My dad, who grew up in and around Chicago, remembers driving into Wrigleyville with a friend in the summer of 1969, when Billy Williams, Ron Santo, and Ernie Banks batted 3-4-5 for the Cubs. He was seventeen years old and was there to see his first-place Cubs take on the New York Mets. The Cubs […]
Tag: 2017 Brewers
The Undeniable Average
A common line regarding the 2017 Brewers is that the pitching staff is the weakness of the club. It’s easy to see this: eight of the club’s 19 losses have occurred when the club scored five or more runs, which of course means that the pitching staff was either bad or horrible in those games. […]
Heavy Hitting Brewers
Can anything slow down the Brewers offense? Over the past couple of weeks, they’ve dealt with absences from the Eric Thames, Ryan Braun and Travis Shaw — the entire heart of the order — and yet they’ve continued to produce. Even with Sunday’s loss to the Cubs, the Brewers are 10-2 over the past 12 […]
The Call-Up: Paolo Espino
The Situation: The Milwaukee Brewers find themselves in unfamiliar territory early on this season: in first place in the National League Central at 24-18. The Brew Crew’s hot start has been thanks in large part to an offense that ranks second in the league with 221 runs scored. The pitching staff looked rather suspect early […]
Examining Keon Broxton
Outside of Eric Thames, there may not have been a more interesting player coming into the 2017 campaign than Keon Broxton. Acquired by the Brewers in December 2015, Broxton broke onto the scene in 2016. He slashed .242/.354/.430 in 244 plate appearances, accumulating a 1.4 WARP. Drag that out over a full season and you […]
The Brewers’ Weakness Thus Far
With full seasons from Orlando Arcia at shortstop and Keon Broxton in centerfield, the Milwaukee Brewers team defense, which ranked 22nd in defensive efficiency in 2016, was supposed to be improved. The opposite has been true. The Brewers are currently ranked as the worst fielding team in baseball according to the Baseball Prospectus defensive efficiency […]
Milwaukee’s Other First Baseman
It’s funny how quickly we get spoiled by things, simply because we’re accustomed to them. As Louis CK once said, “everything’s amazing, and nobody’s happy.” I’m as caught up in Thames-mania as anyone. (Do we have a better phrase for this yet? Seems like we should). But I think back to our expectations over the […]
Villar’s Pick-Offs
Earlier this year, I wrote about Jonathan Villar’s horrendous baserunning in 2016. He posted a Ground Advancement Run (GAR) of -3.57, which was fifth worst in the bigs behind Yadier Molina, Dioner Navarro, Dustin Pedroia and Yasmani Grandal. Four of them are catchers, and the other is a middle infielder on the wrong side of […]
Jonathan Villar’s 2017 Profile
Last year, Jonathan Villar was one of the Brewers’ best players and one of baseball’s best stories. He hit .285/.369/.457 and was roughly an average defender at shortstop, which translated into 4.7 WARP. He also led all of baseball with 62 stolen bases. Part of the Brewers’ offseason strategy centered around keeping him in the […]
Domingo Santana Has Evolved Into a Big-League Hitter
The emergence of stars such as Eric Thames, Travis Shaw, and the two-headed catching monster that is Manny and the Jett have been instrumental in turning the 2017 Brewers into a feared offensive team. But across the board, Milwaukee’s everyday players have been replacement level or better, and this depth has been just as important […]