The story of the Brewers’ remarkable winning streak that has carried them into the playoffs and now a League Championship Series matchup with the Dodgers has been the dominance and run-prevention of the bullpen. With a matchup looming against a much stronger team offensively than the Rockies (the Dodgers finished the season fifth in MLB in runs scored per game and first in True Average), not to mention a longer series and therefore more outs to “get,” it’s fair to ask how sustainable the heavy bullpen usage looks to be for the rest of the postseason.

Usage
Inning limits seem to be an inexact science at best, given what we know publicly.  There may be a slight effect in terms of injury prevention when drastic inning increases are managed by teams. But beyond injuries, suffice it to say that given the toll pitching takes on the human body (with the caveat that every pitcher is different), generally pitchers approaching substantial workload increases are more likely to fatigue. This makes sense on an intuitive level.

Among likely Brewers to make the NLCS roster as non-starting “out getters,” most of the pitchers seem to be in relatively good shape with regard to their innings in the previous season and well within their career highs, with a maximum of 14 games left in the season. Knebel, Burnes, and Woodruff in particular are encouraging in terms of how many innings they may have left over last year’s totals. Freddy Peralta has already pitched over 20 innings more than his 2017 season and might be managed more carefully, especially if the Brewers see him as a starter moving forward.

The real danger zone may be with Jeremy Jeffress, who, despite sitting out a few games to manage minor injuries toward the end of the season, is 11 innings above what he pitched last year. That may not or may not be a factor moving forward, but it is [checks math] a higher workload. As such, there could be fewer opportunities for Jeffress to cover multiple innings. Combined with his recent minor injuries that made him unavailable in Game 163, and his performance so far in October, it’s worth keeping an eye on the next area of the pitching staff to consider for the aggressive bullpenning Brewers.

Fatigue
This is where there is a small area of concern for Jeffress’ availability moving forward to the degree he has been used so far this season.

Source: BrooksBaseball.net

The one-mile per hour difference on Jeffress’ four-seam fastball might not be anything, and in fact comes with a major caveat of a sample size of just 15 times that he’s thrown it in October. But coupled with the recent minor injuries and increased workload, it certainly stands out among the other Brewer relievers, who are mostly throwing harder in October than they have in the season overall.

As a unit it seems like the Brewer bullpen isn’t suffering from any fatigue just yet in October. Somewhat unbelievably, Josh Hader is actually up two ticks on his fastball, and the young and promising duo of Burnes and “secret weapon” Woodruff are also up pretty significantly. Basically, if Craig Counsell is looking just at in-game performance or the metrics that might imply fatigue among his relievers, there’s seemingly little to raise a red flag.

Schedule
This is where the bullpen strategy gets a little tricky. During a 7-game series, how will the Brewers manage their run-prevention strength with also needing to cover more innings overall?

Playing a strictly “bullpen game” as the Brewers did in Game 1 of the Division Series is still workable but may be a bit more difficult to pull off when there are just simply more outs to cover. For example, if after Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley pitch Games One and Two, and Counsell decides to bullpen Game Three, he could find himself without Woodruff and Burnes for games Four and Five, leaving a shorthanded staff presumably with Gio Gonzalez and/or Zach Davies toeing the rubber to start Game Four. Perhaps a Game One bullpen game is in the cards again, as it would allow the Brewers to put their best pitcher, Johnny Wholestaff, up against Clayton Kershaw, and then have Chacin go for Game Two. That would allow the bullpen to get some extra rest for the travel off-day to Los Angeles before Game Three.

My head hurts.

At any rate, there are more decisions to consider in a longer series that has 3 games in a row, and it will also likely limit the number of relievers the Brewers are willing to burn for multiple innings at a time.

The bullpen overall looks to be in good shape given their usage so far in the season and at least by velocity, there doesn’t seem to be much drop off in production, either. The Brewers will, however, need some kind of help from their bats or a third starter especially in the middle 3 games of the series in Los Angeles if they want to maximize meaningful innings for their best run-preventing weapon.

Those last two batters were probably more worrisome to Brewer fans than they would have been in August, what with Hader on the heels of a 5.11 ERA over the final month of the season. And prior to the division-clinching appearance, as Cat Garcia at the Athletic noted, Hader ran a 19.3 ERA with three home runs in his three outings entering Game 163 (5 Runs, 2 and 1/3 innings). So what to make of Hader’s late-season swoon?

The good news if you’re a Brewer fan is that Hader’s peripheral numbers look almost as strong as ever, and there doesn’t seem to be an immediate culprit that would suggest his overall skills have declined or that he is fatigued as the Brewers get ready for their divisional playoff round on Thursday.

In fact, his velocity peaked in September, with an average four-seamer speed of 95.96. That hasn’t made it easier for batters to catch up to his stuff, either, as Hader is seeing his highest percentage of whiffs on his slider as well as an upswing in whiffs on his four-seamer since June.

Looking at his command, Hader’s walks have been up in September, but that has been balanced out by striking out more than half the batters he has faced, leading to his best month yet of Strikeout Percentage to Walk Percentage.  Even his release points have remained consistent, suggesting there’s not a major mechanical adjustment that has been made. In fact, the one data point that really stands out as being much worse than his season average seems completely luck-based.

The four home runs Hader surrendered in September is by far the most he has given up in a month this season. It represents a full 44 percent of the dingers against his ledger for 2018. Those have come on the back of a completely unsustainable 40 percent of his fly balls that have gone over the fence. To put that in context, the league leader in home run/fly ball rate is less than half that number. So, even if you regress that number to be league-leading, Hader would have only given up two jacks in September and his stat line would look much better.

And yet.

There’s one red flag in his underlying numbers that’s difficult to resolve. While all the fielding independent pitching usual suspects like strikeouts and HR/FB rate are fine, Statcast metrics seem to present a pattern that is a little disconcerting.

His Expected Weighted On-Base Average-Against (xwOBA) according to Baseball Savant’s advanced metrics has increased throughout the season. That takes regular wOBA numbers such as walks, batted ball type, and strikeouts, but also adds in quality of contact metrics like launch angle and exit velocity from batted balls. So for whatever reason, given that most of Hader’s underlying numbers look fine and bound to regress back to the mean, batters are still making higher-quality contact against him, and are doing so more and more and the season goes forward.

That’s difficult to reconcile, and I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s odd that almost all of the underlying numbers would continue to be dominant but hitters are somehow making better contact at the same time. It’s possible that Hader is somehow tipping his pitches. Maybe hitters are guessing rather than trying to react to the ball and having more success. They’re still missing a ton but when they “guess” right they’re making more solid contact.

But more likely is that there’s not too much to reconcile there in the first place. After all, even as Hader’s xwOBA has continued to climb, he has been arguably the most dominant reliever in all of baseball and before September at least, it hasn’t seemed to have too great of an effect on his performance. And even with higher quality contact, it probably matters less when you’re striking out half of the batters you face.

Still, that quality of contact reared its head in the bottom frame of game 163. Granted it was against the two best hitters in the National League’s second-best(!!!) team.

For now, it doesn’t matter, and maybe won’t even as the postseason goes forward. Even with the higher-quality contact, the Brewers are still going to be more than comfortable with someone with those kind of strikeout numbers and a homerun to flyball ratio that’s bound to regress. Josh Hader should continue to see high-leverage innings, and see success in those innings. Probably.

Josh Hader’s historic success and Jeremy Jeffress’ Comeback-Player-of-the-Year-worthy, All-Star season are certainly worthy of a lot of attention. Corey Knebel’s dominance after his “re-set” in Arizona have made the bullpen even more formidable in September. And David Stearns’ raid of the White Sox reliever pantry has added much needed depth and versatility to what was already a leading bullpen in all of baseball.

But overlooked in this dominance has been Brandon Woodruff. The young righty might just be ready for an October prime-time role in the bullpen, however the Brewers need to deploy him.

Woodruff has pitched just over 40 innings at the big-league level this year, and through September 25 sits in fourth place in Deserved Run Average for all Brewer pitchers who have thrown that many innings.  While good, that statistic actually underrates a bit how good Woodruff has been in the bullpen.

Woodruff made 4 starts this season, mostly in a swingman-type role that shuttled him between the bullpen and starting early in the year before going back down to Triple-A. In those four starts, Woodruff gave up 11 runs in 15.1 innings pitched for a 6.46 ERA. It’s not any surprise that he has done better in relief appearances, as you would expect most starters to be able to do, but the difference has been pretty striking. In his 24.7 relief innings, Woodruff has allowed just 6 runs, good for a 2.19 ERA.

That ERA would trail only Jeremy Jeffress on the team. That ERA is better than Hader, Knebel, or anyone.

It’s backed up by strong peripherals, too. In Woodruff’s relief appearances, he’s striking out better than a batter per inning, but his real strength lies in his ability to get ground balls. On the season, he has approximately 53 percent ground ball rate, which would place him in the top 10 percent of all pitchers in baseball. Those two outcomes might make him the Brewers’ best option with a runner on base in a high-leverage situation late in the game with the team’s better defensive unit behind him.

Much has also been made about the workload of Brewer pitchers, especially as it relates to Josh Hader’s ability to go multiple days in a row and monitoring his total inning count. Brandon Woodrfuff presents a nice relief option to fill in on those days, as he still hasn’t matched last season’s innings total of 120 innings. And he’s been particularly good in multiple-inning outings against Washington (4 IP, 5 K, 0 ER) and the Reds (3 IP, 2 K, 0 ER) since his September call-up.

Woodruff seems fresh, too. His average four-seam fastball velocity is at a season-high 96.8 mph this month, and he’s getting more whiffs on that pitch than at any other time this season in the bigs.

Perhaps more valuable to Craig Counsell is Woodruff’s splits between left and right-handers evening out. Our secret relief ace thus far in his career has had pretty terrible luck against left-handers, including a .377 batting average in balls in play against (.221 BABIP against righties), and a lower career fielding independent pitching against left-handed batters (3.77) than right-handers (4.31). This season however, tells a different story.

Woodruff has performed a little better overall against right-handed batters, which is to be expected, but the numbers are actually pretty close across the board and he’s struck out more left-handers in fewer plate appearances. Even chalking some of this up to a limited sample size this season, these splits are much closer to his career Fielding Independent Pitching stats than his Batting Average on Balls In Play-fueled results against left-handers.

In sum, the Brewers have a fresh reliever who shouldn’t have much of an innings cap, if any, throwing as hard and more effectively than he has at any time this year without an extreme platoon split. Considering Woodruff as a reliever only, he’s been one of the most productive members of a deep and effective bullpen.

Those traits could provide a lot of versatility, should the Brewers choose to employ it.

Woodruff could fill a 2-inning relief role when Hader isn’t available, since he’s not even at his 2017 innings count, and on account of his platoon-busting. For those reasons he might also make either an excellent “opener,” or a bridge from a third or fourth starter to go one time through the order and then to a rested bullpen. His worm-burning tendencies combined with a decent strikeout rate would also be a good option for mid-inning high-leverage situations with runners on base.

But based on how well Woodruff has pitched so far out of the bullpen right alongside the other relief aces for the Brewers this season it would be hard to argue against using him in almost any situation.

The Brewers are not going to the playoffs this year.

Sure, the Baseball Prospectus playoff odds give the Brewers a better-than-even chance to make the postseason at 56 percent as of this writing. And undoubtedly, entering Wednesday night a strong 73-60 record has put the Brewers in the second wild card spot. But going by runs scored and runs allowed, Baseball Prospectus has Milwaukee at just a “true” record of 68-64. Their runs allowed and prevented are decidedly middle-of-the-pack in MLB.

I know what you’re saying. “Aren’t you the guy that thought Neftali Feliz would be a great signing and that his homer problems were behind him last year?”

Or maybe, “Didn’t you recommend the Brewers trade for relievers Josh Osich and 35-year old AAA pitcher Chris Smith?”

That’s different. This time, I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

Now you might also be thinking that I’m putting some kind of reverse curse on the Brewers, and that by simply predicting things I can get the opposite to happen, as was the case when I wrote just a few short weeks ago that Ryan Braun may be on an irreversible decline, before he went on a tear and slashed .333/.450/.833.

Or when I suggested Shohei Ohtani should consider signing with an NL team shortly before he signed with the Angels.

How dare you. I would never use this forum to try and turn around the fortunes of a team that has lost ground in the divisional race and are in a close pennant race. Do you really think that I believe simply by predicting the Brewers will miss the playoffs, the opposite will happen and this city will sweep into another pennant race fever? And that maybe the Brewers will take notice and just as a joke they’d ask me to throw out the first pitch at a playoff game? Don’t be ridiculous.

Because the Brewers aren’t going to the playoffs, and you can take that to the bank.

I mean, sure I’d accept the invitation to throw out the first pitch, but like as a joke. It would all be in good fun but maybe some of the players would joke about being grateful and give me high-fives for it. But not for real, because we’d just be joking around and enjoying the playoff experience.

That’s all beside the point. I’ve been wrong a lot in my baseball analysis, but take it from me, the Brewers are not going to the playoffs and I am positive they won’t prove me wrong or go on a hot streak starting tonight.

This prediction certainly won’t carry their momentum to a playoff spot, nor a division title. And Uecker won’t make a joke about how bad this prediction was and invite me into the booth to talk about it, nor ask me to stick around after the game for a beer where we become real friends.

No, the Brewers are not going to the playoffs.

And if they do, they definitely aren’t making the World Series.

Rightfully, a lot of attention has been paid to his extremely unlucky .272 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP), which represents a career low and wide margin of about 20 points. Furthermore, Braun has been hitting the ball hard according to Statcast metrics, which have his hard-hit rate even higher than in 2015, when he was in the top 6 percent in the league in that particular measure. That, coupled with an average exit velocity that is right around his career average since the Statcast era began in 2015 have led to an xSLG of .509, again a Statcast-high for him.

Those numbers may suggest that “Ocho” is due to turn it around and has simply hit the ball hard, but right into the defense. That’s probably true to some extent, but there are other indications that might explain the historically low offensive performance from Milwaukee’s most highly decorated player.

Braun is walking less and striking out more than his career average numbers, but neither are career-worsts. And the rate of pitches he’s swinging at outside the zone is at its lowest point since 2013. That suggests he’s seeing the ball and tracking pitches well enough.

The big difference has been in his contact rates at pitches both inside and out of the zone. While his in-zone contact rate is down about 2 percentage points, his contact on pitches outside of the zone is down almost 6 percentage points and easily a career low. It could be that Braun is recognizing balls and strikes but having more trouble hitting pitches that he used to be able to get to.

That could explain how he has so many well-hit balls without much success. Braun has a career-high line drive rate, and his best fly ball rate since 2013, with little to show for it, at least in terms of overall production.

Perhaps Braun is compensating for physical limitations, either due to aging or simply the back issue that has nagged him off and on all season. He could be committing to swinging earlier as he recognizes the pitch coming in, but has trouble adjusting as the pitch comes in on him. As a result, you’d expect to see hard-hit balls as he gets an early jump on them and is able to square them up, but you’d also see less contact overall.

For their part, pitchers seem to have adjusted to just such an approach, as they are challenging him in the zone to a degree he hasn’t seen since his first two years in the league:

Braun is getting more pitches to hit than ever and doing less with them, at least in terms of outcomes. Pitchers have adjusted to whatever the reason is for the additional swing-and-miss in the outfielder’s approach at the plate.

Depending on your outlook, you might say that given those career highs in batted ball type and underlying Statcast measures that’s a good thing, and it’s only a matter of time before Milwaukee’s long-time face of the franchise turns his luck and goes on a tear for the stretch run in a pennant race.

On the other hand, it’ll be up to Braun to make pitchers pay for throwing him in the zone, and thus far pitchers have not had to make that adjustment. Whether this is a season-long trend or longer, due to recoverable ailments or the start of age-related decline, a BABIP down season or a more aggressive but less effective approach, remains to be seen.

The point is, it doesn’t require a lot of convincing to say the Brewers’ pursuit of Ohtani is a good idea. MLB.com columnist Jon Paul Morosi speculated after speaking to team executives that Ohtani is looking to hit and pitch, and that may give the AL an advantage to promise that he’d be able to DH on at least some of his non-pitching days. It’s a logical conclusion, but in a market where almost all teams are going to submit proposals and giving Ohtani their best pitch, maybe National League teams like the Brewers can zig where others zag.

Surely if being a two-way player is important to Ohtani, there’s a solid case to be made that the AL offers him that opportunity. He can pitch and on off-days serve as the DH without significant injury risk in the field. But, and before I say this let me remind you that I purchased in-flight wifi on the Ohtani bandwagon and have downloaded multiple seasons of Black Mirror because I’m here for the long haul…, what if he’s bad at hitting?

How long would an AL team let Ohtani continue to go up and swing the bat if he struggles at the plate? It’s not exactly a stretch to say a 23 year old making his first appearance in the majors would struggle over his first few months in the league. It is not difficult to imagine that if a hitter in the DH spot hit like, well, a pitcher, there would be some point at which a team would abandon that experiment.

Enter our Milwaukee Brewers.

Perhaps the best sales pitch to convince Ohtani to sign doesn’t involve David Stearns laying out what would happen if he’s terrible. I’ll grant you that.

Instead, the Brewers could focus on maximizing Ohtani’s future earnings potential as a two-way player, by letting him know that he’s going to get time to develop and adjust at the plate. He’s going to hit on days when he pitches, no matter how he performs at the plate in the early going. The Brewers had exactly one starting pitcher with a TAv over .200, and how many of them were in danger of losing plate appearances on days they pitched? None!

Then, you would tell Ohtani, he’ll have every chance to get low-leverage plate appearances as he learns MLB pitchers and the strike zone as a batter. Once he’s ready he’ll have the chance to pinch-hit, and once he’s comfortable with that, you’ll look to make him a bench regular. All while still hitting every day he’s on the mound.

This alleviates the problem of guaranteeing plate appearances, which AL teams that are proposing a DH role are almost certainly committing themselves to for an unknown amount of time. It also sells Ohtani on the idea that the team is looking for his best opportunity to succeed and grow and develop in the majors, and then maximize his earnings potential as a two-way player down the road.

It’s a risky strategy to be sure, and Ohtani may very well just be looking for the greatest number of plate appearances he can get or be reasonably guaranteed. But the Brewers and other NL teams shouldn’t overlook the possibility of selling what sets their league and teams apart, and that includes the lowered expectations of a pitcher hitting.

So while the exciting pennant and playoff-chase baseball we’re experiencing is ahead of schedule, that doesn’t exclude us from looking at the bigger picture and thinking about what it will take for the Brewers to take the next step in its build. And, look, crazy things happen in postseason baseball. For all we know, the Brewers are already there and wondering about the Brewers’ long-term championship prospects will look silly at the end of October. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Among the Brewer hitters, something sticks out on their Baseball Prospectus team page. The depth, for sure, is notable and has been a strength of the team, especially on their most recent run. But for a team that is playing over its preseason projections and getting upper-range production from those same projections, it’s remarkably void of one standout star performance.

Let’s define a “star” performance as 5.0 BWARP or more for a season. It’s a decently high bar to clear, as only 17.1 teams on average have had a player clear that bar each year over the past 10 years.

On the other hand, 90 percent of World Series teams over that same time span have rostered at least one player worth more than 5.0 wins above replacement.

It’s not news that good teams have good players. There’s certainly something to be said, though, for a team getting a high-level performance out of one or two players that can erase deficiencies elsewhere on the roster. Indeed, a 5-win performance out of centerfield, for example, would net the Brewers an extra 3.5 wins this season, which is exactly the number of games out of first place the team found itself in entering play on Wednesday.

Of course, 5-win players don’t exactly grow on trees, either. The good news is that the list above has players that probably weren’t projected to be 5-win players, but simply outplayed their projections and had great years. For the current team, Travis Shaw is the closest to the 5-win mark with 4.1 BWARP entering play on Wednesday. As a 27-year old, there’s room for him to continue the improvements he’s made coming into this year, though nothing is guaranteed.

Looking down the list of Brewers players this season, Orlando Arcia comes in next with 3.1 BWARP. With his fourth-best among shortstops fielding runs above average (FRAA) at 6.6 and solid .260 TAv, it’s hard to expect or project too much more going forward, especially if defense peaks early, but it’s certainly still possible to see that “star” level of performance in the future.

And with all due respect to the #ryanbraunforever crowd, it can’t be Ryan Braun literally forever. His .296 TAv demonstrates his bat has still been productive when in the lineup, but as he continues to age and needs maintenance days, if not DL stints moving forward, it would take a full rebound season to get back to his star-level days.

So while there’s cold water to throw over any player reaching 5.0 WARP in a given year (non-Mike Trout division), those are three players that could reach that level. And that’s without mentioning strides that may be made by the young players currently on the roster or are that knocking on the door of the big leagues, or even the next wave of players that will come in the next two years.

Yes, the Brewers need a “star” player to reach the World Series, but that player may already be on the roster. Or, you know, maybe there’s a cost-controlled, free agent player out there somewhere that could be worth 5-plus WARP next year.

Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire, USAToday Sports Images

In his first full season of plate appearances, Showmingo has shown himself an above-average right fielder, all things considered. His Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) through  has been a pretty lousy -9.2, which is nearly a full win below the average right fielder. But that has been offset by a strong season at the plate, highlighted by a .269 batting average /.364 on-base percentage /.468 slugging percentage slash line, all career highs so far. Baseball Prospectus Total Average (TAv) largely believes in this performance, giving him a .289; all of this adds up to 1.4 WARP.

Throughout his career, Santana has pretty consistently shown a good eye at the plate, never having an on-base percentage below .345 since his first trip to high-A level ball in 2010. Whereas you may think of a player developing his bat getting more selective as limiting his swings as he gets older, Santana has actually done the opposite so far in the 2017 season. He’s having similar success at the plate as he did in an injury-shortened 2016, but he’s doing it in a different way, and with an approach that may have more upside.

In addition to the decent number of walks, strikeouts have always been a part of Domingo’s game. Since coming to Milwaukee as a 22-year old, he has shown strikeout rates of 31 percent, 32 percent, and this year, 29 percent. You might predict that the slightly decreased strikeout rate this season would be the product of a young player cutting down his swings (you’d be wrong), or small sample sizes (okay, you might be right). But Domingo Santana, so far in 2017, has struck out less while actually swinging more, both in and out of the zone:

In the numbers, you can see indications of a young player learning the strike zone and himself. Last season, Santana cut down on his swing rates across the board, and has now readjusted back to swinging more than he even did in 2015, albeit with much greater success.

He’s getting his swings in, perhaps as a concerted effort to drive the ball more. While so far the strikeout rate in 2017 has been similar albeit a bit lower than in other years, what is really compelling is how he is striking out.

In 2015, 32 percent of all Santana’s strikeouts caught him looking. In 2016, that number went to 40 percent. Through August 17 of this year, however, his rate of strikeouts that come from watching strike three has decreased significantly to just 26 percent. So Santana is swinging more overall, and while he’s still striking out, he’s at least given himself a chance to get on-base, at least with his two-strike approach.

If that is indeed a change in approach and not the product of Santana’s previous small sample sizes in the majors, it’s notable in that he’s increased his power, with career highs in Slugging Percentage and home run rate all without sacrificing his ability to get on base.

This may be an approach that works especially well for a player like Santana, who has demonstrated a good eye at the plate and also runs pretty high BABIPs. It’s exciting to watch an age-25 player that’s already contributing continue to make adjustments at the plate that capitalize on his strengths while maintaining his present value. Domingo is finding the balance between being selective and passive, and the results are promising for his ability to continue on an upward trajectory with his bat.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

But, on June 18, 1971 Milwaukee held their own ten-cent beer night. Milwaukee’s was three years years before Cleveland’s, and for whatever reason it isn’t remembered in the same way. Perhaps it was the rain-dampening attendance cooling off the fans (or hydrating them through osmosis), or maybe Milwaukeeans held their alcohol better that season (unlikely, from the game reports afterward). Whatever the reason, Milwaukee’s ten cent beer night has mostly been lost to a few bemused newspaper accounts and parts of memories from those in attendance that night. Its legacy is not even a minor footnote in Milwaukee baseball history, but still an enjoyable look back at what was certainly a different time in the Brewers’ early struggles in Beertown.

The Promotion
Dick Hackett, then the Brewers’ ticket sales director, argued in newspapers that weather had been keeping attendance down in the team’s second full season in Milwaukee. Being 10.5 games back of the Oakland A’s probably wasn’t helping, either. So it was with optimism that the day before the game Hackett announced that advance ticket sales were up to 15,000 and the rather bold prediction that the Brewers would outdraw their season-high of 45,000 from opening day.

The promotion was announced in early June in papers across the state, from towns far away as Eau Claire and newspapers as small as the Manitowoc Herald-Times. In those press release-type announcements, then-team owner Bud Selig announced that local breweries would be setting up stands around the stadium and perhaps a bit idealistically called it “an example of community collaboration that will make this franchise the great franchise we know it will be.”

Looking back almost 50 years later, now-Commissioner Emeritus Selig recalled the idea being his in a telephone interview with me, but noted that several other clubs were trying out the promotion before that time. Normally, beer was going for 50 cents a cup at County Stadium, which itself would be an unprecedentedly wild night at current-day Miller Park. Considering inflation, that ten cent discounted promotional price for a beer would amount to 60 cents today.

In preparation for the promotion, Selig made 1,000 barrels of beer available, and the Sheboygan Press added that the Brewers would also include “strolling groups of colorfully-dressed minstrels, an array of barbershop quartets, a dixieland band ‘The Red Hot Sevens,’ and an antique beer wagon.” It really makes you wonder what ideas were rejected from the night.

For the gameday operations staff, it was another day at the ballpark prior to the game. Dan McKinney, 80, has been a vendor at Milwaukee baseball games since 1954, and spoke with me recently about his experience and ten-cent beer night in 1971. “It was a new thing, we didn’t really know what to expect,” he said.

The Game

Photo from Milwaukee Journal, June 19, 1971 

Coming into the game, the Brewers were on a 2-10 stretch and things weren’t going to get any easier facing the first-place A’s at County Stadium. It was a season that would mark the beginning of the A’s early-70s dominance. They had finished in second place in the AL West in 1970, and the 1971 season would be the team’s true breakout, winning over 100 games and finishing with an unbelievable 55-25 record on the road. Reggie Jackson by then was already an All-Star and appearing on MVP ballots. Oh, and Catfish Hunter was starting.

The rain again foiled the Brewers’ attendance plans as they drew a disappointing 27,474, far short of the 45,000-plus the club hoped for. Ticket director Dick Hackett thought a pregame downpour cost the team at least 10,000 in ticket sales.

Brewers manager Dave Bristol was in no mood for the festivities, barbershop quartets or not. After the team’s most recent loss before the Friday home game, he gave his team “a tongue lashing” and held practice on Thursday, a scheduled off-day for the team. Up to that point in the season, the Brewers had been led offensively by left fielder John Briggs, who came into the game slashing .266/.361/.461. Skip Lockwood was set to toe the rubber against the fearsome A’s the day after the director of baseball operations, Frank Lane, told reporters that the pitching staff “can’t be in awe of hitters with reputations like the Robinsons and Boog Powells.”

Lockwood gave up a leadoff single to Bert Campeneris, but quickly forgot about his awe of the A’s hitters after the Brewers caught Campeneris stealing; Lockwood struck out Joe Rudi and got Reggie Jackson to pop up to the shortstop. Catfish Hunter faced the minimum in the Brewers’ half of the frame, erasing a Dave May bunt single with a double play to end the inning. Both pitchers set down the opposing lineup in order in the second, but it came unraveled for the struggling Brewers in the third inning.

Facing the bottom of Oakland’s potent order, the play-by-play reads:

Strikeout
Single to RF
Single to CF
Single to RF
Single to LF
Reached on E6
HBP
Sac Fly
Picked Off (Jackson scores)

If fans weren’t ready for ten-cent beer night yet (they were), the three unearned runs probably convinced them.

The Milwaukee Journal reported that “fights broke out in all sectors of the park,” and oddly, in the same article reminisced that “It was Old Milwaukee. It was the glory days of carry-ins and rowdy crowds at Braves games.”

The reports from during the game are a monument to excess and the inherent problems when beers are nearly free at a ballgame. A sampling:

“One man ordered 130 beers and his group finished them by the sixth inning.”

“Four youths from Rockford, Illinois still had 24 cups left when the game ended and at last sight were seen finishing them off.”

“A companion…said that the group [of 4] had finished 104 beers by that point.”

Dan McKinney, the long-term beer vendor saw much of the same. “It was all night, long lines and multiple orders. People had trays, they had boxes, anything where they could carry a large number,” he said. “They weren’t necessarily for a lot of people–mostly for themselves.”

The A’s win expectancy at that point was 92 percent and the Brewers never really threatened for the rest of the game, not that the fans in attendance necessarily noticed. One fan was removed unconscious in his seat by police. His friends were quoted in the Milwaukee Sentinel, unconcerned, saying “we have to pick him up at the station on our way home.”

In fact, the lack of documented police action is shockingly almost non-existent from the game, given the Journal’s report that “a favorite pastime of fans seemed to be fans, police, and ushers with cups of beer- and the contents therein.” Milwaukee County unfortunately only retains arrest records and case reports for seven years, so it’s hard to say exactly how involved officials had to get during the game.

For the most part, though, eyewitnesses at the game don’t remember the insanity of Cleveland’s ten cent beer night or Disco Demolition in Chicago.

By his own estimates, Ken Gniotczynski was going to 40-50 Brewer games a year in the 70s. He prides himself on not needing Google to look up information about the games, and he was pretty much dead on about his verifiable recollections when I talked to him in June. He admits he and his friends took advantage of the discounted beers but that they weren’t really the trouble-making type.

“The stands got a little crazy at times, but I don’t remember any real trouble,” Ken said. “The thing I remember the most was Reggie Jackson wearing a helmet out in right field. He probably thought something was going to happen out there…The outfield players for both teams kept turning around to see what was going on and were watching for thrown beer.”

At least one unnamed Brewer reliever after the game seemed to agree with Ken’s recollections. “I’ve never seen anything like it…It was the wildest crowd I’ve ever seen. They were throwing beer and beer cups all over the place.”

The Brewers finally gave the home crowd something to cheer about (well, something on the field to cheer about, anyway) in the bottom of the third as they broke through with a run-scoring sacrifice fly off Hunter. Skip Lockwood righted the ship in the fourth without any damage from the bottom of the A’s order.

First baseman Frank Tepedino led off the Brewers’ half of the fourth with a home run, getting the Milwaukee nine as close as they would come to the A’s that night. It was Tepedino’s first of six career home runs. “Naturally, it was quite an occasion for me,” Tepedino said after the game. But perhaps not wanting to get too ahead of himself, followed up by saying, “but it’s too bad it didn’t mean anything. It’s just another time up and another hit, really, when you lose.”

John Morris came in to replace Lockwood with one out and one on in the 5th, and Morris and Hunter held the game without any more scoring through the 7th.

The party in the stands continued unabated.

“I worked in the upper deck in those days,” said Dan McKinney, the beer vendor. “The big thing I remember was I was glad when it was over. It was non-stop. People came to us, we didn’t go anywhere.”

The legal drinking age in Wisconsin at that time was 18, and there was no stadium policy as far as how many beers a patron could purchase in one transaction, as there is now. The Journal noted that some fans didn’t even leave the vending areas throughout the game.

It’d be easy to imagine that few in the stands noticed Catfish Hunter’s RBI single to score Dick Green in the 9th to end the scoring for the night. After that, Catfish was back on the mound and completed the game for one of his 16 complete games that year, a new career high.

The final out came with Rob Ellis being thrown out on a 9-6-2 putout at home. Ellis said afterward that he stumbled over third on his way home, but third base coach Cal Ermer tried to take the fall for his player, saying “it was my fault entirely.”

The hometown team had lost and failed to turn around their season against the powerhouse A’s, but there was still joy in Mudville. A busload of fans from Waterloo and Beaver Dam were returning home, and told a Sentinel reporter that they had finished off ten cases of beer before they got to the stadium (WHY?!?) but still thought they had enough for everyone to have a six-pack on the drive home.

Vendor Dan McKinney recalls “a lot of litter with cups all over after the game, and spillage from people trying to carry all those beers.” The A’s won by a final score of 6-2. The game, for the beleaguered players, gameday staff, and probably just some poor fans that wanted to enjoy a game on a Friday night who purchased their tickets months in advance and wanted no part of ten cent beer night, was mercifully over.

After the Game
The Brewers would also drop the next two games against the A’s after ten cent beer night, but followed up that 2-13 stretch with a 9-2 run. Frank Tepedino’s homer wasn’t quite the spark that would carry the Brewers to a Cinderella season, as they would go on to finish the season in last place in the AL West and fourth-last in attendance. Ten cent beer night couldn’t be held responsible for that, though, as that game was the club’s fifth-highest attended game of the season.

And even though there weren’t any documented serious problems that arose from the promotion, it’s probably telling that the club never tried it again.

“Dollar hot dog nights are really popular,” said Dan McKinney, the beer vendor. “The thing is, hot dogs don’t change your behavior that much. It’s [ten cent beer night] probably not the best idea.”

Perhaps unable to escape the numbers and statistics that define baseball, the Brewers released the final report on ten cent beer night the following day: 700 kegs tapped and 140,000 cups sold for an average of five 10-ounce cups of beer per fan. In other words, for every child in attendance that was too young to drink, there was a fan who drank 10 beers over the course of nine innings.

In addition to one feeling thankful that they weren’t in attendance that night, you might also feel relieved that nothing too serious happened. For all the light-hearted treatment of the fans who overdid it at the game, it really is fortunate that it didn’t end up worse — certainly for the safety of players and fans, but also for baseball in Milwaukee. The nascent franchise was just in its second year and already struggling with attendance, so who can say what might have happened if the city or the game in Milwaukee were given a black eye right from the start.

But luckily for Milwaukee fans, it didn’t, and baseball is alive and well. Instead, Milwaukee’s ten cent beer night is simply an anomaly in the city’s baseball history, a product of a different time and attitudes toward drinking and public relations.

Perhaps the mindset and thought process of the wild time in 70s baseball, for MLB as a whole and certainly the young Brewers franchise is best captured during my conversation with Commissioner Emeritus Selig.

“Ultimately, was the promotion a success in your mind?”

We’re talking during a Brewers get away day game, and there’s a long pause as the former owner and commissioner watches a Brewer hitter single up the middle.

“What was the attendance?”

References and Resources
Milwaukee Journal, June 19, 1971. “Fans have blast, dime at a time.”
Milwaukee Sentinel, June 19, 1971. “Thirsty Brewer fans quaff for a dime.”
Baseball-reference.com box score, June 18, 1971
The Capital Times, June 19, 1971. “Brews’ beer night draws by 27,474.”
Wausau Daily Herald, June 21, 1971 “Brewer fans like their brew.”
Sheboygan Press, June 18, 1971 “Brewers hope for big crowd.”
Sheboygan Press, June 16, 1971. “Brewers plan jolly homecoming to end nine-game road trip.”
CPI Inflation Calculator, Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Phone interview with Bud Selig, June 22, 2017.
Phone interview with Dan McKinney, August 7, 2017.
Email interview with Ken Gniotczynski, June 12-13, 2017.

Image: Milwaukee Brewers

First, the good news. Using Fangraphs’ handy “past 7 days” split tool, we know that the pitching has been about average over that time frame, in both ERA and FIP. And that’s without the top-line relievers getting as much work in as you might expect.

So we turn our attention to the offense.

The hitters have been walking less and striking out more, but are also running a much higher batting average on balls in play than you might expect during a slump. Perhaps the players are pressing a bit to keep the offense going with Ryan Braun in and out of the lineup as of late, or (more likely) it’s the random fluctuations of any 7-day stretch that a team will go through. Nothing too unbelievable about these numbers within a week’s games. The plate discipline data over the past 7 days seems to back this up, too. The Crew hitters are making contact on 74.5 percent of swings over the past week, and have a season average of 74.6 percent.

Looking at the batted ball data, however, shows one extreme outlier.

Most of the batted balls are within a few percentage points of the season average, but the percentage of fly balls leaving the yard is down by more than a third over the past week. Now, the 12.2 percent by itself isn’t cause for alarm, given that it’s, you know, a week of games.

What’s striking (no pun intended) though, is just how far above the norm Brewer hitters have been when it comes to having fly balls go for home runs so far this season.

The Brewers up through July 21 are a standard deviation more than the second-place team in baseball, the Rays. They’re more than that away from the full-season HR/FB high mark from the past three years, the 2016 Orioles with 15.6 percent.

So while nobody can expect the Brewers to hit as many homeruns as they have, it’s at least notable that the team’s home runs per flyball over the past 7 days have been closer to what we can expect moving forward than the team’s season-to-date performance.

There’s still no reason to panic over a week’s worth of games. The Brewers remain overall, in good shape and the projections certainly have regression in the homers baked in. With most of the trade rumor mill centering around Milwaukee acquiring a pitcher, the Brewers shouldn’t overlook that the offense likely has some regression coming in at least one small way.

Photo Credit: Eric Hartline, USAToday Sports Images