Here are the basic details of this following experiment: I combed through every box score of every game for every NL Central team and switched all home runs to fly ball outs.

This is how the experiment affected certain scenarios:

If the bases were loaded with two outs and the batter hit a grand slam, none of those runs scored and the inning would not continue on afterwards.

If the bases were loaded with one out and the batter hit a grand slam, the runner on third base would tag up and score, and depending on the direction of the fly ball, the runner at second would tag up and head to third.

Let’s say an inning starts like this: Three batters step up and hit three solo homers in a row; then, in the same inning, three doubles in a row score two runs. Under my judgement, unless it was the bottom of the ninth, those runs would score. I treated the doubles as a clean slate and the start of a new inning.

All rallies were treated like this. If a homer made it three outs, but a hypothetical two-out rally commenced afterwards, that rally was allowed to continue in a “new inning” until three more outs were recorded or the current inning ended.

For example, say runners were on first and second with one out then a batter hit a home run. Under this scenario, there would be two outs and runners would still be on first and second. Then, the next batter hits a single. Hypothetically, that single would score the runner on second base. Even though it was originally a single with the bases empty, it turns into an RBI single. All similar scenarios were treated this way.

Inside-the-park home runs were allowed, though I only ran into one of them, which was hit by Orlando Arica.

As a final reminder, this isn’t an exact science. Instead, it’s meant to give an idea of how home runs effect the wins and losses of each team.

With all that out of the way, here’s the new, no-homer NL Central Standings. Statistics are through play on Friday:

First impression: There’s no ties in baseball! The most important rule outside of “no crying in baseball” has been broken, so how do we take care of the ties?

In the top of the tenth inning, each team has an equal 50 percent chance of winning the game. So, I took each game, went to random.org, and flipped X amount of coins. However, I flipped the coin group three times and averaged out the amounts to diminish the probability of random error.

Here’s the new standings without ties.

Everyone’s record looks quite a bit different, however nobody changed as dramatically as the Reds and Brewers.

Overall, 22 of the Brewers wins shifted. Twelve became straight up losses, while ten became ties. On the other hand, thirteen losses shifted. Two became wins, eleven became ties.

The Brewers’ +/- on home run reliant wins is a negative eight.

On the surface, this seems like a bad thing, but in reality, it might be the other way around. What I found, switching home runs to fly balls helps bad pitching more than it hurts home run reliant offense.

The Reds pitching staff has surrendered 170 home runs this year, 12 more than the second place Mariners and about 45 worse than average.

29 of the Reds losses were shifted: 12 became wins, while 7 became ties. They turned 10 more losses into wins that the Brewers. On the other side, only 8 of the Reds wins were shifted. 2 became outright losses, while 6 turned into ties.

Let’s further this example by using a really good team, the Dodgers.

Through play on Friday, the Dodgers allowed a league low 106 home runs, and their offense slugged 153 home runs, 8th highest in the MLB.

It stands to reason that in this hypothetical homer-less world, the Dodgers would suffer many more losses. If teams manage to score on them, it’s not likely to be a home run, but if the Dodgers score, it is much more likely to occur on a home run. Simple as that.

However, a team like the Giants might see their record rise. They have hit 87 homers, lowest in the league by 15, and given up 121. Granted, their ballpark is a haunted house for sluggers, but even so, their ability to generate offense without homers would appear a lot more valuable.

There is one problem with this scenario: The Chicago Cubs.

It makes sense why the Pirates improved. Pittsburgh has hit the second lowest amount of homers this year, 102, while giving up 118. It also makes sense why the Cardinals didn’t see much change. They don’t hit or give up home runs at a large pace, so the experiment didn’t have much of a result on their games.

But, the Cubs are a different animal. Through Friday, they 152 homers this year, 9th in the MLB and only 7  total behind the Brewers. Alternately, they only allowed 129, 21st in the MLB and 6 less than the total amount the Brewers have allowed.

How is it possible that the Brewers tanked, but the Cubs only dropped four games?

Overall, 17 of the Cubs wins shifted. 10 went to the loss column, and seven were ties.

However, 13 of their losses shifted. 6 turned into wins, while 7 were ties.

Their +/- on home run reliant wins is only -4. Granted, they did get luckier with the random.org quarter flips, but even if the Brewers went 12-7 instead of 7-12, they’d be an equally abysmal 49-59. There’s no escaping the bad.

Here’s why I think this happened: Walks and strikeouts provided the impact.

The Brewers struck out a league-leading 1075 times through Friday, almost 170 more times than the Cubs. The Cubs walked 405 times this season, 50 more times than the Brewers. Simply put, the Cubs are making more contact and getting more people on base. In fact, their .329 on-base percentage is notably higher than the Brewers .323.

In no home run baseball, the ability to get on base weighs so much more heavily. Since home runs can no longer clear the bases, teams need singles and walks to keep rallies going. Plus, strikeouts are far worse because they’re the only result that doesn’t put the ball in play.

So, what did this experiment prove?

It proves that the Brewers are a bit of a one-dimensional offense, which is one possible reason why they’ve undergone such massive second half struggles. Their method of producing runs by counting on homers to do their dirty work might not be a long-term, sustainable path to success.

In an era where homers are lauded and strikeouts are considered a normal out, the two stats can prop up an offense that isn’t as good as some originally though. Luckily for the Brewers, they’ll never have to live in an MLB without homers. Instead they’ll have to hope their 2017 power surge can lead them to a playoff berth.

Yes, Milwaukee still has to actualize those numbers and make the playoffs, a harrowing task with the Cubs, Diamondbacks and Rockies giving chase. Plus, PECOTA doesn’t necessarily favor the Brewers, listing their playoff odds at 47.1 percent, which is well behind the Cubs 60 percent, Rockies 73 percent, D’backs 84 percent.

But, let’s assume the Brewers push past PECOTA and make the field, most likely in a Wild Card game. Are they good enough to win the World Series?
For comparison purposes, I looked at the numbers (through 95 games) from World Series winners through from the past twenty years.

First of all, look at the Brewers’ record. At this writing, the Brewers now sit at 52-44, and their mark of 52-43 was tied with or better than six of the past World Series winners through 95 games: the 2012 Giants, 2011 Cardinals, 2010 Giants, 2008 Phillies, 2004 Red Sox, and 2003 Marlins.

The worst record of a World Series winner belongs to the Marlins who, after firing their manager at the start of the season, had a solid but unimpressive 49-46 record in the middle of July. They’re the only team with fewer than 50 midseason wins to win a World Series in the past 20 years. The average record for a World Series winner is 55-50, so the Brewers don’t really have a problem in that department.

Let’s move on to the offense, the most publicly heralded trait of the team. The Brewers’ .773 OPS is higher than 11 of the World Series winners, and their 143 Home Runs is higher than anybody else. However, there are some drawbacks. They’re in the bottom half of walks and runs, with twelve teams having higher numbers in both catego ries, and none of the twenty teams have come close to matching the Brewers 914 total strikeouts.

Granted, the home run and strikeout numbers are more likely a product of the current era they’re playing in. Last year, the Cubs 817 team strikeouts were the highest over the past twenty years, and all three of the 2017 powerhouses in the West (Dodgers, Rockies, D’Backs) have 816 or more team strikeouts. However, 914 strike outs is absolutely ridiculous. It’s nearly 100 more than any of the total 34 teams I’ve looked at in the past 21 years, and it’s 300 or 400 more than some teams.

Yes, the home run numbers are impressive, but teams in the past have come close to touching the Brewers 143. The 2004 Red Sox had 131 and the 2001 D’backs had 128. Nobody has even been close to 900 strikeouts. If the Brewers do make the playoffs, and they run into arms like Clayton Kershaw, Max Scherzer, Robbie Ray, and Stephen Strasburg, it’s probably the end of the line.

Moving onto pitching, only six of the past 20 World Series winners had an ERA higher than the Brewers 4.08, and four of the 20 surrendered more than the Brewers 332 walks. Even worse, in the past decade, only one World Series winner had an ERA over 4.08. So, after the end of the Steroid Era, pitching has won out.

Now, let’s combo the offense and the defense. Are there any teams that have won the World Series in the past 20 years who’ve had an OPS of .773 or lower and an ERA of 4.08 or higher through 95 games? Yes, exactly one, the 2003 Marlins. There were a few teams that were close, like the 2008 Phillies who had a .744 OPS and 3.91 ERA or the 2006 Cardinals with a .775 OPS and 4.61 ERA, but only the Marlins qualified in both categories.

Comparing teams across eras, the one wrench in the Brewers playoff plans is the Dodgers. No World Series winning team from the past two decades has been as good as the Dodgers though 95 games. Their 3.12 ERA is the lowest, by a good margin. The only one that comes close to them is last year’s Cubs who had a 3.24 ERA. But, the Cubs had more walks and less strikeouts. It’s really not a competition.

Eight of Thames’s first eleven homers were in his 7 games and 25 at-bats against the Reds in the month of April. Since then, Thames has managed nine total homers in 50 games and 172 at-bats. Plus, who could forget the 15 game and 45 at-bat homerless drought from May 10th to May 30th?

Well, thirst no longer Mr. Thames, because the Reds are back on the schedule and they’re ready to help you engrain your spot in the MLB history books.

Currently, Thames is on pace to put up the best home run season against one specific team in MLB history. Entering play Tuesday, here are the top long-ball five performers in seven (or fewer) games:

It’s actually pretty unbelievable that he’s the only one to average over one homer per game over a seven game stretch, but what’s even more unbelievable is that to break the all-time record it wouldn’t take much of a Herculean effort.

Thames has twelve total games left against the Reds (two more this week, three in August, and six in September). If he were to maintain his eight homers in seven games ratio through those remaining games, he’d finish the season with 21 homers against the Reds.

But, let’s say Thames regresses and can’t maintain his Ruthian ratio. On the season, Thames is averaging 0.26 HR/Game, and if one were to extend that ratio over a 12 game period, he’s likely to hit 3.38 homers.

Now, let’s add a Reds multiplier. To keep things on a similar plane, the Reds pitching staff surrenders 1.65 HR/Game, and over 12 games it is likely they give up 19.8 homers. On the season, Thames is responsible for 18 percent of all Brewer home runs, so if the Brewers were to hit 20 against the Reds, Thames should account for 3.6.

One more thing to look at is park factor. Since nine of the remaining games are in Miller Park, which boasts a .243 higher homer chance than Great American, the Brewers home run likelihood versus the Reds jumps to 23. And, Thames jumps to 4.14 homers.

So, Thames should hit at least more four home runs against the Reds in 2017, and with a little extra Reds pitching magic, he could easily set the record and have the single best home run season against one single team in MLB history.

Now, let’s move from power to speed.

On Tuesday morning, a chart measuring sprint speed from Baseball Savant gained a lot of traction on Twitter. Summed up, they measured all plays where a runner attempted to to advance two or more bases on a ball in play and calculated how fast that runner was going in feet per second.

Here’s how the Brewers stand:

Clearly, the biggest surprise is Thames, who clocks in as the fourth speediest first baseman in all of baseball. Thames clocks in just behind Wil Myers, Eric Hosmer, and Jefry Marte, and he’s also the third fastest Brewer.

Also impressive is Keon Broxton, who’s the fifth fastest player behind the game’s notorious speedsters Billy Hamilton, Byron Buxton, Bradley Zimmer, and Franchy Cordero.

The only disappointing measure from this list is the speed of the middle infield. Arica ranks 29th among 39 shortstops while Villar and Sogard are 24th an 30th respectively in the field of 39 second basemen.

Finally, the player of the week is Brewer great, Corey Hart, who will retire this Friday as a Brewer and land himself in the “Milwaukee Brewers Wall of Honor.”

In honor of Hart’s illustrious career, here’s some of his greatest and somewhat random accomplishments.

Hart might be the greatest substitute in Brewer history. In his 93 at-bats off the bench, he accumulated 8 doubles, 4 homers, 20 RBI. He also hit .333 off the bench.

He’s also among the greatest right-fielders in Brewers history. I’ll give out the stats of the top three, you be the judge.

Hart loved to feast on the first pitch. Over his Brewers career, he hit .390 with a 1.061 OPS and 31 homers while facing a 0-0 count. In the record books, that gives him the fifth highest batting average, ninth highest OPS, and sixth most home runs.

Hart was also a pretty good lead-off hitter. His .856 lead-off OPS is the highest in Brewer history, 52 points ahead of the second place Paul Molitor. Also, his .522 slugging percentage as a lead-off bat easily crowns him as the most powerful lead-off hitter in Brewers history (66 points in front of second place Carlos Gomez).

Aside from first pitches, Hart had two others loves: Miller Park and the month of June. At home, Hart had a .291 average, .891 OPS, and 94 homers. His OPS is the 10th highest in Brewer history and homers are the 3rd highest. Away from Miller Park, Hart dropped to .262 average with a .762 OPS and 60 homers.

As for the month of June, Hart sported a .284 batting average, .886 OPS, and 34 homers. This is the sixth best June split in Brewer history. Hart’s June performance was far better than his second best month, September, where he put up a .265 average and .810 OPS.

In fact, three of Hart’s six greatest games were in June. Take a look:

Finally, Corey Hart finished his Brewer career with a 15.7 WAR, good for 16th best all-time, and his MLB career with a 14.7 WAR, good for 22nd overall among his 2000 draft class. That’s pretty good for an 11th round draft pick out of Greenwood High School in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Clearly, the quality of a debut has no prolonged effect on a career. For example, Wille Mays finished 0-5 with a strikeout on a Friday night in Philly. This led me to wonder how Brewers prospects have fared as young, nervous bucks looking to make their lasting mark on the show.

For the sake of being brief, I’ve only kept it to hitters, and to determine which hitters to use, I took all the position players from MLB.com’s top 20 prospect lists since 2011 and the top 50 position players, over the course of Brewer history, in terms of WAR.

As a side note and quick homage, Taylor Jungmann, the six foot, six righty first round pick who never quite panned out, had one of the best MLB debuts of any Brewers player ever, or at least of those I could find. Against the Pirates on June 9th, 2015, Jungmann hurled 7 innings of one-run ball while only allowing 3 hits, 1 walk and striking out 5. Another great pitching debut belonged to Steve Woodard, who, on July 28th, 1997, facedRoger Clemens but managed to out-duel to Rocket by tossing 8 innings of one hit, 12 strikeout shutout baseball.

Regardless, here’s the list of hitter debuts:

The first thing that sticks out, 20 out of the 33 on this list debuted as either pinch hitters, runner or fielders. That’s 60 percent! I suppose it’s nice for a player to get a feel for the major league experience before being completely submerged into the cesspool of overly excited fan and media criticism. However, I’m not sure I quite understand holding back a prospect on his first day. Why not just get all the butterflies over with from the start, and not play a stress inducing waiting game far worse than the MLB draft?

The other common occurrence on this list is a lack of big-time performances. Consistently across the big leagues, we herald stories of historic debuts with multiple hits, home runs, or RBI’s, but only one Brewers bat, Geoff Jenkins, smacked a homer. Dave Nilsson was the only one to have multiple RBI’s.

There is no one that can match Willie McCovey’s four hits, Starlin Castro’s 7 RBI’s, or Trevor Story’s two homers off of Zack Greinke that set the stage for a historic first half. That fact does have a lot to do with the prevalence of pinch hit situations, but in labeling the best position player debut of all-time, Geoff Jenkins, with his two hits, homer, RBI and two runs scored takes the debut cake.

Some more obscure notes from Brewer debuts:

• Jordan Schafer faced his brother Logan when he came on the scene in September 2011.

• During Scooter Gennett’s debut, current Brewers nerd, Eric Sogard, was playing for the A’s.

• Yadiel Rivera probably had the most unlucky debut. He had to square up against 2015 Jake Arrieta during his stretch of elite dominance. As expected, Arrieta threw a complete game shutout.

• There wasn’t a typo in the chart, both Sixto Lorenzo and Gorman Thomas debuted against the Orioles’ Dave McNally. I’m sure more Brewers wished they’d had the same matchup since those two were a combined 4-8 with a triple and an RBI during their debuts.

• Combined, Gomez and Hernandez were 4-6 with a double, 4 runs, and a RBI. So, it turns out Brewers’ debuts are better when they’re against the Brewers.

• Final thoughts, despite Brett Phillips and Lewis Brinson’s uninspiring debuts, it’s important to remember that one game from a player in their early 20s doesn’t signify or even hint at a career arch.

Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale, USA Today Sports Images

Luckily for Guerra, his bad luck ends there because during his Friday return against the Diamondbacks, he went six innings, gave up only one solo homer and should have earned a win if not for a blown save by Corey Knebel.

I went to the game on Friday and was able to track Guerra’s performance pitch-by-pitch. Here’s what I found:

Guerra was regularly behind hitters. On 98 total pitches, he threw 43 balls and 53 strikes. He was behind in the count 27 times, even 20 times, ahead 22 times and full 4 times. I’m eliminating first pitch balls in play from the 0-1/ahead category, but for reference there were four.

As a comparison, I tracked a Jeff Samardzja start against the Cubs on Thursday.

Facing 27 batters over seven innings, he was behind 23 times, even 29 times, ahead 34 times and full 3 times.

Samardzija was pitching ahead in the count 29 percent of the time. Guerra was ahead 22 percent of the time. That might not seem like a huge difference, but in 2017, hitters are .198 when behind in the count and .266 when ahead.

Here’s some more season numbers from hitters around the league based on the count:

But, being behind and struggling to throw strikes isn’t new for Guerra. Take a look at his 2016 numbers:

Let’s compare that to one of 2017’s top tier pitchers, Dallas Keuchel

Now, Samardzija in 2017

Last year, Guerra didn’t have a pitch he could rely on. Three of his four pitches weren’t in the strike zone 30 percent of the time and his slider was swung at under 40 percent of the time. In contrast, Keuchel can turn to his sinker or slider, and Samardzija a reliable slider and swing inducing splitter. However, despite the raw ball/strike numbers from Guerra’s second start, his control and effectiveness might be improving. And, it’s all on the back of his sinker and splitter.

Guerra introduced his sinker on July 19th last year and from then on threw it 28 percent of the time during his last seven starts of the season. That reduced his fourseam fastball usage by 11 percent, slider by 5 percent and splitter by 3 percent. Further, during his last four starts, he averaged only 8 sliders per game. That was down from the 17 he averaged in his first 13 starts and season high 32 he fired off against the Tigers on June 29th. He kept up his trend of reducing the slider in his most recent start.

Guerra’s slider was borderline ignored, and he didn’t throw it past the fourth inning. Also, he only used it past the second pitch of an at-bat once. It seems it’s main usage was to give hitters something that wasn’t a fastball or sinker on the first pitch. However, it ended up putting him behind in the count 1-0 three times and 2-0 twice.

Looking at Guerra’s overall control numbers from his D’backs start, there’s some major improvement on last season. His sinker, which he could never find the zone with, hit the mark 34 percent of the time. To explain how bad his sinker was in 2016, he threw 31 sinkers during his last two starts and one of them fell in for a called strike and zero induced a whiff. For Guerra to have 8 called sinker strikes, 3 whiffs, and no hard contract is an impressive turnaround.

Guerra’s Splitter has also been devilishly nasty as his main strikeout pitch, and the seven whiffs against it were from Paul Goldschmidt (Badly), Yasmany Tomas (3 times), Chris Ianetta, and Brandon Drury. Last season, Guerra caused 9 whiffs in his final four starts and averaged four whiffs on his splitter per game. Currently, it looks like his splitter is on a different level (ask Goldschmidt) and it could help that he has learned to located the sinker.

However, the splitter could havebeen a victim of overuse when it was clubbed hard, 106 mph both times, for a homer and double in the fourth inning.

But, It’s possible that we may see Guerra morph into a sinker-splitter pitcher. The last six batters he faced looked like this:

Adding in Guerra’s fastball, this should be the Guerra we see moving forward and it looks like, and in terms of control and off speed stuff, it could be an improved Guerra. If Guerra can find a way to improve on his 2016 campaign, where he went 9-3 with a 2.81 ERA on a team that only won 73 ball games, it would be an impressive showing from the 32-year-old who debuted just two years ago.

Contrastingly, Villar had a Stolen Base Run (SBR) of 1.53, 10th highest in the league. He was the only player to meet both of those requirements in 2016 and only the 12th in big league history. Additionally, I created a statistic that tracked outs on bases, pick-offs, and caught stealing against Baseball Prospectus Total Baserunning Opportunities. Villar ended with a out on base percentage (OOB%) of 15.8. That means, he recorded an out 16 percent of the time he was given a base running opportunity.

Villar has shown improvement in 2017. Entering Wednesday night, he has not recorded a single out on base. After having 16 last year, the highest amount from any player in the top 20 of stolen base attempts, that’s exceptionally impressive.

However, his OOB percentage remains a stalwart 15.4. How could this be? Pickoffs.

Villar has been picked off five times this year. Last year, he was only picked off six times. He’s on a record pace; in fact, he could actually shatter a record.

In the past 30 years, there have only been 9 players picked off double digit times in a season. And, in the past decade, nobody has done it.

The reason I used Stolen Base Opportunities, which measured how many times a runner was a lead runner at first or second, instead of total opportunities is because these are the situations in which a pitcher would attempt to pick off a runner.

Villar has only had 52 total stolen base opportunities this season. That means, he’s been picked off 9.6 percent of the time he’s been a lead runner. Erick Yelding, who was picked off a mind-boggling 13 times, had a percentage of 6.7.

If one were to quadruple Villar’s opportunities (208) to provide similar opporunities to Yelding, he would end the year with 20 picked offs. If one were to give Villar the same amount of opportunities he had last year, 252, he’d be near 25 picked offs.

Individually, these numbers are heart-wrenching. But, even collectively, Villar’s numbers would make a manager loose plenty of sleep at night. Through 2017, here are the team picked off numbers.

Only 7 of the 29 teams that aren’t the Brewers have been collectively picked off 5 or more times.

Further, only two other individual players, Jose Altuve and Charlie Blackmon, have been picked off more than twice this season. Here are the leaders:

Somehow, the news gets worse.

I combed through all of his box scores in which he reached base and I found a note in the scorecard on April 20th against the Cardinals. Apparently, Carlos Martinez had Villar at first base, but an error by Cardinals first baseman Matt Carpenter allowed Villar to get back in safely and eventually advance to second base. In the box score, it was reported as a pickoff, but in the overall count it’s disallowed due to him getting back safely.

Technically, Villar’s been picked off 6 times. In total, he’s been in stolen base position at first base 34 times and been picked off 5 times. That’s 14.7 percent of the time. At second base, he’s been in position 18 times and picked off once. That’s 5.5 percent.

Over the past 30 years, only 118 players have been picked off 6 times in a full season. Villar has done that in 52 opportunities, and it’s only the month of May! In actuality, he reached number six on May 9th. It took him just 37 calendar days and 33 baseball games to reach a number only 118 players over the past 30 years have reached.

In a full season, the least amount of opportunities needed to reach 6 or more picked offs was 140 by Alex Sanchez of the Brewers in 2002.

Since we’re really focused on the record, we’ll go back to Yelding quickly. Here is his Pickoff Log

Villar has been picked off 6 times (technically 5) before Yielding was picked off a single time in his record setting (in the last 30 years) season. But, Yelding did have 7 picked offs from May 29th to June 24th so that takes the edge off the insanity of Villar’s opening month. But, the record is very much obtainable for Villar based off his start to the season.

There is some good news for Villar: In Villar’s first 15 stolen base opportunities, he was picked off 4 times. Since then he’s settled down with only two picked offs in his last 38 stolen base opportunities.

But, Villar’s biggest break between pickoffs is only 22 Stolen base opportunities. Yelding had a month and a half at the start of the season and almost a month between July and August.

The good news is only minimal. However, if you consider the good news Villar setting the record, then that evidence is fantastic. I will finish with actual good news. Despite Villar, the 2017 Brewers have been a marginally better base running team.

2016 Brewers

2017 Brewers

Most importantly, the Brewers’ percentage of outs on base has reduced from 4.3 percent to 2 percent. Overall, they’ve been much more disciplined and hopefully we get to see a better Brewers team and a record set by Villar in the same season.

“If you force contact, there’s going to be more hits.” he said. “You just try to cut down on the things you can control, which is walks and hit batters.”

So far, Nelson has lived up to his word. Through his first five starts, he’s shrunk his 4.3 BB9 from 2016 to 3.1 this season, his 5.12 FIP to 4.38, and has only hit one batter.

Further, last year Nelson had six total games with one (or fewer) base on balls. This year, he’s already produced three such games. And, he hit a batter in 14 of his 32 starts last year, but in only one of his first five this season.

Nelson has shown improvement, but there is one problem. Despite his shrinking walk totals, the “more hits” aspect of his promise has also come true. His WHIP still sits at a disappointing 1.53.

Overall, looking at Nelson’s control stats, it’s clear things have changed.

Every single pitch has decreased in ball percentage and increase in strike percentage Well, except curveballs. With curveballs, it’s been the exact opposite.  In fact, that’s not the only change that’s occurred with Nelson’s curveball in 2017.

In 2016, Nelson used his curveball 17 percent of the time when pitching to left-handed hitters and 8 percent of the time against righties. However, in 2017, while he’s kept his usage of the curve at a relatively consistent 15 percent against lefties, he’s all but abandoned his curve against righties. Since he first introduced his curve in 2015, he’d only thrown 5 or less curveballs in a start three times, but this April, he’s already done that three times and, in total, only thrown three curveballs to right handed hitters.

At first, it was confusing to me why Nelson would suddenly drop the curve. Last year, he’d thrown it for a strike 36 percent of the time, the highest of his four pitches. In a season where Nelson was looking to consistently be in the zone, I figured it would be a valuable asset. But, he also missed the zone with it 41 percent of the time, it produced a whiff rate of only 9 percent, and righties smacked it around to the tune of a .292 average. The pitch proved to volatile to use against righties, especially since his slider, which, in 2016, he threw 32 percent for strikes and 33 percent for balls, limited righties to a .155 average. Pairing his power fastball, which limited righties to a .258 average in 2016, with that slider would presumably breed success in 2017.

Nelson’s curveball isn’t the only pitch that’s undergone a drastic shift. In fact, it’s not even the most drastic of the five in his repertoire compared to 2016:

Nelson has shifted sinker, fastball and change-up tendencies. Last season, he averaged 43.3 sinkers per start and 229 per month but this season he’s only averaging 32.2 per start. Against lefties, he’s switched from sinker to four seam as a main weapon for the first time in his career.

When he first came up in 2014, Nelson could have been considered a sinkerballer, throwing 57 percent sinkers with a complementary 25 percent sliders in 12 starts. Only 15 percent of his pitches were fourseam fastballs.

In 2015, Nelson altered by dipping to 35 percent sinkers and 17 percent sliders, while raising his fastball percentage to 25 and introducing a curveball that took up the final 21 percent.

However, the real theme in 2015 was his shift in breaking ball usage. According to the Journal Sentinel, Nelson (and Taylor Jungman) were encouraged to develop more reliable off-speed pitches to support the hard stuff. Nelson shifted from throwing 25 percent breaking in 2014 to 38 percent in 2015.

This was easily his best season in the bigs, and his 4.11 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 8.3 H9, and 96 ERA+ all say so. Besides his league high 13 hit batters, which furthered the worry of command issues, the 26 year-old Texan looked promising.

2016 brought another shift. He moved back to his 2014 form by heavily upping his sinker usage and it caused similar control issues. He realized his fastball was a more reliable and controllable pitch that causes more whiffs and less line drives.

This is why I believe we’ve seen Nelson shift so dramatically away from the sinker in 2017. He’s lost confidence in that pitch as a main weapon, and honestly there was minimal reason to have confidence in it in the first place. In 2014, opposing hitters hit .331 against the sinker, in 2015 they hit .311, and in 2016 .315. Even worse, the last two years he’s been unable to throw his sinker for a strike more than 22 percent of the time.

He’s already seemingly ditched the sinker against lefties, but there is a definite argument to ditch it altogether. This season righties are hitting .391 against Nelson’s sinkers, 8 of the 13 base hits, including the only home run, he’s given up have been off sinkers, and all three walks and the lone hit by pitch were on a sinker. Clearly, he has limited control of the pitch.

However, there is still hope for the sinker. This year, as a secondary pitch against lefties, he’s been able to throw it more effectively for strikes and hold hitters to a .112 average against it. Maybe, if he were to use his fourseam as a main weapon against righties his sinker could be more effective in certain situations.

However, the credit to the increased success of his hard stuff could go to his new change-up, at least against lefties.

For the first time in his career, Nelson is throwing a tangible change-up. He’d never thrown a change more than 3 percent of the time, and the only time he even hit 3 percent was in 2014 where 3 of the 91 pitches he threw to lefties were change-ups.
This April, Nelson has thrown 28 change-ups (25 to lefties) which is 5.4 percent of his total pitches and only ten less than the 38 he threw all last year. So far, the change-up had been effective holding hitters to a .167 average and clearly, at least at this point, he’s committed to changing things up on the competition.

Nelson discussed his addition of the change-up, which he identified as having a split grip, in an interview with MLB.com‘s Adam McCalvy this march. “I like this pitch,” he said. I like “the action it has on it.”

This is a pitch he’s been trying to establish as a secondary pitch since at least 2015 if not before. Tom Haudricourt of the Journal Sentinel mentioned his sporadic usage of a rare change in 2014 season in an article on March 6th, 2015.

The change is something that Nelson could implement further against righties. Currently, no-one has made contact against the three he’s thrown and it could possibly take attention of his fastball, sinker combination to make them more effective.

All of the changes Nelson chose to work on make sense, including his goal to become more physical fit and develop a strong base, and they seem to have been effective in helping him maintain his velocity while also reigning in his control issue. It makes me think he’s headed in the right direction.

After winning a world series five seasons later, looking back at a group so comically different can be a fun exercise for a nostalgic fanbase, but the real highlight from this storybook 101 loss season was a man who started on the bench, first baseman/outfielder Bryan LaHair

LaHair was a typical minor league lifer who tallied 195 career at-bats during two stints with the 2008 Seattle Mariners and 2011 Cubs. And, at 29 years old, his chances at ever landing a  full-time major league roster spot looked grim until the 2012 Cubs, a perfect combination of desperate for possible talent, willing to take a chance due to his previous year .331/.405/.664 line in AAA Iowa, and waiting for the emergence of top prospect Anthony Rizzo, gave him a look as the everyday first baseman.

He exceeded all possible expectations. During April, he put up an astounding .390/.471/.780 line with a 1.251 OPS, 5 homers and 8 doubles. Even though his May and June amounted to a less than stellar .243 batting average, he still managed .286/.364/.519 with a .883 OPS, 14 homers, 12 doubles, and a questionable all-star selection at the end of the first half.

His second half was a bit more believable. A .202/.29/.303 line, 2 homers, and a lot more late inning pinch hit appearances than starts. It also ended up being his last major league season.

Why is this relevant? A quick scroll down LaHair’s Baseball Reference page to the similar batters section reveals a very familiar name, Eric Thames.

The similarities don’t stop there.

Oddly enough, both Thames and LaHair played their 25 year old season in Seattle, and it was their last season before taking a multi-year hiatus from the big leagues.

Here are those seasons side-by-side

Now, in the years both have returned they’ve had breakout months of April, and here’s what those breakout seasons look like through their first 42 at-bats

Now, here is Lahair’s month by month progression.

This isn’t me insinuating Thames will have a drop off as similarly astronomical as Lahair. I’m also not saying he’ll continue he meteoric rise to MVP status. Instead, I  think there’s reason to believe he will continue to find moderate success for a few specific reasons: His handling of off-speed against righties, and general competence against left-handing pitching. However, there is also an alternate reality where his inability to hit fastballs and preform in clutch situations diminishes his role in the starting lineup.

We’ll start with the good.

Over his career, Lahair was plagued by left-handed pitching. In fact, over his 82 career at-bats against left handers, he only managed a measly 8 hits and struck out 37 times. In case you’re wondering, that’s a batting average of .098 and a strike out rate of 38 percent in all plate appearances against lefties.

He reached the peak of awful in 2012 where in 54 at-bats against lefties had 3 hits and struck out 50 precent of the time.

Thames, on the other hand, has a career .222 average against left-handed pitching and only strikes out 24 percent of the time. Not great but certainly much more tolerable than Lahair. Even better news, Thames has smoked left-handed pitching during the early part of this season. Entering Tuesday night against the Cubs, in his six at-bats against lefties, he’s got three hits and two of them are home runs (a solid Tuesday night means Thames is now six-for-nine against lefties). Some may bemoan the incredibly small sample size, but remember three hits is the exact number Lahair finished with throughout the entire 2012 season. He would’ve loved to have three hits by April 18th.

As for off-speed, against right handed pitching Lahair hit .157 against curve balls and struck out on 51 of the 385 he faced over his career. He was able to handle sporting a .286 average.

Thames has preformed much better against curveballs with a .273 average and even though he’s suffered against sliders still holds up a respectable .226.

Now, the bad.

Over his career, Eric Thames has faced 1121 fast balls, and not many of them have gone well. His .233 average against fastballs is his second worst average, following sliders, against any of the 6 pitches he’s seen over 100 times. Also, his .416 slugging percentage against fastballs is his third worst.

This was the most telling stat: Against power pitchers, Thames has a .191/.257/.419 line with a .679 OPS. Against Finesse pitches, .298/.347/.506 with a .854 OPS. Fastballs are a real issue.

For comparison’s sake, Lahair had a .265 average against fastballs, a .745 OPS against power pitching and .880 OPS against finesse pitching.

As for career clutch hitting, Thames has struggled:

As for Lahair:

Similarly bad, and at times better.

In summary, Thames is a great story and an incredible player to watch.

Can he get an all-star nomination? Absolutely! Can he win comeback player of the year? Potentially, and according to Bob Nigthengale of USA Today, he’ll get a $50,000 bonus if he does. Can he win MVP? Not a chance. Can he tank and find himself out of the league again in 2018? Sadly, yes. It will be a feeling out process all year for Thames, who will have to deal with plenty of ups and down and adjustments. The Brewers just have to hope he can moderately sustain his current success.

Guerra finds a very interesting position in history. First off, he’s the only Brewer opening day starter in history, as far as I could tell form studying past box scores and game logs, to ever suffer an injury on opening day. And, if he misses the reported six weeks, he’ll be only the second Brewer opening day starter to miss his second start of the season and have his second start happen in May or later.

The only other Brewer to miss his second start was Mark Knudson in 1991. Knudson, according to an article by Chris Zantow, got sick with a high fever and lost 10 pounds before his next start 10 days later.

The only other Brewers pitcher to have his second start be in the month of May or later was Ricky Bones in 1995, the MLB strike shortened season. His first start was April 26th, and consequently had his second start on May 1st. Therefore, starting in May had nothing to due with injury or sickness. This means Guerra will be the only opening day Brewers starter to have his next start in May for an outside reason.

But, the Guerra historical tidbits don’t end there. His 46 total pitches were the fewest for a Brewers opening day starter dating back to 1988, the end of Baseball Reference tracking pitch counts. However, I suspect that Guerra might have one of the lowest, if not the lowest, opening day pitch counts since the Pilots first took the field in 1969.

Guerra only pitched three innings on Monday and faced 11 total batters. From 1987 to 1969, only three pitchers threw three innings or less. Lew Krausse threw 3.0 in 1970, Jim Colborn 2.7 in 1974, and Jim Slaton 2.7 in 1975. However, all three of those pitchers were shelled instead of injured. Slaton gave up five runs and faced 17 batters, Colborn seven runs and 16 batters, and Krausse four runs and 13 batters.

Pairing all that with the fact that Guerra’s 2.5 career WAR was the 11th lowest of any opening day starter on any team in the past decade, his start might be one of the biggest outliers in Brewers history.

But, the 2017 Brewers weren’t done making history on Monday. Specifically, the Brewers also made history with their infield.

Here are the Brewers opening day infields from the last two years.

The one difference of note: they’re all different.The Brewers are the only team in 2017 to debut an infield where not one person is playing the same position as the previous season. Granted, Villar remains on the infield, but for the purpose of this article, the positional change makes him a different player.

This is the third time in Brewers history they’ve had an infield with no similarities. The two other years were 1993 and 1972. Interestingly, 1993 and 2017 share an incredible amount of opening day lineup similarities.

Along with the infields being different, the outfields are exactly the same as the previous year.

Further, the 1993 lineup had an average age of 27.8. This roster was filled with players below age 30, partnered with the aging franchise piece, Robin Yount, at 37. Similarly, the 2017 team has an average age of 27 and is bolstered by a sub-30 core, sans Thames, who just turned 30 in November, and a 33 year-old Braun. Bad news for the Brewers, that ’93 team, even thought they were projected at 75 wins, won just 69 games and finished 7th in the AL east. Currently, the 2017 team, based on PECOTA, is projected at 76 wins.

There was one more thing that caught my eye. Due to the infrequency of the completely different infield, I sought out to find just how common that is. It turns out that this is pretty rare for most teams.

Looking at the NL central, the other four teams have averaged 3.5 completely unique infields. None of them have had two unique infields in the past 60 years.

It turns out, the Brewers are one of only six organizations, along with the Marlins, Padres, Royals, Athletics, Mariners, to have three or more unique infields between now and 1972. Unsurprisingly, all are small market teams, but the good news is two of them have won world series during that time frame. By contrast, the Nationals and Rockies have never had a unique infield, and the A’s are the most frequent, doing it 9 times in their 105 years.

Overall, the average per franchise for unique infields is 3.0, and the average since 1969 is 1.2. This means that the Brewers are well above average and truthfully haven’t found that many reliable infielders since their inception.

Some final odd opening day notes.

• The Brewers’ total of 3 errors has only been matched or surpassed five times in franchise history.
• Milwaukee’s five run inning has only been replicated five times, as well.

Opening day is always interesting, and their are always some interesting historical notes, but 2017 turned out to be quite eventful even though it seemed like a prototypical 7-5 loss.

Haudricourt, in his usual kind and gentle nature, chose to calmly declare the individual as misinformed and ignorant to the situation. But this tweet, regardless of its intelligence, got me thinking about the real impact an opening day starting pitcher has on a ball club.

Craig Counsell’s selection of Guerra was far from unsubstantiated. Given the circumstances of Guerra’s out of nowhere appearance, his final 2016 stat line nothing less than astounding. In 20 starts, he complied 121 innings, a 2.81 ERA, 2.1 WARP, and managed a 9-3 record on a team that only won 73 games.

Looking at the previous seasons of every opening day starter in the last 10 years, and analyzing the numbers they put up to supposedly “earn” the gig, Guerra had a better overall WAR than 88 pitchers, which puts his 2016 season as 232nd out of a total 320 pitchers.

Guerra also sat below the average 3.5 single season WAR of a normal opening day starter. Remember, though, these aren’t any run of the mill pitchers, they’re the top class arms. For a player that bounced around the minors for ten years and seemingly couldn’t stick, his spot on a list that consists of Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Roy Halladay, and Roy Oswalt should be a well-lauded accomplishment.

2007-2016 Opening Day Starters (Google Sheet):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_wmUOYVVt1pkfif5FKwRF-yo0QzDtV2NPrROiLzcXVk/edit?usp=sharing

More than last year’s numbers, what really makes Guerra’s opening day start a phenomenon is his lack of recorded major league statistics. There have only been eleven pitchers who’ve had similar or less career success than Guerra and earned an opening day start.

To put Guerra in an even more elite club, there are only eight other pitchers in the last ten years to earn the opening day spot just one year after their official arrival in the big leagues.

Oddly enough, the 2015 Royals, kicked off by electric, tragically deceased Yordano Ventura, ended in a World Series. Generally, poorly experienced opening day starters have been a harbinger of a less than fruitful season. Among the 14 individual seasons listed in the charts above, only three of them have ended over .500, and the average record for one of these teams was 78-84.

So, there is good news and bad news for Brewers fans. Good news: Guerra’s presence at the top doesn’t automatically mean a 100 loss season like the twitter troll insisted. Bad news: his WAR is the exact average for the 10 opening day starters on 100 loss teams since 2007. One crucial point to mention, the stat is slightly skewed by Felix Hernandez’s 6.2 WAR back in 2009, and Guerra had a better previous season WAR than 8 of the 10 opening day starters to anchor 100 loss ball clubs. A more likely candidate to lead a staff to a 100 loss season would have a WAR hovering around 1.7 or lower.

But, all this information still raised the question of whether the quality and experience of a staff ace means anything.

On the surface, the ace of the rotation is the basis for the remaining rotational talent. If the best pitcher on the staff is below average, one probably does not want to see the rest of the staff. Also, a true ace inspires confidence. In Seattle, when King Felix takes the mound every fifth day, it’s declared a national holiday, and when Jake Arrieta went on his historic run near the end of 2015, every stopped and watched with baited breath.

Further, since Clayton Kershaw became the ace for the Dodgers in 2011, they haven’t had a losing season. The same is true for Madison Bumgarner, CC Sabathia in every location after Cleveland, and Justin Verlander in all but one of his seasons.

A strong ace is clearly important to a team that wants to consistently compete for a World Series title. For the 2017 Brewers, the importance of a strong ace couldn’t be less of a priority.

Honestly, the selection of Guerra seems to be a nod to his accomplishment last year, and allows for a stable, mentally tough arm to start off the season strong. 2017 is all about development for the Brewers, and they don’t want to throw Zach Davies, Jimmy Nelson or Wily Peralta (again) into the fire if they have someone like Guerra.

Overall, it’s interesting to talk about, and Guerra is an intriguing rags to riches story, but the players to watch this summer are the young bats, still youthful arms of Nelson and Davis trying to become consistent rotational options, and minor league reports regarding one of the best farm systems in the MLB. The Brewers will still struggle to maintain .500, and the rotation will certainly have an impact on that, but it will not make or break their season. Further, the impact made by the ace is borderline non-existent. If the Brewers do end up losing 100 games, which is highly unlikely due to the relative weakness of their division, it cannot be pinned on Guerra. If anyone, blame the underperforming offense and lack of rotational depth, not the man who worked hard to earn the title of opening day starter.