In that last category stood Prince Fielder, who elicited tears of joy from a Brewers fanbase ready to watch Fielder and former teammate Ryan Braun get back to basics with that 1-2-punch celebration. Little did we know, we were watching the most valuable Brewers batter throw to another franchise great.

[/wipes back those tears]

It’s easy to enjoy Prince Fielder’s return to Milwaukee, first and foremost because the slugger was always a joy to watch and one of the club’s best prospects to translate on an MLB diamond. Make no mistake about it, Fielder was an elite slugger with exceptional plate discipline, traits that were often underplayed by fans due to his size and defensive performance. Given that Fielder retired due to an injury, and indeed survived an injury that could have taken a much larger toll on his body, there is a sense with the former slugger that it’s great to see him healthy, happy, and now having a chance to tour his home organization with a victory lap.

Yet, it was not always so rosy with Brewers fans and Prince Fielder. Because of the slugger’s defense, rated approximately 39 runs below average according to the Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) stat, and aforementioned size, there was frequent debate a decade ago among Brewers fans about when the Brewers should trade Fielder. Of course, there’s always this type of talk among fans, so some of it should be dismissed as common fan banter (we’re casually debating whether Jesus Aguilar or Domingo Santana should be traded on #BrewersTwitter this year, among other things, so, you know…); but recalling those halcyon days of the SportsBubbler (RIP!) and Journal-Sentinel Online boards, there seemed to be a different edge about Fielder trade talks. Thus, there was a sense, even during Fielder’s most elite seasons in Milwaukee, that many regular, diehard fans underappreciated the patient, disciplined hitter. It was as though, for some odd reason, Brewers fans needed to choose between Braun and Fielder, that the two couldn’t simply coexist as one of the most amazing 1-2 punches in franchise history; indeed, the most valuable 1-2 punch in franchise history.

For a time, it seemed justifiable to knock Fielder down a rung. For one, Fielder exercised his free agency rights by securing a gigantic contract with the Detroit Tigers, and thus had fewer years with the Brewers organization than some of the other franchise greats. Assessed by aggregating Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP), which assesses a player’s batting and fielding performance against the typical “next man up” from the minor leagues, Fielder is a Top 20 Brewers player, but more like Geoff Jenkins than Robin Yount. This summer, here’s what we (thought we) knew about Fielder’s career:

If we recognize that WARP penalizes Fielder (unjustifiably) for leaving Milwaukee and (justifiably) for his fielding, one can rank offensive performance on a season-by-season basis to find the best performers in franchise history.  I constructed a Milwaukee Brewers baby-database during the summer of 2018, so I have relatively recent True Average calculations during this DRC+ release week. True Average (TAv) was the old comprehensive offensive metric by Baseball Prospectus, where .260 represented an average performance and the higher the number, the better; it incorporated all sorts of elements of batting performance, but used different weights for situational hitting, parks, strike outs, and other elements than other linear weights methods. Offensively, Fielder stands out much more among the greatest Brewers of all times:

Even by TAV, Fielder’s greatness might be undermined by the general dominance of Ryan Braun and Paul Molitor in the Brewers Top 20 (four appearances each); Fielder (three appearances) is tied with Robin Yount, which is quite good; Cecil Cooper, Braun, Fielder, Molitor, and Yount comprise 16 of the Top 20 Brewers offensive seasons by TAV.

Deserved Runs Created Plus (DRC+) comes to the rescue and restores Prince Fielder to his rightful place atop Brewers offensive seasons. DRC+ is read on a scale where 100 is average, and the higher the number, the better; 80 means a batter is approximately 20 percent below average, 120 means a batter is approximately 20 percent better than average.

First, let’s take a step back: what is DRC+? DRC+ is the new Baseball Prospectus comprehensive batting metric, which is designed as a sort of “inverse” to Deserved Run Average (DRA), BP’s comprehensive pitching metric. Baseball Prospectus features numerous articles introducing the stat, including this description, and a few advanced discussions of why it should be used (this is good, too. Read everything by Jonathan Judge). The gist of DRC+ is this: once you focus on what is expected at the plate, instead of constructing a basic average of outcomes, you can model run production in a manner that is more accurate, descriptive, and predictive than other metrics. What is interesting is that the batting metrics correlate in many cases, which means that where there are outliers with DRC+, the focus on expected outcomes, different park factors, and other contextual elements could lead to valuable insights into a player’s batting performance.

So back to Fielder, DRC+ launches Fielder to the top of the Brewers franchise, and it’s a rout. By TAV, Fielder was competing with a handful of other batters; with DRC+, he’s competing with himself, clearly a step above all other comers as most valuable bat. What is especially interesting about this new offensive ranking is that the “shape” of the organization’s most elite seasons changes considerably; Fielder now has four Top 20 appearances, which is better than Braun (2), Molitor (2), Yount (2), and (now!) Gorman Thomas (2); Thomas, that Prodigal Wallbanger, did not appear in the Top 20 by TAV, whatsoever, so the DRC+ develop calibrates his career as well.

Why does DRC+ “love” Fielder so much? Let’s look under the hood at those absurd 2007, 2009, and 2011 campaigns. BP publishes DRC+ Run Values, which assess a player’s Runs Above Average (RAA) according to each major batting component that is an element of the DRC+ model. This is a supreme tool, and should be used alongside the basic surface DRC+ statistic!

So, the obvious, first: Prince Fielder hit some of the most majestic home runs I ever saw, and he also hit some of the hardest laser beams out of Miller Park. But I wish fans took the eye test away from the waistline a bit and watched his batting approach more carefully, for Fielder’s plate discipline was awe-inspiring. Fielder would never get cheated on his first two swings; good grief, it would be difficult to find someone who swung harder on strikes one and two. But don’t mistake those gigantic swings for a lack of discipline, for Fielder also dug in and made pitchers work, and had no trouble waiting for his pitch to drive. To my astonishment, not only does this show up in Fielder’s valuable walk totals (BB RAA), but I also hypothesize that this helps to drive his strong Ball-In-Play Outs (BIP Outs RAA) performance.

Let’s compare Fielder’s very best seasons to those of his contemporary, Braun:

Unlike Fielder, Braun derived more of his run production during his elite seasons from singles, doubles, and triples, rather than home runs and walks. This has a curious outcome on BIP Outs, but it stands to reason that by controlling the strike zone more, limiting balls in play, and maximizing slugging outcomes, Fielder would be able to produce value in that contrarian way (namely, avoiding the batted ball in play). This last line is speculation on my part, and not a reflection of the DRC+ stat, and certainly an avenue for further research (to my mind, the BIP Outs RAA stat is a fascinating aspect of this new stat).

Let’s step back from the numbers: why does any of this matter? If you’re unconvinced about the new stat, think about the eyeball test you used with Fielder during his prime years. How often did you call him a better hitter than Ryan Braun? How often did you compare him favorably to Paul Molitor? How often did you place his elite offensive production at the top of the franchise? DRC+ certainly provides the statistical background to address these questions, and in being openly situated to offensive production through a different lens than other prominent stats, we can revisit our blindspots and perhaps find value that we previously missed. It turns out that Brewers fans may have had Prince Fielder all wrong. Even if your measurement for a baseball stat is to confirm what you already know in most cases, or even if you previously believed that Prince Fielder was an elite batter, there’s room to marvel at just how great he was once more. Take the chance to dig into Fielder’s career again, and maybe revisit some other careers, as well: DRC+ gives us the chance to find some of our other blindspots.

Finding Fielder’s reappraisal is especially sweet because it places an exclamation point on one of the best competitive periods in Brewers franchise history. Fielder sure did the big things loudly, but he also did a lot of things to quietly bolster his production.

Photo Source.

What’s Runs Prevented? Flexible Elite Roles ||  Exploring Runs Prevented || Aces Do Not Exist || Rotation Spots || Third-Time Charmers

Here’s how the Brewers pitching staff looks when ranked by Average Runs Prevented. For additional context, each pitcher’s Games, Games Started, and Innings Pitched statistics are included.

Stats: 

Average Runs Prevented is the average of park-adjusted, league-adjusted estimates of a pitcher’s actual runs allowed compared to their expected runs allowed.

DRA Runs Prevented is the difference between a pitcher’s expected runs allowed and their DRA performance. 

Direction is the “Direction of Change” between a pitcher’s 2018 Average Runs Prevented and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented.

G is “Games” (total appearances); GS is “Games Started” (total starts); IP is “Innings Pitched.”

Why is this important? DRA is a pitching statistic that estimates each pitcher’s performance based on numerous contextual factors. DRA is a statistic that can describe a player’s performance on the field by correlating Runs Allowed per 9 IP (RA9) to DRA; it is modeled to consistently assess a player’s performance year-to-year; and it is modeled to predict next year’s RA9. Runs Prevented, on the other hand, is a purely descriptive statistic, simply aiming to measure the extent to which a pitcher compares to their park and league environments.

Before we get into the extended analysis, if you’d like to know why this topic is important, consider the following questions; for fun, the exercise could also end here, as there’s a lot to think about with this staff.

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

By describing Runs Prevented and DRA Runs Prevented statistics year-over-year, it is possible to understand the absolute volatility of pitching performance. DRA is also potentially a tool that can be used to set someone in the right direction for analyzing statistical profiles in order to project improvement or decline.

Let’s take a look at MLB pitchers that worked in 2017 and 2018:

The value of using a statistic such as DRA is that the year-to-year Runs Prevented performance by MLB pitchers is absurdly volatile. The table above demonstrates the absolute value of change in several key statistics for pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018. 639 MLB pitchers worked in both 2017 and 2018 seasons. On the whole, this group was quite volatile, with the average change in runs prevented moving by nine runs prevented (positive or negative); a pitcher that worked in both 2017 and 2018 also saw their innings pitched total fluctuate between 33 and 34 innings, and their average games started fluctuate by four. Focusing specifically on starters (i.e., pitchers who started a game in 2017 and pitchers who started a game in 2018), the fluctuations are even wider.

These fluctuations would be the equivalent of Jhoulys Chacin becoming a slightly below average, slightly smaller workload pitcher in 2018, or improving steadily into “ace” territory; Freddy Peralta expanding into a more regular rotation role, or stepping back into a smaller replacement role; Corey Knebel fluctuating to a below average reliever or recovering his excellent high leverage form; or Josh Hader becoming “just” an average reliever or taking the next step in his high leverage ace development. These are just a few examples of the real impact that typical run prevention fluctuations can cause to a team. Each of these pitchers are likely to remain under Brewers contractual control in 2019, so it matters how their performances change.

Let’s dig deeper into that group of 639 pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018 to assess the descriptive value of DRA and Runs Prevented. A couple of caveats are in order. First, this is a biased analysis, insofar as I am expressly limiting my search to players that worked in both 2017 and 2018, which excludes a “true talent assessment” of players that missed either of those seasons for a multitude of reasons (from player development, such as Freddy Peralta, to injury, such as Jimmy Nelson). Second, since I will be describing the general direction of DRA, I am not using statistical methods to assess the significance of DRA’s predictions. With these caveats in mind, I think it remains useful to see how DRA assesses players within a single season, and across two seasons.

Now that we’ve discussed the average absolute value of Runs Prevented change between 2017 and 2018, let’s take an overview of this group of pitchers in terms of improvement or decline. Excluding pitchers with Runs Prevented totals between -2 and 2 in 2017 and 2018, which represents a relatively minimal range of fluctuation that could simply be explained by park factors or league environment, more pitchers declined than improved between 2017 and 2018. In many cases, these changes were quite major, as 132 pitchers declined by 10 or more Runs Prevented, while 53 pitchers improved by 10 or more Runs Prevented. The overall magnitude of major declining performances ensured that this group of 639 pitchers was -439 Runs Prevented (!!!) between 2017 or 2018; this means that if each 2017 team retained these pitchers, on average they would have been expected to lose approximately 44 more games (as a group) in 2018, all else held equal.

Based on 2017 performance, could anyone have predicted these directions of change among these pitchers? Once I assembled an Average Runs Prevented analysis of the 2017 MLB season, and isolated pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018, I analyzed several aspects of each player’s performance:

• I analyzed the 2017 Direction of Change, which is the change between 2017 Runs Prevented and 2017 DRA Runs Prevented, in order to assess whether a player overperformed or underperformed their DRA.

• I analyzed the 2017 Direction of Change and the difference between 2018 Runs Prevented and 2017 Runs Prevented, in order to assess whether a player’s between-seasons change (2017 to 2018) matched their 2017 underperformance or overperformance. Focusing on 2017 Direction of Change and between-seasons change is one way to describe the types of projections made by DRA.

• I assessed 2017 DRA Runs Prevented and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented in order to determine whether the statistic consistently estimated a pitcher’s contextual performance.

First and foremost, in terms of 2017 and 2018 consistency, DRA consistently assessed 389 pitchers as either Above Average or Below Average in both 2017 and 2018. Since the “Other Pitchers” group is quite a set of outliers, I provided a couple of key statistics about their DRA Runs Prevented.

In this case, the “Other” group is comprised of outliers, including pitchers like Wade Miley and Chase Anderson, as well as Lucas Giolito, Kyle Freeland, and Derek Holland, among others. This is an area where the biased selection of this group of pitchers could impact analysis, as developments such as a new pitch (by Miley) or backed-up stuff and command (by Giolito) create role discrepancies that would be difficult to predict without granular scouting information. Of course, these are precisely the types of uneven player development facts that teams attempt to exploit. Wade Miley was not a particularly good pitcher in 2018, indeed he could have reasonably been replaced (which is partially why he was available for a minor league contract entering 2018); his development to an average pitcher was worth 44 DRA Runs Prevented between 2017 and 2018, a massive improvement that is going to skew nearly any sample of players.

On the whole, it is worth noting that DRA Runs Prevented tracked better than Average Runs Prevented, in terms of absolute value of change, between 2017 and 2018. Among pitchers that worked in both seasons, DRA Runs Prevented fluctuated by approximately 8 runs, compared to approximately 9 runs by Average Runs Prevented. Not bad!

How does DRA work with this group of pitchers in terms of predicting the general direction of change between 2017 and 2018? Based on a pitcher’s internal 2017 difference between DRA and Runs Prevented, that pitcher’s typical improvement or decline between 2017 or 2018 matched the overperformance or underperformance (in terms of 2017 DRA versus 2017 Runs Prevented). DRA correctly assessed a pitcher’s expected performance change in 79 percent of cases:

Within this group of pitchers, DRA performs quite well in terms of assessing the actual size of the Runs Prevented change, as well as the direction. Once I categorized pitchers into groups of players that had Predicted Improvement, Predicted Decline, or some Other Prediction, I compared the change between 2017 and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented to 2017 and 2018 Actual Runs Prevented:

It should be underscored that this is a descriptive account of DRA’s predictions, rather that a statistical test of the significance of DRA’s predictions. Still, what is incredibly impressive about DRA is just how strong the statistic is in anticipating the shape of the run environment, and understanding the wide variance that can occur year over year.

What is interesting is that, according to DRA, the Brewers pitching staff was indeed better than average in 2018. However, there are 22 pitchers from that staff that might reasonably be expected to post a notable improvement or decline in 2019, if one assesses the extent to which they outperformed or underperformed their 2018 DRA. Thus, it is worth repeating the questions about who might be expected to improve in 2019, for even if the overall direction of the club’s pitchers may be expected to stay the course, their shape and distribution of Runs Prevented can all but expected to look quite different.

Here at BPMilwaukee, Andrew Salzman surveyed Schoop’s season and the roster factors related to the arbitration-eligible veteran, and also analyzed Schoop’s batting elements in early August. Salzman noted the declining aspects of Schoop’s plate approach, which resulted in a general profile of weak contact involving groundballs and pop-ups (both headed in the wrong direction). Paul Noonan offered a thorough critique of the logic of the trade during the deadline press cycle. Noonan illustrated the confusing logic of using Schoop in potentially interchangeable roster strategies at second base (including a potential platoon scenario), and highlights the difficulty of the second baseman fitting into the batting order.

Evaluating Schoop according to his Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) progression complicates the matter. While Schoop undoubtedly declined in 2018, his stature as an arbitration-eligible player and his exceptional 2017 season impacts almost any pricing mechanism of his performance. If the Brewers take Schoop through the arbitration process, they cannot decrease his salary according to his performance (as salaries are protected through the arbitration process, which values service time more than performance). In terms of overall career progression, Schoop’s production remains close to a $11 million per season value, which is his estimated arbitration salary according to Cot’s Contracts; other estimates are similar, assessing approximately $10 million in 2019 salary for Schoop.

The following table estimates Schoop’s three-year surplus value, which roughly means evaluating Schoop’s production and scarcity (or, production and cost), and derives one-year contracts from those models. A “harmonic mean” contract is used to balance overall 2014-2018 surplus values with the highest possible value from that time period; this is an attempt to even out the roughest edges of these value estimates.

It’s not hard to see a scenario in which Schoop is worth $10 to $11 million; in fact, balancing high- and low-value figures for Schoop places his ideal contract in that neighborhood. Even if Schoop is not “truly” worth $10 million or $11 million, it should not be difficult to see a League Championship Series caliber team overpay a player if they believe they can yield the best possible performance from that player. The difficulty is determining whether Schoop fits that logic.

An additional difficulty is that because Schoop is so young, the “Aging Curve Logic” suggests that he should be working in a prime season, and therefore produce quality performances. Yet, relying on an aging curve to promote a bounce back season from Schoop is somewhat dubious, as there are numerous disagreements about peak age, evidence that season-over-season statistics become less volatile once a player reaches age-26, and a recognition that different types of players age in different ways, anyway (Silver 2015, 81-86). There is a very real sense that Schoop already “is who he is.”

As of March 30, 2018, PECOTA picked Bret Boone, Howie Kendrick, and Jeff Kent as the age-26 comparable players for Schoop. Kendrick is an interesting pick, as his 2010 season fell backwards from a 2009 breakout, but Kendrick eventually recovered to produce better offensive value. Kent is an interesting pick because at age-26 he was not yet “Jeff Kent,” and there were some real doubts about what he might become. Boone is more interesting still, as the young phenom fell back during 1995-1997 campaigns, and produced fringe average seasons prior to breaking out again during his early 30s. These last two comparisons should be kept in mind, as it could be possible that Schoop takes several years to continue developing aspects of his plate approach, and that his 2018 and 2019 season have little to no bearing on what Schoop eventually becomes. This may not appear to be a likely scenario, but it’s a possibility worth keeping in mind given the long and often unpredictable twists of player development.

The simple point is that projecting and pricing 2019 Schoop is not simply a binary exercise; his future is not one basic either/or scenario.

With these caveats in mind, I investigated MLB seasons with at least 300 plate appearances in their age-24, 25, and 26 seasons during the Wild Card Era (1995-present) with the intention of finding players similar to Schoop’s extreme plate discipline and power approach. This is a biased sample in several ways, most importantly in the sense of seeking out “starting roles,” which I roughly designated as players with 300 or more plate appearances (which reasonably excludes players with catastrophic injuries, fringe players, and many bench players). Additionally, the sample is confined to the institutional, player development, and game constraints of the last generation, which means that this survey is in no way representative of some “true population” of age-24, 25, or 26 players throughout baseball history. Additionally, by excluding minor league players of the same age groups, I am not fully assessing Schoop’s development and plate discipline against potential replacements or other developmental trends in the game, which is another limitation for assessing players by age. Given these biases, I am reasonably asking, “Who are relatively recent MLB starting players who approach the game like Schoop?,” and “How did these players age?”; since this is not any sort of sample representative of a population, I am using this to describe development trends rather than predict Schoop’s path in 2019.

(1) Schoop and Grichuk. In the last 24 seasons, there is one player who matches Schoop’s general trend of striking out more than 20 percent of the time, walking less than 6 percent of the time, and homering more than 3.5 percent of the time during each of his age-24, 25, and 26 seasons. Interestingly enough, that player is also a contemporary of Schoop, Randal Grichuk. Even within these general parameters, Grichuk is quite different than Schoop, as his walk totals are sometimes closer to that 6 percent threshold, and the strike outs are also much higher; Grichuk is more of a “Three True Outcomes Hitter” (relying on strike outs, walks, and homers) than Schoop, who is more of a bizarre type of contact hitter.

It is startling that even given the general acceptance of strike outs over the last generation, and the proliferation of home-run based batting approaches, baseball simply does not produce batting profiles like Schoop. This could be a good thing for the Brewers, as the club certainly seems comfortable working with unorthodox plate approaches; for example, another recent Stearns era player with an unprecedented approach is Keon Broxton; additionally, another unprecedented role on the Brewers’ roster is Hernan Perez. It certainly cannot be said that Stearns is squeamish about working with relatively oddball player profiles, and that trait probably helps to explain his ability to quickly turn around the Brewers franchise by assembling a bunch of high-floor players with extremely prominent scouting flaws. The only question now is whether Stearns will pay $10 million for that privilege.

(2) Examining “low walk” players (Schoop and Salvador Perez). Working with the parameters defined above (1995-present survey), Baseball Prospectus CSV provided 29,397 players overall, which whittled down to 6,495 players with 300 (or more) plate appearances; when searching for players with at least 300 plate appearances in each of their age-24, 25, and 26 seasons, I constructed a batch of 246 players for analysis (thus the above caveats for sample bias). This is quite an interesting group of players, and as one might expect from the present biases, it’s a very productive group of players:

Within this group of players, the most striking and promising trait for comparison with Schoop was walk rate, which was a good indicator to separate comparisons and descriptions of development from big walk, big strike out, big home run players. For Schoop’s intriguing trait is generally huge power (and indeed, he consistently produced better-than-median power for this group) without corresponding high walk totals. Thus, it wouldn’t do much good to compare Schoop to Mike Trout, Adam Dunn, Prince Fielder, Edgardo Alfonzo, and other age-26 walk monsters; those players are doing something different at the plate to reach their prodigious power. So, I isolated a group of 37 low-walk total players that posted an additional 300 (or more) plate appearances during their age-27 campaign, in order to describe an age-26 to age-27 aging pattern for these players. This is quite a fun group!

Here, the top table shows the change in category performance from age-26 to age-27 season, while the bottom table shows the basic age-26 production for Wins Above Replacement Player, Plate Appearances, True Average, and Strike Outs / Walks / Home Runs.

By plate discipline (K / BB / HR), the most comparable player to Jonathan Schoop on this table was Salvador Perez. Perez was able to cut down the strike outs and tap into more power during his age-27 campaign, which provided a boost back to league average batting production for the catcher. Jedd Gyorko was the best of these players at age-27, but did so by completely retooling both walks and home run power; this is a demonstration that large scale plate discipline changes can occur on a season-over-season basis. What is striking is that even among players who are comparable to Schoop in terms of low walk rates, there are very few that strike out as much as Schoop, or hit for big power. Hence the lack of comparable players, save for Randal Grichuk.

Schoop has his work cut out for his age-27 season, as the middle infielder can retain value through his power if his strike outs and groundball / pop-up fluctuations do not impede that power. He’s a strange $10 million gamble for a front office, as the general ideal of age-27 seasons from players with 4.0+ WARP seasons on their resumes suggests bright futures rather than large question marks. Yet, there could be reason to suspect that Schoop may age differently than other prime age middle infielders, both due to his consistently better than average power and due to his extreme plate discipline. Nobody hits like Schoop, and in some sense this ought to result in a vote of confidence from GM Stearns when the opt-in is a one-year gamble. But the lean months of 2018 speak loudly, where the power was rendered empty by low batting averages and the lack of another offensive carrying tool when that one vanished. So here we are, fixated on a relatively marginal roster deal, looking for excellent production in the middle of the diamond.

Citation

Silver, Nate. 2015. The Signal and The Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – but Some Don’t.. Penguin.

This post was updated at 5:24 PM on November 23, 2018 to correct the figures in the Grichuk / Schoop table.

In 2017, the 84th best pitcher averaged approximately 10 runs prevented, establishing the 90th percentile performance point; in 2018, the 89th best pitcher averaged approximately 10 runs prevented, suggesting that the 90th percentile performance did not change. If you like false certainty, even here the decimal points look similar, as the 2018 cut-off was 10.221 average runs prevented versus 10.229 average runs prevented in 2017. Let’s call it 10 Average Runs Prevented for fun…

 Exploring Runs Prevented || Aces Do Not Exist || Rotation Spots || Third-Time Charmers

What is Runs Prevented? Runs Prevented is a relatively basic statistic that attempts to measure the quality of a pitcher’s performance within their run environment (which is roughly the combination of their ballpark, which can impact scoring, and their league, which can impact the mix of talent faced). Measuring pitching is difficult because unlike batting stats, you cannot simply “count up” with pitchers; a team that scores 750 runs is  likely better than a team that scores 700 runs, but a team that allows 650 runs is likely better than a team that allows 700 runs. So, assessing pitching in a “run environment” requires accounting for that “negative space” (in this example, between 650 RA and 700 RA). Throughout the 2018 season, I developed an Average Runs Prevented statistic that attempted to track variance in park factors (between Baseball Prospectus Pitching Park Factor and Baseball Reference Park Factors) as well as variance in league environments. Usually these differences did not amount to much, but tracking them is an important step to understanding variance and reflecting uncertainty in the Runs Prevented metric: I can say “Jeremy Jeffress prevented 24.63337 runs in 2018,” or I can say “on average Jeremy Jeffress prevented between 23 and 26 runs in 2018,” or I can say, “Jeffress prevented 25 runs.”

…The short lesson: if you’re an MLB pitcher that prevented 10 runs, you’re really, really good. This holds regardless of role. In 2018, the top ten percent of all MLB pitchers featured 53 starting pitchers and 36 relief pitchers, which is quite a swing in favor of starting pitching quality; in 2017, these 90th percentile pitchers featured 41 relievers and 43 starters. What’s important here is to takeaway that great relievers prevent enough runs to break into the top threshold of league performance; Runs Prevention need not categorically be dominated by starting pitching, which is one reason the Brewers did not need a starting pitcher at the trade deadline (thanks to their strong bullpen).

Aces are more difficult to define than “Average Runs Prevented.” I can at least give you a math equation for Average Runs Prevented at the end of the day. But an “ace” can be many things;

• Some fans want an ace to be a breathy “dude” or “guy”, a “stud” atop the rotation. File this one under the debate about playoff dudes,  “Do you want Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley to pitch in the playoffs?” (Yes, actually);

• Some people ascribe to a theory than an “ace” is simply the best pitcher on each MLB team (e.g., 30 teams means 30 aces, and no team can have more than one ace);

• Scouts like to define “aces” in very rigorous ways, focusing on the quality of a pitcher’s stuff (typically better than average fastball and off-speed or breaking ball is the minimum stuff requirement for acehood), as well as their command (must be great), and probably their frame, too (it’s good to project innings from an ace). But I take it that this is not how most fans mean “ace,” and it’s also no fun because aces rarely exist under this mold (#EveryoneIsAMidRotationStarter);

• Finally, there’s the simple stipulation that an “ace” is an elite starting pitcher, at the top of the league in terms of performance (presumably, hopefully, for multiple consecutive years. For example, this is why people say Clayton Kershaw is an ace, but Junior Guerra is not. I used to be sure of the importance of consistency, but….well, aces hardly exist under this requirement, either).

In this analysis, I am going to demonstrate two of the shortcomings with the idea of using performance to define the concept of an ace.

(1) Threshold of Greatness. Seeking the 90th percentile of MLB pitchers seems like a very high standard; it’s quite literally the top of the league, but includes a large enough group of pitchers to make meaningful comparisons. What I mean by this is, if we used a more strict threshold, there really would not be any aces; take the Top 10 pitchers by Runs Prevented in 2017 and 2018, for instance:

I rather like this, in the sense that it demonstrates that aces do not exist, but it doesn’t pass the eye test. If you’ve designed a threshold where only Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, and Max Scherzer are aces in 2017 and 2018, but not Kyle Freeland, Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell, or Jacob deGrom, you’ve probably missed the threshold and poorly defined the concept.

An interesting problem arises with using the 90th percentile threshold, however: starting pitchers no longer dominate the proceedings, and 10 Average Runs Prevented is the measure for an ace. This surely won’t do for Brewers fans, for example, as 2016 Junior Guerra is absolutely, positively an ace under this regard; interestingly enough, so are 2018 Jeremy Jeffress, Josh Hader, and Wade Miley. Of course, this is conceptually interesting because Brewers fans absolutely did not want Miley to work in the rotation, and he was an “ace,” it turns out. Really, a truly fantastic pitcher, better than 90 percent of the MLB. Jeffress and Hader are difficult in terms of “acehood” because they do not start ballgames; but it’s not clear to me than an ace must start ballgames.

Consider the false controversy to open 2018, regarding whether or not Josh Hader should start or work in his relief role; as a starter, the concern is clearly that Hader does not have the command or pitching profile to work through a batting order multiple times, and based on news throughout the season, his delivery is probably too high effort to withstand a starting workload. But that was never the debate; the debate among angry fans was, “Josh Hader should start because the Brewers must see whether he can be an ace.” Ironically, based on the 90th percentile threshold of Runs Prevented, Hader is an ace, undoubtedly so (in fact, he’s better than 95 percent of the league in 2018; Jeffress was even better, beating 98 percent of the MLB). In this debate, it seems that the ideal of “finding an ace by making sure they can start games” misses the concept of what an ace ought to do (“consistently prevent runs at an elite level”), and so the Hader starting pitching controversy falls by the wayside.

Both Hader and Jeffress are aces, on this model. As they should be.

(2) Consistency. Josh Hader showed flashes of brilliance during the 2017 season, in which he established a clearly valuable MLB “floor” performance level, and raised debates about how high the “ceiling” performance could be. I gather this is in part why fans wanted so badly to see Hader start; when he began his career in the bullpen, it was certainly due to his tough season at Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he lost his breaking ball and had his stuff and command profile back-up a little bit. Yet Hader excelled in his MLB debut role, working through some command issues by offsetting bad outings with a dozen scoreless multi-inning appearances. Hader prevented between 13 and 14 runs in 47 and 2/3 innings.

Any team will receive considerable value from a pitcher that prevents more than 10 runs in a season; no team would balk at a chance at 90th percentile runs prevention production. Yet, there is more value to be had from pitchers that can repeat the feat in consecutive seasons. For example, 639 pitchers worked in both 2017 and 2018 seasons, with considerable variance in their production. The typical back-to-back pitcher in 2017 and 2018 found their runs prevented total shift by at least nine runs, with their innings pitched total fluctuating by 33. If you ascribe to the rule of thumb that approximately ten runs are equivalent to “one win” when balancing Runs Scored and Runs Allowed, the MLB pitchers that worked in 2017 and 2018 fluctuated enough to produce as many as 575 total wins (or losses), depending on how teams balanced their resources (as a side note, this is one reason organizations should not ever tank, and should always try to compete: there are always tons of runs that can be “captured” every year through trades, free agency, and player development fluctuations).

This is where I believe fans and analysts turn against “one year aces” like Junior Guerra. The idea is not that Guerra was not valuable to the Brewers in 2016, but that it is more valuable to have a pitcher that a team can “depend” on to produce 90th percentile performance year-in, and year-out. The trouble is, these pitchers do not readily exist. Looking at 2017 and 2018, here are the pitchers that were able to produce 10 Average Runs Prevented (or better) in both seasons:

This seems like a good list, for two reasons: (1) it’s intuitive enough to pass the “eye test” in terms of including pitchers like deGrom and Kershaw, but it also includes some “newcomer” aces like Aaron Nola; (2) it includes enough counterintuitive pitchers that we can look into new cases and further define quality pitching roles. Here, I’m thinking of Josh Hader (who is an ace in relief), JA Happ (who has morphed into an extremely consistent late career pitcher), and Dellin Betances (who is typically criticized as a middle reliever when it comes to contract negotiation matters, but should be thought of in the highest terms of consistency). Moreover, this table shows the benefit of being more inclusive in terms of defining aces, rather than less exclusive. Here’s what happens if you only consider pitchers with consecutive 20+ Runs Prevented seasons to be aces:

This list is visually appealing insofar as we all know that these pitchers are great, the top of the game in fact. This group would be the true 99th percentile of the game of baseball at the moment. But, it does not capture easily acquired pitchers (except for the Cleveland arms, perhaps, in Carlos Carrasco and Corey Kluber, this is an expensive group in terms of draft status, contract, or prospect resources required for acquisition). So, the cases of aces exclude most MLB teams from acquiring aces. Furthermore, there is no diversity of roles in this table, and to my eye that seems like the biggest shortcoming in this definition of the ace: for if we continue to define aces according to the highest possible standard, we will continue to replay and repeat the “Josh Hader should start” debate, and miss the reasons why Wade Miley or Jeremy Jeffress could be aces, too.

Building a pitching staff based around flexible roles, or based on elite relief roles and interchangeable starting rotation roles, does not preclude acehood. In fact, the 2018 Brewers demonstrate that effectively, both with multi-year consistent aces (Hader) and (potentially) one-off successes (Jeffress, Miley).

Using Baseball Reference multiyear park factors, the Brewers offense finished nearly 30 runs better than their league environment, and Baseball Prospectus park factors have the club performing even better; by True Average, the Brewers are tied with Houston as the fourth best offense in the MLB. According to Baseball Prospectus Batting Park Factor, the actual mix of parks the Brewers batted in was fourth toughest in baseball, meaning that the Brewers were likely to play in environments suppressing runs by approximately five percent.

Like 2018, the Brewers head into next season with a seemingly clear set of positions to improve, and seemingly clear prospects or internal development options to accomplish that goal.

• Orlando Arcia features prominently in calls for offensive improvement, as the elite gloveman suffered serious setbacks at the plate prior to his Triple-A demotions. Arcia’s glove makes roster decisions truly difficult, as the shortstop has impacted the game on the defensive end from the time he reached the MLB. If he bats anywhere near his second half line of .290 average / .320 on-base percentage / .396 slugging, the glove will play (for reference, the eighth batting order spot hit .229 / .304 / .357, so second half Arcia would easily clear that hurdle).

• Second base is a roster challenge, as Noah Nofz highlighted earlier today. It’s easy to dream on the future in terms of Keston Hiura’s potential, but it’s also worth remembering that the Brewers needed to improve center field for 2018 and still traded away their best development options there (Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison). A trade of Hiura is not out of the question should Slingin’ Stearns get requisite return. The trouble is how the Brewers juggle additional roster elements and free agents there, as opposed to the development pains (or pay offs) of sticking with Hiura.

• Catcher is probably the most popular fan option for improving the club, because it offers the flashiest trade opportunity (J.T. Realmuto) and a couple of the best free agents in the 2019 class (e.g., Yasmani Grandal). Yet, it is worth emphasizing the strength of the Brewers’ fielding behind the dish in 2018, in order to frame offensive performance. Neither Manny Pina nor Erik Kratz were that bad at the plate in 2018, and both were exceptional defenders. Using Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average, which is a fielding statistic adjusted to assess the nuances of throwing, blocking, and framing for catchers, Kratz (11.1, eighth best) and Pina (6.3, nineteenth best) produced plenty of defensive value for the Brewers. Of course, Grandal is the rare free agent catcher that can produce both excellent offensive and defensive value….

• Right field is a difficult position to assess because it’s become quite barren behind Domingo Santana for multiple reasons. First, midseason trades included Brett Phillips, who would have been an excellent candidate for a glove-first, power-speed fourth outfielder to help boost that corner position. Next, Christian Yelich does not produce good defensive value off of left field, which raises questions about Ryan Braun’s future role (in left field) and the value of keeping Yelich’s bat in the order at any defensive cost (September-level production rendered that question moot for the time being). Furthermore, there are not necessarily advanced outfield prospects that would be considered strong enough to knock Santana off of right field. All this either makes right field the perfect position for an external acquisition, or for staying put with Santana.

The trouble, of course, is that should the Brewers simultaneously develop Arcia and Hiura at the MLB level, and keep Kratz and Pina, this entire series of completely justifiable roster moves could produce an offensive black hole in the 6th / 7th / 8th batting spots when things are going rough (or, in Hiura’s case, just getting started). This is where the Brewers’ most important wager occurs: they must weigh the long-term development plays (both Arcia and Hiura have clear “role ceilings” that are better than average at the MLB level) against the need to contend in 2019 (and produce runs to do so). All of this is potentially compounded when one reasonably figures that Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich cannot possibly be expected to be as good as they were last season; obviously this does not mean that they cannot maintain performance or even improve, it just should not be viewed as a certain outcome.

Baseball Prospectus True Average is an effective statistic because it weighs and combines a more complete picture of offensive production than other metrics, and presents the result in an intuitive number similar to batting average. A player with a .260 TAv is an average player. Aspects included in TAv that are not included in some other metrics are situational hitting and errors, plus alternative weights on strike outs and bunts, among other elements. So, let’s use TAv to assess the Brewers offense: with the descriptions above in mind, how do the elements of the club compare to the MLB positional landscape? What is the positional landscape?

Not unlike pitching staffs, positional ranks across the MLB are split among groups of players for each team. The ideal of plugging in a starting player at each position was always just an ideal, as injuries and platoon strategies have been widespread since the early 20th century ballgame; now, MLB front offices may simply be even more willing to try bizarre positional formats (such as the Brewers’ positional flexibility) and substitution patterns (think 2018 L.A. Dodgers, here). Thus, the split between players with 300 (or more) plate appearances and those working below that threshold is quite large.

It should be noted that outside of the corner infield positions, there are no other positions on the diamond where the median player and the regular player are better than average according to TAv. This should be intuitive in some sense, underscoring the importance of teams finding players that can work at least 300 plate appearances in a season. Of course, the median playing time at each position should demonstrate the difficulty of assembling even a group of players that can work 300 PA at a position; often teams will need to rely on a group of players that fall short of even that mediocre playing time threshold. This uneven playing time environment, set against a foundation that establishes the importance of finding a batting order full of regular players, should demonstrate why and how teams can make wagers or trade-offs with their players (for example, the club can weigh Arcia’s shortstop defense against the value of piecing together a couple of other options at the position; that’s just one example).

With this background in mind, let’s compare major 2018 Brewers batters to the median playing time and regular TAv for their respective positions (as grouped by Baseball Prospectus. Note: I have no idea where Eric Thames went in these CSV):

Milwaukee effectively gambled on both Cain and Yelich, who were team leaders in production and playing time beyond the league median. Yet this dynamic top of the order duo hardly exhausted the positions at which the Brewers effectively stacked regulars. Travis Shaw, Ryan Braun, and Jesus Aguilar were each fantastic compared to their respective positional leaguewide performances; Hernan Perez and Manny Pina were not necessarily as far from “average” batting production as most fans think. Outside of regular workloads, Domingo Santana and Mike Moustakas turned out to be crucial depth players, albeit for different reasons. Retaining contractual rights to Aguilar, Braun, Cain, Shaw, and Yelich should be viewed as extremely positive news for the 2019 club, even with all the caveats about regressing performances, etc.

On this model, the benefits of “standing pat” in free agency and trade markets should have some appeal, as one can see that weighing the defense at catcher and shortstop, or simply waiting for Keston Hiura and(or) Mauricio Dubon to arrive at second base need not be viewed as a drag on the offense. In fact, Hernan Perez can probably cover second base in an effective manner to open the season, allowing the Brewers to free up cash and prospect resources to double down on their pitching staff. Right field becomes an interesting question, as Santana’s closing month produced a final True Average that held up against regular MLB right fielders.

Of course, one can expect that David Stearns will not simply stand pat this offseason. The point, then, is to understand that there is no linear narrative about the Brewers bats improving in 2019. This group of players surged to close 2018, made some crucial developmental strides (in the case of Arcia) and mechanical tweaks (in the case of Braun) that could bode well for future performances. There is no clear path to improving the offense without spending significant cash or prospect resources.

Rays Receive
C Mike Zunino (entering age-28 season, two salary arbitration years remain)
LF Guillermo Heredia (28, four reserve years remain)
LHP Michael Plassmeyer (22, Class-A minors [Short])

Mariners Receive
CF Mallex Smith (entering age-26 season, four reserve years remain)
CF Jake Fraley (24, Class-A minors [Advanced])

Press reports emphasize that the Rays were looking for a catcher, and the Mariners are rumored to be entertaining a tear down. In this sense, the trade works as a “pure baseball move” for both teams: no pretenses, no “process” monikers, no excuses.

• The Rays get a bit older with this deal, and arguably opt for quantity after dealing Mallex Smith (who is probably the most valuable player in the deal based on performance and contract). Zunino is an uneven offensive catcher, but his glovework was worth approximately eight Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average in 2018, which also fits with the defense-heavy profile of Guillermo Heredia. It seems as though the Rays are opting to attempt to enhance the Runs Prevention System that underlies their pitching staff, which was one of the best in 2018 (reports focused much too heavily on “the opener” strategy, and not enough on the basic overall quality of their pitching performance).

• If the Mariners are looking to rebuild, Smith helps their roster get younger in center field, and arguably improves upon Dee Gordon and Heredia even if Smith cannot fully build on his 2018 offensive breakout. Seattle may get worse defensively in the middle of the diamond with this deal, but it is difficult to blame their front office for looking for a young, MLB-level batting fix to improve their outfield. This is the type of high floor developmental play that mirrors some of the Brewers’ “rebuilding” moves, particularly the moves that helped Milwaukee redevelop their roster quickly and without much suffering in the win column.

• Michael Plassmeyer and Jake Fraley are both rated as organizational depth prospects at the moment, and it is safe to assume that both clubs are looking to exploit developmental changes of scenery for both players.

Using the same Surplus Assumptions yesterday (explained at the bottom of this article), here is how the trade grades if it is assumed that both front offices sought equilibrium in their prices. This model uses a basic “Raw” contractual surplus value, simply subtracting contract from the average depreciation on each player’s performance (prorated to the same length of the contract).

This trade is about as even as it gets, which is impressive even when one considers that the Rays sought multiple MLB players in return while Seattle gambled on one MLB player.

What if the assumption is that neither front office was seeking equilibrium in pricing, and instead sought to exploit some information asymmetry or developmental cycle? Here, let’s forget contractual assessments for a moment and simply focus on three-year ranges of performance to define value: teams can weigh a rolling average of performances in an equal manner (a “Blended” model of valuation), they can assess a player at their highest three-year value (a “Highest” model of valuation), or they can extrapolate future performance based on the player’s immediate performance. Each of these valuations have their strengths and weaknesses, and it’s almost certain that front offices weigh each time horizon. (Explained at the bottom of this article)

In the model below, the Rays and Mariners play a game in which each team seeks the highest possible assessment of the player they receive and the lowest possible assessment of the player they surrender:

Here, the landscape is much trickier, because both teams return greater talent than they surrender, should their assumptions hold. On their best assessments, each of the MLB players offer a solid return, with Smith demonstrating the most volatile range of performances and Heredia offering the most steady “highs” and “lows.” One could argue that the Rays got the best of the deal by landing Zunino, who has a much higher floor for his “lowest” performance than Smith, and is also as good as Smith at his best. Yet it’s too easy to proclaim one team winning the deal at this point, because it’s not clear that either team made a mistake if they were using uneven valuations to achieve the best possible gain in roster surplus. If both teams were rent-seeking with this trade, seeking to improve their roster by moving on from talent at a low price and acquiring talent that they justifiably assess at a higher rate, they both achieved their goals while filling real baseball needs.

This is one example of how to think about trades when GM David Stearns assembles his offseason plan. One can assume that the GM is looking to cooperate with his opposing trade mate, and that pricing will naturally find an equilibrium in transaction (one could extend laws of supply and demand, perhaps with a Law of Marginal Roster Benefit and Marginal Roster Cost to build this assumption). The equilibrium story is nice when it works (as it did in this trade), and it offers clear notification when a deal fails (if the parts have uneven prices, there was some market failure on this assumption). But equilibrium is not the only assumption that needs to hold, and it is worthwhile analyzing alternative transaction valuations in order to understand when and how GMs are seeking an uneven advantage from a trade.

Of course, the risk with trading is amplified: information asymmetry shifts from a player’s agent (on the free agency market) to a front office (in the trade market), which requires Stearns and the Brewers to maintain a different game theory (i.e., when making a trade, the Brewers cannot simply solve a coordination failure with another team by outspending all other comers); in addition to contractual risk, the risk of prospects or return assets must also be priced, which adds more room to strike a deal (“find the new market inefficiency!”) and to absolutely lose all value (the Jonathan Schoop and Andrew Susac / Phil Bickford trades are two examples of this for the Stearns front office).

There are several interesting trade partners across the league, including franchises that are tied to the Brewers’ front office personnel by lineage (as an example, Tampa Bay and Houston are probably the most prominent teams in this category). It would not be surprising to see the Brewers go after players that they are familiar with from Matt Arnold or Stearns’s previous organizational pipelines (or, whatever rumors those two can continually collect from the….er….informal information market). Recent changes across the league offer new trade opportunities as new eyes look over existing talent stock; here the Mets and the Giants most clearly come to mind. Additional rumors about rebuilding efforts in Arizona and Seattle, as well as the situation in Baltimore, add further trade opportunities for Stearns.

So who wants to deal? To make this article easier to read, the “Surplus Assumptions” are posted at the bottom of the article, as well as a Brewers roster (for full trade comparison).

First things first, everyone wants Jacob deGrom, so let’s take a look at the very best players that the Brewers could trade. At the top of this list, prospects like deGrom would basically require prospect packages like Keston Hiura / Corbin Burnes plus some filler; if the Brewers could acquire almost anyone atop this without surrendering Hiura, that would be magical.

To this observer, if the Mariners end up entering rebuild mode, the Brewers prospect package that could get the most mileage would be for a grouping of Mitch Haniger and James Paxton; this type of deal might be “lead” by Domingo Santana and Corey Ray if the Brewers also included a couple of their best arms. The price would be steep, but would bolster right field defense and On-Base Percentage (balancing the batting order, as well) and the starting rotation. Notably, this prospect cost would be roughly equivalent to spending one full market deal on Patrick Corbin.

There are also some players on this handful of teams that have gigantic contracts, and this is a place where Stearns could create a deal to “buy a prospect” or otherwise leverage the Brewers’ positive revenue scenario. The practice of “buying a prospect” basically means that the Brewers would take on the full balance (or significant balance) of a “bad” contract in order to receive a prospect from their trade partner. One example of this trade is how Atlanta acquired Touki Toussaint by “purchasing” Bronson Arroyo’s contract; to a lesser extent, the Brewers accomplished this when they grabbed Aaron Hill in the Jean Segura / Chase Anderson deal, which netted the Brewers potential impact prospect Isan Diaz (this was a great example of a “contrarian” deal by Stearns, as he acquired MLB talent during a supposed “rebuilding” cycle).

If Arizona is indeed rebuilding, a trade for Zack Greinke would be quite intriguing (someone like Corey Ray would fall right between his “raw” contractual surplus and total performative surplus). What is interesting is how many bad contracts the Orioles have; one would expect a creative rebuild from that organization, as they have so few valuable MLB assets that simply making solid trades for prospects will not be a clear option (at least not yet). It is interesting to imagine the type of trade the Brewers could make by retrieving Alex Cobb’s or Chris Davis’s contract from Baltimore. The Orioles are rebuilding, but their 2019 Top Prospect list indicates that there are nonetheless quite a few interesting players atop their farm system.

Finally, there is a group of very interesting trade targets that exist in a range of potentially cheaper prospect costs. I formed this group by looking at “raw” contractual surplus that would roughly cost an average prospect (50 Overall Future Potential), with total surplus that could range anywhere from average to impact prospect. One of the players on this list (Mike Zunino) has already been subject of a trade today:

Madison Bumgarner and Zack Wheeler are guys that jump off the page here for the “improve the starting rotation” types, and they are crucial examples of how tough it will be to price some veteran options. The range on Bumgarner’s value is quite extreme, and there is no way the Brewers would acquire the veteran southpaw close to his “low” price; so, the question would be whether one of the organizational impact prospects would be worth a player with quite a short-term contract horizon. Kyle Seager is another interesting trade candidate here, with a range that is almost impossible to decode into a useful prospect package: do you trade for elite Seager, or current Seager? What is the premium to be paid for his previously elite production?

Ironically, Jonathan Villar might be the Orioles’ most interesting and best available trade asset.

In short, there are plenty of intriguing players that the Brewers could acquire via trade. This exercise has hopefully opened a few of the strategies available to the Brewers (such as making a huge splash trade with prospects, or “buying” a bad contract). Additionally, the importance of being honest about high costs should also be apparent: the Brewers cannot simply “add an ace” if they view players like Keston Hiura as a part of their future, or even Zack Brown, Jacob Nottingham, Corbin Burnes, Brice Turang, and Trey Supak for that matter. Yet, in the event that the Brewers make a large trade, the pay off must be accurately assessed, which is one benefit of using a range of surplus assumptions to look at the high and low value markers available in a trade. For example, viewing Christian Yelich’s “raw” contractual surplus and total performance surplus below should show why it was worthwhile to surrender the prospect haul that Yelich required; the Brewers could conceivably do the same with an impact player for 2019, so long as the continued diminishing profile of their top prospects is assessed. If the Brewers forego a huge trade in the offseason, they could pay dividends both in terms of MLB development (in the case of prospects like Hiura), role determination (in the case of players like Supak and Turang), and more realistic roster need assessment during the midseason trade deadline.

Surplus Assumptions

To make it perfectly clear, here are my common surplus assumptions, with background here and here:

• Teams receive surplus value by retaining production and a contract (or, “scarcity”). Value in the MLB can be defined as the on-the-field performance and the scarcity of that performance (which is thus controlled by contractual terms).

• Surplus can be calculated in a “Raw” fashion, where the value of performance over time is simply assessed against contractual value; alternately, a “full” surplus assessment can be made by considering the future value on the field the club will receive, as well as the contractual hit they will take for employing that player.

• Arbitration and league minimum “reserve” contracts produce extremely high value because teams can frequently cut those contracts without paying full price. This adds value beyond the stipulations stated above.

• For this to work, MLB players, prospects, and cash must be translated to dollars. While this is an assumption that many do not like (opposing WARP/$ frameworks), I argue that the simple fact that teams trade prospects for MLB players, or cash, all the time demonstrates that these different asset classes can indeed be translated into a common currency.

• This should not be viewed as the be-all, end-all of player valuation, simply because there are different developmental models across organizations that could result in alternative models based on organizational strengths; WARP itself is only one way to measure players; prospect risk is nearly impossible to uniformly quantify across one group of players, which necessarily means that almost any prospect valuation system will be incomplete. Additionally, player development cycles are quite long, meaning that the value a player could be expected to produce within the next three years is nowhere near the value that could be produced in a decade; this matters depending on a team’s resources and the player’s distance from the MLB (or MLB service time), among other factors.

Here is one example of Overall Future Potential (OFP) pricing, based on a model that assesses all players in MLB history (to the point of that publication), and an update from 2017. These models will be further updated.

Based on these assumptions, here are the Brewers, including most of their players listed under contract at Cot’s Contracts, as well as a couple of their best advanced prospects (to compare prospect grading within the system). This article focuses on four calculations to produce surplus value:

• After depreciating production from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018, those three figures are averaged to produce a “Blended Surplus.”
• The largest of the depreciated production from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018 forms the “High Surplus.”
• “Immediate Surplus” takes a different look at production by simply using full 2018 performance and extrapolating it for three years. This is the equivalent of taking the most extreme view of immediate performance by a player.
• “Raw Surplus” is calculated by subtracting the average of these three figures, prorated for each player’s remaining contract, from the player’s contract (options excluded).
• “Surplus” is the final figure, adding the average of Blended, High, and Immediate surplus to the “Raw Surplus” contractual figure. This is equivalent to valuing a player’s on-field production separately from their contractual value.
• The “Raw” figure is meant to demonstrate a “buy low” price, and the “Surplus” column is meant to demonstrate a “buy high” price, but obviously these figures are not exclusive; they merely seek to establish potential boundaries for a trade.

Related Reading:
Spending Expectations
Free Agency Analysis: LHP SP

Simply in terms of statistics and historical records, though, the Brewers are also likely to fail to match their 2018 performance next year. Here’s how playoff teams in the Expanded Wild Card Era have fared with 96+ wins in their follow-up year, sorted by Follow-up Wins:

Some notes:

• In 12 of 17 cases, the “follow-up” to the 96+ win playoff season featured a better Run Differential progression than Win-Loss progression. This could be an easy fate for the 2019 Brewers, given that the 2018 Brewers outplayed their Runs Scored / Runs Allowed in resounding fashion: the Brewers in 2019 could easily become a 92 or 93 win run differential team that neverthless only cracks 88 to 90 wins on the field.

• The Brewers are comparable to the 2015 Cubs, which is interesting because those Cubs were the outcome of a “tanking” / scorched-earth rebuild that required multiple years of building, while the 2018 Brewers required no such rebuild. Those Cubs featured a young emerging core of Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, and others, while these Brewers featured a decidedly ragtag gang of free agents, trade acquisitions, and advanced minors chumps who rode their strengths to excellent team success (overcoming a veritable book of scouting weaknesses). There is no Bryant / Russell / Baez core for the Brewers; there might not even be a prospect as good as Javier Baez from the 2018 Brewers. Yet here we are: those 2015 Cubs were not a juggernaut, instead averaging an 84-win run differential and surging after the All-Star Break, which is rather similar to the 2018 Brewers’ mediocre underlying performance and white hot September.

• Perhaps the most compelling comparison is the 2014 Orioles, who (like the Brewers) posted mediocre run differential totals early in the season but contended thanks to an extended late season surge. The 2014 Orioles were in the midst of an excellent five year contending run that included three playoff appearances (including a League Championship Series exit in 2014). These Orioles were also quite similar to the Brewers insofar as they strung together elite pitching performances out of their bullpen and an unsung rotation, while also keeping a relative hodge-podge of different player development cycles in their batting order (ranging from young Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop to aging Nick Markakis, Steve Pearce, and Nelson Cruz.

• Trends exhibited by the Nationals, Reds, Red Sox, and Cardinals should underscore the up-and-down, uneven quality of the current era of baseball. Stated simply, being a near-100 win season in one season is nothing close to a guarantee that a roster core will even be a playoff contender the next season, especially as teams lean on young roster cores to define their success “out of nowhere” (such as 2018 Athletics, or 2017 Rockies and Twins). The median win total among these 96+ win behemoths is 86, in the following season.

How will the Brewers overcome these trends? Or, if the Brewers do take a step backwards, how will that be defined as a success for 2020 and onward? Given the state of the Brewers roster and organizational depth, the answer to both questions is the same: the Brewers’ success will largely be defined either by establishing MLB roles for Keston Hiura, Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta, Jacob Nottingham, and other prospects, or else netting elite talent in a trade return (especially involving Hiura, who should not be traded but for returning surefire MLB production). Prospect development at the MLB level should be a significant portion of the story for the 2019 Brewers, regardless of whether those newcomers help bolster a playoff club or whether the club fails to defend their NL Central crown but establishes future roles for the players.

Additionally, the Brewers can continue to define themselves as a club “on the margins” by providing the proper salary arbitration deals; for example, the club already accomplished this cutthroat mission by designating injured veteran catcher Stephen Vogt, rather than allocating a couple million of payroll dollars on a gamble that he returns to his bat-first profile behind the dish. As demonstrated below, Vogt’s contract and production history would yield nothing more than a 45 Overall Future Potential (OFP) asset via trade (i.e., basically an organizational depth player with an MLB floor), and at an estimated cost of nearly $4 million (via Cot’s Contracts), it is clear that the Brewers could readily fill that organizational depth function with that amount of money while also potentially pursuing additional upside. This is a crucial source of value because (unfortunately for players) salary arbitration offers the Brewers a chance to “freely” cut a player if they do not wish to enter salary arbitration process; depending on how tight the club’s revenue and payroll scenarios are, rampant non-tenders could be a great opportunity to expand resources for improving the club.

The table below demonstrates the Average Surplus of the Brewers’ salary arbitration deals. The ideal of Surplus is defined with value including both production (“pure” performance in the field) and scarcity (how readily available that production is, in other words how expensive that production is). Unlike previous models of Surplus Value I’ve published, this year I’m using multiple ranges of three-year performances (2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018) to produce estimates, while also including contract estimates that are “depreciated” and “highest possible value.” A depreciated contract detracts from previous performance, expecting that a player’s performance will decline over time, while a highest possible value contract places a premium on the most recent performance (the best example here would be someone like Patrick Corbin, who would probably get his best contract based on who places the highest value on 2018 and assumes that performance can be replicated). [Last year’s rankings are here].

• Estimate: Cot’s Contracts arbitration estimate.
• Arbitration Year: Demonstrates a player’s specific point in the arbitration process (which is typically three years long, but can in some cases last four years with the most advanced service time players).
• HarmonicOne: This is a one-year contract estimate that takes the harmonic mean between a player’s harshest depreciated performance and their fullest current performance valuation.
• Maximum: This is a one-year contract estimate that uses a player’s fullest current performance valuation.
• Minimum: This is a one-year contract estimate that uses a player’s harshest past performance depreciation.
• Average Surplus: This figure weighs the average of the three contract estimates against the salary arbitration estimate, while also recognizing that a team will benefit from the player’s production both in controlling the production contractually and receiving the production on the field. [Average of HarmonicOne / Maximum / Minimum] – [Arbitration Estimate] + [Average of HarmonicOne / Maximum / Minimum], or, [Scarcity – Contract + Production].
• OFP: This is the historical equivalent Overall Future Potential grade that relates to the player’s Average Surplus  (more here). Essentially, this estimates the type of prospect the Brewers might expect in return if another team values each player in a similar manner.

This table should demonstrate several important roster decisions:

• First, it is clear that there are several Brewers players that do not have Wins Above Replacement (WARP) histories that match their value. This is especially true in the case of Hernan Perez, whose scarce defensive flexibility is probably worth significantly more than WARP estimates, and Erik Kratz, whose glove-first profile at catcher could be crucial to helping Brewers pitchers without phenomenal stuff “play up” in terms of production. Corey Knebel is obviously valued much higher than WARP based on his stuff and high leverage relief profile. So, this surplus value model is not definitive, it should only be viewed as a starting point.

• Players like Domingo Santana and Zach Davies have unclear production roles and unclear trade value. This probably explains why Santana was not traded last offseason, despite fans’ perception of a “clear” need for starting pitching and Santana’s “odd man out” status in a packed outfield; but other clubs probably do not value Santana beyond surrendering a rotation depth / organizational depth arm, and it is understandable why the Brewers would not accept that. It’s likely players like Santana and Davies “play out” their roles in Milwaukee, rather than being subjects of trade.

• Stephen Vogt is obviously not under contract any longer, but I included Vogt for two reasons. First, including Vogt’s Surplus estimate should show the type of range of contract that may be released by the Brewers. Second, Vogt’s estimate is included above to gauge what a potential contract value might be in case he is retained in some other manner (such as a minor league deal with an MLB guaranteed rate). A $1.4 million investment in Vogt, for example, would provide ample surplus value for the Brewers retaining the veteran within the organization.

• Jonathan Schoop’s past production really drives any model of his contract value; Schoop is likely a non-tender candidate if his salary expands to $11 million, but it should be noted that if there is any expectations for the slugger to reclaim anything resembling his previous performance level, the Brewers could make a contract offer.

• Travis Shaw is an absurdly valuable player to the Brewers, and in fact is probably more important than any player on the club short of Cain and Yelich (below is a sampling of the surplus value for much of the remaining roster, for comparison).

What is difficult about assessing the Brewers roster for 2019 is that the club is void of many obvious trade candidates. For example, in cases like Schoop, Chase Anderson, and Eric Thames, the club would almost certainly be selling low and thus limit themselves to seeking a “diamond in the rough” of an organizational depth trade return (such as a reliever or starting pitcher that could be rehabbed, or a utility-type profile like Hernan Perez that could “play up” in Milwaukee’s defensive system). Here the importance of making proper development decisions for the likes of Burnes, Peralta, Nottingham, and other prospects comes into focus, as it should be evident that the Brewers do not have many roster assets that could yield talent that would be obvious improvements above their depth prospects (or primary ones, at that). Milwaukee’s crossroads for the 2019 offseason will be combining those proper development decisions with payroll freed at the margins of the roster to seek at least one impact free agency contract.

Thus, it is true that GM David Stearns could non-tender much of the club to refine the roster, and non-tenders in bulk might be expected as a way to accumulate impact cash: this is one route to an attempt at beating the recent record of excellent playoff clubs, and ensuring that Milwaukee does not have a playoff hangover. Yet making proper prospect development decisions will ensure that even if the Brewers do not reach the playoffs in 2019, it won’t be anything more than a small blemish, a chance to reload, within the five-year window opened last offseason.

Related Reading:
Counterbuilding: Trading and Drafting
The Successful Rebuild

Better yet, depending on how one views revenue expectations from the 2018 season, the Brewers likely increased their share of labor spending to approximately 40 percent, based on publicly available information and various trend forecasts (from conservative to aggressive). All of this precludes the MLB Advanced Media money, which undoubtedly gives the Brewers ownership group more cash to leverage for both capital and labor projects.

[quick rant]Brewers, increase minor league pay! Pay your minor leaguers a living wage across all systems![/quick rant]

Of course, one of the difficult aspects of navigating the 2018-2019 offseason is that in order to increase the labor share of the club, Milwaukee actually had to go out and sign some players. So some previously rosy payroll estimates may be pushed back a few years (click that link if you’d like payroll analysis with Lewis Brinson arbitration horizon estimates): but this is a good thing, because the Brewers are in better shape with Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich patrolling the outfield, and they’re also in better shape with clearer salary arbitration pictures for Corey Knebel, Travis Shaw, and even Jonathan Schoop.

The trouble is, without assuming that the Brewers will allocate full playoff revenue, and an increasing share of overall revenue, to the MLB payroll, the 2018-2019 offseason might look a little boring if the club simply renews each and every one of their arbitration eligible players. Here’s how this group looks, with Cot’s Baseball Contracts estimates:

Without major revenue growth, and considering a similar distribution of revenue to labor, this is how the Brewers payroll freedom might project:

It is evident that on the most conservative estimates, the Brewers cannot keep each arbitration eligible player and sign additional impact free agents. This raises questions about how the Brewers will employ trade and non-tender (basically releasing an arbitration-eligible player for free) strategies to maximize space, while also raising questions about how lucrative the playoffs were, where that MLBAM money will kick in, and how the club will (or did) allocate profits from 2016-2017.

For if the most rosy scenario plays out, the Brewers could keep a substantially larger portion of arbitration eligible players, and continue to add impact talent on the open market. Thus, there is room across the roster for GM David Stearns to wheel and deal. This is a great time for counterbuilding, which basically means making trades that run contrary to the assumed roster building strategy of the team. If a rebuilding team is expected to trade MLB salary for prospects, and a win-now trade reverses that by bundling prospects for MLB salary, those positions can be mixed in contrarian fashion to help maximize roster resources. Given that the Brewers have the opportunity to develop numerous players at the MLB level in 2019, some (seemingly) head-scratching trades would be a great way to free up additional salary in order to bolster the prospects with gambles on more proven producers.

Stearns developed a contending club so quickly by trading for MLB assets in his first offseason; now the GM can ironically continue to maintain the health of his MLB roster forecast by shedding some salaries for prospects or depth moves. Given the strengths of the 2018 club, this could be just the strategy necessary to improve around the margins, develop top prospects, and land one big ticket free agent.

Yet, if anything the 2017-2018 Brewers have also proven that developmental time is not linear at the MLB level, and furthermore, GM David Stearns has not been afraid to deal from stockpiles of future high floor roles to improve the club. Most prominently, Stearns traded center field prospect Lewis Brinson, many fans’ and analysts’ projected 2018 MLB starter, as a part of the package to acquire Christian Yelich, despite center field being a position of need. Now the Brewers have a need to improve second base, and another clear-cut top prospect at the position (Keston Hiura, and Mauricio Dubon behind him); simply judging Stearns’s past, one should not rule out a trade involving Hiura should the price be right and the return bolster a position of strength.

On the opposite spectrum for the Brewers is left-handed starting pitching, which is arguably the sole position on the roster decimated by both injury (Brent Suter) and free agency (Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley). Worse yet, unlike a position such as second base (which is a clear position of need), left handed starting pitching was a relative strength for the Brewers in 2018. Unlike second base, there’s no notable southpaw prospect ready for the rotation.

• Suter scouts as a prototypical depth player, but his full-time fastball approach, wicked tempo, and strange angles arguably helps his stuff “play up” at the big league level; by no means was Suter great, but he certainly did not sink the club, and was one of the reasons that the “replacement by design” rotational shuffle of interchangeable pitchers could work.

• On the other hand, Gonzalez served as a crucial replacement for the Brewers, indeed producing exceptional value on any rotational assessment despite having only been acquired after August 31.

• Similarly, Wade Miley could arguably be listed as the “Ace” of the club, and certainly stands as one of the team’s developmental successes. Even if Miley had discovered his cutter by the middle of 2017 with Baltimore, the Brewers recognized his pitch development and helped the southpaw double down on his approach and command the strike zone.

Milwaukee boasts significant pitching depth entering the 2019 season, arguably forming the strength of the organization through their run prevention system. Yet left-handed starting pitching is a weakness even given the context of this particular organization. There are no notable left-handed starting pitching prospects that are near reaching an MLB-ready floor for 2019, and there is little in the way of organizational depth behind Brent Suter (who, given the nature of Tommy John surgery, may not be ready to pitch until very late in 2019). Thus Brewers fans looking for the club to make a splash in free agency could reasonably look at southpaw starters.

There are arguably three particular classes of pitchers among the “true” left-handed starting pitching free agents in 2019. (Here I’ve excluded elite arms like Clayton Kershaw and David Price, who could choose to opt out of contracts, but only would do so on the sense that they could best $35 million Average Annual Value (AAV), which would be the required level to beat their current deals). Cot’s Contracts and Sportrac Data were used to construct a free agency list.

• Elite 2018 or Notably Better than Average Pitchers (by WARP and Runs Prevented): Patrick Corbin, Dallas Keuchel, J.A. Happ, and Hyun-jin Ryu

• Very Good Pitchers (by either WARP or Runs Prevented): Gio Gonzalez, CC Sabathia, Brett Anderson, and Wade Miley

• Depth Pitchers: Drew Pomeranz, Francisco Liriano, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Ross Detwiler.

The following table is one method of conveying player value for this lefty free agency class into monetary terms. I’ve used a three-year depreciation model, reflecting the fact that over time players typically lose value from their current performances (this is also a means of presenting relatively conservative contract projections). I’ve updated previous surplus assessments by presenting a rolling assessment of three-year models (2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018), plus a “maximum” projection based on full 2018 performance. This number can be compared against the general “Three Year Trend” to determine whether a pitcher is on an upward or downward trajectory (equally tough cases here are Keuchel and Corbin, for completely different directions of performance).

• Depreciated1, Depreciated2, Depreciated3: three-year surplus value salary estimates, based on WARP from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018 (in order).
• ThreeYear: this demonstrates the relative change in contractual value from 2016-2018 to 2014-2016. This is a rough estimate of a pitcher’s contractual “trend.”
• Immediate: this is a three-year surplus value salary estimate based solely on 2018 performance without any depreciation. It should be read as some type of ultimate “short term bias” value (i.e., the most biased observer from 2018 would offer Patrick Corbin a 3-year contract worth more than $120 million).

It is tempting, giving the success of pitching coach Derek Johnson in Milwaukee, as well as the success of the fielding efficiency, front office analysis, and general pitching player development, to assess the offseason free agents by looking for “The Next Wade Miley.” But this is suspicious thinking for at least two key reasons: first, many players in the MLB change their pitching approaches and development without the success of Miley; second, the Brewers simply have the opportunity to re-sign Miley from the free agency pool if the club believes that his development pattern is sustainable and he can continue to provide rotational depth. There is nothing wrong with doubling down on a successful system when the same reasoning and critical measures are used to assess that system the second time around.

To demonstrate the extreme nature of what Miley accomplished in Milwaukee, witness his progression from bread-and-butter southpaw in 2016 to his current format of pitching:

According to Brooks Baseball, Miley was already morphing his pitching approach in 2017, and that does not simply involve his insistence on incorporating the cutter after July 2017. Miley switched from his “primary” rising fastball to his “secondary” running-and-sinking variation, which took selections away from his change, slider, and curve in 2017. The veteran lefty was basically becoming an all-forms fastballer, blending three fastballs at the expense of off-speed and breaking offerings. 2018 reversed that to a stunning extent, as Miley reduced the total percentage of primary, secondary, and cut fastballs he threw, and completely reorganized his secondary stuff around the cutter. What is interesting about Miley is that he traded groundballs for whiffs with the cutter, while whiffs “played up” with other pitches once he focused on the cutter. This is the fantastic accomplishment of Miley’s 2018: not simply the development of a new prominent pitch, but the systemic development of that pitch in a manner that improved his other offerings. It would be foolish to suggest that most pitchers could be expected to thrive with such a reinvention.

Among these pitchers, there is no “next Miley,” unless you want to lean heavily into suggesting the Brewers acquire Jo-Jo Reyes and Ross Detwiler as potential depth contracts (Detwiler has the “Brewers pitches” necessary to pique interest here). But that does not mean that the Brewers should not seek any of these southpaw free agents:

• Patrick Corbin is on the frontier of baseball as a slider-first pitcher, which is crucial in a game where the slider determines leverage in many cases (including diminishing a key divisional rival for the Brewers). Signing Corbin could be a huge deal for the Brewers, both for keeping the lefty away from divisional rivals looking to improve pitching (the Reds could certainly gamble here, given their excellent batting group and lack of arms, as well as the contending Cubs). If there’s anywhere that Corbin’s margins-of-the-strike-zone approach could succeed, it’s Milwaukee, although that doesn’t necessarily mean his profile is less risky overall. The Brewers could take the next step of working with Corbin to balance his new curveball with his slider. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $100 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $150 million. (If the rumored contract ranges around 4-years and $120 million are true, I would call Corbin a potential bargin, even).

• Dallas Keuchel is an interesting pitcher insofar as he remains relatively consistent as he ages, even though his surplus grade demonstrates a harsh decline due to falling off from previously elite seasons. Even without being an elite pitcher, Keuchel remains quite good, and he’s tinkering with his approach to move away from his “true” sinking fastball and toward a cutter-offspeed approach. Keuchel’s potential knock working in Milwaukee would be using a relatively extreme groundball approach in front of an aggressively unorthodox defense, which would mean the Brewers would need to truly sell the veteran on their fielding approach. A Keuchel deal could be the most likely to end up “sideways” due to this profile.  Ideal Contract: 3-years, $75 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $100 million.

• Wade Miley is entering his age-32 season having completely revitalized his pitching approach; by all appearances seems to be a likable and supportive teammate in Milwaukee; and against the Dodgers even flashed a hard fastball that demonstrates that his approach could continue to morph in 2019. It would not surprise me if the Brewers have an arsenal plan with Miley to take additional steps beyond the cutter, and I’d sign Miley before any of these guys due to that likely fact. Additionally, as the Brewers mature into perennial contenders (hopefully), they would do well to prove to players that they will turn some rehabilitation projects / value-depth plays into hard cash deals. There will be a time when value signings refuse to come to Milwaukee if their value produced never materializes into bigger cash. Start here. Ideal Contract: 2-years, $20 million, with a third-year option. Maximum: 3-years, $36 million.

• Gio Gonzalez is slowly morphing into a potential change-up first pitcher, making him a true veteran “junkball” option. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $36 million. Maximum deal: 3-year, $45 million.

• Given J.A. Happ’s age, the southpaw could potentially be a short-term deal with beneficial playoff experience and a fastball-first approach that could fit some aspects of Brewers pitching strategy (notable fastballers Freddy Peralta and Suter come to mind, for example). One-year contract between $12 million and $17 million.

• If you’re obsessed with the idea of making “the next Wade Miley” work in Milwaukee, Drew Pomeranz could be the biggest name among southpaws to make that work. Pomeranz struggled through 2018 as a bigtime fastball-curveball approach. In fact, the cutter even featured more prominently during Pomeranz’s successfuly 2016 season. Unfortunately, the groundballs and whiffs simultaneously dissipated, leaving this lefty a potentially expensive gamble with an arsenal, approach, and batted ball in flux. Pomeranz is a potential project. One-year, $10 million.

• It is not clear that Hyun-jin Ryu or CC Sabathia would be likely to come to Milwaukee given their recent roles in big markets (for quite some time) and playoff team roles. Francisco Liriano had a tough year in Detroit, and I unfortunately think there are better contracts offered to the other pitchers on this list.

• No lie, I’d hand out a minor league deal to Ross Detwiler, too, if he would be willing to work within the Brewers pitching development system. This southpaw is another potential “true junkball” lefty, but along with heavy change up usage Detwiler has also added a cutter, and could move away from his sinking fastball to his rising-riding primary variation.