With the Chicago Cubs simultaneously erasing their 71 season pennant drought and 108 season championship drought, Milwaukee Brewers fans awoke to a new world: their beloved nine now share the longest NL championship drought, along with the San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals / Montreal Expos franchise. Of course, there are varying levels of success […]
Category: Articles
Gentrifying the Curse
I often call Chicago the combustion engine of capitalism. The city has served as a cesspool and trying ground for the material backbone of American market society from its settlement, perfectly orchestrating commodities trading, transportation and industry, machine party politics, and Ward Boss nepotism, while efficiently churning out hardcore discrimination through mortgage insurance redlining and lending […]
How the Brewers Are (and Were) Constructed
For the past few weeks, our esteemed editor in chief, Nicholas Zettel has been covering a number of trades the Brewers have made over the past year. What Zettel is doing, in part, is looking at how this Brewers team has been constructed. I thought this was an interesting topic, and idea, so decided to […]
Grading Trades V: The Long View
One of the most interesting aspects of the Brewers rebuilding thus far is that nearly everyone involved in the Carlos Gomez-Mike Fiers trade took a step back in 2016, or raised some question marks about their profile. Mike Fiers and Josh Hader arguably had the best years of the bunch, and even Hader himself still […]
Does Tyler Thornburg Have A Reverse Platoon Split?
The Brewers have quite a bit of familiarity with platoon splits, especially when it comes to relievers. During his two-ish years in Milwaukee, Jeremy Jeffress fared far better against right-handed batters (.242 wOBA against) than he did against lefties (.351 wOBA). A host of other faceless bullpen arms — Burke Badenhop, Neal Cotts, and Jonathan Broxton, […]
Moving Parks: From Florida to Carolina
From 2005 through 2016, the Milwaukee Brewers partnered with the Brevard County Manatees for player development in the high-A level Florida State League. It wasn’t exactly a fruitful pairing – the Manatees had only four winning seasons while fielding Milwaukee’s prospects, winning one division title and appearing in the playoffs on only two occasions over 13 seasons. […]
Brett Phillips’ Contact Issues are Officially Worrisome
In July of 2015, the Milwaukee Brewers traded away Carlos Gomez, and the centerpiece of the return package was centerfield prospect Brett Phillips. Later, that fall, I profiled Phillips as the newest impact prospect in the team’s rising farm system. In the context of evaluating Phillips, I took a long look at the evolution of […]
Grading Trades IV: Current Assets
The Brewers are in an intriguing position entering the 2016-2017 offseason: The club has one of the best farm systems, if not the best in terms of depth and top prospects, in the MLB. Milwaukee has extreme payroll flexibility in terms of guaranteed and arbitration contracts. While the front office was sorting through roster options […]
The Brewers’ Strikeout “Problem”
The fact that the 2016 Milwaukee Brewers struck out more often than any other team in baseball history is surprising but not shocking. After all, a team with Chris Carter and Jonathan Villar taking a good percentage of the plate appearances was always going to be behind the eight-ball in terms of putting ball in […]
Grading Trades III: Normative Analysis
What makes a trade valuable? Is it simply a matter of both sides of the deal working out in some sort of WARP/monetized production equilibrium? Can players other than those involved in the trade be judged alongside the trade in order to determine its value to the team? What of the team properly assessing their […]