Against the mighty Cubs, then, the Brewers went +6 RS / +12 RA compared to an average distribution of the Cubs seasonal Runs Scored and Runs Allowed. Compared to the Brewers’ own performance, Milwaukee went +2 RS / -3 RA against the Cubs based on an average distribution of their seasonal Runs Scored and Runs Allowed. On balance, this means that the Milwaukee Nine held their own against the vastly superior Cubs, which was evident throughout the tense September series in which the Brewers forced a divisional conversation and nearly made the playoffs.

Brewers fans are largely complaining about the state of the club’s Winter Meetings, as the club is expected to improve pitching but came away from the meetings without any new starting pitchers or relievers. Obviously, the offseason is very young, and Stearns himself has shown a penchant for working deep into the offseason: see the Khris Davis trade in February 2016, as one example, or even the bullpen-depth-defining Jared Hughes signing entering 2017. But even as fans fret about a rotation featuring Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, Junior Guerra, Brent Suter, and Brandon Woodruff to enter 2017, it is worth remembering the performance against the Cubs to frame the potential of this group of arms. Specifically, it was the unassuming Davies (and, arguably, equally unassuming Anderson and Suter) that strung together some of the best outings against the Cubs.

In fact, selecting a biased sample of these four pitchers’ best starts against the Cubs, a 58.7 IP, 15 runs (2.30 runs average!), 47 strikeout / 11 walk / 4 home run performance appears. Despite a 47 RS / 28 RA (!!!) team performance in these ten, Milwaukee’s bats and bullpen unfortunately failed to support the starters in some of these games, resulting in a 6-4 record despite the successful starting pitching (Milwaukee went 3-6 in the other nine games versus the Cubs with a much worse 41 RS / 56 RA performance).

Selecting the successful games obviously presents a biased image of performance, but it is worth diving into these starts in order to see how the Brewers succeeded. In what follows, it will be clear that the Brewers succeeded by adjusting throughout the year against the Cubs, and (for the most part) sticking with extremely balanced pitch selection approaches against the monstrous Cubs offense. What is meant to result from this study is increased fan confidence in the approach of the pitchers along with the catching staff, coaches, and (probably) team baseball research department. The Brewers undoubtedly had a lot go right in 2017, and if no baseball season can be successful without luck, the Brewers were particularly lucky in their convergence of events. But, luck does not explain the full story, as across the board a group of relatively unknown or unheralded players quietly gave hell to the most hyped team on the Senior Circuit.

This is not to suggest that the Brewers will have continued success against Cubs bats simply by working in similar zones, but rather that these Brewers processes of dancing throughout the zone from start to start could continue to orient these arms for seemingly surprising success. Indeed, the Brewers arms already improved by 26 runs between the first and second half of 2017, thanks to a 4.11 runs average in August, capped off with 3.64 runs average in September/October. Milwaukee is a pitching-first club, and the nails approach against the Cubs demonstrates one of the keys to that success.

The image of Zach Davies conjures a sinker-change up starter who constantly works low in the zone. What’s intriguing about Davies’s success against the Cubs throughout 2017 is that the righty consistently worked up into the zone to offset his low, sinking change up and blooping curve. Moreover, the righty’s additional pitch, what Brooks Baseball calls a “Cutter” but could be somewhere between a traditional cut fastball and slider, became one of the balancing aspects of his approach with the Cubs. The “cutter” itself for Davies is an interesting pitch, one that the young righty first expanded in 2016, and then shifted slightly in 2017; the PITCHf/x readings are slight, but essentially in 2017 Davies was using the pitch to “run” slightly more armside and rise slightly more than the 2016 version. Unlike 2016, Davies basically evened out his exceptional change up and big curveball, an arsenal change that churned out more groundballs and whiffs from the cutter in 2017.

Here are Davies’s four best starts against the Cubs. The shifts are subtle, but it’s clear that the righty was changing his approach with each meeting against the Cubs simply based on pitch selection. But these aren’t wholesale changes, instead (like the pitcher) they went on-a-bit, off-a-bit, adding and subtracting subtly to find a successful approach with each start. By the end of the year, the approach was working wonders for the righty.

Davies did not simply rely on pitch selection to baffle the Cubs, however. The righty consistently changed his approach within the zone for each start, including challenging the Cubs up in the zone with both fastballs and breaking balls. According to Brooks Baseball, here are the four best Davies starts versus the Cubs in terms of total zone migration:

By separating Davies’s sinker and fastball, as well as his cutter, change, and curveball, one can isolate the specific areas of the zone in which the righty was attempting to work “hard” and “soft.” Here are Davies’s sinker and the occasional fastball:

I grouped Davies’s “cutter” with the change and curve, because I’m simply not certain that it works like an additional “hard” pitch for Davies. The righty’s arsenal is beginning to look like that of Shaun Marcum at his best (a very good thing, remember Marcum was a 12.1 WARP starter from 2007-2011), meaning that the righty can provide armside- and gloveside-breaking pitches, while also essentially changing speeds on his “sinker” (with the change up) and “fastball” (with the cutter), making the curveball the “great” equalizer. Against previous scouting reports, size questions remain for Davies, although he has remained particularly durable in each of his advanced seasons thus far, and he is succeeding beyond the expected back-end starter “Overall Future Potential (OFP)” role because of his ability to adjust at the MLB level and due to his new cutter.

The cutter is typically the breaking pitch that Davies throws “uo” in the zone, with the curve and change dropping low. This gives Davies the distinct advantage of working three different velocity levels through different areas the zone:

What is striking about both migrations throughout the zone is that Davies does not simply “climb the ladder” with the hard stuff as time progresses, but he also locates his “breaking” and “off speed” offerings higher in the zone from time-to-time, too. As a result, Davies is essentially going straight after Cubs batters, and despite their acumen for power, they were largely unable to hit the righty as the season wore on. This could be an effective mindgame from Davies, insofar as he has established himself as someone who not only prefers to work low in the zone but also is perceived to be someone who cannot come into the zone to challenge batters. One might question whether batters’ lack of expectation for pitches within the zone allowed Davies to have an advantage for pounding those areas with strikes. Indeed, he was rather successful throughout these four starts in terms of limiting hits:

Notice that by the last start against the Cubs, despite locating heavily throughout the zone and especially gloveside (to your right on the GIF), the Cubs simply did not end AB in those zones, and did not collect hits in those areas.

Like Davies, Chase Anderson’s success in 2017 swirled around a cutter and a curveball, although those tow pitches mean two different things for both arms. Anderson has become slightly more of a “velocity” pitcher, ramping his fastball from roughly 92 MPH in 2014 to nearly 94 MPH in 2017, and he famously revamped his curveball and cutter under the watch of pitching coach Derek Johnson. With a new grip, and increased usage of both the curve and cutter (at the expense of the change and other fastballs), Anderson upped the whiffs and groundballs on the curveball within the system of his new arsenal.

What is interesting about Anderson is that while one might expect Davies to be the wily pitch shifter, against the Cubs Anderson’s five-pitch arsenal moved in a more extreme manner than that of Davies. With the added velocity, Anderson effectively looks like a cross between a pitch-bending trickster and a classic over-the-top power pitcher:

From start to start against the Cubs, Anderson also migrated his pitching approach throughout the zone. Here are the righty’s three best starts against the Cubs. Notice the total overall migration from armside-to-gloveside zone approaches, especially the sharp overall pitch location contrast between the two September starts:

Within these overall migration patterns, Anderson’s distinct alignment of the cutter / fastballs approach and off-speed stuff is a beautiful thing. Unlike Davies, I lumped Anderson’s cutter in with his fastballs, simply because Anderson has a less distinct fastball queue than Davies (who throws a true “sinker”), as Anderson’s “moving” fastball is more like a hard running, riding pitch than a sinker. That his cutter is also nearly 90 MPH makes that pitch much closer to Anderson’s original fastball velocity, and easier to classify as a true cut fastball. Watch as Anderson stacks up the Cubs gloveside with hard stuff in his first September start, then dilutes the hard pitches throughout the zone:

What’s stunning with Anderson’s fastball / off-speed pitching approach is how he completely splits the two classifications of pitches throughout the zone. Granted, this would happen somewhat with Davies as well if the cutter is treated like a fastball instead of a breaking ball, so it is worth bearing this methodological decision in mind. Still, Anderson’s split is quite extreme, as shown in his first September start: with fastballs and cutters blaring in gloveside, Anderson whips those off-speed pitches to the armside of the zone. Once again, this is a beautiful type of dispersion, as once the Cubs have this start in mind, during their second look at Anderson later in the month, he completely moves his off-speed pitches gloveside.

Like Davies, Anderson effectively used these moving selections to limit hits from Cubs bats:

With Brent Suter and Junior Guerra, there are fewer starts available, and therefore less room to compare their respective arsenals.

So let’s just appreciate that Suter throws his 86 MPH fastball as his majority pitch (he is NOT a junkballer), and that he also consistently used his fastball to challenge Cubs bats high in the zone:

With the lefty’s insistence against squaring up when he releases the ball, Suter’s high fastball must be an uncomfortable sight. Imagine the Raptor’s arms rotating at you, and then instead of a top-down delivery, the southpaw slings the ball around his body while also pushing it high in the zone. This is a beautiful pitch, and it’s also worth questioning whether Suter is really just throwing a cutter; from time to time, the Raptor throws that pitch in a way to break “in” on righties, which is precisely what he did in both starts against the Cubs.

Not to be outdone, Guerra’s post-injury work against the Cubs revealed a bizarre variation of his splitter, where the off-speed pitch actually flattened out and seemed to flutter as a “straight change up” to the plate. Guerra often seemed to have no idea where the bizarre splitter would run, as the pitch sometimes dropped, sometimes rose, and sometimes simply landed on a straight line like Rich Harden’s ghost pitch:

It should not be viewed as a cliche that the Brewers beat the Cubs because their best pitchers consistently adjusted against Chicago bats. It’s not a truism that MLB players succeed by adjusting; they succeed by adjusting, and at times when the adjustments don’t work, the struggles can be difficult to turn into effective performances. The Brewers succeeded with a gang of unheralded pitchers, in the form of swingman Suter, old rookie Guerra, “back-end” Davies, and replacement level Anderson. But none of this quartet was what they were supposed to be during the 2017 season, in part because of their ability to use flexible approaches to maximize their tools. Davies maximized his approach by coming after presumably unsuspecting batters high in the zone, while Anderson maximized his approach by running vast migrations throughout the strike zone. The difficulty of this approach is that while it is true that Milwaukee will once against need these pitchers to adjust to succeed in 2018, their adjustments may not necessarily mimic their 2017 success; new or changed pitches may emerge, new pitch sequencing, or velocity questions (or surpluses) may also impact zone approaches.

At the very least, the ability to adjust in 2017 should cause Brewers fans and analysts not to count out this unsuspecting rotation prior to 2018.

Photo Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki, USAToday Sports Images.

Yet when the Cubs come to town, the stadium is often dominated by Chicagoans, and Milwaukee fans get ripped by media both local and national as a result. “How can they let this happen? Why don’t they buy up all of the tickets?” The answer, sabermetrically speaking, is that the Cub fans who regularly travel to Miller Park are bad people. Jackholes. Human Castoreum. The team still invites Jim Belushi to things in order to appeal to THESE SPECIFIC PEOPLE.

I don’t mean to besmirch all Cub fans. The Cub fans who regularly attend games in the friendly confines of Wrigley Field are generally friendly. I lived here:

for 5 years from 2005 until 2010 and I have attended somewhere around 100 games at Wrigley Field, frequently wearing Brewer gear. I’ve never had a problem, and highly recommend making the trek to Chicago if you haven’t been before.

But the Cub fans who travel to Miller Park  are not your typical Cub fans. They tend to be actively hostile to the home crowd, they start fights, they drink far too much, spill beer on people with impunity, and make viewing the game from the stands an incredibly unpleasant experience. I tweeted this last night just to gather some stories about people’s experiences.

It’s not the only reason, but one reason so many Brewer fans don’t go to these is that the Cub fans who travel are (censored)

— BadgerNoonan (@BadgerNoonan) September 22, 2017

While the plural of anecdote isn’t data, just take a look at all of this “anecdot-a”:

This is a fact. Dealing with them last year is primary reason why I didn’t get tickets to any of the games this year — Phil (@pshackto) September 22, 2017

I would never take my kids to a Brewer-Cub game because of this kind of thing:

Been to Brewers/Cubs at Wrigley-zero problems. Final straw for Brewers/Cubs at MP was drunk Cubs fans knocking over my 5 year old & laughing — Andy Chaney (@chaneysystems) September 22, 2017

I personally have had this happen to me as well:

I got beer dumped on me by Cubs fans after El Caballo made a 9th inning sliding catch to seal a victory in 2005. At Miller Park. — Mike (@carpy1130) September 22, 2017

I had a lot of Chicago folks telling me that Brewer fans should just buy up all of the tickets if they want to avoid harassment from mouth-breathing troglodytes, but that’s impossible for several reasons. First, if you sell on StubHub you really can’t control who buys them. And there are people like my parents (or anyone of my general age’s parents) and they just don’t want to put up with this garbage.

My parents have season tix & they never go when the Cubs are in town. — Lisa (@lmyarbro) September 22, 2017

A lot of season ticket holders are older, and more likely to bow out of the games where obnoxiousness is the norm. They’re also more likely to make the decision to sell their tickets early, as this was not scheduled to be a contending year. It’s also worth noting that Cubs fans do not in fact buy up all of their own tickets. I have been to a game at Wrigley in which a majority of fans cheered for the St. Louis Cardinals. Also, there are literally thousands of available tickets for the final Cub home series as of this moment.  Buying up all of the tickets is a practical impossibility, no team does it, and in any case, it only takes about five percent of the crowd to ruin the experience for everyone. And ruin it they will:

Huge factor for me. Every time they visit, you encounter belligerent drunks whose goal it is to make a scene. https://t.co/z9fZ3vw1Bg

—

Spitting was a common theme.

I have never had an issue at Wrigley. Miller Park? I’ve been spit on by a Cubs fan. Only fan base I can’t tolerate https://t.co/DIhlF0pYUV

— Chuck (@Brewfan0419) September 22, 2017

1st time I went to one I got beer thrown on me. 2nd time I couldn’t see the game bc Cubs fans trying to fight everyone. Haven’t been since.

— Kristin (@10iskristin) September 22, 2017

My mentions have many more examples. So why does this happen? I have a few theories.

I think to some extent there is a “mob mentality” that can develop with visiting fans, and it becomes a point of pride to dominate the proceedings. I also think that those who travel up to Milwaukee are not your average city-dweller who is content to just hop on the Red Line for a fine afternoon of baseball. What we see here is North suburbanites who think it’s too much trouble to head into Wrigleyville, in the city, with the hassle of parking and the all the crime. Better to go up North to the the park with ample parking and no traffic, where you need not travel into the big scary world around you. This becomes a football-style event and these people feel they have to make the most out of the trip. They are traveling, they are the true die-hards, and they will be heard. And smelled. And far too often, felt.

The other issue is that as the problem has become more obvious and more apparent, those Brewer fans who might temper the atmosphere stay home, leaving only our own troublemakers, at which point everything spirals out of control. Older people don’t put up with troublemakers, and families with kids will stay away.  This just isn’t that fun. The Miller Park authorities should be tougher on bad behavior than the are, but it’s also so widespread that policing everything is next to impossible.

I don’t really have a good solution to this issue. Taking a harder line on enforcement would be a good start. Limiting alcohol sales would go over like a traveling Cub fan in church, but it might be a good temporary idea to restore order. Unfortunately there really is not a good way to screen out people with an (847) or (224) area code. The Brewer organization is generally excellent at creating a fun baseball experience for everyone, but every year, when these games come up, they are simply miserable for the home crowd. If you can go and put up with all of this garbage this weekend, you’re doing a public service, but most people have better ways to spend an evening than being yelled at by some north-suburbanite who considers Gibson’s the summit of Chicago cuisine and reeks of Portillo’s Italian beef juice and considers his own city, which he will proudly announce as his home, too scary and bothersome to actually enter, and so whiles away weekends in Lake Geneva pounding 312s until the banality of it all manifests in an overwhelming need to harangue some kid from a smaller city just because he lacks the birthright and sophistication to understand just how superior you are for your 2-hour proximity by car (because god forbid you take PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION) from the epicenter of America’s 3rd largest city, which you just drove through the center of the other day to get to Oak Brook to see if their Gibson’s is as good as the one by O’Hare, because god forbid you stop inside the actual city for a world class meal that isn’t an enormous piece of overcooked meat, you mustachioed, local-newsperson-worshipping doofus.

Go Brewers.

How will the division progress? In the following standings, I’ve compared the competitive NL Central teams’ 162-game W-L pace and their average W-L thus far. Alongside those comparisons, I’ve placed each club’s 162-game RS/RA pace, as well as their average RS/RA pace thus far. With these statistics compiled, I added a “Pace” statistic that tracks the team’s average W-L versus their average RS/RA pace. This should track, on a game by game basis, the extent to which a club is overplaying or underplaying their run differential (or, comparing wins with underlying “true” performance to actual wins).

By average pace, the Cubs lead the division with 84, but the Brewers continue to lead with their average run differential. Brewers fans should note that the Milwaukee Nine have underplaying their run differential more than any other NL Central contender thus far. This should thwart any narrative about a collapse; indeed, there is a sense that the Brewers have hardly seen their best baseball (in terms of RS/RA) match their record (in terms of actual wins).

The division is going to have a tight race, and there remains a low threshold to winning the division thus far. This arguably complicates questions about how the Brewers should proceed at the deadline: on the one hand, the club continues to have talent under reserve to win approximately 85 or 86 games. But, one must question whether the Cubs’ upward trend will surpass that level of wins. Moreover, the Brewers and Cubs may both regress to their run differential, with the major difference here being the Cubs’ regression is slightly upwards and the Brewers slightly downwards.