It was also a season where a number of moves needed to be made, as the franchise was officially changing directions from trying to contend to rebuilding.

A number of players, therefore, changed hands. The Brewers team we once knew was no more, and a whole new flock of young, and not so young players were given a chance at the major league level.

In the minors, this season was a glimpse into the future. The development of some major prospects was arguably the most important part of this season. If they all had poor seasons, then the Brewers could have easily gone from a good but not great farm system to a poor one, which would have set the team back for a number of years.

But, that didn’t happen. Yes, some prospects had setbacks or didn’t perform to what was expected, but on the whole, a number of young prospects shined. Perhaps most notably was Josh Hader, who came into the season with a lot of questions. Mainly as to whether he could start due to his weird delivery. Hader went on to have a great season, dominating at the AA level. While his ERA doesn’t look good in Colorado Springs (AAA), he still managed to strike out 11 batters per nine innings, and his FIP is respectable.

The development of prospects within the system was definitely important, but perhaps the most important aspect of this season came from the players that emerged throughout the year.

During the offseason, the Brewers front office made a number of buy-low moves in hopes that a few of them panned out. If none of them did, then the cost of acquiring them wasn’t all that high, and wouldn’t hurt the team financially. That said, it was important for the development of the franchise for at least few of them to pan out, and low and behold, a few did. Junior Guerra, Jonathan Villar, Hernan Perez, Tyler Thornburg, Keon Broxton, and Zach Davies all emerged as productive players this past season.

While the Brewers didn’t have a ton of success on the field, as was expected, the development and emergence of these players at the major league level was a welcome sight for a franchise in need of some major league talent. It was a crucial part in the development because now the team has a number of options.

Many rebuilds are centered around prospects. In fact, many rebuilds are thought of primarily through the lens of prospects, their acquisition, and their development. This type of thinking can make teams blind to other possibilities of acquiring talent. However, Milwaukee will succeed going forward, and this primal idea should be something we remember most from this team. Many of these players will help the future Brewers teams to come. One example is Jonathan Villar, who was by WARP one of the five best shortstops in all of baseball in 2016. He won’t be playing shortstop going forward due to Orlando Arcia’s arrival, but this gives the Brewers more options, and eventually makes them a better team.

Villar can now be moved to either second base or third base, and most of his value comes from his ability to hit the ball. His bat, therefore, should transfer to whichever position he moves. The question will obviously be whether or not he can keep this up going forward, but the fact that he has shown, for an entire season that he has this ability, means that the Brewers can be hopeful this will continue. Sometimes, some players, just need a change in scenery, others break out from making adjustments. One major adjustment is that he’s started hitting off-speed and breaking pitches better than in years past.

But Villar only represents one of the many players I listed before. These other players will now not only help the Brewers with the on-field play, but also by increasing the talent pool of the franchise. The Brewers now have a number of options in the outfield, infield, and the pitching situation doesn’t look as dire as last year, when just about every pitcher on the Brewers staff looked like he would have a hard time cracking a competitive team’s top five.

The Brewers rebuild isn’t completely done, but we will probably see a transition phase next season. More prospects will start making their debuts, and we’ll start getting a clearer picture as to how this team will look going forward.

We haven’t yet gotten out of the tunnel, but we are starting to see some of the light.

You might also remember that during the August waiver period, the Brewers were the team who claimed Yasiel Puig from the Dodgers. As was reported, they engaged in a number of serious discussions, but both teams weren’t able to come to an agreement.

The question of whether Braun should be traded is obviously a complicated one. Yes, Braun has suffered a number of setbacks due to his injuries and yes he’s had the whole PED incident, but Braun still remains a very productive hitter. Just this past season he finished with a .316 True Average, his best mark since 2012. Which ranks as the 15th best mark in all of baseball for 2016, and 11th in the National League (min 300 PA). Braun’s overall skill level though, isn’t that of a top 20 player. His 3.9 WARP is very good, and worth a lot of money but isn’t higher due to his poor defense.

Here is where some of the problems lie with Braun’s production. Aging curves have clearly shown that fielding is usually one the first things to go, and in Braun’s case, it’s pretty clear at this point that fielding skills have left him.

But, that’s been clear for a couple of years now, and whoever will want to trade and acquire Braun isn’t going to be betting on his defense to bounce back, at least they shouldn’t be. What isn’t all that clear is how Braun’s bat will age going forward. Usually, players who start to decline don’t always bounce back, in fact, most of them don’t. Braun in this respect is an outlier, but he also becomes harder to project going forward.

When teams are going to be valuing Braun, and making the calculated decision of whether to trade for him or not they will not simply be looking at his past year’s results. Obviously, some of that will go into the calculus, but they will be evaluating Braun mostly on how they project his bat going forward, and there’s going to be a lot of uncertainty in that regard.

For the Brewers, though, the calculus is even more complicated. Braun, while he has a shady past, is still a beloved figure in Milwaukee, and one of the fan favorites. He’s been with the team for a number of years, and a number of people still enjoy watching him play. That said, the older Braun gets the less productive he is going to be. At the end of the day, nobody is able to beat father time.

The difficulty for the Brewers will be figuring out a good price for Braun. On the one hand, Braun proved last year that he still can play, but the Brewers are still transitioning into a younger team. Braun could help them speed up the rebuild, but he could easily become an albatross contract if things don’t go right.

The Brewers also have a number of outfield prospects and young players in the organization. Domingo Santana and Keon Broxton are already at the major league level. Even though Brett Phillips struggled, to a certain extent last year, he’s still a well-regarded prospect, and Lewis Brinson tore it up in his Triple-A short stint with the Brewers, meaning that he may not be long for the Major Leagues. In which case, Braun might be blocking someone.

The idea isn’t that the Brewers have to trade Braun this offseason. Rather that there will be a lot of risk with whatever decision they will make. Obviously, if no one offers anything of quality, then it becomes a much simpler decision, or if someone blows them away then once again, no brainer. But, teams are getting smarter every year, lopsided trades just don’t happen that often anymore.Nobody is going to be able to take advantage of anyone, which is why the Brewers’ decision will be difficult.

In any case, if the Brewers think they can compete in the next two years or so, they should prioritize players that are closer to the big league level. Those players, probably, won’t have the same upside as a player in A-ball, but they will definitely have less risk. This also seemed to be important to Stearns when he made his deadline deals. Brinson, Luis Ortiz, and Phil Bickford all have ETA’s of 2017 or 2018. This means that they are expected to reach the majors in the next two years. The Brewers by that point will probably be looking to be competitive.

When it comes to Braun, the decision will have to be whether he can help the team more during that time frame than the players they will acquire from the trade, and maybe from the money they will save.

I thought this was an interesting topic, and idea, so decided to tackle it myself, but look at it differently. Zettel is looking at trades, but there are many ways in which players can be acquired.

If we simply look at the 2016 Brewers twelve of the players on that team were acquired through a trade, thirteen were acquired through the draft. In fact, the Brewers got players from many different ways and sources.

I think the most striking part of this graph isn’t that the Brewers mostly constructed their team through the amateur draft, trades, and free agency. These are all common resources for acquiring players. No, the most surprising aspect of this chart is that nine players came from waivers.

Traditionally I don’t, and I think most people don’t, think of teams being constructed through waiver claims. Usually, general managers get touted or criticized for their great trades, their great drafts, or free agent signings.

I mean, just look at Dave Dombrowski. He’s basically made a name for himself through his trades. Other GMs, such as Theo Epstein, get a lot of praise for their draft picks and even their free agent signings. But, you don’t often hear of GMs making shrewd waiver claims. At least, you don’t often hear it in the main stream. But, as the Brewers proved this past offseason, a team can make shrewd moves in the waiver wire, such as claiming Junior Guerra, Hernan Perez, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, all of whom had an impact on the 2016 roster. Obviously, a number of waiver claims didn’t pan out, and obviously the Brewers were in the perfect position to take chances on these type of players. Therefore, I was interested to see how the Brewers constructed their teams in the past. Did they always consist of these waiver claims, and if not, what were the most common acquisition types?

To do this, I scraped data from baseball reference. An important note to point out is that this is not players that are acquired yearly. This data is the yearly number of Brewers players on a roster and their transaction type. This is not the yearly transactions. For example, in the first chart, Ryan Braun was on the roster and he was acquired via the amateur draft. He is also counted in 2015, 2014, 2013, and so on as an amateur draft data point. Another example: Hernan Perez signed a minor league contract to remain in Milwaukee for 2016, but he is counted as a waiver claim because that is how the Brewers originally acquired him.

First, let’s look at the overall values since 1970.

Most Brewers teams are constructed through trades, draft picks, and free agency. That’s not a huge surprise. The biggest difference between this chart, and the last one, however, is the waiver claims. In fact, on average, a Brewers team will usually only have around 1.7 players who were acquired from waivers. That’s a stark difference from the nine players who played for the Brewers in 2016 who came from waiver claims.

Therefore, I decided to look at how this information was trending.

This explains a lot. In 1970 and 1971, the vast majority of the players on the Brewers roster came from trades. More so than any other transaction type. But, as the franchise grew and changed, so has its ways of creating a team.

In the late 80s, and mid-90s, the draft mostly dominated how the Brewers were created, and free agent signings were also on the rise. Waiver claims, however, barely happened, if at all during those times. Instead, they’ve been more frequent since the start of the 21st century, at least for the Brewers, and there’s been a drastic uptick over the past few years.

I think, in part, this is due to the rebuild, and the new approach of GM David Stearns. Stearns, over the 2015-2016 offseason, made a number of shrewd and calculated player acquisition moves. He focused on getting players that are of very low risk but that could end up being high-reward.

Some of these acquisitions were obviously made through trades and low-risk signings, but a number of them were also made through waiver claims.

But, Stearns has only been in office for one season, and the four categories have been converging on each other for a few years now. Mainly, it seems that the Brewers are becoming more diverse in how they are creating their teams. Not just relying on trades or the draft.

This is important because it means that they are becoming more open and creative in their team constructing.

Building a team, and a good one, is obviously a challenging endeavor. There are many ways to do it, but if a team is only looking at one way of acquiring players, then that can be problematic. It means that you can become too dependent on a specific strategy, and less open to ulterior ways of accumulating good assets. Waiver claims, and other lesser known forms of player acquisition, usually aren’t all that sexy. They are not very popular, and most of the time we don’t even know the players that are being picked. But, these are good low risks to take for teams.

Podcast:
Season Wrap

Basically, the Brewers used 50 total players in 2016. This includes any player who pitched even one inning or who had one at bat. But, what does this mean? Is this a normal trend of player usage? And does it have any relationship to winning?

To answer these questions, I scraped data from Baseball-Reference. I scraped all Brewers who played on a Brewers roster dating back to 1970.

Here are how many position players played for the Brewers per year.

On average, 21 position players play on a Brewers roster every year since 1970. In 2016, the Brewers used 23 position players, slightly above average, but not all that much. There is a lot of variance from year to year, but for the position players, the usage remains between 20-24 players.

The 1970 and 1971 seasons were the years in which the Brewers used the most position players, but those were its first years as a franchise. It’s likely that in those years, the Brewers were trying unproven players. Making them more dispensable, and easier to change.

The pitcher’s usage, though, is a different story.

Throughout the years, the Brewers have been using more and more pitchers every year. 2016, actually had the highest usage of pitchers, tied with 2006 with 27 total pitchers used. This is eight more used than the average number of pitchers used per year of 19.

The rise in bullpen usage is no secret. Each year it seems that starters are pitching fewer, and fewer innings and relievers are encompassing more of the team’s innings pitched per year. And as Rob Arthur showed, we are currently seeing an extreme of that development in the playoffs. Especially with the usage of Andrew Miller. The question isn’t whether more relievers will be used in the future, but how much more.

Obviously, the more relievers used, the more pitchers one needs on a roster, as pitchers are more frequently injured and many relief pitchers can come up from AAA to make a spot appearance if the arms in the pen have been over utilized.

In the Brewers’ case, this season also saw the demotion of Wily Peralta, Taylor Jungmann, injuries to Michael Blazek, Corey Knebel, and more. The trades of Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith opened the door for other, less experienced pitchers. Pitchers such as Junior Guerra, Jacob Barnes, Brent Suter, Damien Magnifico, etc., received their chances because of this combination of moves.

Plus, the fact that the Brewers are rebuilding probably made them more open to giving new and more pitchers a shot, seeing if they could catch lightning in a bottle.

As a whole, 2016 was the season, in which the Brewers used the most players in their franchise’s history.

Previously, the most players used were in 2015, 2006, and 2002, when the Brewers used 49 players. On average 40 players are used each year.

The trend is obviously going up, but considering the previous two charts, it seems evident that this trend is primarily caused by the increased usage in pitchers.

I think an assumption which can easily be made from this is that the Brewers are using more players because of their record. Meaning, they used 50 players because of the fact that they had a down year, and the fact that they are rebuilding might make them more prone to using more players. They can also give more youngsters a chance, especially with September call-ups. As opposed to when they are good, because they can’t afford to give “lesser” players a chance, as it could cost them a crucial win.

Therefore, I looked at the relationship between wins and the count of players used each year, suspecting to see a slightly negative relationship. This would mean that there would be more players used on losing teams.

It’s somewhat hard to tell from the graph but there is a small negative relationship between wins and the count of players used each year. There is also a -0.21 correlation.

Basically, the record doesn’t have a huge impact on the amount of players used in a season. There are other factors to consider, but I would suspect that in the Brewers case the primary cause for the rise in total player usage is due to the rise in reliever usage as a whole.

As relievers become more specialized, there will naturally be more of them used. Many pitchers have the ability to throw one inning in the majors, and more jobs are opening up each year. There’s also a lot of variance in reliever success, meaning that it is likely that there will be more turnover from year to year, more so than in years past.

This article has been updated to correct a sentence about reliever usage.

This year, the Brewers gave an opportunity to a number of players who had either been passed over by other organizations, overlooked, or were simply being blocked.

You probably know these players as Jonathan Villar, Hernan Perez, Ramon Flores, Aaron Hill, Chris Carter etc. For folks who aren’t following this team closely, some of these names might seem foreign. And, it’s understandable, most of these players were either considered washed up or were guys who never got many at-bats at the big league level.

Fortunately for them, however, these players landed on the Brewers roster. And, as we know, since the Brewers were in the midst of a rebuild, they could afford and were more than happy to give some of these players a shot.

In order to measure which players were able to get an opportunity at the big league level, I simply looked at the difference between each player’s plate appearances from 2015 to 2016 (min 200 PA in 2016).

Of the thirteen players who accumulated at least 200 plate appearance in 2016, only Martin Maldonado and Ryan Braun lost plate appearances in 2016, and they barely did.

By far the biggest increase was from Jonathan Villar, who seems to have been the player who made the most of his opportunity in 2016. In 2015, with the Astros, Villar struggled and was blocked by Carlos Correa, which resulted in him only getting 128 plate appearances. This year, he got 670 plate appearance, a 542 difference from 2015. On top of that, Villar had a career high in hits, doubles, triples, home runs, total bases, OBP, SLG, TAv, and WARP. Basically, this was Villar’s career year.

The next biggest increase came from Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Keon Broxton, and Orlando Arica. Each of these players had at least a 200 plate appearance increase from last year. At the beginning of the season, a number of players battled for the center field job, but once the season got underway, it was clear that Nieuwenhuis had won the job. Broxton had struggled, and Nieuwenhuis was the only player who was able to bring solid production from the position. But, as the year went on, Broxton started playing better and better and won the job back.

When it was time for Arcia to come up, he was always going to get the job. Even though Arcia struggled in his first year, the rebuild allowed Arcia to keep playing through his struggles and attempt to make adjustments.

Carter and Perez were other players who were given an opportunity. Carter had a bad season with the Astros and the Brewers decided to take a chance on him. He still isn’t the player he used to be, but he was able to hit more home runs this year than the last, which helped him keep the first baseman’s job. Perez, on the other had, wasn’t a well-known player. Perez wasn’t a top prospect, and had a terrible 2015. This year, though, he got another chance, and he too made the most of it. He was able to hit for more power, and played solid defense, turning him from below replacement level to a solid everyday player.

But, which player improved or benefited the most from their chances?

To answer this question, I looked at the change in WARP from 2015 to 2016 for each Brewer.

I mentioned it before, but you would have a hard time arguing that Villar didn’t benefit the most from the opportunity. Not only did he increase his plate appearances more than any other Brewers player, but he also increased by the most WARP, going from 0.8 in 2015 to 4.8 in 2016.

But, a close second was Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy, as you know, was hampered by injuries throughout the 2015 season. In 2016, though, he regained his hitting form and was once again one of the best catchers in baseball even though his framing still hasn’t come back. Lucroy improved from 1.4 WARP in 2015 to 4.0 WARP in 2016.

Scooter Gennett and Hernan Perez also saw huge increases in their production, and so did Keon Broxton. The only players who didn’t see an increase in production were Ramon Flores and Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Both, unfortunately, were unable to improve with their given opportunity. Flores ended up being a below replacement level player in 2016.

The rebuild can be hard and challenging on fans and a number of people. But, it gives players who otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity the chance to play. Without Milwaukee’s rebuild, who knows whether Perez, Villar, Broxton, Gennett, and others would have been able to prove their worth in the big leagues.

This all started because I was messing around with some draft data that I gathered from a wonderful website, you’ve already, probably, most definitely heard of called Baseball Reference. In messing around with the data I created what is called a Sankey Diagram to visualize which schools Brewers draft picks came from in 2016.

A few things are clear, and a few things aren’t with this diagram. What isn’t clear is which schools generated the most draft picks for the Brewers. I’ll address that later because it’s not as important. Secondly, and more apparent, is that most of the Brewers draft picks in 2016 came from the Colleges/Universities. In fact, it’s not even close. In 2016 the Brewers drafted 29 players from Colleges compared to only nine from high school and three from Junior Colleges.

This was odd to me because, as Ben Lindbergh showed, high school players are once again on the rise in the major league draft, fighting a conception that teams are leaning more towards high school players nowadays.

I, therefore, looked at the whether this was a trend for the Brewers, or whether this was a one-year anomaly.

To some extent, I already knew this wasn’t a one-year trend because, for my very first piece on this site, I looked at this information. This time, all I have added is the 2016 information and the Junior College, plus the other, which are organizations where baseball reference did not specify the type. But, even looking at this information historically, 2016 stands out.

Since the Brewers became, well, the Brewers, the only season where more players were drafted from College was in 2010 when the Brewers drafted 31 players from Colleges.

For the most part, players from high schools are usually further away in their development then players who attend College. Most of those players are usually older, but they’ve played at a higher level, therefore they are more likely to reach the majors, and reach the majors quickly.

That doesn’t mean that the high school player isn’t necessarily the better pick. Many high school players are extremely talented and have high upsides, which is why we see more and more teams drafting them in recent years. But if a team needs to win now, they might want to go for a college player and hope that that player can help them in a year or two when they will still be competitive.

But, the Brewers aren’t in win now mode. As we all know too well, they’re going through a rebuild. They’ve traded away a bunch of assets for prospects in order to win in the future. Yet, they seem to be more prone than ever to draft College athletes.

A lot has been written on this website about a quicker rebuild. How the Brewers have a number of good players on the major league roster and how they could be competitive in the next few years. Maybe, the Brewers agree with that notion, which is why they’re drafting these college players. It could be a way to speed up the rebuild.

Or, this could simply be an organizational philosophy. That the Brewers believe that College players are simply a better bet than high school players. This could certainly be true, and is probably more likely than the latter argument. The trend has been going up for a while. Meaning that for a while now, the Brewers have been prioritizing College players over High School players, long before there was any idea of a rebuild.

This could also simply be circumstance. It’s possible that the best player that simply falls to them in the draft happened to be a College athlete. After all, many scouts lauded the Brewers first round pick this year of Corey Ray. I’ve written before about how important the first overall pick is, and the importance of getting it right. That means that it would be a mistake for the Brewers to pass up on a high school player, just because he is from high school. The Brewers should take the best available player, and from the buzz surrounding their draft, it seems that they did.

Rebuilding is often more complicated than what people make it out to be. There are many phases in rebuilds and all aspects of the game matter. Some matter more than most certainly. The Jonathan Lucroy trade was a very important moment, much more than the 1191st pick in the 40th round. But, overall strategy matters too. What are the Brewers doing and what aren’t they doing during this rebuild? What are their strategies? Are they going after certain types of players, and why? Understanding what they are doing will help us gain a better picture of their plan and what is to come.

Bonus:

Below are the schools where the Brewers draft the most players, in their team’s history. These are only the top 10.

Davies finished the year with a 4.35 RA9, 3.89 FIP, and 3.95 xFIP. None of these numbers will stand out; in fact, these numbers suggest that Davies had a mundane rookie campaign.

But, Davies has a DRA of 3.56. Better than Junior Guerra, or any other Brewers starting pitcher this season.

When people think of the Brewers’ biggest transactions of last year, they often go to the Carlos Gomez deal, which makes sense because it generated multiple prospects. Gomez was also one of the biggest names to be traded at the deadline. But, people often forget the smaller Gerardo Parra for Zach Davies deal. It’s likely that it won’t turn out to be the trade we’ll remember, but, if this season is any indication of what is to come, it will be a vital one.

Davies won’t garner any major headlines. He’s not going to rack up great strikeout numbers, or throw the ball 100 MPH. In fact, he’s got enough trouble hitting 90 MPH. No, what Davies was able to do this year is limit hard contact, while striking out hitters at around a league average rate, producing better than average walk rates, and pitching 163.3 innings. Put that all together, and you have the third best pitcher rookie campaign in Brewers history.

The only Brewers pitchers who produced more PWARP in their rookie seasons were Ted Higuera and Steve Woodard. Higuera produced 5.3 PWARP in his rookie campaign, and spent his entire career with the Brew Crew. Unfortunately, though, his career was cut short due to injuries. Woodard accumulated 3.9 PWARP in his rookie campaign. He only spent 3 seasons with the Brewers before he was traded in a seven-player deal to the Indians.

This year, a lot is being made of Junior Guerra’s rookie campaign. This is not unreasonable. Guerra’s story is truly incredible, and he deserves a ton of credit for his accomplishment. That said, Davies has been the Brewers “ace” this season, not Guerra.

One of the main reasons Davies is ace is the innings pitched. Guerra only pitched 121.7 innings this season, compared to Davies’s 163.3. WARP or WAR, as you know, is a cumulative stat. The more you pitch, and pitch well, the more WARP you are likely to gain. The reason I mention this, and the reason this is important, is because we often forget about the value of pitching productive innings. If a starting pitcher is hurt for any length of time, then another pitcher, one who is usually deemed worse, will have to come and pitch for him. Usually, that pitcher will pitch worse. Being on the field and healthy has a ton of value.

Davies’s advantage with DRA mostly comes through the NIP Runs (Not-In-Play Runs), meaning strikeouts, walks, and hit by pitches. Their strikeout rates are literally identical, but Davies has an advantage with walks. The difference isn’t huge, but it is enough to give Davies the advantage in that department.

This isn’t to denigrate Guerra, but rather to praise Davies’s consistent ability to be productive.

Among current rookie pitchers, Davies ranks third and is one of the youngest rookies in the class.

Corey Seager is going to win the 2016 National League Rookie of the Year Award. There’s really no question about that, but other rookies are getting consideration and none of them are named Zach Davies.

MLB Trade Rumors ranked the top five rookies of year candidates. At the top was Corey Seager, as he should be, but then followed names such as Trevor Story, Aledmys Diaz, Steven Matz, Kenta Maeda, and Seung-hwan Oh.

Now, I’m not advocating for Davies to win the rookie of the year award. It would seriously bother me if he did, but Davies belongs in the same class as those other players. In the case of Matz and Oh, it’s pretty clear that he’s been the superior pitcher this year.

On another note, Jon Gray should also be on that list. His ERA isn’t pretty at 4.54, but we know that he’s been pitching in Coors Field and that that number needs to be adjusted. DRA-based PWARP does that. When you implement context into the equation, Gray comes out ahead of any other pitcher this year. Even Michael Fulmer, who’s gotten a ton of attention for AL Rookie of the Year, isn’t performing to the heights of Gray.

Again, I’m not suggesting that Gray or Davies deserve the award, just that they deserve more love.

When it comes to Brewers rookies, Davies is having a historical season and its time to take note of that. Guerra is also having a historical rookie season, but that is mainly based on his age; Davies’s historical season is based on his performance.

His first home run came in the fifth inning. The Brewers at that point were up 3-2 and Matt Garza was pitching relatively well. Martin Maldonado got the inning started off with a walk, but it was followed by a Michael Reed groundout and a Yadiel Rivera fly out.

The next batter was Villar though, and on the first pitch of the at-bat, he ripped a ball down the left-field line and over the fence, for a two-run shot. It was his seventeenth home run of the season and was the difference maker in this game.

Bottom Play (WPA):
In the third inning, the Brewers were up 3-0. Matt Garza was cruising but did run into some trouble in the second inning.

He started the inning by walking Nomar Mazara. Then, Elvis Andrus singled on a groundball, and Mazara was able to advance to third base. Carlos Gomez followed with a RBI single up the middle and Andrus moved to third base. The Ian Desmond singled as well, up the middle, and Gomez moved to third base.

This game looked as though it was coming apart. The Brewers lead was now down to one and there was a man on first and third with nobody out. Carlos Beltran though, grounded out to first base. Desmond moved to second but the run didn’t score.

Then came Adrian Beltre, and he battled Garza. He battled Garza to a six-pitch at-bat, but on the sixth pitch, he popped the ball up to third base, and no run scored. This was the worst play, of this game, as it allowed the Brewers to maintain the lead, and was the second out of the inning, killing the option of a tag play at home.

Garza ended the inning and the threat by striking out Rougned Odor.

Jonathan Villar:
Villar had an incredible night, launching two more home runs, giving him 18 on the season, building on his previous career high of 7 home runs in 2014.

This has easily been Villar’s breakout season. Not only does he lead all Brewers with a 4.3 BWARP, but he also ranks fourth among all shortstops. Only Corey Seager, Francisco Lindor, and Carlos Correa have been better than Villar.

The question now becomes, what should the Brewers do with Villar. A shortstop with a 4.3 BWARP is hard to come by, and it’s possible that Orlando Arcia never reaches that plateau.

This isn’t to denigrate Arcia. He is still young, and an important part of the Brewers organization. This just means that the Brewers have a “problem” on their hands. That said, these are the types of problems teams want. There is no such thing as an abundance of good players, but finding a fit for the 25-year-old will be one of David Stearns main priorities in the off-season.

Coming Up Next:
It’s been a rough season, record wise, but the Brewers still have five games to play. They are back in action today, against the Texas Rangers. Jimmy Nelson will get the nod for the Brewers. He’s had a very poor season. Currently, WARP has him valued as a below replacement level player at -0.6. Nelson will need to start figuring things out if he wants to stay in the rotation, and he should try and do that tomorrow night if he wants a big league roster spot in 2017.

Winning usually plays an important part with attendance, as the more wins a team gets the better odds it has of drawing fans to the turnstiles. This makes sense because people like to watch a winning team. It’s simply more enjoyable to be watching a game in which your team is winning than one in which your team is losing. Which is why last year’s Brewers were so interesting. Even though it was clear, from early on in the season, that they wouldn’t be a competitive team, fans still came out to show their support.

Thus far this season, the Brewers rank 15th in attendance at 2,166,012. Which is better than Cleveland, Houston, Seattle, and Baltimore all of which are contending teams. The Brewers are not that. They are not a contending team. As you and I know, they are a rebuilding team.

In his piece, Moore also noted that “Miller Park’s consistently high attendance has been a point of pride for the organization and its fans in recent years, as the Brewers have drawn in the top half of the National League in eight of the past nine seasons”.

Moore is right: Since 2007, the Brewers have had above average attendance. (All data was scraped from baseball reference).

But, that wasn’t always the case. During the 1980s and 1990s, even in the early 2000s, the Brewers didn’t have great attendance numbers. In fact, after a sudden spike in 2001, the Brewers attendance was trending downward once again, until 2004, when it started going up again. That’s around the same time that Mark Attanasio bought the team.

Since Attanasio took over in 2005, the Brewers have only been below average in attendance twice, in 2005 and 2006, his first two seasons with the club. Attanasio has often spoken about the importance of attendance and the Brewers faithful.

One of the amazing elements about the attendance streak is that the Brewers attendance has remained above average even though they haven’t been one of the winningest teams in baseball.

Looking at the chart above, there’s a pretty clear relationship between winning and attendance. The Brewers, during the Attanasio era rank eleventh in attendance, which may not sound impressive, but for one of the smallest markets in baseball, that’s a very good achievement, especially when we look back at their previous track record.

To further emphasize this point, I built a simple and quick linear model in R to look at how wins affected attendance. I looked at every data point dating back to 1970, and controlled for teams.

Overall, the model found that one win is worth an additional 28,144 fans coming through the gates per year.

What the model found for the Brewers is that, early on, they tended to be under what the model would expect to be their attendance. But, since 2001, the Brewers have tended to be over what the model would expect their attendance to be.

For this graph, basically think of it this way, if the values are below zero, then the Brewers attendance was below their expected attendance, based on the model. If the values are above zero, then the Brewers attendance was above their expected attendance.

The biggest outlier in the group was obviously 2001. That’s the year the Brewers moved from Milwaukee County Stadium to Miller Park.

Above, I mentioned that Mark Attanasio seemed to have a big impact on the Brewers attendance, and he may have had. But, the move to Miller Park probably played a huge factor as well , meaning that, obviously, there is more that affects attendance than wins.

Wins definitely play a factor, and other studies have found that it plays a huge factor, but it is just one. Population and market size, along with a slew of other elements must be considered.

The Brewers, lately, though, seem to be an outlier in that department. They’ve been able to achieve above average attendance for a number of years, even though they haven’t been one of the winningest teams. Obviously, under Attanasio’s rain, the Brewers have done their fair share of winning, but it has not justified their consistently great attendance.

This doesn’t mean that the Brewers will keep having quality attendance. If the Brewers go through more and more losing seasons, then I would expect the fans to get understandably impatient, and stop showing up to the ball park. That said, that hasn’t happened yet, and for the Brewers, I sure they hope to turn things around before people stop showing up at the ballpark.

All of my code can be found in my Github account. It’s very messy right now, I will clean it up, make it more readable and add comments when I get the chance.

In fact, the bottom of the first was the only half inning that saw any scoring. Wily Peralta was pitching for the Brewers, and after striking out the leadoff hitter, he walked Eugenio Suarez. Joey Votto then flew out to center field.

Peralta was, therefore, in a good position to get out of the inning without giving up any damage. But, it was not to be. Brandon Phillips and Adam Duvall were the next two batters, and they both singled to load the bases.

Scott Schebler was the next batter, and on a 3-1 count, he singled on a ground ball scoring two runs. This was the biggest moment of the game, as it gave the Reds the lead, one they would not relinquish. The Reds would go on to add one more run in the inning, which gave them a 3-0 lead.

That score ended up being the final score of the game.

Worst Play (WPA):
In the fifth inning, the Brewers were still losing 3-0. Maldonado started off the frame by striking out on three pitches. Peralta, though, helped his own cause by hitting a single with one man out.

The next batter was Jonathan Villar, who worked a walk. Villar’s walk was followed by a Scooter Gennett strike out. Then came the red-hot Ryan Braun, who also worked a walk, loading the bases for, Hernan Perez.

You, in some ways, already know the end result. The Brewers didn’t score a run in the inning, because, on the second pitch of the at-bat, Perez flew out to left field to end the Brewers best chance of scoring in the game.

Trend to Watch:
Brent Suter was called up on August 19th. Since being in the majors, he has mostly pitched out of the bullpen, as he has only had one start.

Suter performed fairly well in the minors, consistently managing ERAs in the three’s. Suter has been able to do that thus far in the majors since being called up. His ERA is at 3.27. But, his peripheral numbers are very concerning. His FIP is at 5.23, his xFIP is at 4.86 and his DRA is at 4.57. Those aren’t very good numbers.

If you’ve seen Suter pitch, you know that he doesn’t throw very hard. In fact, the left-hander throws in the low 80s, which in today’s game is almost unheard of.

With that initial description, I assumed that Suter wasn’t striking a lot of batters out. While he doesn’t put out the strike out numbers of the Jose Fernandez of the world, he still strikes out 7.4 batters per nine innings, which is respectable. His walk rate is a little high at 3.3, but nothing unheard of. No, Suter’s real problem is with the home run ball. He’s giving up 1.6 home runs per nine innings, which is quite high, and his HR/FB ratio is at 15.4 percent. The average for HR/FB ratio is generally around 9.5 percent. 15.4 percent is generally seen as awful.

The problem with pitchers that throw as slowly as Suter does is that they can’t make that many mistakes. As I’ve written before, Zach Davies struggles with the same problem, and so does Dallas Keuchel. Soft throwers such as these pitchers need to live on the edges of the strike zone, because if they make that one mistake, it could end up in the seats.

Now, obviously, more sample needs to be gathered for Suter. But, if Suter wants to have any success at this level, he’s going to have to try and limit the home run ball as best he can.

Coming up Next:
The Brewers will be back in action again today against the Reds. Unfortunately, it won’t be a match up to write home about. Matt Garza will get the nod for the Brewers, and Anthony DeSclafani will be pitching for the Reds. DeSclafani has actually pitched pretty well this year, better than Garza at least, as he stands with a 4.03 DRA. The Brewers will, therefore, have to come up with a better offensive performance if they want to have success in this game.