Heading into the 2017 season, few Brewers fans were worried about second base. Jonathan Villar had spent the previous summer making good on his potential, authoring a 4.7 WARP season along the way. Scooter Gennett and Yadiel Rivera provided a decent insurance policy: one could be relied on for some decent at bats, while the […]
Tag: 2017 Brewers analysis
Weekend Recap: Hader and Braun
The Brewers concluded another up and down week at its highest point, completing a sweep of the Chicago Cubs over the weekend to bring the squad within two games of the division lead. The weekend once again featured strong pitching performances from the starters and the bullpen. The Cubs mustered only three runs over the […]
Going Forward Without Jimmy Nelson
Because baseball, like life, is pain, emergent Brewers ace Jimmy Nelson is now out for the season after suffering a torn labrum sliding back into first base after hitting a long single off the wall in Friday night’s win over the Cubs. Watching it in real time, I was afraid he was going to pull a hip […]
Freddy Peralta and Quality Depth
Corbin Burnes is going to win the Milwaukee Brewers’ organizational minor league pitcher of the year award, and deservedly so. In his first full season as a professional, Burnes authored a pristine 1.67 ERA across 145.7 innings split between Class Advanced-A Carolina and Class-AA Biloxi. Only two pitchers across all of the minor leagues reached the 100 innings […]
Zach Davies has Recovered
Out of the gate, Zach Davies was one of the worst pitchers in baseball. Through April, he had the sixth-worst earned run average among those with over twenty-four innings pitched at 6.57. He walked over four batters per nine innings in April and allowed and batting average on balls in play close to .400. Davies’s […]
Brewers Home Run and Strikeout Tendencies
A common criticism levied against the Brewers has been that they are over-reliant on home runs and too prone to strikeouts. The Brewers do lead the league in team strikeouts, but they are not an outlier in terms of the relationship between their total runs scored and the number of home runs they hit. It […]
Who is Brandon Woodruff?
Brewers fans are undoubtedly, and justifiably, thrilled with Brandon Woodruff’s debut performance thus far in 2017. The rookie righty surged onto the scene last season, after previously making a bit of noise prior to 2015 as a “Prospect on the Rise” as a late-inning relief option. The trouble with fan appreciation of Woodruff is that […]
Weekend Recap: Villar, Jeffress
The Brewers took three of four games from the Washington Nationals this weekend, pulling to within half a game of the second wild card spot. The pitching had another strong weekend, holding the Washington offense, which is 3rd in MLB with a .276 TAv to eight runs across the four games. Unfortunately, with the Cubs […]
Aces Don’t Exist: Rotation Spots
Recently, Brew Crew Ball Editor and BPMilwaukee Prospect Editor Kyle Lesniewski posed a question about ranking 5th starters by team. The seemingly simple task includes an opportunity to test assumptions about MLB rotations: Specially, are there truly MLB rotational roles? If so, how many pitchers take regular turns in the rotation? If there are indeed […]
The Turn
The Brewers continue to hang around after a strong west coast road trip. After a Tuesday night stinker by Matt Garza, the club split against St. Louis thanks to a getaway win yesterday afternoon. Milwaukee flexed their home run muscle, and Corey Knebel withstood a ninth inning rally thanks to Keon Broxton’s timely glove. Broxton […]