Left-handed hitters love hitting at Miller Park, at least when it comes to hitting home runs. Left-handed hitters have had a HR factor over 100 every year since 2011, and every year before that going all the way back to 2005. It is easy to jump to conclusions when discussing park factors and ignore year-to-year fluctuation, but it’s safe to conclude the Brewers home is friendly to left-handed power hitters. Just ask Prince Fielder. This may have something to do with the swapping of Chris Carter for Eric Thames at first base for the 2017 season. Thames is much more likely to put up gaudy, tradable numbers than the right-handed Chris Carter, even with similar skill sets. It can be dangerous to build a lineup around your ballpark but every now and then it can work to teams’ advantages. One example is the San Francisco Giants’ contact-heavy lineup in the home run suppressing AT&T Park. It will be interesting to see if David Stearns’s progressive front-office takes advantage of this statistically backed park factor.

Although it isn’t much of a surprise considering the amount of plate appearances, left-handed park factors overall had much more fluctuation than right-handed park factors. At the same time, it is astounding to realize that even an entire half seasons worth of plate appearances in a ball park can have that much fluctuation. It’s important to keep in mind not only when taking account for park factors, but when evaluating players and teams. It is widely known we jump to conclusions too quickly on each side of the spectrum, good and bad.

After a very rough, crude valuation and round-up, the runs factor for each side of the batter’s box is 101 in Miller Park’s entire 16-year history. Just barely above average. This runs contrary to conventional wisdom when it comes to Milwaukee’s home stadium. It is by no means in the same league as Coors Field or Citizens Bank Ballpark, but it isn’t considered far behind. This data suggests otherwise. Another season like the 2016 season, in which Miller Park actually played like a pitcher’s park, and it falls to about average. It is pure speculation as to what created the delusion that the Brewers home field is a hitter’s paradise but my best guess is the home run numbers. Milwaukee has always been a place where home runs fly, but is it possible to be a neutral ballpark and still have strong home run numbers? Miller Park suggests so. The only category where it is significantly above average is home runs. In contrast, Coors Field is not only a home run haven, but it is simply easier to get hits because of the high altitude.

Contradicting everything I said above about overacting to single-year park factor numbers, it is important to look at how Miller Park played in 2016 and what that might’ve meant at the time and what it could mean for the future. Again, like I mentioned above, it played as a slightly pitcher’s park, even with the above average home run numbers. There is no way to predict which way it will lean in the future, but it’d be safe to bet on a more hitter friendly lean. This could mean stronger seasons from prospects who struggled in 2016, such as Orlando Arcia and Domingo Santana. It could mean regression from Junior Guerra and Zach Davies. Or maybe 2016 was year 1 of the movement from a hitter’s park to a pitcher’s park, there really is no way to tell.

Glancing through The Bill James Handbook 2017, the number really stands out: Craig Counsell called for a pinch runner four times. Four. Over the course of a 162-game season, one would think that there are at least four instances of a player pulling a hamstring or twisting an ankle trying to beat out a grounder at first.

You might think that it’s a mistake, so you consult the Baseball Prospectus Manager Data Statistic Report, but there it is. Four times!

To put that number in context, Craig Counsell himself ran as a pinch runner five times for the Brewers in 2011! So if you had all the pinch running appearances by Brewers from 2011 and 2016 in a hat, you’d be more likely to pull out Craig Counsell himself than a pinch runner called by Craig Counsell.

The pinch running statistic is partly surprising for the number itself, and in fact it’s the second-lowest pinch running total since play-by-play data has been available. Also, I think we tend to think of the Brewers as pretty aggressive on the basepaths. The team attempted 236 steals, which led the league by a significant margin.

National League Stolen Base Attempts and Pinch Runners Used by Team, 2016

The point in the upper left corner of the above graph is the Brewers. Milwaukee was a pretty decent outlier during the season. And in fact, historically there has never been a team with more than 200 stolen base attempts that used fewer than ten pinch runners in a season until now.

So when did the Brewers pinch run, and is there anything we can learn from those appearances? I used Baseball Reference’s Play Index to find those pinch running situations, and the Game Log to determine the specifics of each:

All of the pinch running appearances seem reasonable, with two catchers removed for speedier runners, and Counsell using outfield depth and positional flexibility to keep his bench. So how to explain this historical anomaly?

First, one has to consider the team that Counsell was working with. They were fast, and almost everyone could (or at least was willing to) run, as evidenced from their league-leading stolen base attempts. The Bill James Handbook this year also includes stolen base attempt times to second base, and the Brewers had two players (Broxton and Jonathan Villar) place in the top ten in all of baseball (p. 370).

The league also certainly played a part in the relatively sparse pinch running appearances. The National League averaged 18 pinch runners this past season, while American League teams averaged 33, owing to their more flexible benches. One might also expect that pinch running appearances in the senior circuit come from pitchers who happen to find themselves on base, but the Brewers had fewer opportunities than any other team in the league (save the Reds, who were tied with the Brewers) to pinch run for their hurlers. The Crew had 15 fewer opportunities than the league average for their pitchers to jog back to the dugout and high-five their teammates. Brewer pitchers reached base just 35 times, excluding home runs.

In fairness to the hitting capabilities of the Brewers’ pitching staff, they did also see the fewest plate appearances of any team in the National League in 2016. That could also explain some of the pinch running opportunities. Craig Counsell was more aggressive in pinch hitting with his pitchers, as the Brewers were fourth overall in those appearances last year.

Still, even with those considerations we’re looking at a historically low number. Out of the 23 times a team has pinch run less than 10 times in a season, only the 2016 Brewers attempted 200 steals or more.

Interestingly, the ten fewest pinch running appearances by a team in history actually includes two other Brewer teams- in 2008 and 2009 Brewers pinch ran just seven times, respectively. Whether it be due to luck in health, more aggressive pinch hitting, the makeup of the team, or just something in Lake Michigan’s water, the Brewers have not been a pinch running team.

Whether that remains a conscientious tactical decision for the club moving forward, or just something to keep our minds occupied in January as a weird historical footnote, remains to be seen.

James, Bill. The Bill James Handbook 2017. Chicago: ACTA Sports, 2016.

• Production: A player can be considered valuable based on how well they perform on the field. Alternately, as advanced statistics and analytical tools emerge, a player can be considered valuable based on their underlying elements — stuff, mechanics, plate approach, command, etc. Both of these metrics, traditional or advanced, judge value according to production.
• Scarcity: A player can be considered valuable based on the rarity or singularity of their performance skillset. Furthermore, a player can be considered valuable based on their contract, which at the MLB level is ostensibly a reflection of service time achievement (ex., veteran free agents earn more than reserve-controlled rookies). Here, a player’s raw production is arguably prorated against their veteran status (or lack thereof) and cost.

Related Reading:
Historical Transactional Value for OFP
40-Man Roster Surplus Values

Yesterday I hosted a Twitter chat for BPMilwaukee, and Matt Garza’s rotation spot continued to be a hot topic among Brewers fans. The veteran is the second-most expensive player on the Milwaukee roster, and certainly the least valuable in terms of total surplus: a three-year depreciation window values Garza at 0.42 WARP ($2.9M value), and depending on how one calculates the $8 million in deferred payments owed to the veteran, the righty will cost anywhere between $10.5 million and $18.5 million to the Brewers. At best, that leaves the Brewers with a total surplus of -$10.5 million, which means that the Brewers would actually gain roster value simply by cutting Garza and paying the full extent of his contract.

@BPMilwaukee 4.33 FIP, 4.16 ERA after AS break, toughest competition in NL, 4.29 DRA, 1.4 WARP in ~1/2 season, could provide trade value.

— David (@dgo151) January 23, 2017

If Garza’s performance resembles his strong second half and the righty faces more justly distributed competition — which is the best argument offered in defense of keeping the veteran righty, and one presented by Dylan Svoboda at BPMilwaukee — Milwaukee will need to spend half a season in salary to reach that point and arguably send $8 million cash to cover the deferred salary in order to return a prospect resembling even 45-to-50 Overall Future Potential. Given that the historical surplus of such a player is around $10 million total, spending at least $13 million to acquire such a prospect is quite a stretch of the term “value play.” Adding $13 million spent against, say, 1.5 WARP ($10.5M) from a great Garza first half and the $10 million surplus from the prospect return nets the Brewers approximately $7.5 million in total value — that’s a lot of effort for an extra future win or so.

Gambling on Garza to become a valuable trade chip is problematic for historical reasons, contemporary reasons, and organizational opportunity cost.

(1) Historical Value
Historically, if a player posts a replacement-value season with more than 100 innings at age-32, that player is likely at the very end of their career path. Prior to 2016, 33 such pitchers worked seasons of 100 IP (or more) with WAR between -0.1 and -1.0 during their age-32 season (similar to Garza’s campaign). Along with Garza, Edinson Volquez also pitched such a season in 2016. Those 33 historical pitchers represent a wide range of career WAR values, but almost uniformly decline or complete their careers with that bad age-32 season.

Using Baseball Reference Play Index, here are the age-32 pitchers comparable to Garza (ex., within a one win range). It must be emphasized that Baseball Reference’s WAR statistic is at odds with DRA & WARP assessments of Garza. Still, this is some historical perspective:

Among this group of pitchers, the historical average after a 100+ IP / -1.0 WAR to -0.1 WAR age-32 season is 167.0 IP and 0.7 WAR. To correct for outliers (such as Tim Belcher, and the set of pitchers that did not work whatsoever after age-32), the median is 170.0 IP and -0.2 WAR from age-33 onward. Not an inspiring group in terms of value, and this type of performance shows one particular stop on the aging curve: if a pitcher is likely to be an elite or even valuable pitcher deep into their 30s, they did not pitch a 100+ IP negative WAR season at age-32.

So, analysts cannot look to history for age-based comparisons for Garza’s 2016 in order to determine some level of future value that renders that contract valuable.

(2) Contemporary Value
In contemporary value, MLB teams started 217 pitchers that were worse than Garza in 2016 (among pitchers that worked at least 10.0 innings, which helps to cut out one-start emergency pitchers). This produces an interesting tension between Baseball Reference WAR (which grades Garza as below-replacement in 2016) and WARP (which rates Garza at 1.25 on the strength of a 4.29 DRA). Among the 138 MLB pitchers that worked at least 100 innings in 2016, Garza’s 4.29 DRA rates slightly below the median mark of 4.15 DRA.

There is a sense that Garza’s skillset is valuable insofar as he is a veteran that generally works a lot of innings, and a veteran that can make adjustments to improve his performance during a given season (as is evident by his second-half surge in 2016). Still, it is worth pushing back on Garza’s value here: that $10.5 million 2016 salary and $8 million deferred payment still are not equivalent to 1.25 WARP, or even a 4.29 DRA. Thus far the offseason has proven that such a performance does not bring trade value, which does lend some credence to the position that the Brewers must pitch Garza for at least the first half of 2016 to make a deadline deal (or perhaps float him through waivers as an August waiver trade).

(3) Opportunity Cost
The remaining issue with Garza’s contractual surplus and lack of transactional value is that the Brewers have a 40-man roster stacked with pitchers that could potentially create more cost-controlled value with a solid 2016 campaign. Chase Anderson, Jimmy Nelson, Brent Suter, and Taylor Jungmann appear to be replacement level depth to some degree, but their extended control years and generally low cost contracts mean that a turn in the right direction yields significantly more value for the club. Tom Milone is an intriguing trade value candidate himself (cf. Scott Feldman…), for if the Brewers develop a strategy with the southpaw to recoup some value from his arm, that $3.0M+ maximum contract will look solid during the trade deadline season; approximately 1.0 WARP from Milone produces better trade value than 1.5 WARP from Garza, in terms of sheer transactional surplus.

Of course, then there remain the three rotation spots that probably should be locked down: Zach Davies was the best starter for the Brewers in 2016 in terms of DRA and WARP; Junior Guerra pitched ahead of a DRA and WARP, but was still quite valuable via WARP; and Wily Peralta rode a surging second half to a strong WARP himself, making him one of the most intriguing “comeback” candidates for the 2017 Brewers. Beyond these starters, of course, are notable 40-man roster prospects such as Josh Hader and Jorge Lopez, who combine for more than $20 million in organizational surplus even if one takes the 45 OFP-to-50 OFP route for these hurlers (instead of Lopez’s 2015 top OFP and Hader’s 2017 top OFP, which immensely increases the value of these pitchers).

In terms of surplus value, the opportunity cost for each Garza start (prorated to 33 starts) is $0.3M, prior to considering the value of Milone, Jungmann, Suter, and Nelson (another $0.3M per start excluded as a group) or Hader+Lopez (at least another $0.6M per start excluded as a group, and as much as $1.1M per start excluded as a group that keeps Hader & Lopez from realizing their Top OFP in 2017). The best case scenario holds that the Brewers basically eat one win in 2017, and hang on long enough to Garza to trade him for a 45-50 OFP prospect with cash headed out the door; a more likely scenario is that the Brewers eat at least one win in 2017 due to Garza’s lack of surplus value, and those starts truncate value for another group of potential starters (to the tune of another lost win). Once one reaches into the territory of Garza (or, to be fair, several other starters on the 40-man roster) starts blocking either Hader or Lopez, there is some chance that the Brewers could eat yet another win in surplus value in that scenario.

The question here must be to what extent eating one-to-three wins is a valuable outcome for a developing ballclub. This is especially salient given that the Brewers improved in 2016, and also that Milwaukee does not have a very good development environment one level removed from the MLB (meaning that there is a sense that Milwaukee should simply start Hader and Lopez at the MLB level, which would be an incredible attempt to materialize future value). To this end, the Brewers front office will show their truest interpretation of what an “analytical” front office means. Is David Stearns ready to use the club’s $80 million revenue cushion from 2016 and 2017 to eat $18.5 million dollars in a move to materialize future surplus value?

Susac was a second-round draft pick back in 2011 out of Oregon State. The catcher was a steady performer in the Giants system, working his way from High-A ball in his first professional season and then spending all of 2013 at Double-A for his age-23 season. At Double-A, Susac started to show that he might have a place in a major league lineup after demonstrating above average power and a keen eye for the strike zone. In 2013, Susac smashed 12 home runs to go along with 17 doubles, good for a .458 slugging percentage in 310 plate appearances. His 21.9 percent strikeout rate was not particularly concerning given that he also walked 13.5 percent of his plate appearances.

In 2014, Susac showed more of the power and plate discipline that was putting him on the Giants’ radar for their major league roster. Over 253 plate appearances, Susac hit 10 home runs and nine doubles, amounting to a .451 slugging percentage. His strikeout rate dipped below 20 percent to 19.8 percent and he still walked at an impressive 13.4 percent clip.

By the end of 2014, Susac had been rewarded by the Giants with a call to the majors. Susac delivered a 0.5 WARP in 95 plate appearances, including three home runs and 8 doubles. He struggles a bit more with strikeouts, as he went down on strikes a near third of his plate appearances with 28 K’s in those 95 plate appearances.

Still, by the end of 2014 there was clearly a bright future for the soon to turn 25-year-old backstop. However, as Buster Posey continued to produce at an MVP level year after year with no real signs of slowing down, it was clear that the future for Susac was not in San Francisco.

Before the 2015 season, Baseball Prospectus ranked Susac the 97th best overall prospect. However, the season would not go as smoothly as he would have hoped. Susac struggled through a rough 2015 that included multiple disabled list trips. After being banged up in spring training and into the start of the season, Susac sprained his wrist on July 19 in Arizona and was sent to the 15-day DL. Upon his return, he was shut down for the season on September 6when the team discovered ligament damage in his right wrist. His 2015 injuries help explain his uninspiring slash line of .218/.297/.368.

2016 was a new year, and a new opportunity for Susac to regain his value as both an above-average performer and potential trade piece.  Back in Triple-A, he cut his strikeouts down to just 18.8 percent with his walk rate holding steady at 10.0 percent.  In 239 plate appearances, he was able to hit 8 home runs, 12 doubles, and even sprinkled in a triple. He Finished his time at Triple-A with a .273/.343/.455 slash line, staying consistent at all minor league levels.

Defensively, Susac has a relatively positive outlook. Over the 2013-14 seasons in the minors for Susac, he amounted to a total 20.6 framing runs saved through 8,322 pitches caught. In 2016 at Triple-A, Susac saved 10.3 runs in 4,,296 pitches caught. In his sporadic time the majors, he has not been able to replicate his pitch-framing prowess. Between his time with the Giants in 2015 and Brewers in 2016, Susac has only produced a -0.4 runs saved value in 2,387 pitches caught. Given that Susac has a considerably positive pitch framing record, it’s not unreasonable to think that the Brewers could see his runs saved totals rise in the majors with consistent playing time.

Based on the measure that the average starting catcher in the major leagues will receive about 8,000 pitches per full season, Susac could augment his WARP value by at least one full win, and possibly two, if he replicates his minor league framing measures in the majors. A main reason for the difference, of course, could be the quality of minor league umpires compared to major league umpires. While this could play a significant role, Susac’s consistence in the minors in regards to pitch framing paints a positive image moving forward.

Susac’s extensive time and success in the minors projects him to be able to stick as the everyday catcher in Milwaukee for 2017. Finally, it seems as though Susac is getting his chance to see consistent plate appearances.  Although working with a relatively inexperienced pitching staff will be a challenge, his pitch-framing prowess should help his pitchers over the course of the season.

Overall, there is a lot to like about the newest Milwaukee backstop. Given his ability to draw walks, hit for power, and play above average defense, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Susac would be a 2-to-3 WARP player in 2017. He isn’t an all-or-nothing player, as his consistent near 20 percent strikeout rate suggests. However, it is yet to be seen if Susac can duplicate his minor league numbers in the majors successfully. Maybe now with the peace of mind that comes with seeing your name penciled into the starting lineup every day, Susac can use his promotion to become the Brewers’ catcher of the future starting in 2017.

Related Reading:
Villar’s Baserunning
Villar’s Baserunning and History
Villar’s Baserunning as a Model for Fringe Players

On June 1st, Gary D’Amato of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal observed, “Villar knows only one speed, and has made some baserunning blunders to go along with his 19 steals. But he unnerves pitchers with his aggressiveness and gives players hitting behind him a chance to see more fastballs.”

When manger Craig Counsell was asked about Villar’s approach, he answered with what became the theme of the season. “There are base runners who just stand there and go station to station and we don’t talk about them ever,” he said. “But you’ve got to remember they’re not adding anything, either, right?” An MLB leading 181 team stolen bases later, and even though the Brewers finished 73-89, at least they were fun to watch.

Well, it turns out that aggressiveness allowed Villar to enter the record books in 2016, but much like the rest of 2016, it wasn’t quite the record he wanted. Using the Baseball Prospectus baserunning statistics, I noticed Villar mainly suffered in the area of Ground Advancement, GAR. Basically, his ability to read and react to situations involving an in-play ground ball is similar to that of a tee-baller that longs for his post game juice box while daydreaming about the fishing trip him and his Dad are planning next weekend.

Here were the bottom five in GAR in 2016

A few things that stand out with that bunch. It’s amazing that Navarro managed to be that bad in only 24 opportunities, it’s clear that Dustin Pedroia has embraced being on the wrong side of 30, and only one of them, Villar, is currently coveted for his baserunning ability.

In fact, Villar’s 1.53 SBR, which is the statistic that measures the theoretical value a baserunner brings by his base stealing ability, is incredibly high for the crowd that he’s in.

Of the 59 total players that posted positive 0.50 SBR or higher, 18 posted a negative GAR. Further, 3 had a GAR between -1.0 and -1.99, and 4 posted a GAR between -2.0 and -2.99, Brian Dozier, Joc Pederson, Ichiro, and Elvis Andrus. Villar was the only one that surpassed -3.0, and his was a horrifically low -3.57.

It seemed like I’d found a statistically historical outlier. How many players in baseball history could have possibly had a GAR of -3.50 or worse and a SBR of 1.50 or better? It turns out, 12. Gotta love baseball’s super large sample size.

Considering the positions of the players on this list, most being corner infielders and outfielders with some youth in their legs, or past their prime former base stealers still trying to push the envelope,Villar remains a statistical outlier. It almost seems implausible that a 25 year old, base stealing shortstop could produce such a horrific GAR season. The only thing left for him to accomplish is to repeat on list like Mr. October, or come for Pete Roses’ top spot.

“Craig Counsell come to me and say, ‘If you play like that every day, you play [in the lead-off spot] for a lot of years,’” said Villar later in the aforementioned Journal-Sentinel article.

Pair that with Counsell’s previous comment, and it’s clear that he is fully on board with the baserunning season that Villar produced in 2016. Based on the stats above, and plenty more, reigning in Villar’s aggressiveness might be the better move.

Using Baseball Reference’s play index, I sorted the top 20 in stolen base attempts. Of those, Villar was one of three to score in the negative of baseball reference’s baserunning runs added stat, which is more or less baserunning runs.

To understand this better, I created my own semi-statistic called Out on Base percentage, OOB% in the table above. Baseball Reference has a stat called Outs on Base which measures how many times a player records an out making a baserunning gaff, such as, being thrown out advancing on a fly ball, trying to reach an extra base on a hit, or being doubled off on a line drive. However, it doesn’t include pickoffs, so I added those to outs on base and divided it by the total amount of times reached base. The other two, Harper and Hernandez, were horrifically ineffective base stealers. What that really tells me is Villar is so poor in non-stealing situations that even his ability to steal 62 bases can’t make up for it.

In total, that gives me the percentage of how often a player makes a bad baserunning decision, which Villar made almost 1 of out every 10 times he reached base. Aggressiveness is one thing, but when it starts to be a direct detriment to the ball club, then it needs to be reigned in.

“That’s my game,” Villar went on to say in the Journal-Sentinel piece. “I play like that in the minor leagues. We come here and it’s the same game.”

It sounds like Villar isn’t going to change, and as long as he can hit .285/.369/.457 with a positive FRAA, then his poor baserunning can be tossed by the wayside and labeled as aggressive havoc that troubles the more easily frazzled hurlers.

It is not always wise to look at first half/second half splits but in Garza’s case for the 2016 season, there is reason to believe he was a different pitcher post all-star break. He spent the first two and a half months of the season on the disabled list with a strained right lat. His first five starts before the all-star break were miserable, posting a 5.54 ERA in 26 innings, which make his end of the year numbers look much different than his second half numbers alone. He posted a 4.16 ERA in 75.7 innings after the all-star break. Take any pitcher’s worst five starts out of the equation and they will all come out smelling like roses, but when examining Garza’s 2016 it is obvious he was going through an adjustment period early-July 2016.

Matt Garza survived the 2016 season all while facing the toughest competition among National League starters with over 100 innings pitched. His oppOPS of .748 was the highest. His oppRPA+ was three points higher than the next. If he had as much luck as his teammate Junior Guerra, who was third from the bottom in oppOPS, his ERA and FIP possibly could’ve snuck under 4.00. Out of his 19 starts, he faced the Cubs, Cardinals, and Nationals twice each, the top three National League offenses according to TAv. He had five starts against the Pirates who were no offensive slouch themselves. Garza would be incredibly unlucky to face the same type of competition in the first half of 2017.

Even while recovering from a serious injury and facing the stiffest competition in the National League, the career fly-ball pitcher turned himself into one of the most prolific groundball pitchers in the league. His GB% shot up to 57 percent, a whole seven percentage points higher than his next single season total way back in 2012. The high groundball rate will keep him away from his home run problem that plagued him in his 2015 campaign and throughout his major-league career. A full season of Orlando Arcia at the shortstop position will ensure that most of the groundballs are turned into outs.

There are various other small hints at Matt Garza’s potentially successful 2017. His velocity crept up every month in 2016. He kept the ball in the bottom half of the strike zone more often than he ever has in his career. His slightly high BABIP should come down with an improved Brewers infield. All of this is without taking into consideration his attractive $5 million club option for the 2018 season. The option could potentially be a huge value if he performs. David Stearns and the Brewers front office wouldn’t put up with the off-field antics if they didn’t think they could get something of value out of Garza. With a weak free agent class this winter and the never ending and increasing demand for competent 5^th, 6^th, or even 7^th starting pitchers, the veteran right-hander should net a contributing piece to the Milwaukee Brewers future if he builds on his promising second half of 2016.

How will Eric Thames’ defense be?

In the grand scheme of things, or really in any scheme of things in 2017, it’s probably not really important at all. However, given that Chris Carter posted an amazing -12.1 FRAA, good for 59^th and absolute last among first basemen in 2016, it’s possible that it might matter a little more to the Brewers than to any other team. In fact, Chris Carter’s defensive FRAA in 2016 ranks 3,081 out of 3,136 seasons by first basemen since 1950.

Projection systems so far have been fairly bullish on Thames’ offensive output. Steamer and ZiPS, respectively have Thames projected for over an .800 OPS, and Clay Davenport’s translation from his production in Korea is even more optimistic, with a 1.000+ OPS.

If his offense is even just close in production to what Carter offered, the Brewers might end up having more to gain even if Eric Thames can just be average at first base to the tune of a win or more. Could he be better than that though?

Unfortunately, publicly available KBO statistics don’t give us anything of particular use defensively. You could argue that he won Korea’s Golden Glove at first base last year, as was cited in several articles after Thames signed with the Brewers this winter. However, the Gold Gloves in Korea are actually awarded to the best players at each position overall, not solely on defensive capability or metrics—to the point of a Golden Glove awarded to a DH every year. I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself after the shock of learning that a league’s Gold Glove award might not just take defense into account.

That leaves us with his minor league and brief stints in the majors, but he hasn’t played any first base at any point in his career stateside. Splitting his time between right field and left, he has basically averaged out to slightly below average outfielder. Playing in 95 games his rookie year in Toronto mostly in left, Thames was -3.0 FRAA, and the following year splitting time between Toronto and Seattle he was close to average.

The scouting reports on Thames have  been pretty consistently down on his defense overall. In the 2011 Baseball Prospectus Annual, he was called “below average.” Interestingly, the 2013 Annual report pointed out some conflicting data on his defense, and is worth quoting here in full:

“When you start feeling confident in advanced defensive metrics, go look at Thames, who is either an above-average left fielder (+4 runs in his 181-game career, according to us) or a considerably worse option than Bobby Abreu right now (-19, by John Dewan’s +/- ratings). That’s a big difference and it’s a big deal in evaluating Thames, whose bat is just average for a corner. With an average glove, he’s an every-day player on a second-division team, and perhaps the big half of a platoon on a contender; without it, he’s quad-A. The consensus among those who watched him in Toronto, where he was frequently replaced for defense late in games, leans heavily toward the latter.”

It appears from as much information as we can cobble together, Thames was somewhere between an average to below-average left fielder. That seems like it would work out okay defensively at first base. Surely a converted left fielder at first would be…oh. We’re back to Chris Carter again.

To expand our sample size outside the Brewers organization, I used Baseball Reference’s Play Index to look at active players who have played both positions and more than 500 games. The list of those players, along with their average FRAA since they started playing the majority of their games at first base:

Obviously, the list isn’t a perfect mirror of Thames’ situation, and Albert Pujols skews the average FRAA pretty heavily. Some players moved back and forth between positions, which may not reflect their first base-only FRAA. But the larger point is that players who have switched between left and first base generally have been below-average fielders at first (the rare exception seems to be super-utility guys like Steve Pearce or Sean Rodriguez), and we might expect the same out of Thames. But even a Lucas Duda-type FRAA season for Thames represents almost 6 FRAA improvement from last year at first.

Hey, I told you this wasn’t important in the grand scheme for 2017. Unless Eric Thames is Albert Pujols…

Related Reading:
Can Keon Broxton Make Enough Contact?
Carter-Broxton Plate Discipline

The Mariners, pushing for their first postseason appearance in fifteen years, toppled the Brewers by a final score of 7-6, spoiling Brent Suter’s major league debut. But Keon Broxton knocked the stuffing out of the Mariners’ pitching staff.

He’d been doing this a lot lately, and people were starting to notice. Within a week of this game, Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs, and Beyond the Box Score all ran pieces extolling his potential. (Fangraphs did so again a week later.) Saddled with an anemic roster after the August 1 trade deadline, the Brewers had precious few reasons to capture the attention of national writers. They had Keon Broxton, though.

After a dreadful first half, during which he hit .125 and struck out in an astonishing 44 percent of his plate appearances, Broxton was coming into his own. Since rejoining the big-league club on July 26, he’d slashed a potent .350/.458/.567. Eight of his twenty-one hits in that time had gone for extra bases. Lest you think his game was one-dimensional, he also stole ten bases in as many attempts. This was the potential that David Stearns and company had seen when they traded away Jason Rogers for Broxton and Trey Supak in a bold offseason move. Hell, this was past that potential. The table, in other words, was perfectly set for Broxton’s finest offensive game of the season.

It didn’t seem like anything special at first. Broxton batted second that day, and worked a full count in the top of the first before smoking a sky-high fly ball to left field. The pitch – a juicy Wade LeBlanc cutter – jumped off the bat at 103 miles per hour. But Broxton got under it, lifting the ball into the air at an angle approaching 46 degrees. That’s close to a sure out – since Statcast debuted in 2015, nine balls have been struck with a similar speed and angle, and all but one of them found a fielder’s glove.

The lone exception (in left-center) occurred in April of 2015, when Mike Napoli hit a ball to a tricky part of Fenway Park, flummoxing rookie outfielder Michael Taylor. Napoli, no burner, wound up on first with a single.

So this was a routine out. But Broxton hit the ball hard, and he knew it.

Meanwhile, Wade LeBlanc was cruising. He’d set down the first ten Brewers he faced when Broxton next came to the plate in the top of the fourth. Broxton worked another full count, then unloaded on an 87-mph two-seamer. The ball left the bat at 111 miles per hour, and whistled 274 feet into the outfield on an 11-degree plane. Batted balls with this combination of speed and launch angle fall for hits better than nine times out of ten.

Two innings later, the game became interesting. The Mariners had jumped to a 4-1 lead, but Jonathan Villar led off the top of the sixth with a solo home run. Sensing weakness, Broxton pounced. He watched a first-pitch curveball catch the plate for a called strike one, then crushed another cutter down the left-field line for a solo home run of his own. This time, the exit velocity was 115 mph, with a launch angle of 20 degrees. That spells trouble for opposing pitchers – only two batted balls in the Statcast era have had that profile, and both have left the park.

By the top of the seventh, LeBlanc was done. Broxton wasn’t. He lined an RBI single to the right-center gap, plating Villar and once again bringing the Brewers within a run. This time, his victim was Arquimedes Caminero, whose 98-mph fastball became a 105-mph line drive at an angle of 8.5 degrees.

Broxton came to the plate once more, capping off his day with a walk to load the bases in the ninth. The rally fell short, but not on account of Keon Broxton. His four batted balls for the day each carried exit velocities of over 100 mph.

This virtuosic performance wasn’t exactly out of the blue. Broxton’s average exit velocity for the entirety of 2016 was a scorching 95 miles per hour, putting him ahead of sluggers like Miguel Cabrera or David Ortiz. That’s elite company, and for a time, Keon Broxton played as if he belonged in that company. By the time he went to bed on August 19th, he had raised his batting average to .250, matching his season-high. His 0.283 Win Probability Added (WPA) that game was his best mark of the year. He managed a .294/.399/.538 slash line in the second half of the season before going down with a broken wrist on September 16.

It’s important to note that all four of his bullets on the 19^th came against fastballs –had the Mariners fed him a diet of breaking balls and changeups, he may have fared quite differently. Remember, too, that players with Broxton’s swing-and-miss tendencies are inherently risky business. Strong power numbers and a high walk rate help mitigate the risk in his profile, but nothing saps power like a wrist injury. It’s entirely possible that the flame of Keon Broxton burned hot and fast and reached its blazing apex that August night in Seattle. By this time next year, he could be a 27-year-old looking for a minor-league contract, forced out of Milwaukee by some combination of whiffs and Lewis Brinson.

On the other hand – and this is the hand I’m more inclined to believe in the middle of a molasses-slow offseason – he could be Joc Pedersen with better defense and more stolen bases. With six full seasons of contractual control, that would be a uniquely valuable asset for a Milwaukee club facing a long climb to the top of the NL Central.

Related Reading
Creating Surplus Analysis and Depreciation Models
Normative Analysis
The Ideal 40-Man Roster

On the Difficulties of Assessing Prospects and MLB Players
First, that an “MLB player” has actually cracked the big leagues and developed some type of role can either enhance or diminish that player’s value. Either way, once that player’s value is expressed in WARP, or some other clearly defined MLB statistic, it becomes much clearer and therefore (usually) “depressed” compared to the OFP of a prospect. (Only a few can be, say, Scooter Gennetts, 50-grade prospects who actually become 4.0 career WARP MLB players! [This is a good thing, not a dig at Gennett.]). Obviously, there are MLB players with non-linear career arcs, role changes, fast or slow declines, etc., across the prospect spectrum — no 60 OFP prospect is guaranteed to become an All-Star, and a 45 OFP prospect may put together a season as a starting player at some point. Future grades and future roles are not concrete.

Second, prospects are judged in completely different ways than MLB players. An MLB player is almost always judged according to three criteria: (1) production, (2) role, and (3) contract. Sure, “production” could be nitpicked with advanced analytics — one could write programs valuing players based on physical and mechanical traits, instead of outcomes (like, say, Strikeouts / Walks / Homers for a pitcher). This is still a concrete analysis of “what has happened” that will arguably weigh what has happened much heavier than what will happen (unless one is attempting to work on a specific type of regression analysis that aims to forecast a player’s traits as future production).

But a prospect can be judged according to best possible ceiling, actual floor, distance between ceiling and floor, proximity to the MLB, risk, individual tools (i.e., the Brewers took a chance on Adam Walker because of his power), aggregate approach / mechanics, projection, and — if you’re bold — even statistics! Even a player like Brett Phillips or Miguel Diaz is difficult to judge, not to mention someone like Phil Bickford, Demi Orimoloye, or Gilbert Lara.

• Miguel Diaz was assessed with a 60 OFP grade during an immensely successful 2016 campaign at Class-A Wisconsin, but he was somewhat old (age-21) for his level and has mechanical, size, injury, and workload questions that leave some to lean on the chance that Diaz is a relief pitching wildcard. So…striking a balance here is quite difficult, between the odds that Diaz has a chance to reach 3.0 / 2.0 / 2.0 WARP seasons as an MLB player, or that his career takes a 1.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 reliever path. Without even considering risk or any other aspect of Diaz’s development here, monetizing those WARP figures suggests that Diaz could be worth anywhere from $7.0 million to $49.0 million in terms of production value for an MLB team. There’s nothing satisfying about that spread.

• Phillips, a much more advanced and theoretically less risky prospect than Diaz, even exhibits the unsatisfactory aspects of grading prospects in a manner that allows them to be compared to MLB players (for the sake of grading trades and grading roster moves, for instance). There’s the 55 OFP Phillips, a tricky prospect with some bat questions but an overall full-package that allows him to project in either CF or RF, and there’s the 2016 Phillips that caused some evaluators to raise questions about platoon or bench futures. Digging deeper into Phillips’s campaign, nothing is easy — do you judge his statistics on the surface of his age, overall AVG / OBP / SLG line in the Southern League, and focus on issues of strike outs, or do you dig into the context for age-22 seasons in the Southern League and emphasize that even with all the warts, Phillips had one of the most productive seasons in the League? Again, nothing clear-cut or satisfactory here, although depending on how an analysts leans into this information, one could emerge with the positive picture of a left-handed bat that will draw the fat end of a platoon with some discipline and power promise to make the defense worth while (which is perfect counterpart to a current Brewers RF who may be short on chances to correct his own platoon issues). Again, nothing satisfactory here — the 3.0 / 2.0 / 0.0 WARP Phillips may be less likely, but even a platooning Phillips could do better than 1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0 WARP progressions.

Economics and Taking the Longview
The other issue with assessing minor leaguers is their contractual reserve status with their parent clubs. First, minor leaguers are criminally underpaid, leaving clubs that are looking to shed MLB contracts for prospects in the wondrous position of downgrading costs from (at least) $550,000 to maybe $10,000 (or less). When the Brewers swapped Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers (and an international bonus slot) for Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, Adrian Houser, and Josh Hader, they surrendered at least $14 million in likely contracts (for 2016-2017) for what was almost certainly less than $2 million in likely contracts (for 2016-2017). That salary relief is worth nearly 2.0 WARP, on top of the surplus value and OFP the Brewers acquired in Hader, Houser, Phillips, and Santana.

Moreover, it is problematic to consider whether prospects should be evaluated for their immediate likely contribution to an organization (i.e., their trade value and maybe their first two or three years as an MLB player), or evaluated on the grounds that an MLB club potentially reserves their contractual rights for six-to-seven years. This is a difficult judgment because it will twist the values of prospects with high floors that may be able to contribute almost immediately to an MLB club, and it will also twist the values of prospects that could have huge OFP payoff that may legitimately be a half-decade away (even players like Lorenzo Cain and Jake Odorizzi are solid examples of this, as they each took at least three years to morph into their best and most-productive MLB selves, even though they were both relatively advanced prospects when traded prior to the 2011 season). Cain himself is a prospect who looked like his 2009 “Perfect World Projection” was 100 percent accurate (4.2 WARP prior to 2014), and then he turned on the burners to nearly triple that value in his next three seasons. This may be a vote in favor of using a prospect’s immediate future as a valuation tool, but once again, there are many unsatisfactory aspects of this method.

As an example, the Zack Greinke trade shows just the issue with assessing prospects.

• Even slapping a 45 OFP relief grade on Jeremy Jeffress to enter 2011 gives the righty a huge potential contract surplus for years of control. Incidentially, Jeffress’s career WARP has almost perfectly matched the $14.7M approximate value of a 45 OFP ([1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0] * 70 percent), which leads one to wonder whether simply using a monetized WARP version of OFP is the best way to assess prospects on the same transactional scale as MLB players.
• By that measure, the Brewers received exceptional trade return from their Alcides Escobar-lead package, by more than 3.0 WARP ($29.2M).
• However, if one considers the value of contractual control — which the Royals adroitly demonstrated with Cain and Escobar, and did not with Jeffress or Odorizzi, the Brewers paid more than 9.0 WARP (-$66.5M) to acquire Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt for a potential playoff push.
• In terms of what actually happened, both teams maximized their deals — the Brewers received actual contractual value and production worth 15 percent more than the advertised sticker price at the time of the trade, and the Royals turned Cain and Escobar into a whopping $277.1M total surplus (six times their advertised sticker price!) while spinning Odorizzi as a part of what became the club’s Pennant and Championship-defining trade.

Hypothetical Modeling
As an example of the difficulties of judging prospects, consider a potential trade involving Ryan Braun, a proven elite MLB left fielder. Even with his guaranteed four-year contract, Braun’s track record (improving into his 30s, no less!) shows a total surplus of $45.8M, meaning that the opportunity cost for trading Braun is at least six wins. Following my investigation of the Astros’ trade for Brian McCann, I suspected that MLB teams do not necessarily consider a player’s depreciated performance when trading for an MLB player; in this case, Braun’s three-year production value is $58.8M, and his total surplus value (including his contract!) is worth $96.8 million.

Depending on how one reads it:

• Braun’s total surplus is hardly worth the total, full contract reserve of any average-or-better prospect (leading me to conclude that this method is problematic).

• Depreciated Braun may be worth the basic value of one 60 OFP prospect and a bench-profile throw-in.

• Non-depreciated Braun may be worth the basic value of at least two 60 OFP prospects (although this seems high).

• Braun-plus-cash is legitimately the best way to improve the prospect return for the veteran.

• Using contract surplus for a prospect, instead of total surplus, Braun is worth approximately one 60 OFP and 50 OFP prospect package.

• Of course, given the individual prospects involved, even these figures may not be helpful. A 45-50 OFP prospect that makes an adjustment to maximize a particular approach or tool could become a 55 OFP prospect. A 60 OFP prospect like Isan Diaz may appear out of thin air. Risky, low-minors plays (like Freddy Peralta, Carlos Herrera, and Daniel Missaki in the Adam Lind trade) may help to maximize the value of a potentially risky veteran trade.

Ultimately, the prospect valuation issue shows the difficulty of Cost-Benefit Analysis, where disparate elements of a transaction must be assessed on the same terms. Obviously, there is no real comparison between an MLB player and a prospect; “prospects are prospects” for a reason. Even the Brett Phillips of the world — legitimately good prospects that provide solid trade return for MLB veterans (like Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers) — could become bench / platoon options that do not deliver on their full promise. For this reason, prospect monetization assessments based on WARP or projected WARP may always look a little funky, as there is such a harsh range of realities to consider. By slogging through the comparisons, however, one can begin to appreciate that there can indeed be value in swapping such divergent assets as MLB players for prospects.

The Brewers have money to spend. They still have just $39.9 million committed before arbitration contracts, projected to cost roughly $21 million, for a total of $61 million. Considering the club drew over two million fans once again in 2016, there should be room in the budget for at least one or two more acquisitions, even if they are smaller deals on a similar scale as the Thames contract. Relief pitchers are usually considered the last piece necessary for a rebuilding franchise like Milwaukee. However, due to their typically short-term contracts, relievers are the perfect fit for the Brewers budget at this point.

One of the clearest goals of David Stearns’s rebuilding efforts has been to create financial flexibility in the future. Ryan Braun and Thames are the only players under contract past 2017, and given the rumor mill since back in the regular season, it wouldn’t be surprising if Braun’s contract isn’t long for the books. Without any lingering major contracts stuffing the payroll, the Brewers will be able to strike in the free agent market when they have a strong enough core to make a playoff run.

It’s understandable for fans of teams in this situation to dislike the idea of long, committal offers for free agents, a vast majority of whom are in the decline phases of their careers. But teams have very few resources with which to get better. Recent changes to the collective bargaining agreement like bonus pools for draft picks and restrictive amateur bonus caps are leaving teams with only one talent market to throw their cash at: major league free agents.

If the Brewers don’t push their payroll to its limit, they’re leaving cards on the table. Since they understandably don’t want to make a long-term commitment, relievers are an ideal investment. There is always a robust midseason trade market for them, and contenders will be willing to overpay for short-term improvements. And veteran relief presence does have value on a rebuilding team like Milwaukee’s, as they can soak up innings and help the club avoid overworking their developing younger pitchers.

The names connected to the Brewers include many former closers. Most interesting are the post-injury reclamation projects like Greg Holland and Neftali Feliz. There are also some older players like Santiago Casilla, Sergio Romo, or Koji Uehara who may be looking for their last contract and could be signed for a less committal one or two year deal. All of these players could develop huge trade value should they win the Brewers closing role and succeed to begin the 2017 season.

Whatever the Brewers decide, there are good options out there. This club makes too much money for them to sit on their hands with a minimal payroll. If they want to acquire enough talent to contend with the big guns in this division, a Cubs team that virtually prints money and a Cardinals team often hailed as the best-run in baseball, they can’t afford to waste any resources. That free agent money, if well spent, will turn into talent down the road.