Earlier this week, I examined the surplus added by Brewers GM David Stearns, which is undoubtedly one of the reasons the club is performing quite well. Stearns, in stark contrast to recently famous rebuilds in Chicago and his previous front office (Houston), is building competitive clubs at the MLB level by cashing in on short-term […]
Author: Nicholas Zettel
Surplus: Scalp or Spread
The Brewers are currently lead by a group of surprisingly valuable players, which is undeniably one of the reasons that the club remains steadily better than average. Entering Sunday’s game against the Dodgers, the Brewers’ top WARP belonged to: Eric Thames, nearly a handful of years removed from the MLB, previously a Korean Baseball Organization […]
Bandy-Maldonado or Win-Win
It’s quite easy, at the moment, to appreciate Brewers GM David Stearns by heaping praise on the young front office executive’s trades. After all, the slinging one has seen a few of the Brewers’ prized veterans collapse or experience injuries after their departure from Milwaukee (perhaps Jonathan Lucroy and Tyler Thornburg most notable). Some of […]
Entering Upsidedown
Entering Memorial Day, the Brewers are playing true competitive (contending!) baseball; their basic Pythagorean W-L (based on Run Differential) has the club pegged for 87 wins, while park-adjusted metrics show the Brewers pushing the 90-win threshold with the bats 24 runs scored above average and the arms five runs better than average. A true average […]
Minor League Context: May 24
Over the course of the last month, the league environments throughout the Brewers farm system are shifting, yet to solidify as a few bats begin to surpass 150 plate appearances and top arms reach 40 innings. As Brewers fans focus on stat lines awaiting scouting reports on their favorite prospects, these contextual statistics should help […]
The Undeniable Average
A common line regarding the 2017 Brewers is that the pitching staff is the weakness of the club. It’s easy to see this: eight of the club’s 19 losses have occurred when the club scored five or more runs, which of course means that the pitching staff was either bad or horrible in those games. […]
An Ode to Chumps
In my household, a “chump” comes as highly regarded as any baseball player not named Jose Altuve, Khris Davis, Geoff Jenkins, or Scott Podsednik. I owe this concept to one of my closest friends and baseball watchers, when we cut our teeth with a wrecking crew tasked with watching the likes of Seth McClung, Craig […]
Aging Braun: An Expansion
Among Brewers fans, there is perhaps no player more divisive than Ryan Braun. As he should be: Braun is a complicated mix between one of the greatest players in franchise history and a true face of the franchise, and the last remaining contract (along with Matt Garza) that can be justifiably called a holdover from […]
Minor League Context: Arms
Following the original April 25 Minor League Context post, and yesterday’s note on the batting environments for Brewers affiliates, it is time to look into the environments faced by system arms. I looked at pitchers with 13.0+ innings pitched thus far, which produced a smaller batch of pitchers than bats. Yet, many of the environmental […]
Minor League Context: Bats
It’s been nearly three weeks since the first installment of “Minor League Context,” which is an attempt to understand the factors and environments in the minor leagues so as to not misjudge minor league performances. This is an essential antidote to “scouting the stat line:” given the minor league development assignments, different developmental standpoints, and […]