At the big league level, the Milwaukee Brewers became a team known for pitching in 2017. The club featured the most single-season 2.00+ WARP pitchers in franchise history, thanks to strong campaigns by Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Corey Knebel, and Jimmy Nelson. Between June and July, the club mostly hovered between 162-game paces for 25-to-50 […]
Author: Nicholas Zettel
Strategic Failure
The narrative of the 2017-2018 offseason for the Milwaukee Brewers will be one of success; to the vast majority of observers, the Brewers had an unexpected successful season, winning 86 games with a low-payroll, prospect developing, minor league veteran, emerging star team. That no one expected the Brewers to reach the playoffs will be used […]
The Best Brewers
Last night, the improbable 2017 Brewers, these never-building nobodies, continued their hunt for a playoff spot by hanging on to a wild win versus Cincinnati. This victory not only kept Milwaukee alive in the National League Wild Card, where the club trails the final spot Colorado Rockies by 1.5 games, but also alive in the […]
Deconstructing the Pirates
With the Brewers embracing a systematic rebuild following the 2014 and 2015 collapse, it is worth scrutinizing other building cycles around the MLB. As the Brewers play in Pittsburgh, the Pirates are winding down their second disappointing season following their 2013-2015 contending run. Pittsburgh fully rebuilt their baseball operations, analytics, and player development system under […]
2017 Brewers Minors: Bats
The Milwaukee Brewers minor league affiliates completed their 2017 campaigns on Sunday, in the form of a gutwrenching Game Five Colorado Springs loss in the Class-AAA Pacific Coast League playoffs. Now that the minor league season is over, fans and analysts can begin to process information about the season, including scouting reports and statistical analysis […]
Who is Brandon Woodruff?
Brewers fans are undoubtedly, and justifiably, thrilled with Brandon Woodruff’s debut performance thus far in 2017. The rookie righty surged onto the scene last season, after previously making a bit of noise prior to 2015 as a “Prospect on the Rise” as a late-inning relief option. The trouble with fan appreciation of Woodruff is that […]
Aces Don’t Exist: Rotation Spots
Recently, Brew Crew Ball Editor and BPMilwaukee Prospect Editor Kyle Lesniewski posed a question about ranking 5th starters by team. The seemingly simple task includes an opportunity to test assumptions about MLB rotations: Specially, are there truly MLB rotational roles? If so, how many pitchers take regular turns in the rotation? If there are indeed […]
The Turn
The Brewers continue to hang around after a strong west coast road trip. After a Tuesday night stinker by Matt Garza, the club split against St. Louis thanks to a getaway win yesterday afternoon. Milwaukee flexed their home run muscle, and Corey Knebel withstood a ninth inning rally thanks to Keon Broxton’s timely glove. Broxton […]
Aces Do Not Exist
If the progression of Brandon Woodruff did not awake the question last season, Corbin Burnes’s ascent through the minors has certainly raised it loud and clear, week in and week out, this season: does the Milwaukee Brewers system have an ace? In the cases of both Woodruff and Burnes, the answer is quick and easy, […]
Out West
It is August 18, 2017. The Milwaukee Brewers are one game out of first place in the National League Central, and four and a half games back of the Colorado Rockies in the Wild Card. So this west coast trip will not be inconsequential for the Brewers, a mere extended trip while playing out the […]