On the mound, the first thing that stands out about Andrews is his stature; he’s the size of Jose Altuve, a full foot shorter than Jimmy Nelson. Look beyond that, though, and Andrews has some some interesting tools. To start with, he’s left-handed. That puts him at an automatic advantage, personnel-wise, and lowers the ceiling Andrews would have to hit in order to have a major league career. At worst, he’ll need to develop into a competent platoon lefty, facing just one or two batters at a time.

The soon-to-be 22-year-old also has a few building blocks that could help him hit or exceed that role. Because Andrews is so short, he can’t reliably generate the steep, downward plane with his fastball that helps so many taller pitchers miss bats and coax ground balls. Andrews operates in the upper-80s with his heater, topping out around 90 mph. It’s not a very exciting pitch, but shows some signs of life and can be used high in the zone to tie hitters up. Happily, Andrews boas  ts a pair of advanced secondary pitches in a mid-70s changeup and a slower, sweeping curveball. The change looks a little better right now, with late fade and plenty of separation from the fastball. But both pitches flash plus, and could help the young hurler reduce his reliance on his fastball. Andrews’ command is solid for a pitcher his age, and should be at least big league average by the time he climbs his way to the top of the organizational ladder.

The combination of solid stuff and decent command was enough to help Andrews excel in his professional debut last summer. He tossed 33 professional innings between Helena (2.13 DRA) and Wisconsin (1.95 DRA), and managed 54 strikeouts against only 7 walks. The Brewers deployed Andrews out of the bullpen, but that may have been more about innings management than anything; Andrews started in college, and had already tossed 99.7 innings (with 118 strikeouts and a 1.99 ERA) for Long Beach State, easily a career high, by the time he came off the draft board.

Andrews’s alma mater might also provide insight into the southpaw’s profile. Long Beach State has a history of embracing players who have faced long-term questions over their futures in baseball. They recruited former Angels star Jered Weaver when most scouts thought he was better suited to basketball. And when Evan Longoria was told he was too scrawny to play Division I baseball out of high school, it was Long Beach State who swooped after the star third baseman spent a year proving otherwise at community college.

The Brewers, too, have flirted with unconventional players in the past. Milwaukee even employed a 5’6” lefty as recently as 2011, when Danny Herrera made two ill-fated Brewers appearances before being released and catching on with the Mets. As Milwaukee continues to challenge accepted pitching roles, there could well be a place for Andrews on a future big league roster. Even if he falters on the mound, he can turn back to hitting. Better still, he could carve out a fascinating career as a late-inning defensive outfield sub who trots to the mound whenever a left-handed batter steps to the plate. Keep an eye on him in the seasons to come.

The first thing that stands out about the 22-year-old Supak is his sheer physical presence. At 6’5” and 235 pounds, he cuts a classic, old-school silhouette on the mound. The guy looks like a throwback workhorse, capable of soaking up 200 decent innings with a rubbery arm and a smooth, repeatable delivery. It’s a great starting point for a pitching prospect.

What may hold Supak back from becoming a rotation mainstay is the quality of his raw stuff, which is largely average. Even at the time of his trade three years ago, Supak’s frame was more or less maxed out. Accordingly, the big Texan’s fastball velocity hasn’t really budged as he’s grown older; Supak still operates right around 90 or 91 mph, with the ability to reach back on occasion and crank it up to 94. It’s a decent pitch, as fastballs go, but hardly an elite offering. Supak has, however, taken some steps forward with his secondaries. What was once a fringe-y curveball has turned into a legitimate weapon; it now profiles as no worse than average, with good downward break and great velocity separation off of his heater (the curve spins in at 75-78 mph). His changeup, too, has been much improved over the last several years, traveling from non-existent all the way up to fringe-average. It should, at worst, become a “show-me” pitch in the majors, which may be just enough to allow Supak to stick in a starting rotation. At best, it could become average; it’s a little firm at the moment, but it comes in right around 85 mph and is at least capable of disrupting a hitter’s timing.

Supak has always shown good command of his pitches, leading to some suspicion that the solid results he produced in the low minors had more to do with the inexperience of his opponents than his own prowess on the mound. (Through A-ball, pitchers with good command and middling stuff routinely fudge their way through to impressive stat lines; once they reach the upper minors, more advanced hitters start to hit back.) That Supak was able to maintain his effectiveness as a 22-year-old getting his first taste of Double-A last season lends some optimism to his outlook.

His performance in the Southern League becomes even more impressive when it’s examined in halves. Supak made 16 starts for the Shuckers last year after his late-May promotion, with a nice cumulative ERA of 2.91. But in the first eight of those starts, he allowed 23 earned runs in 39.7 innings for a 5.22 ERA. Opposing batters lit him up for a .720 OPS. Wins don’t matter, but Supak was also winless in six decisions during that span.

The next eight starts were a little different. From July 16 through the end of the season, Supak pitched 47.0 innings and allowed a measly five earned runs. Opposing batters struggled to an anemic .527 OPS. His ERA during that time was 0.96, and he won each of the six decisions into which his performance factored.

If that line in the sand seems a little too convenient to be taken seriously, well, sure. We’re talking about a pretty small sample here, for one. I wasn’t present at any of Supak’s starts, so I’m unable to comment on how his stuff, or his demeanor, or the defense behind him, looked during that rough first taste of Double-A. For better or worse, I’m relying on the numbers and some scant video, neither of which always paints the full picture. (Exhibit A: Supak’s swinging strike percent actually edged downwards during his dominant late-season stretch.) Even so, those sorts of stats tend to jump off the page.

Add them all up, and we’re left with this: 25 games started and a career-high 137.7 innings pitched across two levels in 2018. 123 strikeouts, 44 walks, and only six home runs allowed. A cumulative ERA of 2.48, including his time in Carolina. DRA, it must be noted, is a little more measured in assessing Supak’s 2018 performance, pegging him as a league-average pitcher for the Mudcats, where his 4.69 Deserved Run Average stands in contrast to a glittering 1.76 ERA and his 99.7 DRA- is hardly exciting (a 100 DRA- is league and park average, and the lower the number, the better). But DRA also acknowledges that Supak turned it on after his promotion, finishing with a 3.73 DRA and a tidy 79.2 DRA- in Biloxi. That kind of performance is worth protecting.

Supak will start the 2019 in the minors, perhaps even back in Biloxi. But his above-average command and fastball-curveball combo make him a solid candidate to join the bullpen shuttle to the big leagues as early as mid-season. If 2018 taught us anything, it’s that the Brewers know how to make good use of their players with option years, rotating them between Triple-A and Milwaukee as needed.

The bullpen may well be Supak’s longterm home, too. If he performs well next year, he’ll have a chance to claim a spot as a middle-reliever or swingman for the foreseeable future. His stuff may also tick up a notch or two; instead of cresting at 94 mph, like he does as a starter, that number may become more of a baseline in relief.

There’s also a chance that Supak develops into an effective back-end starter, of the kind that the Brewers have had so much success with lately. He’s got that classic innings-eater frame, but limiting him to two trips through the batting order could do wonders for his ability to prevent runs. What’s more valuable: 200 innings with a 4.50 ERA, or 150 innings with a 3.80 ERA?

Supak has flown under the radar a bit in recent years. He’s pitched well, but not spectacularly; his ascent has been slower and less noticeable than those of 2016 Brandon Woodruff, 2017 Corbin Burnes, and even 2018 Zack Brown. But it has been steady. Now, he’s knocking at the door. Add his name alongside those of Woodruff, Burnes, Brown, Peralta, and others, and it’s clearer than ever that it’s time to retire the years-old narrative that the Brewers can’t develop good arms. Supak and his peers say otherwise.

Depending on which moves David Stearns and company make this offseason, and how and where Travis Shaw fits into the equation, the middle of the infield figures to be an area of special interest. Young and intriguing players abound, with still more waiting in the wings. Highlighted below are a few of the players most likely to impact up the middle next season.

Major Leagues

Orlando Arcia, SS

Arcia arrived in 2016 shouldering high expectations. He was Milwaukee’s best prospect since Ryan Braun came along in 2007 and changed the history of the franchise. Arcia produced a very nice age-22 season in 2017, finishing with 3.4 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) and vaulting to the top of Milwaukee’s list of talents aged 25 and under, just ahead of Domingo Santana. Times have changed.

Arcia regressed to a .214 True Average (TAv) and 0.0 WARP in 2018, losing playing time to a handful of low-profile players and heading into the All-Star Break below the Mendoza line. After some time sorting out his swing in the minors, he roared back to life in the second half, clawing playing time back from the just-imported Jonathan Schoop and helping to lead the team through their playoff charge.

Arcia is still just 24 years old, is a ton of fun to watch on the infield, and has offered fans glimpses of his offensive potential over the last two years. He’ll be starting at shortstop next spring, perhaps with a somewhat shorter leash than he had at the start of 2018.

Travis Shaw, 2B

Shaw famously crossed over to the right side of the infield at the trade deadline, freeing up the hot corner for Mike Moustakas. He’s 6’4” and 230 pounds, but showed solid glove work and good instincts at the keystone, especially for someone learning on the fly. As lines between positions blur around the league, the big man could see more time at second base in 2019.

Shaw recorded 32 home runs in just under 500 at bats in 2018, marking his second year in a row reaching that milestone. He showed a nice approach at the plate, drawing 78 walks to offset his 108 strikeouts. He also topped the 4-WARP plateau for the second straight season, making him the kind of cheap, under-the-radar star that franchises like Milwaukee need in order to sustain success.

There may be more in the tank. Shaw is still in the midst of his physical prime, and recorded an average exit velocity in 2018 that was right in line with his career norms. Even so, his BABIP dipped 70 points from 2017. Some of this can be attributed to an uptick in fly balls. But if Shaw can add back a few points to his batting average, and perhaps decrease his reliance on pulling the ball in certain counts, 2019 could be the year that he breaks out as one of the better-rounded sluggers in the league.

Jonathan Schoop, 2B/SS

Schoop enjoyed a monster 2017 in Baltimore, accumulating 4.7 WARP and whacking 32 home runs while providing surprisingly good defense at second base. 2018 didn’t go as well, particularly after the trade that sent him to Milwaukee in exchange for Jonathan Villar (still hurts), Luis Ortiz, and Jean Carmona. That’s a bit of a haul, but Schoop was hot, and he’s been a special bat in the past. Milwaukee didn’t get that player; Schoop struggled to a .202/.246/.331 line in 46 games for the Brewers.

Schoop is controllable for 2019, though it’s less clear whether Milwaukee intends to offer him a contract. MLB Trade Rumors pegs his salary at $10.1 million in his final year of arbitration, a hefty sum for a small market team to spend on a player with plenty of question marks. Never a patient hitter, Schoop relies on the quality of his contact to generate value with the bat. Worryingly, his exit velocity, launch angle, hard hit percentage, and barrel percentage were all down in 2018, per Statcast; Schoop actually outperformed his Expected Weighted On-Base Average (xWOBA).

Losing three players for a few weeks of sub-replacement performance would hurt; so would paying $10 M for a player who could end up on the bench. 2019 will be a crucial year for Schoop, no matter whose jersey he ends up wearing.

Hernán Pérez, UTIL

Pérez, 28 next Opening Day, continued to slip a little after an exciting 2016 campaign. Even so, he provided average offense (.258 TAv) and credible defense at seven different positions. There’s value in that. Pérez didn’t manage quite as much power in 2018 as he did the previous two seasons, and his K/BB ratio is as unseemly as ever. He shouldn’t be anyone’s idea of a starting player on a playoff-caliber team at this point, but he’s a fine option to have around in case of injury or early-season ineffectiveness. Projected at a reasonable $2.7 million next year by MLB Trade Rumors, he’s a good guy to have around the back end of the roster.

Tyler Saladino, UTIL

Saladino made some noise upon his initial promotion to Milwaukee, batting .298 in the first half of the season. But he was injured in May, missed all of June, and looked fairly awful in July and September. So in the end, he wound up with a pretty Saladino-esque line of .246/.302/.398. He’s 29 years old, and is projected to make $1.0 million next year by MLB Trade Rumors. He had a nice year in 2016, running up 1.4 WARP in half a season with the White Sox. That’s looking like the peak of his big league career at this point.

Minor Leagues

Mauricio Dubon, 2B/SS

The 2018 season could have gone very differently for Mauricio Dubon. The young infielder tore through his first 27 games in Triple-A, batting .343/.348/.574 with some nice doubles power and not too many whiffs. Then he tore through his ACL, and missed the rest of the season. It was a case of bad timing for Dubon and the Brewers; Orlando Arcia and Eric Sogard were struggling with the big club, and Dubon might have been the first man up. Instead, he’ll aim to occupy that position in 2019.

Dubon makes a lot of contact, and routinely runs strikeout rates in the low-to-mid-teens. He’s quick on the base paths, though not a tremendous threat to steal. And he’s teased some intriguing power at various points in his minor league career, though it tends to come and go. Dubon is a capable defender at shortstop, though he fits better at second base long-term. One knock on his game: He doesn’t walk much. Even so, the floor here is something like Hernán Pérez, perhaps with less ability to roam the outfield grass (though it wouldn’t surprise me to see him shagging some extra fly balls in spring training). As for the ceiling? Well…

Keston Hiura, 2B

Keston Hiura is looking more and more like a blue-chip prospect at the keystone. There’s little remaining doubt about his bat, though he’s oddly susceptible to strikeouts for someone who projects as a Grade 60 or better hitter (on a scale where 50 is average). As many of you know, Hiura combined for a .293 batting average, 13 home runs, and 34 doubles in his first full minor league season, reaching Double-A along the way. Were it not for a minor thumb injury suffered in July, those numbers all may have been better; Hiura’s performance dipped considerably in late July and August. Currently, he’s smacking the ball around to the tune of a .333 average and 30 RBIs in the Arizona Fall League. It’s been said that the man can hit.

Happily, he’s answering questions about his work in the dirt, too. Through last season and into the AFL, Hiura has looked like an average defender at second, maybe a tick below. That’s a great outcome for someone who’s missed so many reps. If Hiura continues to progress at all defensively, he should be able to handle himself just fine at the keystone.

Hiura looks like a threat to hit .300 with 20-25 home runs and a mess of doubles. Even now, he could probably muster a decent-enough slash line against big league pitching. He’ll be up soon; how long the Brewers wait on a promotion may ultimately depend on how well whoever’s making the majority of big league starts is performing.

Free Agents

There are a number of interesting names on the free agent market that could help shore up Milwaukee’s infield depth. That’s particularly true if the Brewers buy into Travis Shaw at second and cast around for upgrades at third. Mike Moustakas is a natural target there, as he performed ably for the Brewers down the stretch and quietly offers average skills on both sides of the ball. He’ll likely get a multi-year deal this time out, but the commitment shouldn’t be too costly, in either dollars or years.

Jed Lowrie, Marwin Gonzalez, Josh Harrison, and Neil Walker could all help at either second or third base. Any of those names could sign for between two and four years, with Gonzalez probably representing the best and most expensive option. But even Josh Donaldson may not be out of reach, depending on how leery teams are of his age and injury history.

Should the Brewers feel that Hiura will be ready to make an impact by mid-season, they could be tempted to simply bridge the gap with a cheap one-year deal. The most logical name, in that case, may be Ian Kinsler’s (Kinsler was also mentioned as a possible target by Andrew Salzman in a piece earlier this month.) Kinsler doesn’t offer too much with the bat anymore, but he still provides solid defense. He turns 37 next year, and will likely settle for a one-year deal.

Yes, Grandal or Realmuto would represent significant upgrades. But in the meantime, David Stearns, Craig Counsell, and the rest of the Brewers staff have been able to squeeze great value out of the current crop of time-shares and journeymen. Looking beyond the major league roster, catcher is a position full of surprising contributors up and down the organizational ladder. What follows is an overview of some of those contributors, as well as some brief notes on their outlook for the 2019 season and beyond. Upgrading would be nice; staying the course is probably fine, as well.

Major League Options

Player Name: Plate Appearances, Batting Average / On Base Percentage / Slugging Percentage, Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP)

Manny Piña; 337 PA, .252/.307/.395, 1.7 WARP
For the second year in a row, Piña handled the lion’s share of catching duties for Milwaukee. He continued to be a steady performer, offering tolerable offense and sturdy defense. His offensive production fell off some, relative to his breakout 2017 campaign, thanks to a slow start and a dip in Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP). Piña turned it on in the second half, hitting .295/.328/.429 after the break even as he lost playing time to immortal folk hero Erik Kratz.

With just over three years of service time on his major league clock, Piña is controllable for three more seasons through the arbitration process. He’ll be 34 by then, so it’s likely that someone else will have wrested away the bulk of available playing time behind the dish. Still, he handles a pitching staff well, and figures to get plenty of turns through the order in 2019 barring a major roster shakeup.

Erik Kratz; 219 PA, .236/.280/.355, 1.4 WARP
Erik Kratz came to the Brewers via a surprise trade with the Yankees, and wasted little time in endearing himself to fans and teammates alike. Though he didn’t bring much of a big league résumé into Milwaukee, he performed quite well in limited time, making up for his anemic offensive output with superlative glove work (11.1 Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average in fewer than 500 defensive innings!).

Kratz elected free agency when he was removed from the Yankees’ 40-man roster prior to the 2018 season. He re-signed with New York before his trade to Milwaukee, but finished the year with fewer than six years of big league service time to his name. He can be controlled via arbitration for the 2019 season, though at age 39, he may have retirement (or a late career surge as a knuckle-balling reliever) on his mind. I’m not betting on a return, much as my heart hopes otherwise.

Stephen Vogt; Did Not Play in Majors (Shoulder Surgery)
All-around good guy Stephen Vogt was limited to 9 plate appearances for the Biloxi Shuckers in May before undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. It was the second major shoulder operation of Vogt’s career; his big league future is in jeopardy. I’m not aware of any public information on his rehab, but Vogt could be controlled via arbitration in 2019 if he’s able to work his way back to the ball field.

For his career, Vogt is a .251/.310/.416 hitter, good for a strong .267 True Average (TAv). He’s below-average with the glove, though, and struggled to throw out base runners even before re-injuring his throwing arm. He’s well-loved among his teammates, but Vogt’s path back to the majors may be as a reserve first baseman or a DH.

Jacob Nottingham; 196 PA, .281/.347/.528 in Triple-A
Public opinion of Nottingham was fairly sour heading in to the year, and it’s not too difficult to see why: A .209/.326/.369 slash line in your second year of AA isn’t going to win over many casual fans. Biloxi is a run-suppressing environment, though, in a tough league for hitters. So that same ugly triple-slash translated to a barely-above-average.264 TAv. This year, with much better baseball-card stats courtesy of Colorado Springs, Nottingham’s TAv in the minors was all the way up to .282.

Expecting that kind of production in the big leagues, at least at first, is probably foolish. In his (very) limited time in Milwaukee, Nottingham compiled just 24 plate appearances and looked a tad over-matched at times, striking out on eight occasions. He also drew four walks, to his credit, and the sample size is far too small to be seriously examined. Most excitingly, Nottingham can seriously hurt a baseball when he finds one in his sweet spot, to the tune of 450+ feet. He’s made tremendous strides with the glove over the last few years, transforming himself into something approaching an average defensive catcher. Couple that with league-average-or-better offense at the position, and he still has the ability to produce sneaky value for the Brewers over the next six seasons. (Catchers in 2018 batted .232/.304/.372, so Nottingham doesn’t have to turn into Pudge Rodriguez to give the Brewers a boost.) I’m hoping he piles up a couple hundred big league plate appearances next season.

Jett Bandy; 216 PA, .292/.353/.510 in Triple-A
Bandy broke camp with the Brewers, but failed to impress. He hit .188/.268/.266 with shaky defense in 24 games before being removed from the roster and passed over on waivers. The 28-year-old came alive in Triple-A, but he’s reaching do-or-die status as a major league contributor. He’ll have to contend with at least two of the above names on the depth chart, and will likely struggle to find big league playing time should he remain in the Brewers organization. Still, he’s youngish enough and talented enough that he has a chance to shed his current quad-A label and become a solid backup with some pop.

Prospects and Depth

Christian Bethancourt; 418 PA, .297/.328/.506 in Triple-A
Brought in on a minor league pact, Bethancourt played very well in his return from the pitcher’s mound. He has soft hands behind the dish, and a good arm. He also hit a bit in Colorado Springs, with 20 home runs and a nifty .271 TAv. One knock on his offense: He gave away plenty of walks as a pitcher, but largely refuses them as a hitter.

Bethancourt was brought into the organization on a minor league pact. There will be plenty of plate appearances available for catchers in AAA next year, but it’s no guarantee that Bethancourt will be making the move to San Antonio along with the rest of the organization’s most advanced minor leaguers. Plenty of rebuilding clubs may take a roll of the dice on the former top prospect.

Dustin Houle and Max McDowell, Advanced A & Double-A
These two are the same age, and at about the same stage developmentally. Houle was drafted out of high school way back in 2011; McDowell followed from college in 2015.

Houle is a big-bodied catcher without a true carrying tool. He’s got a decent arm and is fairly strong, but the lack of a hit tool cramps his game power. He’s a nice organizational depth piece, but something very strange will have happened if he sees major league time in 2019.

McDowell has a bit more upside, with a strong throwing arm, decent athleticism, solid glove, and some untapped raw power. He flashed a nice bat in Wisconsin in 2016, but his hit tool hasn’t progressed much as he’s moved up the ladder. He’s got a chance to turn into a light-hitting backup at the highest level.

Mario Feliciano; 165 PA, .205/.282/.329 in Advanced A
2018 was basically a lost season for the 19-year-old, who battled back from an arm injury to play in 42 games for the Carolina Mudcats. He started slow in June, showed signs of life in July, then cratered in August. It was a disappointing year for a player who impressed in 2017 as one of the youngest prospects in the Midwest League. Ultimately, though, I see little reason to dampen long-term expectations. Catching at Class-Advanced A is an almost laughable challenge for a 19-year-old. He should return for another round in 2019, and I expect him to play pretty well. Keep in mind that the Carolina League is hard on hitters, so his stat line may not be all that impressive. The fact that he’ll be there at all, though, at 20 years old? Impressive. The defense could use some work, and he has plenty of time for that. Meanwhile, he could develop into a .270 hitter with a line-drive approach and average power.

Feliciano is currently playing in the Arizona Fall League to make up for some of his lost time this year. It’s not working, though: He’s only worked his way into two games, with one single in four at bats.

Payton Henry; 389 PA, .234/.327/.380 in Advanced A
Henry had a rough April and a tremendous May, followed by an acceptable June and July and a ghastly August and September. He’s a bat-first prospect with plus raw power, but he struck out in about 32 percent of his plate appearances. He needs to work on his receiving and his arm if he wants to stay behind the plate; he becomes a much less exciting prospect if he moves to first base or an outfield corner.

Worth Noting
Finally, backstops David Fry and Robie Rojas are due a mention here. Fry hit .315/.406/.563 while playing catcher, first base, and third base for the rookie league Helena Brewers. He drew 29 walks and struck out just 42 times in 261 plate appearances. Rojas, a 38th-round pick in 2017, spent plenty of time on the 7-day Disabled List and was relegated to the minor league taxi squad. He managed just 66 plate appearances on the year, including 13 at Triple-A, and hit surprisingly well in a (very small) 13-game sample in Carolina. All together, he had a line of .304/.409/.393.

Fry’s rookie league stats, while nice, are by and large worthless, and I have no idea what to make of Rojas at this point. But I’ll be curious to see what the organization does with both of these prospects in 2019.

On its face, that may sound a bit extreme. Hank Aaron wore Brewers blue, after all, as did Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. But rattle off a list of all-time Brewers greats, and you’ll pretty soon get to names like Ben Oglivie or Cecil Cooper. Great players, both, but not demonstrably better than Grandyman, who has two key traits working in his favor.

The first is his longevity. At 37 years old, Granderson is in his fifteenth major league season. The second is that he’s really, really good at baseball. Better perhaps, than many casual fans realize. Granderson has four seasons of 5+ WARP to his name, including one as recently as 2015. The only other current Brewer for whom that’s true is Ryan Braun, whose last such season came in 2012. (Cecil Cooper had two; Ben Oglivie had none.) For his career, the lanky lefty has racked up 44.4 WARP, most of that on the strength of his powerful bat (332 career home runs, .286 career True Average [TAv]).

That’s a superlative career by any definition. It’s also one that is coming to an end. Barring an incredible surge in the next year or two, Granderson doesn’t have any more 5 WARP campaigns in the tank. He may not play next year at all; he spent last offseason waiting for an offer to come his way before signing with Toronto weeks before Spring Training. If that offer hadn’t come along, he was prepared to hang up his cleats. The same is true for this offseason.

That all puts Granderson in a different class of Brewers: those whom most people will forget ever suited up for the Milwaukee nine.

He’s in good company there. Over the years, Milwaukee has hosted a number of good-to-great players for half a season here or a season there, often just in time for a run at the playoffs or as the last stop before the beckoning, sunny pasture of retirement. That Granderson has had a positive, if small, impact on the team places him among the best of these players, too, with room to move up the list in the event of any October heroics.

In no particular order, here’s a look at some of Granderson’s peers on the all-time Brewers cameo list.

Willie Randolph, 1991

Second baseman Willie Randolph burst into the majors in 1975 at the age of 21, playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was traded to the Yankees that offseason, along with Ken Brett (brother of George) and Dock Ellis (fan of hallucinogins), for Doc Medich (who finished his own fine career with a Brewers cameo). Randolph spent 13 of his 18 big league years in the Bronx, where he made five of his six career All Star teams and won a World Series in 1977. He was a patient hitter with a good hit tool but not much power, and a terrific defender at the keystone.

In 1991, Randolph was 36 years old and nearing the end of his playing career. He signed a one-year deal with the Brewers and produced a fine season, although his defense had begun to erode. Randolph batted .327/.424/.474 over 512 plate appearances, accumulating 3.1 WARP and striking out just 38 times. In 2011, FanGraphs named Randolph’s ’91 campaign as the second-best by a hitter who went the whole season without hitting a home run. He hung around the league for one more year before calling it quits, finishing with 2,210 hits and 51.8 WARP.

An addendum: Randolph was named manager of the New York Mets prior to the 2004 season and guided them to the NLCS in 2006, where he lost in seven games to the Cardinals (once a Brewer, always a Brewer). He joined Milwaukee’s coaching staff in 2009 as a bench coach, after losing out on the vacant managerial position to Ken Macha. He remained a Brewers coach for two years, before closing out his coaching career with a stint in Baltimore.

Julio Franco, 1997

Franco is remembered well for his agelessness; he spent parts of 23 seasons in the big leagues, finally retiring after 2007 at the age of 48. By that point, he had mustered 42.3 WARP and a .298 career batting average, though his days of swiping 30+ bags were some sixteen years in the rearview mirror.

Impatient with the 1994 strike, Franco took his bat and glove overseas and played the 1995 season in Japan. In 1996, at the tender age of 37, Franco returned to the MLB with Cleveland, where he had spent six seasons in his prime. He hit well in ’96, riding a .290 TAv to 1.7 WARP in 112 games. 1997 wasn’t quite as kind, and Cleveland released him in the midst of a mediocre campaign propped up by a good batting average.

Milwaukee swooped in, signed him, and sent him out to the field for 42 games. Franco was a first baseman and DH by this point in his career, after starting out as a shortstop. He hit .241/.373/.348 for the Crew, good for 0.4 WARP. He managed 1.1 total WARP between Cleveland and Milwaukee; it stood as his finest season between that year and his eventual retirement. Franco made the playoffs seven times, all coming after he had turned 37. He never won a World Series.

Franco Fun-Fact: He never struck out more than 83 times in a season.

Jim Edmonds, 2010

With 72.9 career WARP, Jimmy Baseball may deserve a spot in Cooperstown. At the very least, he deserves to still be on the ballot. Life isn’t always fair, though, so Edmonds is stuck waiting around for the Veterans Committee.

A great defensive center fielder, Edmonds could swing quite a bit, as well. He finished his career with a fantastic .303 TAv, though he fell just shy of two big milestones; Edmonds is forever stuck on 1,949 hits and 393 homers.

Bearing those numbers in mind, it’s a shame that he didn’t find an offer to his liking before the 2009 season. Dissatisfied with his suitors, Edmonds opted to sit out the whole year. At age 40, the Brewers gave him another shot at the majors, and Edmonds delivered. He spent 73 games in Milwaukee in 2010, batting .286/.350/.493, and tallying an astonishing 8.6 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA). That effort netted Edmonds 2.6 WARP in just 240 plate appearances; Milwaukee shipped the veteran out in a waiver trade to the contending Cincinnati Reds, who were swept out of the NLDS by the Phillies

It’s not all tears for Jim though; Edmonds won a ring, with the Cards, regrettably, in 2006. (Sorry, Willie Randolph-managed Mets!)

CC Sabathia, 2008

Everybody knows how this one went down. The Brewers traded a suite of talented prospects for half a season of CC Sabathia, easily the greatest Rent-A-Brewer in team history. Sabathia started 17 games for the Crew down the stretch, many of them on short rest, and tallied a staggering 4.6 WARP in that time. Taken as a whole, the 2008 season (all 253 innings of it) stands alone as the best of a storied career.

The veteran lefty has a decent shot at Cooperstown, particularly if the voting block comes to their senses concerning pitcher performances. He’s sitting on 68.3 career WARP thanks to a neat late-career resurgence, with a tidy 3.71 career DRA. Sabathia turned 38 this season, but if he comes back in 2019, he’ll probably lock down his 250th win; he’s just shy now, at 246.

Sabathia has spent the last ten years playing for the Yankees, so it will not surprise you to learn that he won a World Series in 2009. Pity he didn’t come closer in 2008; he was gassed after carrying the team for three months.

Ray Durham, 2008

Ray Durham is the closest historical analogue to Curtis Granderson’s situation. Durham was acquired to shore up the infield and bench through the 2008 Wild Card chase. Like Granderson in ’18, Durham wasn’t the Brewers’ flashiest mid-season addition that year. (See above.) Also like Granderson, Durham performed well in Brewers blue, to the tune of a .280 TAv, solid defense, and 0.9 WARP over 122 plate appearances. (Granderson, a late August waiver addition, hasn’t played as much for the Crew, but he’s still managed 0.3 WARP and a .311 TAv in 54 plate appearances.)

Durham finished with an even 36.0 WARP and 2,054 hits. Had he been a better defender, his value would be even higher; still, few players would say no to a career slash line of .277/.352/.436.

One more similarity to Curtis Granderson: Durham was in his fourteenth big league season when he became a Brewer, and had never won a World Series. Granderson is in his fifteenth, still searching for a ring. He’s come close on numerous occasions; Granderson played for the Tigers when the Tigers were good (World Series appearance in 2006), the Yankees when the Yankees were good (ALCS in 2010 and 2012), the Mets when the Mets were good (World Series appearance in 2015), and was traded to the Dodgers in time for their run to the Fall Classic last year.

He’s an easy player to like, with a laidback personality and a devotion to charity. There are indications that, if given the keys to the league tomorrow, he’d make a better commissioner than one Mr. Manfred, or at least a better marketing director than the one Mr. Manfred employs. He’s a mentor to prospect Corey Ray; here’s hoping his career numbers wear off on the youngster. By all accounts, Granderson is one of the finest people to play the game, let alone a tremendous player. Let’s hope his 2018 ends on a happier note than Durham’s 2008.

At the time that he was hired, it seemed like as though the Brewers were many years away from consistent contention. Even the optimistic fan would have pointed to 2019 or so as the year in which the Brewers may start to make some noise. Stearns has exceeded expectations by any measure.

But because baseball is a sport perfect for speculative thought exercises, I asked the following question: What if he didn’t?

What would have happened if Stearns settled into his desk on the morning of September 20, 2015, took stock of the team and its farm system, and said, “You know what? Let’s just ride it out and see what happens.”

In the alternate universe you are about to enter, every Stearns trade is gone. He just never even picks up the phone. The free agent signings and waiver claims, for the sake of this exercise, remain. (In the Bizarro universe, his nickname is Waivin’ Dave.)

We’ll also assume that the performances of all players involved in the Bizarro universe would be comparable to their real-world counterparts, aside from some minor park adjustments, perhaps. Why this particular set of rules? ‘Cuz.

The first order of business: Undoing every trade the Brewers made after handing the franchise reins to David Stearns.

Trades Undone:

November 18, 2015 – Traded RHP Francisco Rodriguez to the Detroit Tigers for MiLB IF Javier Betancourt and C Manny Piña
November 19, 2015 – Traded MiLB RHP Cy Sneed to the Astros for 2B Jonathan Villar
November 20, 2015 – Traded IF Luis Sardiñas to the Mariners for OF/1B Ramon Flores
December 9, 2015 – Traded IB Adam Lind to the Mariners for MiLB RHPs Carlos Herrera, Daniel Missaki, and Freddy Peralta
December 17, 2015 – Traded 1B Jason Rogers to the Pirates for MiLB RHP Trey Supak and OF Keon Broxton
January 30, 2016 – Traded 2B/SS Jean Segura and MiLB RHP Tyler Wagner to the Diamondbacks for MiLB 2B/SS Isan Diaz, RHP Chase Anderson, and IF Aaron Hill
February 12, 2016 – Traded OF/DH Khris Davis to the Athletics for MiLB RHP Bubba Derby and MiLB C Jacob Nottingham
July 7, 2016 – Traded IF Aaron Hill to the Red Sox for MiLB IF Wendell Rijo and MiLB RHP Aaron Wilkerson
August 1, 2016 – Traded RHP Jeremy Jeffress and C Jonathan Lucroy to the Rangers for MiLBers Lewis Brinson (OF), Luis Ortiz (RHP), and Ryan Cordell (OF)
August 1, 2016 – Traded LHP Will Smith to the Giants for C Andrew Susac and MiLB RHP Phil Bickford
December 6, 2016 – Traded RHP Tyler Thornburg to the Red Sox for 3B Travis Shaw, MiLB SS/2B Mauricio Dubon, MiLB RHP Josh Pennington, MiLB SS Yeison Coca
December 13, 2016 – Traded C Martin Maldonado and MiLB RHP Drew Gagnon to the Angels for C Jett Bandy
April 13, 2017 – Traded RHP Damien Magnifico to the Orioles for RHP Oliver Drake
June 30, 2017 – Traded IF/OF Nick Franklin to the Angels for cash
July 13, 2017 – Traded 1B Garrett Cooper to the Yankees for LHP Tyler Webb
July 26, 2017 – Traded OF Ryan Cordell to the White Sox for RHP Anthony Swarzak
July 31, 2017 – Traded RHP Tayler Scott to the Rangers for RHP Jeremy Jeffress
August 12, 2017 – Traded RHP Eric Hanhold to the Mets for 2B Neil Walker
January 25, 2018 – Traded OF Lewis Brinson and MiLBers Isan Diaz (SS/2B), Monte Harrison (OF), and Jordan Yamamoto (RHP) to the Marlins for OF Christian Yelich
February 2, 2018 – Traded C Andrew Susac to the Orioles for cash
May 25, 2018 – Traded MiLB IF Wendell Rijo to the Yankees for C Erik Kratz
June 10, 2018 – Traded 1B/OF Ji-Man Choi to the Rays for IF Brad Miller and cash
July 26, 2018 – Traded MiLB LHP Kodi Medeiros and MiLB RHP Wilber Perez to the White Sox for RHP Joakim Soria and cash
July 27, 2018 – Traded RHP Jorge López and OF Brett Phillips to the Royals for 3B Mike Moustakas
July 31, 2018 – Traded 2B Jonathan Villar, MiLB RHP Luis Ortiz, and MiLB IF Jean Carmona to the Orioles for 2B Jonathan Schoop
August 31, 2018 – Traded MiLB RHP Johan Dominguez and MiLB IF/OF Bryan Connell to the White Sox for LHP Xavier Cedeño
August 31, 2018 – Traded MiLB C/1B KJ Harrison and MiLB IF Gilbert Lara to the Nationals for LHP Gio González and international bonus slot money
August 31, 2018 – Traded MiLB OF Demi Orimoloye to the Blue Jays for OF Curtis Granderson

Total Players Retained: Francisco Rodriguez (Controlled through 2017 with a club option), Cy Sneed (minors), Luis Sardiñas (Batted .111 for Baltimore in 8 2018 games), Adam Lind (Free Agent after 2016), Jason Rogers (Has spent time in NPB and indie ball), Jean Segura (FA 2019), Tyler Wagner (minors), Khris Davis (48 HR, FA 2020), Aaron Hill (FA after season), Jeremy Jeffress, Jonathan Lucroy (FA 2018), Will Smith (FA 2020), Tyler Thornburg (FA 2020), Martin Maldonado (FA 2019), Drew Gagnon (5.25 ERA in 12 IP for the Mets in 2018), Damien Magnifico (minors), Nick Franklin (re-signed), Garrett Cooper (60-Day DL for Marlins), Tayler Scott (minors), Eric Hanhold (7.71 ERA in 3 games with Mets), Monte Harrison (minors), Jordan Yamamoto (minors), Ji-Man Choi (10 HR in 221 PA), Kodi Medeiros (minors), Wilber Perez (minors), Jorge López (combined 5.03 ERA), Brett Phillips (great defense, 41.7 K%), Jean Carmona (minors), Johan Dominguez (minors), Bryan Connell (minors), KJ Harrison (minors), Gilbert Lara (minors), Demi Orimoloye (minors)

Total Players Never Acquired: Javier Betancourt, Manny Piña, Jonathan Villar, Ramon Flores, Carlos Herrera, Daniel Missaki, Freddy Peralta, Trey Supak, Keon Broxton, Isan Diaz, Chase Anderson, Aaron Hill, Bubba Derby, Jacob Nottingham, Wendell Rijo, Aaron Wilkerson, Lewis Brinson, Ryan Cordell, Luis Ortiz, Andrew Susac, Phil Bickford, Travis Shaw, Mauricio Dubon, Josh Pennington, Yeison Coca, Jett Bandy, Oliver Drake, Tyler Webb, Anthony Swarzak, Neil Walker, Christian Yelich, Erik Kratz, Brad Miller, Joakim Soria, Mike Moustakas, Jonathan Schoop, Xavier Cedeño, Gio González, Curtis Granderson

The first thing that stands out in all of this is the sheer volume of major transactions occurring for the Brewers in a relatively short period of time. Stearns has acquired more major league contributors than he’s given up, a further testament to the rapidity of his rebuild, but both lists are startlingly long. The man’s been busy.

The second thing is that, hey, a few good players around the league were Brewers in the not-too-distant past. A few of those players would still be under team control. Which brings us to…

2018 Bizarro Brewers Starting Lineup & Depth Chart

1. Lorenzo Cain (CF)
2. Jean Segura (2B)
3. Ryan Braun (RF)
4. Khris Davis (LF)
5. Jesus Aguilar (3B)
6. Eric Thames (1B)
7. Martin Maldonado (C)
8. Orlando Arcia (SS)
9. Pitcher

Depth
Left Field: Khris Davis, Ryan Braun, Domingo Santana, Ji-Man Choi

Center Field: Lorenzo Cain, Brett Phillips

Right Field: Ryan Braun, Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips

First Base: Eric Thames, Ji-Man Choi, Garrett Cooper

Second Base: Jean Segura, Hernán Pérez

Shortstop: Orlando Arcia, Jean Segura, Hernán Pérez

Third Base: Jesus Aguilar, Hernán Pérez, Garrett Cooper

Catcher: Martin Maldonado, Christian Bethancourt

Starting Rotation: Jhoulys Chacín, Zach Davies, Wade Miley, Junior Guerra, Brent Suter, Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, Jorge López, Adrian Houser, Tyler Wagner

Bullpen: Josh Hader, Jeremy Jeffress, Corey Knebel, Will Smith, Dan Jennings, Jacob Barnes, Tyler Thornburg, Taylor Williams, Matt Albers, Jordan Lyles, Quintin Torres-Costa, Nick Ramirez

DL: Jimmy Nelson, Stephen Vogt

What emerges is a surprisingly decent group, albeit one that would lose several key players to free agency following both the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Onto the head-to-head.

Pitching Staff
The absence of Chase Anderson and Freddy Peralta thins the crop of starting pitchers, but would also pave the way for Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes to pick up some meaningful starts. Meanwhile, the bullpen still looks strong. Real Brewers pitchers combined for approximately 18 Pitcher Wins Above Replacement Player (PWARP) in 2018, placing them right in the middle of the league. The Bizarro Brewers pretty much measure up. Overall, the Brewers shed a total of 1.1 PWARP, mostly thanks to Gio González and Joakim Soria, but add that 1.1 back through Will Smith. It’s difficult to say how the Bizarro rotation would have fared, with inexperienced arms like Woodruff and Burnes assuming more important roles. But the pitching, on its face, seems to be more or less a wash.
Advantage: Even

Defense
Behind those pitchers, the defense would be a bit of a mess. Despite a strong presence up the middle (Maldonado, Arcia, Segura, and Cain), the corners look leaky, with third base threatening to approach 2007-Ryan-Braun levels of futility, and Khris Davis battling The Creature in left. Ryan Braun in right wouldn’t be too pretty, either. So while manager Craig Counsell could count on those big bats to create a lead, he’d likely yank them out of the game in the seventh or eighth inning in favor of Hernán Pérez, Brett Phillips, and Domingo Santana. Not the most comfortable system, but one that could work.
Advantage: Real Brewers

Offense
Real Brewers hitters had a terrific year, and come out on top of the Bizarro Brewers pretty handily. Christian Yelich and Travis Shaw combined for approximately 12.0 Batter Wins Above Replacement Player (BWARP) in 2018, handily beating the 7.3 BWARP compiled by Jean Segura and Khris Davis. Bizarro catcher Martin Maldonado contributes less than one BWARP-win behind the plate against Many Piña’s 1.5, and Christian Bethancourt isn’t a likely bet to replace the 1.4 BWARP accumulated by Erik Kratz. Jesus Aguilar’s value would be diminished at third base, and it’s tough to say how Thames and Choi would have responded to increased playing time.
Advantage: Real Brewers

Dingers
It’s close, but assuming they all get a full season of playing time, I’ll take the combined output of Davis-Aguilar-Thames-Braun over Yelich-Aguilar-Shaw-Braun. Playing in Miller Park, Khrush could have eclipsed Prince Fielder’s team record of 50 home runs in 2007.
Advantage: Bizarro Brewers

Final Thoughts
2018 is probably the best chance for the Bizarro Brewers to make the playoffs, as they stand to lose Martin Maldonado and Jean Segura (who never signed that extension in the Bizarro universe) to free agency after the season. They could always shell out for Daniel Murphy or DJ LeMahieu and patch their catching situation with Kurt Suzuki or Wilson Ramos, but that’s not exactly the Brewers’ style, plus they’ll lose Khris Davis, Will Smith, Jhoulys Chacín, and Tyler Thornburg the next year (with Braun and Thames not far behind).

Squint a little bit (and imagine a few lucky breaks going their way), and it’s not impossible to think that the Bizarro squad could have pushed for a Wild Card spot this season. But it’s also not hard to see that the Real Brewers are a stronger team right now, and will be a stronger team for years to come.

Which reminds me: Postseason baseball is here. Go Crew!

The Brewers are sending the customary eight delegates to the Fall League this year, mixing well-known names with a few under-the-radar selections. Most fans are familiar with top prospect Keston Hiura, former first-round pick Trent Grisham, and young catcher Mario Feliciano. Bubba Derby, many will remember, was part of the trade that sent Khris Davis to Oakland. That quartet  headlines the group of prospects on their way to Arizona, where they’ll be joined by relievers Miguel Sanchez and John Olczak, both of whom have been covered on the site in recent weeks, and Daniel Brown. That leaves corner utility player Weston Wilson as the eighth man in.

Wilson enjoyed a nice campaign with the bat this year, producing a combined 270 batting average /.326 on-base percentage /.434 slugging percentage between two levels. The majority of that damage came in the Carolina League, where he played 105 games as a Mudcat and hit .274/.330/.446 for a healthy True Average (TAv) of .273 before a late-season bump to Biloxi. That continues something of a trend for Wilson, who split the 2017 season between Wisconsin and Carolina, hitting quite well at the former and scuffling some upon his promotion. The optimist’s view here is that Wilson makes adjustments as he develops, enduring some early struggles only to emerge a stronger, smarter ballplayer the following year. Someone less inclined to rose-colored glasses may point out that Wilson, a 16th round draftee out of Clemson in 2016, has always started the year a little old for his level, and simply performed in the low minors much as a decent college hitter should. Neither is a bad thing, really. But as a point of comparison, bear in mind that Wilson was drafted the same year as Ronnie Gideon, and signed for a similar bonus. Both hitters destroyed Rookie League ball in 2016, but their paths diverged after that: Wilson hit well for the Timber Rattlers, conquered the Mudcats, and has advanced to Double-A; Gideon struggled in Appleton for a full year, failed to do much for Carolina, and was released mid-season. Wilson may not be a highly-touted prospect, but he is separating himself from his peers in that particular cohort.

Something else to endear Wilson to the Milwaukee faithful: He’s capable of playing all over the field. Wilson started games at first, second, third base, and shortstop, as well as in left and right field this year, racking up most of his innings at first, third, and in left. The eye test reveals at least an average defender; Baseball Prospectus sees his defense as a potential plus. Wilson accumulated 7.3 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) in the minors this year, a strong mark for any player. That’s a bit out of tune with his earlier defensive value (1.8 FRAA in 2017, -3.1 FRAA in 2016), but certainly enough to suggest a competent fielder. As positional labels begin to lose meaning across the league, Wilson’s comfort with moving around the diamond could become a true asset.

Monitoring Wilson’s development in Arizona and beyond should provide plenty of interest. His 2018 season was carried by a monster month of July, wherein he hit .436/.481/.681 across 27 games and 106 red-hot plate appearances. That came after a putrid June which saw him bat .176/.220/.253 in a similar amount of playing time. Ideally, he’d smooth over those kinds of extreme streaks in the future. He’ll also have to prove that he’s capable of handling advanced pitching at the Double-A and Triple-A levels. Happily, there’s some indication that he’s already begun that journey. Though he finished the regular season hitting .239/.286/.326 (.238 TAv) in a dozen games for the Shuckers, he caught fire in the postseason, going 10-for-27 with a pair of doubles for a .370/.452/.444 line in eight games. Fold that into his regular season work, and he hit .288/.342/.370 wearing a Shuckers uniform. Not shabby for a super-utility sort.

Prior to 2018, Wilson was best known as the prospect who proposed to his girlfriend after she threw out a ceremonial first pitch (incidentally, the video clip in that link suggests that Wilson could bring considerable value as a pitch framer, should he ever encounter the tools of ignorance). Another season like his last could change that in a hurry, especially if he shows well in Arizona next month. Should Wilson continue to develop as he has, he could be manning the diamond Hernán Pérez-style with fellow 2018 Shucker (and partner-in-rhyme) Keston Hiura for years of competitive Brewers baseball to come. Don’t be surprised if you start to see a #FreeWestonWilson campaign start to crop up next year or the year after, and be sure to check out Wilson this fall if you have a chance.

Miley, at first blush, was low-hanging fruit for this kind of punchline. The southpaw’s 2017 season was an inescapable disaster, and his 5.61 ERA / 5.27 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP)/ 7.61 Deserved Run Average (DRA) cocktail suggests that no amount of bad luck was to blame for his misfortune (his 5.3 walks per nine innings could have told you that, too). It was an ugly season, any way you slice it. If that were Miley’s line this year, he’d absolutely be the first man sent to the ‘pen.

Of course, that’s not Miley’s line this season. By the most basic (and, to a contending team, arguably the most important) of standards, 2018 Wade Miley has been quietly excellent: His results are beyond reproach. In 11 games started for Milwaukee spanning 57.7 innings (and including an injury-shortened one-out effort against Cleveland in May), Miley has pitched to an astonishing 2.18 ERA. He’s allowed three earned runs once this season, in a five-inning effort that resulted in a no-decision. Every other time out, he’s held his opponents to two earned runs or fewer.

Dip below the surface and the picture isn’t quite so rosy, true. But it’s rosy enough. Miley’s FIP for the year is a strong 3.72, and his DRA is 4.24, both bests since 2013. He’s striking out only around six batters per nine innings, which is a career low among full seasons, but not too out of the ordinary. Miley has never relied on blowing hitters away with elite velocity or ridiculous breaking balls.

Rather, when he’s at his best, Miley uses pinpoint control to compensate for middling stuff, giving him the results of a mid-rotation starter despite a repertoire that suggests a back-end or swing role. Never was this more evident than in his terrific rookie season for the Diamondbacks in 2012, when Miley spun 194.7 innings of 3.33 ERA / 4.18 DRA ball and rode his 1.7 BB9 to an All-Star nod and a second-place finish in Rookie of the Year voting (he finished just seven points behind Bryce Harper). He’s never quite equalled that output, but he’s come close, with a 4.23 DRA the following year and a 4.39 mark in 2014.

This season represents a welcome step back in that direction. Fans can thank the cutter, a pitch that Miley dabbled with only on occasion before deploying last year with 11.8 percent frequency. This year, that number is up to 38.5 percent, trading places and then some with his so-so sinker. The cutter finally gives Miley a viable weapon against right-handed hitters, who have hit Miley for a .775 OPS on his career. Perhaps it’s the novelty of the new pitch (and new division), but righties are batting just .160 against the cutter this year, which Miley likes to ride low and in. Miley has also wrangled his free passes down to a respectable 3.4 per nine innings, and he’s been even better lately: Over his last five starts (28.3 innings), that number is down to 2.2; over his last three, it’s sitting pretty at 1.6.

Of course, running the ball over the plate with greater consistency comes with its own inherent set of risks. But Miley has a much better defense behind him in Milwaukee than he did in Baltimore. Despite a greater number of balls in play, his Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) is down almost half a point from its ugly apex. Miley continues to be a solid ground ball pitcher, but his excellent 0.47 HR9 number is unsustainably low, as is the career-best .269 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) allowed. He’s stranding over 80 percent of runners on base. Many of these numbers scream regression. Crucially, though, they doesn’t scream regression to “horrible.” Just to somewhere in the vicinity of that 4.24 DRA.

Miley is pitching well at the right time for Milwaukee. (Paradoxically, his injury-shortened season may have something to do with that. Miley has historically run out of gas in September, with a 5.08 ERA in just shy of 200 autumn innings. This year, he’s fresh.) He’s not the sort of pitcher you’d want starting a Wild Card game, never mind this year’s sterling bubble-gum stats. But he’s not exactly a liability of the “I can’t believe a contending team is giving this guy the ball” variety, either. He’s rediscovered his command with the Brewers and has experienced a good amount of luck. The result is an average pitcher, just as he’s been for much of his career. That makes him a perfectly fine bet to keep the team in the game for fifteen or so outs. Even as Gio González warms the bullpen bench, Miley has earned the right to soak up some more innings down the stretch. And with Junior Guerra struggling and Zach Davies something of an unknown after his return from injury, González will get his chance, as well.

Photo: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

Martinez is very big (6’6”, 225 pounds), very strong, and very raw at the plate, as befits a 19-year-old. (He’s also trilingual, which doesn’t really count for anything but is pretty cool.) He acquitted himself well in Dominican ball last year, tallying 29 hits in 113 at-bats, including thirteen for extra bases. Across 148 plate appearances, he struck out 31 times and drew 30 walks, good for a .326 True Average (TAv). Clearly in need of a greater challenge, Martinez was brought stateside and scuffled, as he continues to do this year. In the DSL, he struck out in 20.9 percent of his plate appearances; through Saturday, this year he’s whiffing at a 33.9 percent clip. The walk rate has fallen from 20.1 percent to a still solid 11.6 percent. His isolated power has plummeted from .177 all the way down to .049. For all his strength, Martinez has yet to hit a home run in a game on U.S. soil.

That’s only a matter of time, though. Martinez possesses easy 70-grade raw power (along with a plus throwing arm) with a chance to add even more strength as he matures. He hits from the left side, displaying an open stance with loud hands. He’ll wave the bat back and forth as the pitcher winds up before going into a crouch and unleashing a big leg kick. When he plants his right foot, the stance closes up, and he lets rip with a powerful swing. Batting practice home runs are the easiest home runs to hit. Even so, this kind of power is eye-opening:

The general profile calls to mind a pair of other long-developing prospects to grace the Milwaukee system in recent years: Monte Harrison and Demi Orimoloye. Martinez is even taller than those two, and has a chance to wind up with the most raw power (albeit without as much speed). Still a teenager, he’s also just as unrefined as were Harrison and Orimoloye when they were drafted. In other words, patience will be key when evaluating Martinez’s development over the next several seasons. Harrison battled through a pair of injury-filled years before his 2017 breakout (he’s swatted 18 home runs in Double-A this year, incidentally, but is also closing in on 200 strikeouts). Likewise, it wasn’t until this season that Orimoloye tasted his first real success outside of rookie ball (.301 TAv in the Arizona League in 2015; .278 TAv across 245 plate appearances earlier this year in Appleton). If any of these players make a significant impact at the major league level, it won’t be for another several years.

Announced as an outfielder and first baseman, the Brewers have Martinez playing first base exclusively in Arizona, which is a little perplexing considering his strong arm (Martinez was once clocked at 93 mph on the mound). Scouting reports from the time of his signing cited shaky footwork in the outfield; perhaps he’ll get more looks in the grass down the line, or perhaps he’ll continue to add mass to his frame and stay firmly planted in the infield. In either case, the bat will be his carrying tool, and it has a long way to go (particularly if he stays at the bottom of the defensive spectrum). If Martinez has a higher ceiling than most, it follows that his journey towards that ceiling will take plenty of time.

There’s some thoroughly unscientific evidence to suggest that he may get there: Martinez’s father, Ernesto Martinez, Sr., played eight seasons in the Cuban National Series for the Sabuesos de Holguín, winning the championship and batting .284/.398/.445 in 2002. Then he moved to France, where he’s played 11 seasons for the Templiers de Sénart in the French Division Élite. 44 years old, he was still catching at the start of the year, evidently content to keep playing until he no longer can.

Bloodlines can be overblown in baseball; for every Vlad Jr., there’s a Koby Clemens. But they’re not nothing (See: Griffey, Bonds, Ripken, etc.). Martinez Jr. grew up around the game. Brewers scouts raved about his baseball IQ when he signed. He dominated a 15U World Tournament in 2014, hitting .436 and smacking two doubles in the championship game (he helped Cuba beat Brice Turang and Team USA). A few years later, both Ernestos represented France during their qualifying run for the 2017 World Baseball Classic (dad hit well, but France fell short of qualifying; “Ernestico” mostly just warmed the bench). Keep an eye on his development over the next few years. With loud tools and a strong pedigree, he’s an easy kid to dream on.

It was a disappointing tenure from a narrative standpoint, from the frightening injury to the anti-climactic end. Liriano had been a compelling prospect, offering an intriguing blend of power, speed, and defense, and ranking among the game’s best 100 prospects before the 2012 and 2013 seasons. He missed the entire 2013 season after Tommy John surgery, did not impress during a 2014 cup of coffee in San Diego, and found himself out of options and suffering from prospect fatigue. The Brewers saw his strong .290 True Average (TAv) at Triple-A El Paso the season before, and thought he could enjoy a breakout season with a patient-enough big league club. Liriano could have become the kind of low-key acquisition that plays through a rebuild and emerges a few years as a valuable piece on a contending roster.

Baseball has a way of creating its own storylines, though: The Brewers are suddenly fighting for a division title with an overstuffed outfield, and Liriano is back in the organization and trying to rewrite history. Prior to his free agent signing, he had authored a respectable .268/.343/.523 line for the Salt Lake Bees, the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels. No longer a prospect, and robbed of valuable developmental time by his injury history, Liriano is more under-the-radar now than he has been for most of his playing career. Below the surface, his changing numbers and approach reveal a player who is struggling to find his path forward.

Scouting reports on Liriano have long made note of his athleticism and raw power. But throughout much of his career, his game power played more as an average tool. Throughout his time in the Padres organization, Liriano never tallied more than 14 home runs in a season (2014, 2015), and his Isolated Slugging Percentage (ISO) only ever ran up over .200 during an insane 71-plate-appearance stretch in AAA in 2014, wherein he hit .452/.521/.661 and was promptly called up to San Diego for his major league debut (whereupon his ISO plummeted to .046). For reference, the National League average ISO was .134 that season.

Since missing out on the 2016 season, though, Liriano has refashioned his swing to generate more loft, perhaps inspired by the late-career successes of Josh Donaldson, Daniel Murphy, and others. Here he is in 2015, lining a thigh-high middle-inside pitch to his pull side for a double:

And here he is earlier this season, turning on a waist-high pitch for a long home run:

The differences aren’t hard to spot. In 2015, Liriano crouched at the plate and held his hands up behind his ears. As the pitcher delivers, he times his swing with a small step, really more of a tap. He sees that the ball is down in the zone, so he deepens his crouch, reaches down, and uses a level swing to rip a shot down the third-base line.

In 2018, the stance is a little more open, and Liriano has ditched the crouch for a straighter pose. His hands are noticeably lower, and he’s changed to a more exaggerated leg kick. He plants his front foot firmly in the dirt, then turns on the pitch with everything he’s got, showcasing a swing clearly designed with loft in mind.

The resulting power gains are significant. Liriano whacked a career-high 17 home runs in 500 plate appearances last season, and (entering this week) was already up to 19 home runs in 316 plate appearances in 2018. His ISO is almost equal to his batting average, at .254, and he’s hitting the ball in the air at a 43.8 percent clip, up considerably from the mid-30s figures he posted earlier in his career. Part of this is attributable to his offensive environment, but it’s clear that this surge is fueled by more than thin air.

For one thing, there has been a clear and inevitable tradeoff in Liriano’s profile: contact. And unfortunately for Liriano, he didn’t have much of that to trade in the first place. Between 2012 and 2015, Liriano’s minor league strikeout rates hovered around 24 percent, high enough to be concerning, but low enough to be chalked up to youth and inexperience. When he got back onto the field with the White Sox organization in 2017, that number spiked to 26.6 percent. This year, it’s even higher: 31.2 percent at Salt Lake, and 36.2 percent in a limited sample with the Sky Sox. He’s taking his walks (9.5 percent walk rate), but not quite enough of them to compensate for all the whiffs. And with the new feast-or-famine approach, Liriano has connected for only eight doubles on the season.

There’s evidence that other aspects of his game are eroding, too. This year, Liriano has stolen only seven bases, and been caught eight times. Never the best at getting jumps, he used to be able to rely on sheer speed to generate value on the basepaths. But he’s been worth -2.6 baserunning runs on the year, which is hardly the contribution one would want from a fast player with a fringy hit tool.

Liriano’s journey has been rockier than most, and he’s seen his perceived ceiling fall from above-average regular to useful fourth outfielder along the way. He still possesses good athleticism and strong defense, but is no longer a great option to man center field. The newfound power would play in a corner, but Liriano was only able to get there by forsaking a hit tool that never projected to above-average in the first place. The Brewers already possess Keon Broxton in the dingers-and-defense category, and Keon offers a lot more value with the glove and on the bases. If Liriano converts some of the fly balls into line drives and is able to shorten his swing and make more contact, he could carve out a nice role on a major league bench. Of course, that particular profile is largely what Tyrone Taylor has to offer, and Taylor is three years younger. This leaves Liriano in a somewhat precarious position: He’s running out of time to make his mark before he’s slapped with the “org filler” label, and his new contact profile is extreme even in the dawning three-true-outcomes era. Liriano has adjusted once before; ironically, he might have a better chance of reaching the majors again if he’s able to adjust back.