Of course, the Brewers are a bit odd about what they look for in pitchers, with command studs like Zach Davies and reclamation projects like Wade Miley  more attractive to the front office than your stereotypical, and overpriced fire-ballers. The Brewers are focused on one thing above all else, that being a pitcher’s numbers on their first, second, and third times facing an order, and once you understand this, a lot of seemingly mysterious actions from the Milwaukee front office suddenly look very clear. For starters, for anyone who once claimed the Brewers need to add a starting pitcher, it will become clear that any starting pitcher would, to be valuable, need to be better at preventing runs on his third time through the order, than the vast majority of Brewer relievers are their first time through. Because the Brewers pull starters so early, most Brewer starters don’t routinely face a lineup three times, and even moreso in the playoffs. A new starting pitcher isn’t adding value by replacing just Zach Davies; A big name free agent stud needs to be better than Davies plus Josh Hader, or Jeremy Jeffress, or Corbin Burnes, or Brandon Woodruff, or Corey Knebel. As it turns out, there are basically no starting pitchers available as free agents, or otherwise, that actually fit the bill, and those that do are fantastically expensive. To the extent the Brewers do look for starters in the off-season, it’s unlikely you will think much of them because they will likely have a proven track record of excelling the first two times through the order, and not much more.

This brings us back to Anderson, who, in the grand scheme of things, was pretty good at preventing runs. But, the Brewers don’t care about the grand scheme of things, only the first two acts, and as it turns out:

First time through the order, OPS against.

1. Jhoulys Chacin – .577
2. Wade Miley – .601
3. Freddy Peralta – .633
4. Gio Gonzalez – .678
5. Junior Guerra – .695 (.908 the second time)
6. Zach Davies – .700
7. Chase Anderson – .758
8. Brent Suter – .769

Now, Anderson does improve drastically the second time through the order with a .639 OPS against, and it’s possible that a lot of this is just bad luck or noise, but the facts are the facts, and Anderson did give up 13 of his 30 home runs allowed his first time through the order. Given how the Brewers are constructed, falling behind early can be ruinous, and because the Brewers have depth, they don’t need to be cute about such things. Anderson has been a good Brewer and deserves a ton of credit for his efforts, but because of this one deficiency he simply couldn’t fit on a playoff roster. Over the course of his career he is not quite so bad, and has shown fairly normal “times through the order” splits, But the home runs make him prone to some early blowups, and being bad early is the one thing the Brewers can’t tolerate out of a starter. If he’s back next season, I’ll be shocked.

It was interesting to see the national media descend on the Brewers-Cubs play-in game, because outside of maybe the A’s in the American League, no one plays baseball like the Brewers, and if you’re not familiar with them, they can be confusing. Baseball Prospectus alum Joe Sheehan wanted Counsell to be even more aggressive than he already is with his bullpen, and with Hader in particular. Every pundit fixated on Hader, and every non-Hader move was greeted with a chorus of “he’s going to lose it before he gets to Hader”. If you follow the Brewers routinely, you know that, at least in the Brewers’ opinion, Hader is most effective on longer-than-normal rest for a reliever. Counsell was never saving him for an antiquated “save” situation, he was saving him to slam the door, and because the the Cubs’ lineup construction that day, Counsell was able to do so while also deriving the maximum benefit of the platoon advantage. But it’s not just that using Hader earlier would have left them vulnerable later, it’s also that the rest of the bullpen, when used properly, is nearly as effective as the big gun.

Really understanding the bullpen involves understanding platoon pitchers, and dominant pitchers. Most pitchers have platoon splits, but Hader holds opposite side pitching to a .548 OPS. Lefties may be completely helpless against him, but righties are still the equivalent of the worst hitters in baseball. Jeremy Jeffress, who was arguably as good, if not better than Hader this season, has a very small reverse platoon split. Corey Knebel, after his earlier demotion, was just as dominant. Corbin Burnes is also equally effective against both lefties and righties, and because he has starters chops, can take multiple innings when needed. These guys, plus a few select others, can be used for multiple innings against anyone, but they are not the only guns in the holster. The bullpen is amazingly deep, and Counsell excels at using platoon dominance to string together overall dominance. The best recent example of this is lefty Dan Jennings’ lone start of the year, which prompted to the St. Louis Cardinals to play their right-handed lineup, which allowed Freddy Peralta to dominate them after Jennings retired the sole Cardinal lefty, Matt Carpenter, and then promptly left the game. The Brewers do this on a small scale throughout every game they play. 

Counsell had the most difficult job in the National League in terms of bullpen management, going to his bullpen more frequently, and with greater success than any other manager. Tom Verducci wrote a brilliant article on this topic just the other day, citing the amazing fact that the Brewers’ starters stayed in to face batters a third time  in a game less frequently than any other playoff team, including the Oakland A’s. League-wide, only two teams put their starters in this vulnerable position less, and it worked brilliantly.

The Brewers also shift more than just about any other team, and players are often asked to play in uncomfortable spots to extend benches, and allow for greater flexibility in pitching and defensive changes. Earlier this season when the offense was struggling, Counsell gave it a shot in the arm by playing Eric Thames in the outfield. Thames occasionally looked comically bad doing so, but generally speaking, he did a passable job, and the offensive upgrade paid dividends. Later, after the Brewers acquired Mike Moustakas, Travis Shaw was asked to play second base, where he is about half a man larger than almost anyone else who plays there. He took to it well, and is now a crucial piece of the Brewers’ best possible lineup against right-handed pitching.

Shifts and player acquisitions come from the front office, but Counsell has the unenviable task of implementing these strategies while keeping everyone happy. Let’s not underestimate how difficult it is to not just order Shaw to play a very difficult defensive position, but to have him embrace it, and not suffer in other parts of his game. This season, Jesus Aguilar played third base, Jonathan Schoop played shortstop, Ryan Braun played first base, Travis Shaw played first base, and Hernan Perez played everywhere. Players crave comfort, and professing the breakdown of rigid positions is one of Counsell’s key achievements.

The Brewers also sent down former closer Corey Knebel and shortstop Orlando Arcia due to struggles during the season. Some players view such demotions as something to sulk over, or as punishment, but both responded brilliantly, playing some of their best ball. Ultimate credit for this obviously should go to the players themselves, but Counsell is charged with reintegrating these guys upon recall, and both came back stronger than ever.

The front office made some strange acquisitions throughout the year turning over the bottom of the lineup and bullpen frequently, and adding some star power at the deadline. Some of these, like journeyman reliever Mike Zagurski, flamed out almost immediately, but Erik Kratz stuck with the team in a big way. Kratz is an elite pitch framer, and because the Brewers employ so many command-and-control starters like Zach Davies and Wade Miley, Kratz was absolutely crucial to team success. Manny Pina is a good catcher in his own right, and has continued to contribute when he plays, but Counsell paired up Kratz with players who would benefit most from his skill set, and it has stuck.

The Brewer lineup is deadly against right-handed pitching due to a lefty heavy lineup that includes Yelich, Shaw, Moustakas, Thames, and Schoop, who enjoys reverse platoon splits. They struggle against lefties more, especially when Braun is hurt, but Counsell remains one of the best at getting the most out of his left handed hitters even when a lefty starts. Because of the depth of the Brewer bench, they frequently blow through opposing LOOGYs and wind up with their lefty mashers against a slew of righty relievers. Counsell also excels at creating a “closer” defensive alignment featuring Shaw at first base, Arcia at shortstop, and Keon Broxton in the outfield with Cain and Yelich. The Brewers are already one of the best in the bigs at turning ball in play into outs, but this defensive alignment makes stringing hits together almost impossible.

The Most Managing, The Best Managing

I think the strongest argument for Counsell as a manager is that for so long, most managers simply went through the motions, adhering to bullpen roles, sometimes double-switching, maybe playing platoons later in the game. Counsell is actively managing all the time, and getting the biggest advantages possible out of his players.The Brewers almost never sac bunt, they steal bases, efficiently, like mad, and when fully healthy, they make life hard with their pitchers, and their lineup. Counsell is a perfect mix of former player, ex-front office as Special Assistant to Doug Melvin, and manager. He can relate to his players on their level, he isn’t too proud to listen to his front offices ideas, and he commands the clubhouse well enough to keep everything working and in balance. The Brewers are 33-19 in one-run games. These are usually toss-ups, but with Milwaukee I don’t think that’s the case. If you were putting together a team to win close games, you would take all of the steps I described before.

Ultimately the players deserve credit for their success, and every Brewer player should be extremely proud of what they have accomplished, but Counsell has put everyone in a position to not just win, but to have an advantage over whoever they are facing. Managing is improving in baseball, but there are still a shocking number of old-school guys mucking up their teams. While Counsell is not unique in terms of progressive philosophy, no one did a better job combining clubhouse management with advanced strategy. He is easily the National League’s best manager, and should win the award.

Last night (August 17th, 2018) was an absolute travesty as Craig Counsell allowed Jordan Lyles, who is bad and has a career 5.35 ERA, to pitch multiple innings in a one run game. In his second inning of work after the offense managed to claw their way back to a single run deficit, Lyles would load the bases on a single, a hit batsman, and a walk. Kolten Wong would cash in with a 2-run double, and the game was essentially over.

Leaving in Lyles to face the heart of the order was questionable to begin with, but once Jose Martinez singled it was almost certainly time to go get him. Once he plunked Dejong it was definitely time to go get him. Once he walked Jedd Gyorko alarm bells should have been going off in the Brewer dugout.

I’ve had several discussions about win probability in this game, with several people citing the fact that the Brewers were likely to lose the game anyway in defense of the idea that a good pitcher should not be wasted. I find this idea preposterous for a few reasons. First of all, if a club can get to the top of the 9th inning down by a run, they have roughly a 15 percent chance (about ⅙) to come back and tie the game, and about an 11 percent chance of winning outright. That’s a longshot, but it’s hardly hopeless, and teams routinely rally from one run deficits. Bud Norris is hardly a “lights out” closer. If you give your opponent a 3-run lead your odds plummet to between 2 percent and 3 percent, or 1/50. Wong is a left-handed hitter with substantial platoon splits, and retiring him without allowing a run would have boosted the team’s odds from hopeless to pretty good. Outcomes with a 10 percent to 15 percent chance of occurring happen all the time. But even if you didn’t want to use Hader, surely Dan Jennings, a lefty who hadn’t pitched since August 15th,  would have been a better option than Lyles who, for his career, allows an .822 OPS to lefties.

Punting on a game that the Brewers will win 1/9 of the time is inexcusable at this point in the season, and doubly so when you consider that a win by the Cardinals draws them a game closer to the wild card spot. The Brewers didn’t just flit away an 11 percent chance at a win, they also flitted away an 11 percent chance at causing the Cardinals to suffer a loss. And what did they gain by having one of their worst relievers pitch an extra inning?

Not much. Jeremy Jeffress, who is perfectly capable of pitching on back to back days, hasn’t pitched since the 15th. He joins Dan Jennings, who can seemingly pitch every day if you want him to. Hader hasn’t pitched in a week, last facing the Braves for two innings and 29 pitches on August 11th. Oh, and Corbin Burnes also hasn’t pitched since the 15th. If you are so very concerned about the game on August 18th, even if the team used Hader on the 17th, they would still have at least three quality relievers on at least three days rest. If you can’t manage a close game with such a well-rested bullpen, you frankly don’t deserve to be a manager.

Given the stakes, given the fact that everything was doubled by virtue of the opponent, and given the fact that no good relief pitchers had pitched in forever, there was no reason to let Wong put the Brewers yesterday. The race is close and if Counsell was managing reliever useage for the stretch run, it would be nice if someone would alert him that we have arrived at the stretch run. Hader and Jeffress are on pace to pitch 76 and 73 innings respectively. This is not an onerous amount, and given that much of Hader’s work actually took place in April, it’s more likely that he pitches under 70 innings for the year than over 80. By restricting him to games with leads, they’ve cost themselves wins while saving him for games that never occur. It’s likely at this point in the season, that those will cost them a playoff spot. 

The fact is that Jonathan Schoop has a lot of problems, and even if those specific problems don’t materialize, he’s an extremely poor fit in the current Brewers’ lineup. Let’s start with the Baseball Prospectus Annual 2017 commentary on Schoop:

“Of the 140-plus seasons that make up baseball history, there have been only 16 in which a player had at least 60 extra-base hits but an OBP south of .300. The thing has only been done 21 total times. Yet, four players did it in 2016 alone. Schoop was among them. His extreme impatience at the plate actually helped hold down his previously problematic strikeout rate, but it still put a ceiling on his offensive value. It’s hard to say how viable his hitting profile is. He relies on power for value, but doesn’t hit the ball that hard (171st of 213 qualifiers in average exit velocity). He doesn’t pull the ball or hit it in the air at an exceptional rate. Any time now, he could go from a hair above average for a second baseman to below average for just about anyone.”

What we have here is a player who doesn’t walk and doesn’t hit the ball hard. He has a knack for hitting home runs for the moment, but this profile strikes me as one that pitchers will figure out pretty quickly, and that, along with simple regression, is probably why his OBP tanked from .338 last season, to .273 this season. .273 is absurdly low even for Schoop, but it’s also closer to his career norm than .338.

 Some might argue that even a pre-2017 version of Schoop, typically a one WARP player, would be an improvement over what the Brewers were getting offensively at shortstop and at the keystone, but that’s not necessarily the case. For one thing, the Brewers could use a right-handed bat. Between Yelich, Shaw, Thames, and Moustakas, the majority of offensive pop on the team comes from the left side. Schoop is, technically, a right-handed bat, but he happens to have odd reverse platoon splits both this season, and over the course of his career.

Schoop 2018:
V. LHP – .652

V. RHP – .706

Schoop Career:
V. LHP – .697 OPS

V. RHP – .758 OPS

This means that he can’t actually serve as a platoon partner for Travis Shaw at second base, and while you can theoretically play him at shortstop, that defensive alignment is terrifying. Schoop isn’t a shortstop, and the dropoff defensively from Arcia to a career second baseman is staggering. If you were looking for someone to serve as the short side of a platoon with Shaw, you already had this guy:

Villar 2018

V. LHP – .956

V. RHP – .666

Villar Career

V.LHP – .767 OPS

V. RHP – .701 OPS

Theoretically he could be an upgrade for Arcia as Arcia’s offense has been absolutely putrid this season. The Brewer pitching staff is flyball-heavy, and shifting reduces the need for fielders with good range. That is all quite possibly true. It’s also the case that against left-handed pitching, Hernan Perez is almost certainly a superior option both offensively and defensively, as he has posted an .832 OPS against lefties this season, and unlike Schoop, has played some shortstop recently and competently.

The only place he theoretically fits into the lineup is at shortstop against right-handed pitching, but the lineup doesn’t really need help against righties, and plugging that square peg into this round hole just to get a minor same side platoon offensive boost while sacrificing huge amounts of defense, is a whole lot of bother with very little benefit.

Hopefully Schoop turns it around as he seems like a nice enough player and it’s no fun to see anyone on the team struggle to this extent, but Schoop has a weird, easily defeatable skillset and doesn’t fit neatly on the current team. They still could use a right-handed bat, and if one happens to pass through on waivers, it could be a short stay for Schoop.

Then, near the end of the first half, they slowly started to undo all of the good they’d done earlier; it is now an open question as to whether they truly are intelligently managed, or if they just happened to luck into a winning strategy without realizing it was a winning strategy.

We have all of these great stats for baseball players because baseball is mostly a series of easily quantifiable individual acts, but there are certain interlocking parts on defense and in the bullpen. If you muck with any of those, you can drastically change your fortunes. It all started innocently enough on May 9th. May 9th was the day the Corey Knebel was activated from the disabled list, and when that happened it completely changed how Craig Counsell used his stable of relievers for the worse.

The best way to demonstrate this is in Counsell’s use of Josh Hader. Hader had been used as a multi-inning fireman through all of April and most of May. Through May 25th, Hader made 18 total appearances, and in 12 of those appearances he pitched between two and three innings. He only made an appearance of one inning or less on three occasions. On May 21st, Knebel resumed a proper “closer” role, entering in the 9th inning to finish games in his next four appearances, and finishing the job three times. After Knebel became the closer, Hader’s usage plummeted.

After May 25th, Hader would only pitch more than one and two-thirds inning once, in a 3-inning appearance against the Twins on July 3rd. Hader made 13 appearances after May 25th, and lasted one inning or less in 7 of them. It’s fine to be careful with Hader as he’s a unique weapon when healthy, but this hardly seems like being careful. The ideal use of Hader probably looks like the early season version, with multi-inning appearances followed by one or two days of rest. This run of shorter appearances with one over-long appearance, seems bad.

It might not have been quite so bad had Matt Albers stayed healthy. Albers has been quietly excellent, and having him around with Jeremy Jeffress and Hader makes the bullpen mostly idiot-proof. But Albers last pitched on June 11th, and without him, things have fallen apart. Craig Counsell’s refusal to use Hader in games where the Brewers trail, even by small margins, has severely limited his use. Worse still, Counsell’s willingness to go to the weak part of the bullpen when they trail resulted in big innings for bad pitchers. Dan Jennings is ok, but he’s just OK, and his 3.76 Earned Run Average (ERA) and 1.325 Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched (WHIP) don’t warrant having been used more than the outstanding Jeffress, but that is exactly what has happened. Jacob Barnes has thrown 37 innings with a WHIP of 1.568. Mike Zagurski actually pitched innings. And, of course, Knebel’s automatic entry into save situations with a 4.53 FIP and 3.93 DRA isn’t exactly helping either.

Counsell, in many ways, has reverted to making the decisions of an average manager, except it’s almost worse as he’s put the typical constraints of a closer on his best fireman as well.

The Starters
 
The Brewers can’t afford to run a stupid bullpen, because their starters are a powder keg of dynamite sitting on a pile of twigs and oil-soaked rags inside of a magnifying glass factory. If you read Baseball Prospectus regularly you probably already know about DRA (Deserved Run Average) but if you don’t, DRA attempts to get to the true value of a pitcher by controlling for the factors outside of a pitcher’s control. It adjusts for things like the ballpark a pitcher pitches in, the quality of the catcher, the defense, the weather, the altitude, and a host of other issues. I consider DRA to be mostly a “front office stat” in that it’s most useful if you want to take a pitcher from some other environment, and stick him into yours. If a pitcher on your favorite team is bad and DRA says he should be good, from a fan perspective, it doesn’t really matter that his DRA is good. The results were bad, and that’s what counts.

In this case, I think it actually should matter to fans. The first thing you should know is that the DRA of every Brewer starter is terrifying. Zach Davies has a 5.71 DRA. Wade Miley has a 5.43 DRA. Junior Guerra has a 5.13 DRA.  Those are bad numbers, and with one exception, every Brewer starter’s ERA is drastically lower than their DRA.

Suter is close, but according to DRA, much of the success of pitchers like Chacin, Anderson, Guerra, and Miley is due to “other factors.” Unfortunately, the Brewers have removed many of those “other factors” from the team of late. One of the big other factors is the defense of Orlando Arcia.

Arcia has struggled with the bat all season, and there’s nothing wrong with sending him on a trip to Colorado Springs to get right. However, Arcia has now been effectively gone for about a month given his lack of regular playing time in late June before he was sent down on July first, and while Arcia’s bat has been awful, losing him comes with a real cost on defense. Arcia’s 3.7 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) is second only to Lorenzo Cain, and he accumulated that number in far fewer attempts. On a per play basis, Arcia is likely the best Brewer defensive player, and I suspect almost all defensive metrics understate his true value. The Brewers are on the high end in terms of teams who employ the shift, and Arcia’s greatness in the field allows the team wide latitude in positioning their lesser defenders. If Nate Orf is playing shortstop, it’s much more difficult to commit extra infielders to the right side, knowing that any hits to the left will be hopeless. Orf, Tyler Saladino, and Brad Miller aren’t in the same league as Arcia defensively, and while Saladino has had a nice offense surge lately, they are not good enough offensively to compensate for the lack of Arcia’s glove.

Simultaneously, the Brewers have attempted to get more offense into the lineup by playing Eric Thames in the outfield. When the Brewers have Cain, Christian Yelich, and Ryan Braun/Domingo Santana/anyone else, they have an outstanding defensive outfield, but with Cain missing some time lately, and Thames playing more frequently, the outfield defense has suffered at the same time the infield defense is suffering. The Brewers have taken everything that was working earlier, fundamentally misunderstood why it was working, and turned it on its head. The smidgen of extra offense they may have created simply isn’t worth it.

 
What Should They Do?
 
If the Brewers plan to roll with this pitching staff, the first thing they should do is call up Arcia, and commit to living with whatever issues he may have offensively. More than anything, they need to go back to leaning on their strengths. During the All-Star game it was discovered that Josh Hader wrote several racist, homophobic, and misogynistic tweets when he was in high school seven years ago. He has apologized, will undergo sensitivity training for whatever that’s worth, and will not be suspended, but from a baseball perspective, it will be interesting to see if the constant boos and heckling he is likely to encounter for the foreseeable future will render him less effective. He was already showing some signs of mortality before the incident, and if this compounds whatever physical issues he may have been experiencing, it could destroy the team’s chances.

If Hader can no longer be relied on, it’s imperative that they do the next best thing and use Jeremy Jeffress as they did early season Hader, and if Corbin Burnes can help fill the gap, so much the better.

Monkeying with internal personnel has hurt the team more than it has helped, and Milwaukee could stand to acquire at least one more bat, and if possible, a high-strikeout starter. Having an actual good pitcher who can go deep into games and limit balls in play would have a cascade effect on the bullpen by allowing them more rest, while also boosting the offense. If the pitcher is not as reliant on the defense, the team can afford to sacrifice some defense with moves like having Thames in the outfield.

The Brewers could also address the offense more directly by acquiring a bat, preferably at the catcher position. With Manny Machado off the market, improving on offense at shortstop is likely a fools’ game at this point, but the catchers are still awful, and an upgrade would do a world of good. They could also potentially upgrade at 2nd base as Jonathan Villar has been a disappointment, and it would not be surprising to see the team acquire Brian Dozier from the Twins. Whatever moves they make, they need to bolster their strengths, not replace a major strength in one area with a comparatively minor upgrade in another.

When Knebel was out, the baseball universe taught the Brewers several good lessons about how baseball could, and should be played. As soon as their closer came back they reverted to every old bad habit that they could, and while they clearly understand their own weaknesses on offense, they don’t seem to grasp the trade-offs that can accompany fixing those issues. Hopefully the return of Albers takes care of the bullpen. Hopefully Arcia’s recent success at AAA gets him back to the big leagues in short order. Hopefully the players play their way into their proper roles. I had all of the confidence in the world in Counsell to make this all happen earlier, but that confidence has mostly eroded. Here’s to hope and dumb, stupid luck.

The Basics
First, you should know that these shutouts are not caused because of platoon splits. The Brewers have been shut out by right-handed starters five times, and left-handed starters five times. Five have come at home, and five have come on the road. The only real standout is that five have come against the Chicago Cubs, all in the month of April. There are some good reasons for the early shutouts, but in terms of an overarching pattern…it’s a little tricky.

There’s only one way to really dig deep on this issue, and that’s to classify these ten games using arbitrary aesthetic criteria.

The Dominant
Chad Kuhl destroys the Brewers 9-0
Back on May 6th, Chad Kuhl of the Pirates pitched the most dominant game against the Brewers this year. Kuhl struck out eight over seven dominant innings, allowing only a single, which was wiped out by a double play. He also walked a pair. Reliever Richard Rodriguez finished off the game by striking out six in just two innings, while allowing a truly meaningless single to Hernan Perez.

Adam Frazier started the game with a home run off of Chase Anderson, and the Pirates would go on to put up a nine-spot. The Brewers were never even remotely in this game.

Causes
Kuhl is a fine pitcher, but hardly dominant. He’s 71st in DRA among pitchers who have thrown 50+ innings this year (4.43), and there’s really no reason the Brewers would be vulnerable to him in any given game. The much more likely culprit was the back end of the Brewer lineup which featured Santana/Sogard/Arcia/Bandy/Anderson. Yelich and Cain had rough days, each going 0-3, but they were also lifted late when the game got out of hand. A weak lineup and a blowout led to the starters getting a day off.

The Quintanas
Jose Quintana of the Cubs is the only pitcher to shut out the Brewers twice on the season, and on both occasions he was a stud. Over the course of his two shutouts he allowed five hits total, and walked three batters total. In the second game, he also picked off Domingo Santana for good measure.

Causes
In the April 8th game, Lorenzo Cain did his job at the top of the lineup, going 2-4. However Cain was also caught stealing as part of a strike-him-out, throw-him-out double play, and this was a weak Brewer lineup overall. Domingo Santana hit second, and while Pina was playing over Bandy, Perez started at third, and Braun started at first over Thames and Aguilar.

On April 28th things were similar as Braun and Perez once again took first base and third base respectively, and the lineup after Cain and Yelich went Braun/Santana/Perez/Villar/Pina/Arcia. Without one of Shaw/Aguilar/Thames at the very least, this is simply a bad offense, prone to quiet nights.

The Frustrating
Kyle Hendricks, April 26th
This was just an infuriating game as the Cubs came away with a 1-0 win, and Hendricks outdueled Chase Anderson. Hendricks scattered 4 hits while walking none, working his ground ball magic to an absurd extent. Domingo Santana didn’t help things with a caught stealing, but the real killer occurred when Brandon Morrow got Christian Yelich to ground into a double play in the 9th. Braun followed that up with an infield single, and Shaw flied out to end the game, leaving a Kyle Schwarber solo shot as the difference.

Causes
This one involved some great defense by the Cubs, some bad Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) luck, and a subpar lineup with Braun at first and Bandy catching. Domingo Santana started a lot of these games.

Trevor Williams and the Pirates defeat the Brewers 1-0
This game was infuriating because the Brewers actually threatened in the 4th before Eric Kratz struck out looking, and the Pirates got their lone run on a Jordy Mercer double off Josh Hader, of all things. Williams pitched a dandy, allowing just one hit and one walk over seven innings. Felipe Vazquez allowed some hope in the 9th as Yelich lead off with a single, but the Crew couldn’t push one across.

Causes
Williams is a good, but not great pitcher with a Deserved Run Average (DRA) over 4.00. Hernan Perez played 3rd, but the lineup was pretty strong overall. I think we can chalk this one up to bad luck, and catching a pitcher when he’s hot.

The Chatwood Game
Tyler Chatwood of the Chicago Cubs has been garbage this year, posting a 7.09 DRA. He has also been a magician at working out of self-inflicted jams as his ERA sits at 4.54. If you want an explanation for the huge split, look no further than this ridiculous shut out of the Brewers in which Chatwood gave up two hits and walked three while striking out only four batters over seven innings.

Lorenzo Cain walked to open the game and stole second, but Yelich lined out hard, Braun reached on an infield single, and Travis Shaw grounded into an inning-ending double play. He would get another double play in the 7th, Counsell would lose a challenge when Lorenzo Cain was apparently not hit by a pitch in the 6th, and despite a ton of hard contact, they just couldn’t push a run across. The Cubs would win a 2-0 garbage fest.

Causes
Luck, evil, etc. Except for Jett Bandy it was a strong lineup for the Brewers, and they should have beaten and battered Chatwood much more than they did. Baseball is like that sometimes.

Weird
Jon Lester, April 5th
You could argue that this game should be in the “dominated” category, but Jesus Aguilar went 3-4 with a double, Ryan Braun hit a double, and Lester plunked Jett Bandy. Braun also walked and stole 2nd, but got caught trying to swipe 3rd while testing Lester. Brent Suter was beaten up early and this one was over before it really got going.

Causes
Malaise, ennui, and indifference, as well as Hernan Perez’s complete inability to do anything with Aguilar on base. Bandy started, Santana batted second. It was a weak lineup against a very good pitcher.

UGH
Steven Matz doesn’t miss any bats.
On May 24th the Mets beat the Brewers 5-0, but lefty Steven Matz didn’t do much to earn that 0. Matz pitched 6 shutout innings, striking out three and walking 3 more. In fact, over the course of this game every Brewer starter except Orlando Arcia and the pitchers reached base at least once. The big problem was two double plays, killing any potential Brewer rally. The lineup featured the big boppers except Thames, and while Hernan Perez hit absurdly high in the lineup, overall it wasn’t bad as far as Brewer lineups go.

Kyle Freeland allows eight baserunners in six innings, none score.
This stupid game. The Brewers lost to the Rockies in Colorado 4-0 despite a ground rule double from pitcher Brent Suter, and despite every starter reaching base at least once except Yelich and Arcia. Freeland really didn’t pitch that well, and he was lucky to escape unscathed as the Rockies’ bullpen allowed just one hit and no walks after they took over.

Milwaukee would strand nine runners, while going 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

Causes
This was almost entirely bad luck, as the Brewers hits and walks simply didn’t cluster properly. Suter and Cain led off the third inning with a walk and a hit, but Christian Yelich struck out, and Braun grounded into a terrible double play to squelch their best chance of scoring.

Carlos Martinez, April 4th
Martinez is a pretty good pitcher and he was pretty good in this game, but hardly perfect. He allowed 4 hits, 2 walks, and plunked Domingo Santana, and the bulk of the Brewer hits were clustered around the Brewer four-five-six hitters Travis Shaw, Domingo Santana, and Jonathan Villar. In the bottom of the 9th Shaw, Santana, and Villar all reached to load the bases with only one out, but Manny Pina grounded into a game ending double play to preserve the shutout.

Causes
Martinez missed a lot of bats which allowed him to escape trouble, and some ill-timed double plays took care of every other threat. Milwaukee left seven runners on base, and committed three errors in the field. You know, your average Cardinal debacle.

Overall
The main problem with the Brewers, and the reason for all the shutouts, is simply the fact that outside of Eric Thames, Jesus Aguilar, Travis Shaw, Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich, the team doesn’t have much talent or depth on offense. The team compounded this problem early in the season before it was clear that Domingo Santana wasn’t going to hit. Six of their ten shutouts came in April, and Santana started and hit high in the lineup in five of those. On the plus side, the Brewers seem to have largely addressed this issue as they were shut out only once in June despite constant injuries to their best offensive players. Creative use of Eric Thames in the outfield has boosted the offense (while costing a few runs on defense), and the Brad Miller/Tyler Saladino pair at shortstop have been massive upgrades over the struggling Arcia. Even Erik Kratz has been a small upgrade with the bat over Pina and Bandy, though I’m skeptical that will continue.

The Brewers won’t be a top offensive team, but they have once again proven to be smart and resourceful. They had a bad run of luck earlier, running into the Cubs’ buzzsaw in April with a weak lineup, but they’ve reacted quickly, taking shots on low-cost players to upgrade their major weaknesses, and it’s worked. They’ve weathered every storm the injury gods have thrown at them, and even if Jesus Aguilar cools off in the second half, the eventual return of Cain, and a healthy Yelich should buoy the offense.

The days of frequent shutouts are likely over, and that is more than enough reason to be optimistic going forward.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

The picture is “pretty good.” It can get a bit grainy at times, and the device is probably slightly underpowered, but it seems to produce a very good picture when you are staring straight ahead, and cheats a bit in your peripheral vision. If you are looking for graphical flaws you will find them, but if you let yourself get taken in by the experience, as I did watching a random concert the other day, the computing power and picture quality are more than sufficient. The controller is also well designed, and intuitive enough that anyone can instantly understand how to use it. The build in speakers are also perfectly fine, but the device really shines with headphones.

For me, the promise of VR sports viewing has always been a big draw, and the demos available on the Go, one for a soccer match, and one for a Houston Rockets game, show exactly why that is.

Putting a 360 degree camera at various locations in an arena can put you in a front row seat, or even on the field. I enjoy the stadium experience more than most, and the idea of being able to watch an NFL game with a full field view, or a baseball game from any of my preferred locations was enticing.

Oculus provides access to MLB games through their “Oculus Venues” app, which is part chatroom, and part simulated venue. When you enter you see theater seats all around you containing the avatars of other people. You can interact with them, though it’s a little on the nightmarish side as the avatars are primitive, and the way in which they turn to face you is disconcerting. It would be a nice feature if you could “sit” with a friend, but I don’t think there is way to actually coordinate seat location with another Go user, though I was running solo and I could be wrong. Oculus does police for rowdy participants and you have to agree to certain behavioral standards before entering. There is a button that allows you to report anyone who is misbehaving, and while you can talk to avatars, you can also put yourself on mute and choose a “solo” option, which is what I did most, but not all of the time.

This interface worked very well for a “School Night” concert I tuned into. Concerts, after all, take part on stage, and the theater venue experience was a good approximation of what being there would actually be like. I also took in a few minutes of a show by Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, which worked well, and shunted you between the front row, and an on-stage camera. Sound quality was quite good for a live show in both instances, and having some crowd noise for additional ambience was a nice touch. Other than the fact that Nathaniel Rateliff’s pants are alarmingly tight, for a stage production the interface was perfect.

The problem with baseball is that it’s not a stage production, and sports in general require greater creativity with how they are presented in VR. My expectations for this Giants-Diamondbacks game were, I thought, pretty modest. I wanted to be able to take in the game as if I was in the park from a variety of vantage points, preferably of my choosing. I wanted the option to listen to announcers, or just for latent crowd noise. I didn’t get any of that.

Instead, Oculus Venues presents the game as a “simulation of watching the game on TV,” literally just putting the broadcast on a screen in front of you, in the same theater with the creepy avatars watching the same screen. VR’s entire purpose is to create a more immersive experience, and this just misses the point entirely. The lack of immersive experience also highlights the graphical drawbacks of the system itself as images on the faux big-screen can look grainy and far away.

The broadcast isn’t unique in any way, featuring the exact same camera angles and announcers you could experience on your television or tablet. The avatars around you also become more sinister with lack of engagement. as did mine. It wasn’t on purpose, but looking around just to survey the scene can lead you to staring at people out of your vacant, mannequin face for longer than is socially acceptable. This avatar chatroom could be valuable if it were easy to select the people sitting near you. Watching a game with an out-of-town buddy would be a fantastic experience, and one well worth paying for. Seeing the game with strangers composed of a random subset of VR enthusiasts, on the other hand, is unnecessarily distracting.

It’s still relatively early in the VR lifecycle, and part of the problem is that no one really knows what a passive experience should look like yet, but it’s safe to say it shouldn’t resemble the current Oculus baseball interface.  It’s hard enough to convince a person to put on a ridiculous headset when the other options available for entertainment consumption are so appealing. One of my hopes upon reading up on this product was that Baseball Prospectus might be able to organize watching parties in an immersive baseball environment, combining writer chats with the in-game, in-stadium experience. Given the current state of the interface, something like that is still a ways away. 

This result may surprise some, who see the various network ball-and-strike trackers and assume they are gospel, but in reality, the error margins that still exist in those systems are every bit as important as the error margins suffered by human umpires.

METHOD:

In order to prove this point, Baseball Prospectus Milwaukee began a project in early February to build a state of the art robot umpire. We took several old PCs we had laying around, the RAM and SSD from a gaming PC used primarily for indie adventure games, Sega Genesis emulation, and the Jackbox Party Pack, and the best animatronics available from an old abandoned mouse-themed pizza restaurant. Combining these into a plausible human robot umpire was difficult, and the we probably should have considered the challenge in creating a robot capable of passing the Turing Test before we attempted any such thing, as it is actually far far more difficult than creating a system to call balls and strikes. Undeterred, we emerged from out lab with what we call the:

Axis

Neuronet

Gantry

Evaluation

Locomaton

ANGEL went through rigorous training in the ways and customs of humans, using a combination of regressive simulation and machine learning to understand the general tenor and concepts of human interaction. Moreover, the systems that allowed him to process human language in real time also allow him to calibrate his pitch-reading algorithms on the fly. In theory, ANGEL should have given us the best of both worlds, providing PitchFX accuracy quickly and accurately, backed by the mannerisms and judgement of something close to a human umpire. Instead, things went wrong almost immediately.

TEST RESULTS

The First

We got off to a rousing start as ANGEL behaved exactly as expected, getting into a proper crouch when cued by the motion of the pitcher, and making a slightly robotic, but plausible strike call. He stays within his own vertical plane most of the time, which can be slightly off-putting, but it works. Adding flair to his arm motion was critical to establishing his humanity, however we would see later that this unnecessary motion may have caused some problems with the bot’s ability to re-calibrate.

The Second

We started seeing some issues in the second and became worried. Once ANGEL is deployed we cannot do any patching or fixes until the game is over as the unit would just be staring off into space for a bit while the fixes were implemented. ANGEL has specific protocols every inning, including use of the ball/strike “clicker.” Here, that programming failed and the unit was forced to make adjustments.  His pocket seems to interrupt his actions and instead of drawing the clicker up to his field of vision, the unit glances down. You can see the bot rocking back and forth attempting to re-establish his baseline readings. 

Any kind of out-of-protocol machine-learning can have knock-on effects and we hypothesize that this started an inescapable cascade of bugs. We were terrified of what might happen going forward.

The Third

Until the third ANGEL’s actual calls weren’t too bad. There wasn’t much outside of the norm and the game was pretty clean, but two plays had a clear effect on the bot’s physical makeup, which accelerated the code breakdown we witnessed in the 2nd. This pop-up…

…did a number on ANGEL’s head flexibility, balance, and servo motors. While ANGEL is programmed to umpire his position, including plays at home and in the field, vertical popups can still cause issues as the bot’s head fires backwards. The results were immediately obvious. Take a look at ANGEL on this pitch low and off the plate.

He doesn’t stop tracking the ball when most humans would, instead following it into the mitt, through the recovery, and all the way back to the pitcher. ANGEL is supposed to disengage at some point to “count” the ball or strike, re-calibrate, and reset. Instead his tracking stays locked on, and a proper calibration never happened. We didn’t really expect this experiment to work, but we didn’t foresee this many issues this early on, and we were now officially worried if the experiment would be discovered before the game finished.

The Fourth and Fifth

Things stabilized in the 4th, and for the first time all day our optimism returned. If ANGEL gets too far out of whack he’s supposed to restart and bring his systems back into equilibrium. In the 3rd we detected a slight drift of the strike zone to ANGEL’s right, but he nailed this called ball.

And this high, borderline pitch was also correctly called a ball as well.

The opposing pitches seemed to confirm that ANGEL was back in action and we were all very excited, but then, disaster struck.

The Sixth

We spoke earlier of ANGEL’s strike call motion, and the challenge of providing him with a motion that doesn’t let on his mechanical existence. After quite a lot of deliberation on the subject we decided to keep it simple, and mechanically balanced. It’s a fluid motion, and intended to be easy on joints and motion sensors. On this day it was not simple enough. Here we see ANGEL pop up after giving the pitcher a low, outside strike call.

It was the last such call that would occur as the quick move of ANGEL’s head jarred his balance and pitch sensors, and, from that point out, shrunk the zone. There would be several pitches in this exact location, or better throughout the rest of the game, but ANGEL simply could not read them right. It was perhaps his most robotic move of the night as his head remains exactly forward-facing, and his body remains square to home plate. Our theory is that the move locked certain joints in his body and neck while throwing off his internal gyroscopic detection and balance control (IGDABC). 

As ANGEL’s perceptions are reduced he still calls things as he sees them, he just can’t perceive information about the ball’s location on the outside while maintaining a fixed head position. If he moves his upper body to track the ball, it skews his vertical and horizontal readings. At this point, ANGEL was shot.

The Eighth

The 7th saw quite a few swings, which protected ANGEL from immediate exposure, but with the entry of Josh Hader into the game, everything became pretty clear pretty quickly. Hader excels at dotting the corners, and with the corners now gone from ANGEL’s field of vision, Hader was going to struggle as much as Hader can ever struggle.

He attempted to work both sides of the plate and threw several pitches exactly on the edges.

While a normal human umpire may have called some of these strikes and some of these balls, ANGEL called all of them balls as his zone continued to shrink. Several of these pitches had been strikes earlier in the day and both Hader and Manny Pina knew this, and became increasingly perturbed. Hader escaped both of his innings due to stellar play by the defense, including a diving catch by Lorenzo Cain and an outstanding throw from Pina to cut down the speedy Jarrod Dyson, but the Brewer bench and Closer Corey Knebel had seen what was happening, and the situation we feared finally arose.

The Ninth

At this point we were just hoping that the Diamondbacks would take a few bad swings and let us escape from this potentially embarrassing situation, but it was not to be. Knebel’s first pitch, a high outside curveball, put on display just how poorly ANGEL was following the ball. Where he tracked the ball far too much a few innings ago, his head and tracking were now completely off, as he never even glanced over, and stood right up.

On the pitch before it all went wrong, ANGEL actually appeared to make the correct call, but it was very close, and had been called a strike routinely earlier.

Manny Pina, I think at this point suspected it was a robot, and decided to engage in conversation. ANGEL is programmed to shut down conversation as he would be quickly discovered with any prolonged interaction. When ANGEL bent over to confront Pina, the last of his outside detection blew, which set up the next pitch.

The Incident

There are a few things going on here. It looks possible that ANGEL is fixed on Pina’s head instead of the ball, throwing off any perception he may have had left. Pina did himself no favors with a poor framing job, but one of the purposes of robots is to eliminate this subjective nonsense. ANGEL sees Pina and Knebel reach for their heads which triggers his mimicry circuits. Humans become more relaxed if you mirror them slightly.

Now we are in full breakdown mode. With Knebel charging forward to confront the umpire, and the damage done to ANGEL throughout the game they have almost certainly triggered his self-defense mode and Knebel is in real danger. A normal umpire would have immediately ejected pitcher and catcher for arguing balls and strikes, but in his crashing mode, he clearly intends to kill the closer.

Thankfully, ANGEL is programmed with facial recognition of all 30 managers and Craig Counsell’s fast work to get between Knebel and ANGEL likely saved Knebel’s life. ANGEL instantly recognizes the manager and his programming reverts to “Banal Manager Argument Prerogative One”. He tosses Counsell from the game and once again resets. Danger has passed and with just a few outs to go, he finishes the job. Thank goodness we did not see extras. It could have been a bloodbath.

Conclusion

Using the Brooks Baseball tool we can see just how tight zones ended up on the night. ANGEL’s strike zones were ridiculously small for lefties and righties alike, and there was a noted change in the lower right hand part of the zone (from ANGEL’s perspective) as the night wore on.

The Automaton simply couldn’t handle the complexity of a Major League Baseball game. I mean, I have no idea what was going on here:

And while it’s unfortunate, we are still years away from robot umps taking over. Next time someone mentions the possibility, just remember that we tested this very idea on May 22nd 2018, and it almost resulted in an on-field massacre the likes of which we’ve never seen.

For the time being, ANGEL will have to stay on the shelf. It remains Joe West’s World.

I’m serious about my answer, and so far, this is exactly what is happening. What do I mean when I say Craig Counsell and the Brewers found a new way to play baseball? Well, to start things off, it’s important to understand the “times through the order penalty” (TTTOP for the rest of this post). Pitchers, either due to fatigue, or familiarity with the lineup, generally get worse the more they see a hitter in any given game. This results in the sixth and fifth innings (respectively) typically being the highest scoring innings in a major league baseball game after the first. (The first inning is the highest scoring inning due to the offense’s ability to line up their best hitters to start the game.)

Old Reliever Strategy

Too much ink has been spilt by SABRmetrics people yelling at saves. The ninth is frequently a high leverage situation, and while it’s not optimal to have a set closer, there have been thousands of dumber ideas in baseball, and in sports generally. One of those terrible ideas is the notion that over the course of a game, after your starter has departed, you should use relievers from worst to best until the game is over. Generally, your seventh inning guy is worse than your eighth inning guy, who is worse than your closer. If you have to go to your sixth inning guy, pray, hope, and watch out. This strategy creates the perverse result of exacerbating the TTTOP by replacing your struggling starter with one of your worst relief pitchers.

Instead of all of this arbitrary nonsense, the Brewers have taken a novel approach. They are happily accepting the best two thirds of starters like Brent Suter and Jhoulys Chacin, and replacing the back third with the superhuman Josh Hader.

Suter is an extreme case of TTTOP, as opponents have OPSs of .593-.783-1.007 on his first, second, and third trips through the lineup, respectively. Chacin’s numbers are .676-.733-.766 for his career, which isn’t bad at all, but he still does get worse over the course of the game. Zach Davies often gets off to a bit of a rough start, but just like everyone else, the third time gets him as opponents OPS .754 the first time around, .691 the second, and .764 the third. Hader, by the way, has allowed an OPS-against of .331 this year, and while he has pitched multiple innings regularly, he has never turned over the order. For his career, his OPS-against is .501.

Sale and Hader

Chris Sale, the outstanding starter for the Red Sox, formerly of the White Sox, is a frequent comparable for Hader due primarily to left-handedness and hair, and those who wish to push Hader to start often cite Sale as the example. I used to be in favor of pushing everyone into a starting role if there was a chance it would work, but I’ve changed my mind on Hader. The Brewers have figured out the best way to use Hader, and they should keep at it. They should be widely lauded as progressive geniuses on this front, and what they’ve actually managed to do is to turn average (or in some instances below average) pitchers into Chris Sale 2-3 times per week.

Hader has been completely dominant in 2018, having struck out 25 of 41 batters faced, walking only 3, and allowing an opposing slash line of .079/.146/.184. That is simply ridiculous. The Brewers’ strategy with most of their starters has been to let them traverse the lineup twice, and then go to Hader at the first sign of trouble on their third trip. With Knebel out and Guerra pitching well, they have strayed from this a bit, but that’s a good thing. There is no reason to be set in their ways on the bullpen, and it’s good to see that Counsell is so adept at either reading situations, or taking advice from the numbers guys, or both.

With a pitcher like Suter, Hader converts him from someone who goes through the lineup at .593 – .783 – 1.007 clip to .593 – .783 – .331. Chacin goes from .676 – .733 – .766 to .676 – .733 – .331. Davies goes from  .754 – .691 – .764 to .754 – .691 – .331. Chris Sale’s career OPS-against is .626, and his TTTOP slash for his career is .591 – .621 – .662. 

The bottom line is that every time Hader takes the 3rd turn for one of the back-end guys, he’s taking away a big run-scoring chance for the Brewers’ opponent, and he’s preventing that pitcher from being exposed. Hader has shown himself capable of throwing about two innings every other day, and so he can pull this off two or three times per week. Once Hader does his job, the “traditional” Brewer bullpen is more than capable of taking it the rest of the way. With the exception of Oliver Drake, everyone has been excellent in the early going, and if Knebel can get healthy, the Jeffress-Barnes-Knebel combo should be as deadly as any in the league, with a game Matt Albers backing them up.

Is This Sustainable?

My biggest fear when this all began was that they would burn out the bullpen, and maybe they will, but it’s clear that the front office and Counsell have thought about this, and have a plan to deal with it. They have freely swapped out pitchers from Colorado Springs, and Counsell is open in his press conferences about the fact that they have a certain number of bullpen innings in mind for the season.

I started the season as a huge skeptic on this strategy, but I’m coming around to it. It is, if nothing else, an extremely creative tactic, that makes excellent use of a rare asset in Hader. The recognition of the 5th and 6th innings as fixable trouble spots seems obvious in retrospect, and if the pen can hold up for 162 games, the Brewers will wind up with one of the best staffs in the league, all because Josh Hader acts as a starting pitcher catalyst.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

To get the best ending, you’ll need to be daring, sharp, and avoid a certain County Sheriff who seems to be lurking behind every rock and bush on the grounds. You’ll need to be bold. You’ll need to lead and not follow. You will need to know how to score a game. But more than anything, you’ll need to have fun.

I love opening day and find the ceremony around it to be one of the best things about baseball. No one bats an eye at a kid missing school to attend, everyone is in a good mood, every team is still in the hunt, and once the game actually starts, it’s the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere short of actually making the playoffs. It’s a day where anything is still possible, and so it is in the game.

Let’s get things started with Miller Park Opening Day Challenge!

Click here to play!

For added atmosphere, the soundtrack can be accessed here in the form of a Spotify playlist.

Soundtrack

If you enjoyed this game, check out “Coach Mike McCarthy’s Three Minute Mania” at Acme Packing Company.