.

But even after being removed from the spotlight of the ninth inning, Feliz has continued to hurt the Brewers. He served up the game-winning 12th-inning home run on June 2nd against the Dodgers, three runs to the Giants three days later, and a two-run ding-dong to David Peralta on Sunday that added the fourth and fifth runs of the seventh inning. Outings like that have been more and more common for Feliz this season. The would-be closer has a 5.19 ERA, a HR/9 north of two, a walk rate of 4.5 per nine innings, a DRA of 5.30, and a FIP of 6.09. While Feliz has been somewhat notorious for volatility throughout his career, numbers like that simply aren’t playable in a big-league bullpen, and especially not for a team that wants to remain in the thick of a high-pressure divisional race as we approach the turn.

Feliz’s walk rate has proven problematic in the past, but it seemed that had all passed. For the past three seasons he’s checked in between 3.13 and 3.52 BB/9–numbers a bit higher than the league average, but still serviceable. In 2017, that number has jumped to 4.5 walks per nine innings. And while Feliz has gotten unlucky with the gopher ball–a 17.6% HR/FB rate that almost doubles his career mark of 9.4%–his untenable walk rate has frequently put ducks on the pond for those home runs, ensuring maximum damage.

(Look no further than Sunday’s game for a textbook example of this. Gregor Blanco was the first batter Feliz faced after relieving Torres. He walked, and scored when David Peralta lined one off the left-field foul pole. Just like that, two runs. When it’s that easy, no wonder the guy is giving up 5+ runs per game.)

And Feliz’s best asset, his calling card since he was a 21-year-old rookie closing out playoff games, has been his ability to pile up the strikeouts. Last season, dialing his fastball velocity up to 96, Feliz piled up 10.23 strikeouts per nine for Pittsburgh. It was that overpowering dominance that turned him into an asset at the back of their bullpen. The absence of that dominance this year made Corey Knebel and his superhuman strikeout rate look all the more appealing. By contrast, Feliz is fanning just 6.92 hitters per nine in a Milwaukee uniform.

His velocity, movement, and release point are all in line with last year’s numbers. In fact, the problem isn’t even anything to do with Feliz, actually. Last year, he was able to get hitters to swing and miss on high strikes and pitches above the strike zone with consistent success:

In 2017, that has not been the case at all:

Last year, hitters swung at pitches out of the zone against Feliz 33.4 percent of the time, and made contact on those swings at a 59.2 percent clip. This year, he’s only getting swings on 30.9 percent of balls outside the strike zone, and 68.2 percent of them are not being whiffed on. Therefore, the strikeouts are not there. And therefore, Feliz is significantly less effective.

When the Brewers signed Feliz, it was easy to follow David Stearns’ train of thought. This guy’s peripheral numbers indicate he could be one of the better closers in baseball: sign him to a one-year deal, hope he shines for this mediocre team, and then in July flip him to a team that needs shutdown arms at the back of the bullpen. That plan’s unlikely to happen for two fairly obvious reasons. First of all, Feliz has pitched himself out of any trade value he might have had. Second of all, the Brewers priorities could be in the midst of shifting away from building for the future and to building something competitive now.

The front office needs to do some soul-searching, and figure out if it is worth it to wait on Neftali Feliz to start making batters swing and miss again. It’s not something he can fix overnight, and the team needs the problem rectified as soon as possible. Given the short-term commitment, his lack of on- or off-field value right now, and the team’s position in the standings, the most sensible thing might just be for the Brewers to grant Feliz his release and move on to more reliable options.

I’m talking about Eric Sogard. Here, I’ll  link the actual leaderboard, because I’m not even offended; you’re right to be skeptical. By no reasonable projection was this thirty-one-year-old Quad-A utility infielder supposed to be the best in baseball at anything, except for possibly Best Impersonation of a College Professor.

There is certainly ample evidence supporting the notion that Sogard is a flash in the pan, waiting for the painful regression back to the mean. But, while expecting him keep up an MVP pace might be overly ambitious, there’s also reason to believe that Sogard has made a couple of late-career adjustments that can pay off with on-field value, especially hitting at the top of Milwaukee’s lineup.

For one thing, let’s start with what Eric Sogard is not doing, and that is hitting the ball hard enough to sustain the comparisons to Barry Bonds. Entering Monday:

Sogard’s average launch angle and average batted ball height both rank well below average, and both his average exit velocity and average velocity generated are dwarfed by the league average as well. In terms of batted ball stats, Sogard ranks in the bottom half of the league, not at the very top.

Furthermore, there’s evidence that he’s been very lucky so far. Since he’s not hitting the ball hard, we can expect that Sogard’s .389 BABIP is going to fall to something closer to his career mark of .274. And a 20 percent HR/FB rate compared to a 2.6 percent career rate is another sure bet for regression. Eric Sogard is not a .390 hitter, not really, and his .244 isolated power mark is hugely inflated. Expecting him to continue either of those torrid paces is utter lunacy.

But there’s one big area of Sogard’s game which he has improved remarkably since his last big-league action in 2015, and that’s his approach at the plate. Sogard’s calling card is his glasses, which inspired his “Nerd Power” nickname, but prior to 2017 the numbers he put up at the plate lead one to wonder if maybe he needed a stronger prescription. His career walk rate in the big leagues is 7.6 percent and his K-rate is 12.4 percent. This year, however, he has walked 14 times in 56 plate appearances, and he has thrice struck out.

That is a level of plate discipline and strike-zone ownership nearly unparalleled in the modern game of baseball. The only player since the turn of the century to walk four times for every strikeout is Barry Bonds, who did it in both 2002 and 2004. Even at AAA Colorado Springs, prior to his call-up, Sogard was walking at a 14 percent clip and striking out 11.2 percent of the time.

A look at the raw swing data tells us that this is no fluke, either. I controlled for players who have seen at least 100 pitches (as pitchers tend to skew the data), and sorted all qualifying hitters by their rate of swinging at pitches out of the zone:

Sogard has been the 17th-best hitter in baseball at laying off of pitches out of the strike zone, placing him in the third percentile of MLB hitters in the valuable but often hidden skill of “not giving the pitcher extra strikes to work with.” Even when the pitcher gets the ball over, though, Sogard will gladly take a called strike if it’s not a pitch he wants; he’s got the seventh-lowest swing rate in the game. The wrong hitter could get into a lot of trouble with this kind of approach, but Sogard has thrived. When he does pull the trigger, his contact rate paces all of baseball:

Thanks to the zone profiles at BrooksBaseball, we can break down Sogard’s pickiness and contact skills. He’s a left-handed hitter, and this chart is shown from the catcher’s perspective, so keep that in mind:

Sogard dislikes the high and tight strike, and he lets it pass at a 75 percent rate. But the rest of the inner two thirds of the plate are where he wants the ball, and he will swing far more than half of the time the ball is put there. Pitches on the outside corner will induce Sogard to swing about half the time, largely if he’s down to his final strike:

It’s interesting to note that this “outside third” of the plate does extend down below the zone, which would seem to be the only flaw in Sogard’s pitch recognition wizardry. Still, pitchers have attacked that zone with enthusiasm during those two-strike counts and he has yet to strike out on one. Sogard prefers the pitches over the meat of the plate, but his skill for fouling off undesirable strikes is truly impressive and highly useful.

Teach me your disciplined ways, Eric Sogard. pic.twitter.com/ZTk29ZvwUl

— Curt Hogg (@CyrtHogg) June 1, 2017

Sogard’s emergence as baseball’s premier contact-and-plate-discipline guy gives the Brewers’ front office and fan base quite a bit to discuss, in no small part because Sogard’s newfound strengths are the exact areas of the game that Jonathan Villar is currently struggling with. Villar’s strikeout rate has soared north of 30 percent this season while his on-base percentage has cratered to .284. Furthermore, he’s hitting the ball on the ground 63 percent of the time. Those are poor numbers for any starter, and downright unacceptable from a leadoff hitter. Villar’s not just getting unlucky, as Andrew Salzman showed in the piece linked above. Pitchers have adjusted to his love of low pitches and are working him up in the zone, and out of the zone, at a far greater rate this year.

Villar’s 2016 season saw him put up more WARP than Sogard has been worth over the course of his entire career, May breakout included. But a majority of fans seem to want Sogard in the lineup permanently, and Villar banished to the bench. Prior to the season, such a thing was positively unthinkable. Then again, so was the concept of the Milwaukee Brewers sitting a full game ahead of the Cubs at this point in the season. With the team in the thick of contention, and a player so perfectly compatible with his position in the field and batting order having a late-career awakening, Villar might not get a chance to reclaim his job.

Still, I think Craig Counsell would be wise to stop short of giving the job to Sogard on too full-time of a basis. Instead, he should utilize the stylistic difference between the two to deploy Villar for the games in which his base-stealing can make the most difference, such as when the opposing catcher has a weak arm, or the opposing pitcher is Jon Lester.

Otherwise, with the two Erics hitting 1-2, Milwaukee has stumbled into a devastating double-barrel weapon atop their lineup. As you’ll notice from the data above referring to swings outside the zone, Sogard and Thames were 17th and 19th in all of baseball, respectively. When the Brewers face off with starting pitchers who struggle to find the strike zone, those pitchers have no margin for error, psychologically. Sogard and Thames are among the best in the game at laying off when the pitcher can’t find the strike zone, and Sogard is the very best at staving off strike three and extending at-bats.

The Brewers’ lineup construction with the Erics atop the order takes pitchers who struggle with command and dumps them unceremoniously into the deep end from the first pitch. There’s almost no chance of a pitcher missing his spots, but getting bailed out by bad swings, and settling down as he starts to feel confident and pitch with purpose. And if he can’t hit the ground running, throwing strikes consistently from the get-go, he’s going to have a first-inning jam on his hands in a hurry.

And even for pitchers who don’t really struggle with command, Sogard and Thames are a pain. Most pitchers today are strikeout pitchers, and they’re trained to nibble around the edges and pound the corners. When Sogard and Thames are working the count, though, that just means that the pitcher throws foul ball after foul ball, essentially wasting all the gas in his tank on trying to get out of a muddy spot.

Counsell talked about how much Sogard and Thames made deGrom work and he wasn’t kidding. He threw 38 of his 105 pitches to those two.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) June 1, 2017

It’s no wonder that the Brewers are 7-0 when Sogard and Thames go 1-2 in the order. And while Eric Sogard is unlikely to continue putting up such a historically outlying performance, especially with regards to hitting for power, he’s made it abundantly clear that he’s a different player than he ever was before, and his new look is a great fit in the leadoff spot. The Brewers should still play the matchups to get Jonathan Villar into the lineup when he’s a strategic fit, but the Sogard-Thames tag team has proven to be simply too effective to break up for now.