The power should come as no surprise to Brewers fans, who watched Aguilar turn into their most reliable power bat off the bench in 2017. He needed just 311 plate appearances to blast 32 extra-base hits, including 16 home runs, and his .240 ISO put him right in line with such sluggers as Kris Bryant (.242), George Springer (.239) and teammate Travis Shaw (.240). Unfortunately, all that power came with a Ryan Howard-esque 30.2 percent strikeout rate, which limited Aguilar to a .265/.331/.505 batting line despite his 30 home run pace when prorated to 600 plate appearances.

Aguilar’s power production this year is right in line with what he did last season, as he owns a .252 ISO and is on roughly a 33-homer pace per 600 plate appearances. The difference has been Aguilar’s ability to make contact. He has gone from one of the worst contact hitters in the league to owning a strikeout rate within decimal points of the league average. Aguilar owns a .367 BABIP that will almost certainly come back to earth, but good things will come to anybody who can make league average contact with the obvious raw power Aguilar has shown since coming to Milwaukee.

There’s often a perception with strikeout-happy sluggers like Aguilar that the issue is all about discipline. If only they would stop swinging for the fences every time and waving at pitches out of the zone, the conventional wisdom goes, these hitters could ascend and become universe brain hitting scientists on the level of Ted Williams. This, I think, is too reductive of an analysis of what makes hitters good at their jobs. In some cases, it’s not about the quantity of swings, but the quality of swings.

Aguilar certainly seems to be one of those cases. His swing rates, both in-zone and out-of-zone, have had negligible changes from 2017 to 2018; it seems counter-intuitive that in 2018, Aguilar’s out-of-zone swing rate has actually increased. Observe, Aguilar’s swing rates over the past two seasons, per Brooks Baseball, first viewing Aguilar’s whiffs per swing, and then Aguilar’s swing percentage:

One reason this is working for Aguilar is most of these extra out-of-zone swings are coming just off the outside corner. This is somewhere pitchers love to attack, but also somewhere that the hulking Aguilar can reach with power. But by far the most important difference for Aguilar in 2018 is the quality of his in-zone swings. According to FanGraphs’s plate discipline data, Aguilar’s contact rate has improved from 69.1 percent to 76.9 percent. His out-of-zone contact rate has jumped from 52.8 percent to 57.6 percent, but the real difference is the quality of his in-zone swings, on which his contact rate has skyrocketed from 79.3 percent to 89.4 percent. The whiff-per-swing visualizations from Brooks Baseball show this improvement vividly:

Even when Thames returns, and even if Braun manages to get consistently healthy as the season improves, Aguilar is looking like a key cog in Milwaukee’s lineup. His raw power is enough to earn him a roster spot as a useful pinch hitter, but with the contact ability he has shown so far, he deserves regular, if not everyday, at-bats for the Brewers. If he can keep this up and the Brewers are able to combine him with Thames, Travis Shaw, Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain in the same lineup, opposing pitchers should be very, very afraid.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Becker, USA Today Sports Images

Indeed, the sixth inning has been a killer for the Brewers a couple of times this year. They already trailed 3-0 by the sixth inning on Monday, April 16th against the Reds, but a six-spot allowed by Oliver Drake in the sixth after a short outing by Brent Suter ensured there would be no comeback by the Milwaukee nine. It was the sixth inning that torched Zach Davies’s start in Monday, April 2nd’s home opener against the Cardinals. After Davies allowed four singles, Brandon Woodruff gave up a three-run homer to Paul DeJong that put the Brewers down by six.

Sunday’s game against the Marlins was threatening to go down into this category. Junior Guerra, who was brilliant through five frames, stumbled to start the sixth inning, which saw the Brewers clinging to a 2-1 lead. Craig Counsell showed no hesitation in calling on Jeremy Jeffress from the bullpen, and he delivered. Jeffress struck out Brian Anderson, popped out J.B. Shuck, and then struck out the red-hot Lewis Brinson to hold the lead. Per FanGraphs, Jeffress’s performance added a ridiculous 33.8 percent to Milwaukee’s win probability Sunday night. It only confirms what Christian Yelich said after the game: “J.J. did a great job for us today. That was kind of a turning point in the game, and he was able to get out of that.”

The depth of Milwaukee’s bullpen looks like it is going to be the permanent solution to the sixth inning problem. Brewers relievers thus far have done some fantastic work in the sixth inning. Jacob Barnes, Dan Jennings, Josh Hader and Jeremy Jeffress have faced a combined 29 batters in the sixth innings and allowed just three hits and a walk with seven strikeouts. All told, these four pitches have combined for a +0.54 Win Probability Added (WPA) over just eight innings worth of work across their sixth inning appearances in 2018.

The only reason this is a tenable strategy for Milwaukee is because of the depth of this bullpen. Between Hader, Jeffress, Barnes, Jennings and Matt Albers, the bullpen currently features five relievers with at least 10 innings pitched and a sub-2.00 ERA. The return of Corey Knebel will only bolster this deep squad, and Adrian Houser and Taylor Williams have showed potential in their few appearances this year. Additionally, multiple members of this bullpen, particularly Hader and Jeffress, are comfortable throwing multiple innings in an appearance.

Bullpen usage like what we’re seeing from the Brewers this year has often derided as perhaps great in theory, but unrealistic in execution. The roles are too tough to juggle. Great pitchers don’t want to be forced to the middle innings; if they can’t close, they want to be the setup men for the nearest access to saves, the major way to get paid as a relief pitcher in today’s market. This year’s Brewers are proving that doesn’t have to be the case. Jeremy Jeffress expressed his desire to come into the game for situations like Sunday’s, a high-leverage situation in the sixth inning: “Those are big outs. Those are the things we live for. Definitely the things I live for. I can be myself in those situations. I can be who I am.” (Todd Rosiak (@Todd_Rosiak, April 22, 2018).

The Brewers have 13 position players in camp with a legitimate shot at making the Opening Day roster, excluding catchers. Likely, one of the outfielders and one of the infielders below will find themselves cut. Regardless, observe the ridiculous amount of positional coverage this club boasts:

Position-by-position, it breaks down like this:

I would assume that one of Keon Broxton and Brett Phillips will be cut by April, and I think Jesus Aguilar is facing an uphill battle as well. But regardless, the Brewers will feature five outfielders capable of playing every position, a few infielders capable of covering the outfield, and three competent multi-position middle infielders beyond Gold Glove-level shortstop Orlando Arcia. That’s an embarrassment of riches, and I’m excited to see what David Stearns, Craig Counsell and the rest can squeeze out of these possibilities.

It’s possible this team will be running out different lineups every day. Ryan Braun will probably require regular rest. Eric Thames had gigantic platoon splits, with a .918 OPS against righties and just a .658 mark against southpaws. Hernan Perez can play just about anywhere, but has possibly the least consistent bat of the entire roster. As you run down the roster, you can find flaws and strengths with every name on the list. But with the way these players can fit together, there should be a right combination for all situations.

Check out just how well this team could exploit the platoon advantage:

With multiple options of each hand at each position other than the least valuable (first base), the Brewers shouldn’t have to worry at all about opposing LOOGYs or ROOGYs. Righties hit 12 percent better with the platoon advantage, and for lefties it was a lofty 22 percent. The Brewers should be able to enjoy the platoon advantage a majority of the time with this lineup, and particularly in high-leverage at-bats.

Milwaukee batters had the platoon advantage just over half the time in 2017. If the Brewers can add another 450 or so plate appearances with the platoon advantage in 2018, they should be able to squeeze out an extra 10 runs (approximately one win). Either the Brewers can make that happen with their bevy of options, or some of the hitters stay so hot you can’t take their bats out of the lineup. And no matter what, the bench will have strong late-game options.

This lineup will take a bit of managing, but the Brewers haven’t just assembled a solid roster, they’ve gathered a bunch of pieces that fit very well together. Those are the kind of advantages they’ll need to exploit in order to truly compete with teams like the Cubs and the Dodgers in the National League. With the right touch, this Brewers squad could produce well beyond what they appear capable of on first glance.

Photo Credit: Orlando Ramirez, USAToday Sports Images

That’s fine for a number of reasons. First of all, while the Brewrs’ rotation is far from great, the addition of Jhoulys Chacin and the assumed summer return of Jimmy Nelson can add a solid base behind Zach Davies and Chase Anderson. And second of all, after nearly a decade and change of Doug Melvin in Milwaukee’s front office, we should know better than to assume Brewers general managers are telling the truth to the media. And finally, while the Brewers are looking to contend in 2018, their best days are still assumed to be a year or two away, and the Brewers don’t want to overcommit in this market.

But thanks to the promise showed by last season’s team, contention is looking more and more like a near-term dream as opposed to a long-term one. With pitchers like Jake Arrieta, Jeremy Hellickson and Alex Cobb still available this season, I think the Brewers need to consider striking again. Financial flexibility may seem like a valuable asset, but take a look at the market of free agent pitchers slated to hit the market in 2019, per MLB Trade Rumors (2019 season age in parenthesis):

According to Cot’s Contracts, the Milwaukee Brewers finished with the cheapest 40-man roster salary for the second straight year in 2017, with a meager $78.8 million spread across the roster. The team has all of $25 million committed beyond 2018, invested in only two contracts: Ryan Braun’s and Eric Thames’s. The Brewers have a team that was a surprise contender in 2017 with all of the major pieces coming back in 2018, aside from the injured Jimmy Nelson, and they could be getting an impact player if Lewis Brinson can take the next step. From 2008 through 2014, the Brewers ranked no worse than 18th in final 40-man year end salary. Mark Attanasio’s pocketbook has been able to take the strain in the past, and it should be able to take another big contract or two this year as well.

Thanks to the anti-competitive behavior (my fancy word for “collusion” that may not be technically against the rules) we’re seeing in the free agent market, there is some talent remaining unsigned, sitting there for the taking without requiring the Brewers to cash in any of their precious minor league assets. Of ESPN’s top 20 free agents this offseason, 13 remain unsigned. Of particular interest to the Brewers are the pitchers; Jake Arrieta or Alex Cobb would be major upgrades over the likes of Junior Guerra or Brent Suter in Milwaukee’s rotation.

The current market suggests there might be bargains, too. Not a single player has received a deal longer than three years or pricier than $60 million. Addison Reed signed this past week with the Twins for just $17 million over two years, well below what many expected for a reliever entering the market as one of the better closer candidates available. Not only is the market looking shockingly cool, but as spring training approaches, players will want to avoid becoming the Kyle Lohse of 2013, who went unsigned deep into March and wound up making about 60 percent of even the lowest estimates of what he could earn.

This is where the Brewers need to pounce. Anti-competitive behavior like this could wind up helping teams with smaller budgets. A reduction of super-long free agent deals worth nine figures has almost no impact on the way the Brewers assemble their squad. The Brewers were never going to make those deals anyway, and their biggest contracts will almost always be handed out to homegrown superstars. Milwaukee’s free agent splashes have generally come on players entering the decline phases of their career. But if free agent prices come down across the board, the Brewers should be able to be active players for more and more players, players who would otherwise receive prohibitively expensive offers from large-market clubs for the Brewers to even consider them as a target.

Consider the New York Yankees of the 1980s. Steinbrenner pulled the Yankees up from years of mediocrity by investing heavily in free agents. His club won four pennants in six years from 1976 through 1981, not coincidentally the first few years of free agency. But in 1982, they dipped to fifth place, and the Yankees wouldn’t reach the postseason again until 1995, the first season after the strike.

In his autobiography A Whole New Ball Game, Marvin Miller discussed how Steinbrenner’s willingness to play into his fellow owners’ collusion scheme was an act of cutting off the nose to spite the face:

“Steinbrenner’s unwillingness or inability to recognize opposition to him first became apparent to me with the beginning of the owners’ collusion in 1985. Although he was the first to utilize free agents, and the most successful in building winning teams, he became a coconspirator by depriving his club of the opportunity to sign free agents. I was astonished at the time because it was so obvious that he was the principle target (along with the players) of the owners’ planned collusion, but apparently this thought had not occurred to him. Ted Turner, Gene Autry, and a few others were also targets, but George was the owner they most wanted to curb. Yet he seemed incapable of understanding that a club like the Yankees — one with no success (or talent) in building a team through effective trading, and without a record of effective player recruitment and development in the minors for some time — would certainly fall out of contention if it could not sign free agents. But he agreed and joined with his ‘brother’ owners in a scheme aimed at himself.”

I don’t know if there is active collusion going on in today’s MLB, but there’s no doubt that large market teams are currently choosing not to leverage their financial muscle, their single greatest team-building asset. If the Brewers can, they need to capitalize on this opening. It’s hard to imagine another time when their money can do more, especially when you consider just how close this Brewers team came to the postseason in 2017.

The Yankees could have been a dynasty throughout the 1980s, but Steinbrenner’s inability to get over the idea that free agents were taking him for a ride cost him a decade’s worth of winning. If teams like the Yankees, Dodgers, and Cubs want to make that same mistake here in 2018, let them. Let them wring their hands about long-term deals and the luxury tax like suckers. If the Brewers want to shock the baseball world and make it back to the postseason,  they need to take advantage of this opening and strike now.

Photo Credit: Jim Young, USA Today Sports Images

As a result, it is becoming harder and harder to argue with tanking as the means for long-suffering franchises to rebuild and return to or, in the case of the Astros, finally arrive at the top. For owners and fanbases frustrated with the cycle of mediocrity that has plagued many small or mid-market teams who have spent and spent in futile attempts at perennial contention, the success of the Astros and dazzling potential of the 76ers will have an undeniable appeal. 

The Milwaukee Brewers, undoubtedly, were subscribers to this ideology upon Doug Melvin’s exit in 2015. It should be no surprise considering the new head of their front office, David Stearns, was indeed one of the architects of the champion Astros. The Brewers emptied the cupboards and dealt almost every player of note. The trades of Carlos Gomez and Jonathan Lucroy in particular have refreshed Milwaukee’s farm system, turning it from one of the worst in the league to one of the best in just a few years’ time.

These moves undoubtedly maximized Milwaukee’s return on these assets. This club was going nowhere in 2015 nor 2016, and trading these players on expiring contracts for controllable assets was a no-brainer. But this is not what makes the ideology governing Milwaukee’s plan over Stearns’s first few years one of austerity. These moves were accompanied, however, by a drastic reduction in payroll at the major league level. The Brewers fielded payrolls ranging from $80 million to $105 million from 2008 through 2015, but dipped to just $63 million in 2016 and 2017, both times lowest in the league. And perhaps more notably, the club entered the 2017 offseason carrying just one multi-year contract: Ryan Braun’s.  Even this contract is one that likely would have been dealt if not for the stigma surrounding Braun, his history with steroids, and his injury-prone nature since returning from the Biogenesis suspension.

I have no doubt that many aspects of the ideology that brought the Astros to success and have 76ers on the brink of a breakthrough are indeed the keys to breaking the cycle of mediocrity, which has portions of fanbases across the country clamoring for their teams to join the tanking fad. Collecting young talent and purging assets that have value solely in the present moment are both behaviors that put floundering teams in a better position for future success. 

But here is where I quibble with The Process and its copycats: Why must payroll be pushed to its lower limits, even when it wouldn’t interfere with the acquisition of young talent or other future-focused assets like draft picks or bonus pool cash?; or, even when it would help to meet those goals?

I think the 2017 Brewers provide a perfect example of this question. No, there was no legitimate way to predict that this Brewers squad would be a winning team, would challenge the mighty Cubs deep into September, and would fall heartbreakingly short of just Milwaukee’s fifth playoff appearance since the Brewers returned baseball to the city in 1970. But I can’t help but wonder, had the Brewers made a few acquisition in the free agent market to bring their payroll back up near the $80 million mark the club hovered around for most of the 2010s, would they have been able to win the National League Central, or at least a spot in the Wild Card Game?

This is especially relevant when considering the way the club’s season went. The Brewers used an early season hot streak to force themselves into the conversation as contenders. Although many of the players who fueled that hot start regressed — Eric Thames, Jett Bandy and Eric Sogard, for instance, never could replicate the brilliance of their first 100 or so plate appearances — the acquisitions of players like Stephen Vogt, Neil Walker, and Anthony Swarzak allowed the club to remain competitive and continue to play well throughout the second half when many expected them to fade, albeit not quite well enough.

What if the club had been willing to spend on these positions of weakness before the season began? What if Milwaukee had acquired a more expensive and reliable reliever than Neftali Feliz, whose incompetence cost the Brewers multiple games early on? What if they had spent on a starting pitcher to support a woefully inexperienced rotation?

The answer from those who support the austerity ideology would be that any such acquisitions would have been a heavy investment in the present at the expense of the future. The fact that Houston resisted such impulses and avoided the free agent market as they incurred historically horrific seasons in 2012 and 2013 only served to set the stage for their 2017 squad, as the draft picks they received as a result of those losses turned into players like Carlos Correa and Alex Bregman.

But I think it’s important we remember that the Astros’ success can’t entirely be credited to the tank. There was the disastrous selection of Mark Appel and the selection of Brady Aiken, who went unsigned. And there were also the players in place before the tanking even began; Jose Altuve, lest we forget, had been in the Astros system well before Jeff Luhnow’s arrival, and key players like Dallas Keuchel and Marwin Gonzalez were major league holdovers from the pre-Luhnow era as well. George Springer was an 11th pick overall, the fruit of a 76-win season, the last year before the big tank. 

I believe it is erroneous to credit the success of these tanking teams to the fact that they were austere with their payrolls. Spending on payroll is one of very few ways teams have to acquire talent, and more and more, baseball’s rules are making it harder and harder to go above and beyond to get better. To this point, look at the limits on bonus pools and international free agents. Even if that major league talent isn’t going to carry a team to the postseason immediately, teams always need help at the deadline, and with the right bet, a slick free agent acquisition even in a non-contending season could lead to a big prospect haul in July to aid the rebuilding effort.

I would be more open to the idea that the Brewers would need to save money if not for the fanbase’s consistent support of this club through good times and bad. Wisconsin baseball fans have consistently delivered with attendance figures over two million for a full decade now. The cash was there to make a splash with the reliever or back-end starter the Brewers needed to get over the hump. Even if the Brewers hadn’t turned into surprise contenders, such moves would have given them assets to play with either at the trade deadline or over this offseason.

Hopefully I’ll be proven wrong, but it looks to me like the Brewers may have cost themselves a year of their competitive window because they weren’t ready to open up the checkbook. I believe the same thing happened to the Astros, who won 86 and 84 games in 2015 and 2016 with the 29th and 21st largest payrolls in the game respectively as their front office was slow to spend and surround their first wave of prospects with the supporting cast it needed to take the next step. Obviously, 2017’s pennant and title soothes all for the Astros, but teams looking to follow their model should be aware that you can’t guarantee the window will last long enough to afford missing at the first crack.

What I fear will happen in baseball and across the American sporting landscape is that owners will look at the Astros success and only see the austerity without seeing the rest of the philosophy that backed it up: the aggressive acquisition of undervalued talent, the maximizing of future value by spending in the draft and amateur markets, and the understanding of when to cash in and turn future assets into present assets. But for the owners, tanking is a win-win scenario: If the team gets better, great, but if not, ownership cashes the revenue sharing checks and laughs all the way to the bank.

Last year’s Brewers showed the tanking process is not always going to follow a neat and perfect timeline. A team that looked a couple years away showed it was nearly ready for the big time. The front office has done a tremendous job of turning around what was a decrepit roster and farm system after the 2015 season, and the work that David Stearns and company have done to put this team in this position after just a few years is phenomenal. But after missing out on this shot last year, it now must be time to spend. Austerity isn’t what won the World Series for the Astros, and it won’t win one for the Brewers either.

Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez, USAToday Sports Images

It’s a crushing blow for the Brewers. Not only has Nelson clearly been the club’s best pitcher, whether by the eye test or by any number of metrics, it seemed like Nelson had also become the emotional leader in the starting rotation. Nelson brought so much raw energy to the mound, and he was at his best over the last month or so when the club needed him most. His season ends on a three-game winning streak with 24 strikeouts over 18.7 innings and just two runs allowed against the Dodgers, Nationals and Cubs. That’s one hell of a run.

Nelson was only projected, by both ZiPS and PECOTA’s rest-of-season projections, to add about a half a win for the Brewers down the stretch. Considering he only had about four starts left, I think it’s fair to say that Nelson’s loss is a bigger deal symbolically than anything else. It’s not just that the Brewers are going to lose his production. They’re also going to lose that stopper in the rotation, and particularly with the way the offense has scuffled since the break, the knowledge that the cold bats might not matter when Nelson’s turn through the rotation comes is critical.

But while it’s hard to imagine the Brewers making any sort of deep run through October without Nelson, we shouldn’t see this injury as the end of Milwaukee’s playoff chances. The Brewers are supposedly looking into minor league options to fill the rotation for the rest of the season. Whoever fills in won’t have to worry about going deep into games thanks to the extended bullpen granted by the expanded September roster.

The races right now are close enough: following this weekend’s fantastic sweep in Chicago, the Brewers are just two games behind the Cubs for the division. Even if the Cubs catch fire down the stretch, Milwaukee now only trails Colorado by three games for the Wild Card spot as well. The season can easily swing on one pitch, and the fact that Nelson has made his last hurts Milwaukee’s chances significantly. But the Brewers will still be the same team that has been in contention all year long on the other four days, and all it takes is one or two big step-up performances to make up for what will be lost from Nelson.

It’s going to be tough. But it has been tough all year. The Brewers have defied odds since April by staying in this race. Jimmy Nelson’s part in that can’t be overstated, but this team wasn’t going anywhere if they couldn’t win without him on the mound down the stretch. Now is the time for the rest of this squad to step up. As the team showed with its blowout win Saturday and their completion of the sweep Sunday, they still have the competitive fire necessary to keep things interesting. Dedicate this stretch run to Nelson and maybe, just maybe, they can come together and make what seemed impossible at the beginning of the season a reality.

Photo Credit: Jim Young, USAToday Sports Images

Milwaukee’s top contributor among position players through this pivotal month hasn’t been Eric Thames or Ryan Braun or Travis Shaw, the usual suspects who powered the Brewers through much of the first half. No, it has instead been the mercurial outfielder Keon Broxton, who owned a ridiculous .265/.342/.559 batting line with six home runs, 11 runs scored and 12 RBI through 23 August games entering Sunday’s contest with Los Angeles. And he has done this all while providing this kind of defense in center field:

It seems like a question Brewers fans have been asking ever since Broxton was acquired by the Brewers two years ago, but Broxton’s performance this August is once again forcing us to confront the question of what Milwaukee’s long-term plans for Broxton will be. Despite Broxton’s hot August, he still owns just a .227/.303/.454 overall line with 1.3 BWARP. Quibble with the fact that the evaluative systems haven’t loved Broxton’s defense this year if you want, as UZR and FRAA both have him at either neutral or slightly negative this year, but Broxton hasn’t established himself as even an average player here in 2017.

Broxton will still be a pre-arbitration player next year, so that part of the decision is fairly easy. But it gets complicated because Broxton will be out of options in 2018. The plan that the Brewers have used with him this year, which includes sending him down for a reset at hitter-friendly Colorado Springs, won’t be an option without exposing him to waivers. And so next year, the Brewers will have little choice but to endure the terrible stretches Broxton’s strikeout-happy ways are bound to produce, such as his 3-for-45 this July, or the infamous 0-for-16 that began his career in Milwaukee in 2016.

Because of his strikeout rate, all the way up to 37.5 percent, highest in the majors and the worst of the last half-century, there is a very real ceiling on Broxton’s potential production. As such, it’s going to be difficult to justify giving him plate appearances over the Brewers’ slew of young outfielders. Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, and Lewis Brinson already have to contend with Ryan Braun for one slot. Broxton’s place in the Brewers future is dwarfed by those three talents.

The easy answer here is to trade Broxton, but there just isn’t enough surplus value here for teams to trade a significant prospect haul for Broxton. At the very least, this is not likely over an offseason; things might be different should he heat up right before the trade deadline next year. The better option, in my estimation, is to keep Broxton as the ultimate utility outfielder in 2018. While I’m not a subscriber to the idea that defense doesn’t streak or slump — watch Nyjer Morgan or Carlos Gomez patrol center field for a full season and you’ll quickly be dissuaded from that belief — Broxton has the ability to contribute as a defensive replacement or pinch runner even when he’s going cold, making him a valuable roster asset.

While I certainly believe players like Brinson and Phillips need every day at-bats when they come up to the majors, there are over 2,000 at-bats available in a major league outfield, not to mention the extra at-bats that come for National League pinch hitters and designated hitters for interleague play. We certainly can’t expect Ryan Braun to take 650 plate appearances, and injuries are just a fact of major league life even for the livelier and healthier youngsters who will make up the rest of Milwaukee’s outfield in 2018. Even if Broxton doesn’t break camp as a starter, there will be a need for his services at some point.

It’s easy, if you want, to focus on the negatives in Broxton’s game, or to be more accurate, the one giant glaring negative that is his strikeout rate. Because he has such a hard ceiling, it can be easy to dismiss Broxton as an important piece of this Brewers team, present and future. His big August is a huge reason why this team is still afloat, and this year and next year are likely to be the peak years of his career. The best way for the Brewers to get the most out of Broxton seems clear to me: Keep him on this roster, deal with the inevitable slumps as they come, and let him do what he’s great at s long as he can.

Photo Credit: Ron Chenoy, USAToday Sports Images