Here at BPMilwaukee, Andrew Salzman surveyed Schoop’s season and the roster factors related to the arbitration-eligible veteran, and also analyzed Schoop’s batting elements in early August. Salzman noted the declining aspects of Schoop’s plate approach, which resulted in a general profile of weak contact involving groundballs and pop-ups (both headed in the wrong direction). Paul Noonan offered a thorough critique of the logic of the trade during the deadline press cycle. Noonan illustrated the confusing logic of using Schoop in potentially interchangeable roster strategies at second base (including a potential platoon scenario), and highlights the difficulty of the second baseman fitting into the batting order.

Evaluating Schoop according to his Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) progression complicates the matter. While Schoop undoubtedly declined in 2018, his stature as an arbitration-eligible player and his exceptional 2017 season impacts almost any pricing mechanism of his performance. If the Brewers take Schoop through the arbitration process, they cannot decrease his salary according to his performance (as salaries are protected through the arbitration process, which values service time more than performance). In terms of overall career progression, Schoop’s production remains close to a $11 million per season value, which is his estimated arbitration salary according to Cot’s Contracts; other estimates are similar, assessing approximately $10 million in 2019 salary for Schoop.

The following table estimates Schoop’s three-year surplus value, which roughly means evaluating Schoop’s production and scarcity (or, production and cost), and derives one-year contracts from those models. A “harmonic mean” contract is used to balance overall 2014-2018 surplus values with the highest possible value from that time period; this is an attempt to even out the roughest edges of these value estimates.

It’s not hard to see a scenario in which Schoop is worth $10 to $11 million; in fact, balancing high- and low-value figures for Schoop places his ideal contract in that neighborhood. Even if Schoop is not “truly” worth $10 million or $11 million, it should not be difficult to see a League Championship Series caliber team overpay a player if they believe they can yield the best possible performance from that player. The difficulty is determining whether Schoop fits that logic.

An additional difficulty is that because Schoop is so young, the “Aging Curve Logic” suggests that he should be working in a prime season, and therefore produce quality performances. Yet, relying on an aging curve to promote a bounce back season from Schoop is somewhat dubious, as there are numerous disagreements about peak age, evidence that season-over-season statistics become less volatile once a player reaches age-26, and a recognition that different types of players age in different ways, anyway (Silver 2015, 81-86). There is a very real sense that Schoop already “is who he is.”

As of March 30, 2018, PECOTA picked Bret Boone, Howie Kendrick, and Jeff Kent as the age-26 comparable players for Schoop. Kendrick is an interesting pick, as his 2010 season fell backwards from a 2009 breakout, but Kendrick eventually recovered to produce better offensive value. Kent is an interesting pick because at age-26 he was not yet “Jeff Kent,” and there were some real doubts about what he might become. Boone is more interesting still, as the young phenom fell back during 1995-1997 campaigns, and produced fringe average seasons prior to breaking out again during his early 30s. These last two comparisons should be kept in mind, as it could be possible that Schoop takes several years to continue developing aspects of his plate approach, and that his 2018 and 2019 season have little to no bearing on what Schoop eventually becomes. This may not appear to be a likely scenario, but it’s a possibility worth keeping in mind given the long and often unpredictable twists of player development.

The simple point is that projecting and pricing 2019 Schoop is not simply a binary exercise; his future is not one basic either/or scenario.

With these caveats in mind, I investigated MLB seasons with at least 300 plate appearances in their age-24, 25, and 26 seasons during the Wild Card Era (1995-present) with the intention of finding players similar to Schoop’s extreme plate discipline and power approach. This is a biased sample in several ways, most importantly in the sense of seeking out “starting roles,” which I roughly designated as players with 300 or more plate appearances (which reasonably excludes players with catastrophic injuries, fringe players, and many bench players). Additionally, the sample is confined to the institutional, player development, and game constraints of the last generation, which means that this survey is in no way representative of some “true population” of age-24, 25, or 26 players throughout baseball history. Additionally, by excluding minor league players of the same age groups, I am not fully assessing Schoop’s development and plate discipline against potential replacements or other developmental trends in the game, which is another limitation for assessing players by age. Given these biases, I am reasonably asking, “Who are relatively recent MLB starting players who approach the game like Schoop?,” and “How did these players age?”; since this is not any sort of sample representative of a population, I am using this to describe development trends rather than predict Schoop’s path in 2019.

(1) Schoop and Grichuk. In the last 24 seasons, there is one player who matches Schoop’s general trend of striking out more than 20 percent of the time, walking less than 6 percent of the time, and homering more than 3.5 percent of the time during each of his age-24, 25, and 26 seasons. Interestingly enough, that player is also a contemporary of Schoop, Randal Grichuk. Even within these general parameters, Grichuk is quite different than Schoop, as his walk totals are sometimes closer to that 6 percent threshold, and the strike outs are also much higher; Grichuk is more of a “Three True Outcomes Hitter” (relying on strike outs, walks, and homers) than Schoop, who is more of a bizarre type of contact hitter.

It is startling that even given the general acceptance of strike outs over the last generation, and the proliferation of home-run based batting approaches, baseball simply does not produce batting profiles like Schoop. This could be a good thing for the Brewers, as the club certainly seems comfortable working with unorthodox plate approaches; for example, another recent Stearns era player with an unprecedented approach is Keon Broxton; additionally, another unprecedented role on the Brewers’ roster is Hernan Perez. It certainly cannot be said that Stearns is squeamish about working with relatively oddball player profiles, and that trait probably helps to explain his ability to quickly turn around the Brewers franchise by assembling a bunch of high-floor players with extremely prominent scouting flaws. The only question now is whether Stearns will pay $10 million for that privilege.

(2) Examining “low walk” players (Schoop and Salvador Perez). Working with the parameters defined above (1995-present survey), Baseball Prospectus CSV provided 29,397 players overall, which whittled down to 6,495 players with 300 (or more) plate appearances; when searching for players with at least 300 plate appearances in each of their age-24, 25, and 26 seasons, I constructed a batch of 246 players for analysis (thus the above caveats for sample bias). This is quite an interesting group of players, and as one might expect from the present biases, it’s a very productive group of players:

Within this group of players, the most striking and promising trait for comparison with Schoop was walk rate, which was a good indicator to separate comparisons and descriptions of development from big walk, big strike out, big home run players. For Schoop’s intriguing trait is generally huge power (and indeed, he consistently produced better-than-median power for this group) without corresponding high walk totals. Thus, it wouldn’t do much good to compare Schoop to Mike Trout, Adam Dunn, Prince Fielder, Edgardo Alfonzo, and other age-26 walk monsters; those players are doing something different at the plate to reach their prodigious power. So, I isolated a group of 37 low-walk total players that posted an additional 300 (or more) plate appearances during their age-27 campaign, in order to describe an age-26 to age-27 aging pattern for these players. This is quite a fun group!

Here, the top table shows the change in category performance from age-26 to age-27 season, while the bottom table shows the basic age-26 production for Wins Above Replacement Player, Plate Appearances, True Average, and Strike Outs / Walks / Home Runs.

By plate discipline (K / BB / HR), the most comparable player to Jonathan Schoop on this table was Salvador Perez. Perez was able to cut down the strike outs and tap into more power during his age-27 campaign, which provided a boost back to league average batting production for the catcher. Jedd Gyorko was the best of these players at age-27, but did so by completely retooling both walks and home run power; this is a demonstration that large scale plate discipline changes can occur on a season-over-season basis. What is striking is that even among players who are comparable to Schoop in terms of low walk rates, there are very few that strike out as much as Schoop, or hit for big power. Hence the lack of comparable players, save for Randal Grichuk.

Schoop has his work cut out for his age-27 season, as the middle infielder can retain value through his power if his strike outs and groundball / pop-up fluctuations do not impede that power. He’s a strange $10 million gamble for a front office, as the general ideal of age-27 seasons from players with 4.0+ WARP seasons on their resumes suggests bright futures rather than large question marks. Yet, there could be reason to suspect that Schoop may age differently than other prime age middle infielders, both due to his consistently better than average power and due to his extreme plate discipline. Nobody hits like Schoop, and in some sense this ought to result in a vote of confidence from GM Stearns when the opt-in is a one-year gamble. But the lean months of 2018 speak loudly, where the power was rendered empty by low batting averages and the lack of another offensive carrying tool when that one vanished. So here we are, fixated on a relatively marginal roster deal, looking for excellent production in the middle of the diamond.

Citation

Silver, Nate. 2015. The Signal and The Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – but Some Don’t.. Penguin.

This post was updated at 5:24 PM on November 23, 2018 to correct the figures in the Grichuk / Schoop table.

A quick recap on roster rules: the non-tender deadline this offseason is November 30. By that date, teams have to offer a contract to all players on the 40-man roster with fewer than six years of service time. If the team does not offer a contract to a player, then he becomes a free agent. Because Jonathan Schoop has 5.027 years of Major League service time and has not signed any extension, the Brewers have until November 30 to decide if they want to retain him for next season.

Jonathon Schoop is the greatest young power hitting second baseman of all time. There’s a lot to unpack there, but if we wanted to measure by players twenty-six and under who have played at least fifty percent of their games at second base, he’s hit the most home runs. However, impressive raw home run totals don’t necessarily mean a player is a star; even with that fun fact to his name, Schoop’s bat completely fell apart in 2018 after showing so much promise in 2017.

As a twenty-five year old second basemen in 2017, Schoop had a .280 True Average (TAv) and produced 37.6 Value Over Replacement Player (VORP), which estimates the number of runs Schoop produced beyond a freely available minor league replacement. PECOTA pegged him for a regression with .256 TAv and 15.8 VORP, yet his numbers sunk lower. Schoop’s plate discipline remained remarkably similar. His swing rate rose four percentage points to 56.8 percent, while his contact rate (71.4) and swinging strike rate (28.6) remained virtually unchanged from 2017, so his strikeout percentage only rose from twenty-one percent to twenty-three percent. The biggest difference is that his walk rate sunk from 5.2 percent to 3.8 percent, both of which are below average. Schoop’s walk rate would have placed him in the bottom five of all qualified hitters if he’d had enough at bats.

As I noted back in August, there was no smoking gun on Schoop’s poor performance at the plate, he just wasn’t hitting the ball as well. From that article’s publication date on August 13^th, Statcast numbers only slightly recovered. Even with some improvement his barrel percentage, exit velocity, launch angle, and hard hit percentage all were career lows. His expected WOBA placed in the bottom 1 percent of all hitters.

The Brewers traded for a player they probably saw as a buy low candidate. If they elect to offer Schoop arbitration, it likely means that they see something in his 2018 performance that they believe can be corrected to get him back to his 2017 numbers.

One projection for Schoop’s potential arbitration award places him at a $10.1M salary in 2019, which would be 3^rd on the team in salary, just above Christian Yelich, in case you needed another reminder about how great that contract is for the Brewers. The only other potential second basemen on the 40-man roster, presuming that Shaw is back at third base on Opening Day, are Tyler Saladino, Hernan Perez and Mauricio Dubon. None of these players are projected as a starting caliber player on a contending team.] in 2019.

The most intriguing internal option to replace Schoop would be Keston Hiura. Our mother site’s midseason top 50 prospects list had Hiura at number five and claimed that Hiura was “basically major-league ready” back when it was posted in mid-July. If the team agrees with the assessment, then he could be the starting at second by May 1, with service time manipulation likely preventing him from starting the season with the big-league club. While he’s considered a bat-first prospect, if the Brewers could shift and game plan their way into making Travis Shaw league average at second, fans shouldn’t be too worried about Hiura.

The Brewers could also look at potential free agents who could sign a one-year deal and provide flexibility in case the team wants to wait on Hiura (or if he proves not to be ready). Ian Kinsler had a terrible post-trade run with the Red Sox capped with baserunning and fielding blunders in Game 3 of the World Series. However, he provided above average defense according to Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) (even if it wasn’t quite Gold Glove worthy). If you squint, his offense wasn’t terrible in 2018! From his nadir on May 28 through his trade to Boston on July 30, he slashed .286/.349/.518, which is above his career line of .271/.339/.443. One wouldn’t expect a two-month hot streak to be his baseline production going forward, but it does show he has some life left in his bat, and could serve a useful role as a bridge to Hiura.

The Brewers are lucky to be in the position where they don’t need to double down on the Schoop trade. It would hurt the front office’s external perception to write off the acquisition as a total loss after three months of poor production, but I don’t believe that’s going to factor into their calculation. Milwaukee is always going to operate on a limited budget, but if the team decides its best choices are Schoop and Hiura, two different budget issues arise. Is the team willing to keep Schoop at more than $10 M when there’s a non-zero chance he’s not worth a roster spot? If Hiura shines in spring training and proves he’s the best player for the team, are they willing to ignore service time considerations and have him start the season with the team? If not, who would cover the gap of at least two weeks? Milwaukee’s front office has a few weeks to make these decisions, but whichever direction they turn will shed light on their internal evaluations of the players in question.

His first go-round in the Southern League came in 2015, the inaugural season for the Biloxi Shuckers. He spent the majority of the year manning center field, but after posting solid True Averages (TAv) of .266 for Wisconsin in 2013 and .267 for Brevard County in 2014, Taylor could only manage to put forth a .260/.312/.337 slash for a TAv of .243. Power has never been a major part of Tyrone’s profile but what little pop he could boast all but evaporated, as he clubbed a mere three home runs while posting an .077 Isolated Power (ISO) mark.

It’s not uncommon for a player to struggle during their first exposure to Double-A, especially when they make it to the level by the tender age of 21. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when Taylor returned to the Southern League for a second time in 2016; his continued struggles were flummoxing. This time, he yielded a .232/.303/.327 batting line across 519 plate appearances, with his TAv of .244 almost mirroring his total from the year prior. Tyrone did run into a few more homers (9), but still posted an ISO below .100 and stole fewer than 10 bases (9) for the first time since debuting in full-season ball. Taylor was Rule 5 eligible for the first time that offseason, and he was left unprotected by the Brewers and unpicked by any other team around the league.

His prospect stock was already plummeting when hamstring issues began to plague Taylor during the following season in 2017. He wasn’t able to get on the field until late June, taking at-bats in the Arizona League for a couple of weeks before heading back to Biloxi for a third time. He wound up finding action in only 25 games for the Shuckers and again, failed to inspire any sort of confidence with his bat. Taylor ended 2017 with a .247/.316/.376 slash in 95 plate appearances, tallying a single home runs and two stolen bases. Another sub-.250 TAv, and Taylor was nowhere near the club’s top-30 prospect rankings and was once again passed over in the Rule 5 Draft.

Despite his struggles, there was at least one man within the front office who was still in Taylor’s corner. “Tyrone Taylor is a guy who really battled injuries last year. He’s fully healthy. He’s had a chance to get over into some big league games. The power stroke seems to be coming back. It’s just great to see him healthy. He’s been a sleeper in the past,” Farm Director Tom Flanagan told MLB Pipeline’s prospect team during Spring Training 2018. The Brewers remained steadfast in their belief that there was still untapped offensive potential within Taylor because of his bat speed and contact ability, and hoped that ability to pepper the gaps with line drives could translate into more home run power. So after three years if struggles in Biloxi, the org decided it was time for a new challenge and assigned Taylor to Triple-A Colorado Springs for the 2018 season.

It was Taylor’s first subjection to the highest level of the minor leagues, and at age-24 he was nearly two and a half years younger than the median age for the Pacific Coast League. The outfielder was anything but overmatched, however. It was quite the contrary, in fact, as Taylor put together an offensive season like he’d never produced before. The Sky Sox outfield featured several MLB veterans throughout the course of the season (including Domingo Santana, Keon Broxton, Rymer Liriano, Quintin Berry, Brett Phillips, and Nate Orf, among others) and yet Taylor still saw his name etched on the lineup card nearly everyday, appearing in 119 games. In 481 trips to the plate, he hit .278/.321/.504, translating to a .265 TAv that was his highest in four years. And, as Flanagan and the Pipeline scouts intimated, the power finally showed up: Tyrone launched 20 balls over the fence after never hitting even double-digit dingers in a single season previously.

The key for Taylor appears to have been a successful indoctrination into the ranks of the “fly ball revolution.” Early on in his career, his batted ball profile resembled that of most speedsters; plenty of ground balls, relying on his fleet feet to beat out base hits. But things began to shift during his injury-shortened season in 2017, as Taylor (who posted fly ball percentages around 38, 30, and 39 percent, respectively, from 2014-16 in AA) hit 65 percent of his batted balls in the air during his rehab stint in Arizona.Taylor then produced nearly 45 percent flyball rate during his 25 games for Biloxi. In Colorado Springs, his fly ball rate jumped up again, this time close to 50 percent. Taylor hit the ball in the air nearly half the time last season, and his 11 percent HR/FB ratio was double his previous career rate.

Perhaps most impressive is that Taylor was able to add more loft to his swing and dramatically improve his power without sacrificing any of his bat-to-ball ability. He posted a .226 ISO and mashed those 20 taters while striking out in only 15.4 percent of his plate appearances, and he’s never whiffed at higher than a 19 percent clip at any level of the minors.

Taylor may have added a newfound power stroke to his tool box in 2018, but the speed and defense part of his profile is still indeed present. He once again swiped double-digit bases, nabbing 13 bags on 17 attempts. He’s also a capable defender at all three outfield spots and spent a majority of his time (56 appearances) in the premium position of center field this season. Taylor piled up 8.9 Fielding Runs Above Average in a shade over 950 innings in the field this season and was credited with a whopping 18 outfield assists, including four double plays.

Tyrone Taylor would have been eligible to become a minor league free agent this fall, but as a reward for his breakout campaign in Colorado Springs, the Milwaukee Brewers purchased his contract and made him a member of the 40 man roster earlier this week. A fallen prospect whose career appeared to be on life support just one year ago, Taylor now seems destined to make his MLB debut at some point in 2019. Milwaukee’s backup outfielder mix could be in a bit of flux this winter, as both Keon Broxton and Domingo Santana will be out of minor league options heading into camp next spring. With his right-handed bat, ability to go out and get it at all three outfield spots, and full slate of minor league options, Tyrone Taylor could wind up playing a meaningful role for the Menomonee Valley Nine next season.

Yet, if anything the 2017-2018 Brewers have also proven that developmental time is not linear at the MLB level, and furthermore, GM David Stearns has not been afraid to deal from stockpiles of future high floor roles to improve the club. Most prominently, Stearns traded center field prospect Lewis Brinson, many fans’ and analysts’ projected 2018 MLB starter, as a part of the package to acquire Christian Yelich, despite center field being a position of need. Now the Brewers have a need to improve second base, and another clear-cut top prospect at the position (Keston Hiura, and Mauricio Dubon behind him); simply judging Stearns’s past, one should not rule out a trade involving Hiura should the price be right and the return bolster a position of strength.

On the opposite spectrum for the Brewers is left-handed starting pitching, which is arguably the sole position on the roster decimated by both injury (Brent Suter) and free agency (Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley). Worse yet, unlike a position such as second base (which is a clear position of need), left handed starting pitching was a relative strength for the Brewers in 2018. Unlike second base, there’s no notable southpaw prospect ready for the rotation.

• Suter scouts as a prototypical depth player, but his full-time fastball approach, wicked tempo, and strange angles arguably helps his stuff “play up” at the big league level; by no means was Suter great, but he certainly did not sink the club, and was one of the reasons that the “replacement by design” rotational shuffle of interchangeable pitchers could work.

• On the other hand, Gonzalez served as a crucial replacement for the Brewers, indeed producing exceptional value on any rotational assessment despite having only been acquired after August 31.

• Similarly, Wade Miley could arguably be listed as the “Ace” of the club, and certainly stands as one of the team’s developmental successes. Even if Miley had discovered his cutter by the middle of 2017 with Baltimore, the Brewers recognized his pitch development and helped the southpaw double down on his approach and command the strike zone.

Milwaukee boasts significant pitching depth entering the 2019 season, arguably forming the strength of the organization through their run prevention system. Yet left-handed starting pitching is a weakness even given the context of this particular organization. There are no notable left-handed starting pitching prospects that are near reaching an MLB-ready floor for 2019, and there is little in the way of organizational depth behind Brent Suter (who, given the nature of Tommy John surgery, may not be ready to pitch until very late in 2019). Thus Brewers fans looking for the club to make a splash in free agency could reasonably look at southpaw starters.

There are arguably three particular classes of pitchers among the “true” left-handed starting pitching free agents in 2019. (Here I’ve excluded elite arms like Clayton Kershaw and David Price, who could choose to opt out of contracts, but only would do so on the sense that they could best $35 million Average Annual Value (AAV), which would be the required level to beat their current deals). Cot’s Contracts and Sportrac Data were used to construct a free agency list.

• Elite 2018 or Notably Better than Average Pitchers (by WARP and Runs Prevented): Patrick Corbin, Dallas Keuchel, J.A. Happ, and Hyun-jin Ryu

• Very Good Pitchers (by either WARP or Runs Prevented): Gio Gonzalez, CC Sabathia, Brett Anderson, and Wade Miley

• Depth Pitchers: Drew Pomeranz, Francisco Liriano, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Ross Detwiler.

The following table is one method of conveying player value for this lefty free agency class into monetary terms. I’ve used a three-year depreciation model, reflecting the fact that over time players typically lose value from their current performances (this is also a means of presenting relatively conservative contract projections). I’ve updated previous surplus assessments by presenting a rolling assessment of three-year models (2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018), plus a “maximum” projection based on full 2018 performance. This number can be compared against the general “Three Year Trend” to determine whether a pitcher is on an upward or downward trajectory (equally tough cases here are Keuchel and Corbin, for completely different directions of performance).

• Depreciated1, Depreciated2, Depreciated3: three-year surplus value salary estimates, based on WARP from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018 (in order).
• ThreeYear: this demonstrates the relative change in contractual value from 2016-2018 to 2014-2016. This is a rough estimate of a pitcher’s contractual “trend.”
• Immediate: this is a three-year surplus value salary estimate based solely on 2018 performance without any depreciation. It should be read as some type of ultimate “short term bias” value (i.e., the most biased observer from 2018 would offer Patrick Corbin a 3-year contract worth more than $120 million).

It is tempting, giving the success of pitching coach Derek Johnson in Milwaukee, as well as the success of the fielding efficiency, front office analysis, and general pitching player development, to assess the offseason free agents by looking for “The Next Wade Miley.” But this is suspicious thinking for at least two key reasons: first, many players in the MLB change their pitching approaches and development without the success of Miley; second, the Brewers simply have the opportunity to re-sign Miley from the free agency pool if the club believes that his development pattern is sustainable and he can continue to provide rotational depth. There is nothing wrong with doubling down on a successful system when the same reasoning and critical measures are used to assess that system the second time around.

To demonstrate the extreme nature of what Miley accomplished in Milwaukee, witness his progression from bread-and-butter southpaw in 2016 to his current format of pitching:

According to Brooks Baseball, Miley was already morphing his pitching approach in 2017, and that does not simply involve his insistence on incorporating the cutter after July 2017. Miley switched from his “primary” rising fastball to his “secondary” running-and-sinking variation, which took selections away from his change, slider, and curve in 2017. The veteran lefty was basically becoming an all-forms fastballer, blending three fastballs at the expense of off-speed and breaking offerings. 2018 reversed that to a stunning extent, as Miley reduced the total percentage of primary, secondary, and cut fastballs he threw, and completely reorganized his secondary stuff around the cutter. What is interesting about Miley is that he traded groundballs for whiffs with the cutter, while whiffs “played up” with other pitches once he focused on the cutter. This is the fantastic accomplishment of Miley’s 2018: not simply the development of a new prominent pitch, but the systemic development of that pitch in a manner that improved his other offerings. It would be foolish to suggest that most pitchers could be expected to thrive with such a reinvention.

Among these pitchers, there is no “next Miley,” unless you want to lean heavily into suggesting the Brewers acquire Jo-Jo Reyes and Ross Detwiler as potential depth contracts (Detwiler has the “Brewers pitches” necessary to pique interest here). But that does not mean that the Brewers should not seek any of these southpaw free agents:

• Patrick Corbin is on the frontier of baseball as a slider-first pitcher, which is crucial in a game where the slider determines leverage in many cases (including diminishing a key divisional rival for the Brewers). Signing Corbin could be a huge deal for the Brewers, both for keeping the lefty away from divisional rivals looking to improve pitching (the Reds could certainly gamble here, given their excellent batting group and lack of arms, as well as the contending Cubs). If there’s anywhere that Corbin’s margins-of-the-strike-zone approach could succeed, it’s Milwaukee, although that doesn’t necessarily mean his profile is less risky overall. The Brewers could take the next step of working with Corbin to balance his new curveball with his slider. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $100 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $150 million. (If the rumored contract ranges around 4-years and $120 million are true, I would call Corbin a potential bargin, even).

• Dallas Keuchel is an interesting pitcher insofar as he remains relatively consistent as he ages, even though his surplus grade demonstrates a harsh decline due to falling off from previously elite seasons. Even without being an elite pitcher, Keuchel remains quite good, and he’s tinkering with his approach to move away from his “true” sinking fastball and toward a cutter-offspeed approach. Keuchel’s potential knock working in Milwaukee would be using a relatively extreme groundball approach in front of an aggressively unorthodox defense, which would mean the Brewers would need to truly sell the veteran on their fielding approach. A Keuchel deal could be the most likely to end up “sideways” due to this profile.  Ideal Contract: 3-years, $75 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $100 million.

• Wade Miley is entering his age-32 season having completely revitalized his pitching approach; by all appearances seems to be a likable and supportive teammate in Milwaukee; and against the Dodgers even flashed a hard fastball that demonstrates that his approach could continue to morph in 2019. It would not surprise me if the Brewers have an arsenal plan with Miley to take additional steps beyond the cutter, and I’d sign Miley before any of these guys due to that likely fact. Additionally, as the Brewers mature into perennial contenders (hopefully), they would do well to prove to players that they will turn some rehabilitation projects / value-depth plays into hard cash deals. There will be a time when value signings refuse to come to Milwaukee if their value produced never materializes into bigger cash. Start here. Ideal Contract: 2-years, $20 million, with a third-year option. Maximum: 3-years, $36 million.

• Gio Gonzalez is slowly morphing into a potential change-up first pitcher, making him a true veteran “junkball” option. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $36 million. Maximum deal: 3-year, $45 million.

• Given J.A. Happ’s age, the southpaw could potentially be a short-term deal with beneficial playoff experience and a fastball-first approach that could fit some aspects of Brewers pitching strategy (notable fastballers Freddy Peralta and Suter come to mind, for example). One-year contract between $12 million and $17 million.

• If you’re obsessed with the idea of making “the next Wade Miley” work in Milwaukee, Drew Pomeranz could be the biggest name among southpaws to make that work. Pomeranz struggled through 2018 as a bigtime fastball-curveball approach. In fact, the cutter even featured more prominently during Pomeranz’s successfuly 2016 season. Unfortunately, the groundballs and whiffs simultaneously dissipated, leaving this lefty a potentially expensive gamble with an arsenal, approach, and batted ball in flux. Pomeranz is a potential project. One-year, $10 million.

• It is not clear that Hyun-jin Ryu or CC Sabathia would be likely to come to Milwaukee given their recent roles in big markets (for quite some time) and playoff team roles. Francisco Liriano had a tough year in Detroit, and I unfortunately think there are better contracts offered to the other pitchers on this list.

• No lie, I’d hand out a minor league deal to Ross Detwiler, too, if he would be willing to work within the Brewers pitching development system. This southpaw is another potential “true junkball” lefty, but along with heavy change up usage Detwiler has also added a cutter, and could move away from his sinking fastball to his rising-riding primary variation.

It’s an ending that seemed inconceivable on Opening Day.  Fans were optimistic, sure, but the pitching staff was young and unproven, and the offense was full of question marks.  It seems like years ago that Ryan Braun started the first game of the season at first base.  In the six-plus months since, Yelich became the likely MVP, Josh Hader became a dominant relief ace, and Braun rediscovered his old form.

Sports are weird.  The connections they inspire are somewhat arbitrary, as fans attach themselves to athletes who play for a team that happens to be in the same city they live in.  One of the main storylines on the national broadcast was the Brewers’ connection to Southern California and how Yelich and Braun grew up as Dodgers fans.  The fact that they were trying to beat their childhood team, and disappoint the thousands of fans in the stadium with whom they had a lot in common, is slightly odd.  It is, of course, a coincidence of fandom and how people interact with their local institutions.

Keeping these connections in context is important.  Friendly rivalries are fun and good, and Brewers fans will always have a healthy dislike for the Cubs and Cardinals, and the members of those fanbases as well.  But fans of the Brewers have more in common with fans of the Cubs than they do with the actual players on the Brewers, who, generally, will not maintain a connection with the city of Milwaukee once their time with the club ends.  Fans, though, will continue to root for the next generations of Brewers.  Cubs fans will act the same way.

Sports teams are valuable civic institutions that provide a unifying point for otherwise-disparate communities.  As Nicholas Zettel wrote earlier this season, “Milwaukee is a deeply segregated city.”  People in different parts of the city do not have the same lives, but shared sports memories bind people together.  The Brewers are a communal experience that anyone in the city can be a part of, and that is important.  Civic pride is a valuable resource that sports teams can help build.

What we should not lose sight of, however, are the limits of what sports can provide.  Sports are an escape for some people—an opportunity to immerse oneself in an important but ultimately consequence-free athletic competition.  For other people, though, sports are anything but an escape; instead, they are a manifestation or reminder of how they are viewed.  A city suffering from significant income inequality may spend hundreds of millions of unplanned dollars on a baseball stadium rather than allocating it to organizations designed to help people improve their lives.  One of baseball’s oldest and most revered stadiums may be built on top of houses that were vacated only when city authorities forcibly dragged people from their homes.

This site has not shied away from addressing these concerns.  On its very first day, Jack Moore explained how Miller Park continues to cost taxpayers millions of dollars.  Earlier this season, Nicholas Zettel wrote the aforementioned analysis of Milwaukee’s housing segregation.  Last offseason, I discussed the impact of professional athletes’ public statements.  There are also many other examples of us covering off-field issues, and I point this out not to be self-congratulatory but instead to reinforce the importance of proper context.

Sports are supposed to be entertainment.  We invest ourselves in people who wear our city’s name on their shirt, and in some circumstances, our happiness depends on how they perform on the field.  That is good and normal, as we should build connections with those things that matter to us.  For example, Brewers fans should care about how the Brewers do, and hating the Cubs is perfectly normal given the animus between the two teams and cities; these connections help us enjoy the game even more.  Rivalries help bring additional meaning to certain games throughout the year, which certainly enhances the season’s entertainment value and piques fan interest at otherwise dull parts of the year.

This season was fun.  It should not be less fun just because the Brewers did not win the World Series, nor if this is ultimately the closest this iteration of the franchise comes to a championship.  There are a lot of great memories from this year, and there is likely to be another one when Yelich wins the MVP award.  After July 12, the Brewers did not have sole possession of first place in the NL Central until after Game 163.  They were 2.5 games behind the Cubs with a week to go, and they overcame that deficit to win the division.  They won a winner-take-all game against the Cubs that determined home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs.  Those games all happened, as did all the other moments throughout the summer that you enjoyed watching, whether it was Jesus Aguilar’s unlikely All Star Game selection, Freddy Peralta’s wonderful debut on Mother’s Day, the wild fifteenth inning walk-off against the Pirates that featured Jordan Lyles drawing a walk, or any other game that you may have positive memories with.  Those games are all a part of the experience of being a fan.

Sports are a focal point for communities, and they link generations.  They are a place for kids to learn, grow, and develop into adults, and those same people then pass that experience on to their children or friends.  People may watch games with their family, friends, neighbors, or by themselves.  Everyone’s relationship with their team is different, but each individual story contributes to the team’s importance to its community.  Those communities, though, go beyond sports.  The choices people make about their teams’ relationship with the community impacts more than just on-field performance; and while we remember this most vividly when issues such as public funding are making headlines, it is always true.

Sports inform our relationships with our cities and neighbors, and they create bonds between people who may not otherwise have any or reinforce them between people who are already close.  They provide people with an emotional outlet that comes with no lasting consequences.  But they are also just a portion of the way we experience the world.  As long as we remember their role in our lives, they are a great escape and place to invest ourselves.  They are fun, and we should remember that.

The Brewers need starting pitching help. The Brewers need an ace.

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┻┳| •.•) #Brewers didn’t need a SP
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— BP Milwaukee (@BPMilwaukee) July 31, 2018

Of course this would be the return line for the 2018-2019 offseason, because the line never went away during the season. A large faction of fans were dissatisfied with the starting pitching in April; they were satisfied with the starting pitching in May, “but can this staff beat ‘a dude’ in the playoffs?” (Yes!, it turns out); they were particularly dissatisfied with the starting pitching when the season ended in June and July, and again they were dissatisfied with the starting pitching at the trade deadline. This debate was simply never going to be won, because there is a contingent of baseball fans that refuse to either understand or accept what GM Stearns, pitching coach Derek Johnson, systemwide player development, and the front office are trying to accomplish. For arguably the first time in Brewers franchise history, certainly for the first time in a generation, the Milwaukee system strength is pitching, and not of the sort of high octane, all-risk dreamy profiles that flamed out at the turn of the 21st Century; this is a system that is built on turning a fabulous diversity of pitching profiles into potentially successful MLB profiles (witness the scouting range between Freddy Peralta and Corbin Burnes, for example).

When the dust settled, the system worked. The Brewers rotation was good. It was good any particular way you measured it; it was a good rotation if you divide rotation spots based on overall Games Started and workload measurements; it was a good rotation if you divide rotation spots based on true rotational scarcity (i.e., comparing each spot across the MLB); and it was a good rotation if you separate pitching classes into “true starters” and “replacements,” and measure each set of pitchers against different “spots” or “workloads.” The pitching staff was good if you believe in “Aces,” and it was good if you don’t believe Aces exist.

The Brewers rotation was good by every measurement except DRA, which should be the significant focal point of 2018-2019 offseason analysis in an effort to understand how Milwaukee assembled an elite fielding component in order to prevent runs.

If you do not wish to read the details, the table above summarizes the comparative results from each model. Each Brewers starter was assessed according to their relevant spot, and then compared by Innings Pitched (IP), Deserved Run Average (DRA), and Runs Prevented.

Rotation One: By Games Started
One way to assess a starting rotation is by ranking pitchers according to games started on a leaguewide basis. This ranking method is effective because it approximates the scarcity of both MLB resources (there’s not a whole lot of pitchers that can work full seasons) and roster construction. One benefit of focusing on games started instead of another performance metric is that analysts can reflect the success or failure of an MLB club across games started totals; for example, it matters that Gerrit Cole and Lucas Giolito both started 32 games despite widely divergent performances. The distance between Cole and Giolito is approximately 65 runs prevented, even though they worked the same number of starts, which raises an important question about how different teams assess the importance of effective starters versus soaking up innings. In fact, had Brent Suter and Zach Davies not faced injuries in 2018, they may have forced this question with the Brewers front office, and Freddy Peralta also arguably faced this (along with innings workload concerns) down the stretch run.

According to this measurement, there are approximately 10 rotation spots discernible by workload throughout the 2018 MLB, as well as emergency starters (who started one game; I will always assess emergency starters as their own category). On the surface, this is a pleasing model; the top starters by workload typically are the best starters in the game, even if there are differences between guys like Cole and Giolito, as discussed above.

On this model, it is clear that the Brewers succeeded because of their depth. A critique about the top of the rotation could be true in terms of DRA, as the contextual performances of Jhoulys Chacin and Chase Anderson were not comparable to top workload pitchers across the MLB. The importance of the depth should not be understated, from Wade Miley and Peralta to Brandon Woodruff and even Gio Gonzalez. If you’re reconsidering Gonzalez’s trade cost, not only should the veteran lefty’s surface performance be assessed, but one should not that, marginally, he was worth seven runs better than his median workload.

Another benefit of using this model is that analysts can assess “phantom” runs prevented where teams “miss” particular spots. For example, Chacin may not measure up to the median Top Spot prototype, but having his performance was better than not having a heavy workload pitcher whatsoever (in theory; Giolito’s performance would obviously have not validated a heavy workload benefit for the Brewers). If a team was missing a Top Spot, they theoretically would be punished 16-to-17 Runs Prevented. Milwaukee did not use a Five, Seven, Eight, or Ten workload, each of which approximately ranged from 2 to 4 runs below average; one could argue in this way that the Brewers also received 10 “phantom” Runs Prevented by avoiding these typical workloads.

This should help to validate the ideal that there are a couple of different ways to construct a rotation. A team could indeed bank on a Jacob deGrom type atop the rotation, and seek a 30 run advantage from their top workload. One must be careful of the cost for this type of pitcher, however, as if considerable resources are spent at the top of the rotation, they may be diminished at the bottom of the rotation. The Brewers demonstrated the “bottom-up” approach: they lost out on the Yu Darvish sweepstakes, and Alex Cobb did not bite on a one-year deal, so they proceeded with Chacin and Miley, plus their developmental pipeline. That internal pipeline was worth approximately five runs (better than their median workload) to the 2018 Brewers, while external candidates were worth more than 15 runs (better than their median workload). It was not flashy, there were no “dudes” on the marquee, but it worked.

Rotation Two: By Team

Of course, even the preceding model is relatively clean or “idealistic,” for MLB teams do not necessarily construct their rotations according to the same ideal. An additional method for assessing rotations is to judge each team’s rotation spot by turn; since two pitchers literally cannot start the same game, this method goes spot-by-spot, start-by-start for each MLB team. The benefit of this method of rotational assessment is that it reflects team preference, or injury and ineffectiveness circumstances, across the league. Some teams attempt to duct tape 13- or 14-pitcher rotations together, whether they are contending or tanking, while others attempt to yield more mileage from each spot. By giving each team one exclusive spot for each turn (until their pitchers run out), this type of rotational model can allow teams to be analyzed against attrition across the league.

Every team in the MLB required at least six rotational turns throughout the season, but this model demonstrates the divergence of team strategies one they hit six starters. Some teams preferred to give replacement starters two or three starts each, while others leaned on emergency starters.

The Brewers front office, coaching staff, and pitchers did a fantastic job weathering 162. They hit the right buttons in replacing some starters at certain points in time (such as resting Peralta down the stretch, or [arguably] “shuttling Woodruff between Triple-A and MLB), while giving starters room to breathe at others point in the season (this also applies to Peralta, who was given some time to adjust from rough starts, as well as Junior Guerra). By spitting on rotation spots 10 through 14, the Brewers also arguably saved 16 “phantom” runs, as the club would not have found effective pitchers (on average) digging that deep into league or organizational resources. (This line could be argued with further research, however, as one could note that someone like Corbin Burnes could have been effective in two starts, for example).

Rotation Three: By Type
During my time writing at Sportsbubbler (RIP) and Disciples of Uecker, I published annual starting pitching rotation rankings based on the decision point of 100 IP. If a pitcher worked 100 or more innings with 50 percent of their games as starts, they were a starting pitcher; if not, they were replacement depth. On this model, I attempted to assess pitchers according to Runs Prevented, with the ideal that (a) working a lot of innings should be worth more as a starter, and (b) rotation spots could be designated based on the resulting Runs Prevented rankings. I’m no longer certain of this method’s veracity, as I believe there are better ways to assess rotational scarcity and usage across the MLB. But, here we are, testing the Brewers 2018 rotation, so let’s assemble the pitchers.

Wouldn’t you know it, the 2018 MLB did not have many “true” rotation spots: there were only 129 pitchers across 30 teams that fit the first criterion listed above. This is not enough pitchers to fill a true five man rotation, and it’s hardly enough to fill a four man turn.

Yet, those Runs Prevented totals present some order to the universe. There are aces, even if there’s only a couple of them. There are nice middle of the rotation “dudes” that you can really sink your teeth into; 150 IP and 2 Runs Prevented feels like a solid effort for a team. Every contender would accept that workload (every MLB team would, for that matter).

Where there are not full-time starters, replacements are necessary, and MLB really dug deep in 2018: there were 227 replacement starters, including 57 Emergency Starters, across 30 MLB teams in 2018. Basically, on average, MLB teams were using more replacements than they were using regular starters. The Brewers are no different here, and in fact, that’s partially how they gained their value. Viewing the range of Runs Prevented across each of these roles should demonstrate the importance of having a solid organizational pitching strategy; replacement starters need not simply be the pitching equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall. Tampa Bay demonstrated this with their genius “Opener” strategy, and they produced one of the elite Runs Prevented units in baseball. The Brewers accomplished their success by using long-term replacements like Miley and Peralta, but they also received value elsewhere across their high-floor organizational depth.

If you previously thought the idea of “Phantom Runs Prevented” by not using a rotation spot was a suspect idea, this seems to be your chance to pounce on the Brewers for not using an “Ace” or true “Number One” starter. By this model, the Brewers were gutsy, punting nearly 63 runs prevented at the front end of the rotation. Yet, the club also did not use a true “Number Four” or full-time starter that should have been replaced, which bought the club another 43 runs prevented. All told, the Brewers rotation of regular starters lost the club approximately 19 runs here, thanks to their cavalier strategy.

Of course, the Brewers used every Replacement typology except a “true swingman,” and this is where the club torched the league. Gio Gonzalez and Wade Miley covered the lack of an “Ace” or “Number One” starter, and demonstrated the value in not having a Regular Four, either. Peralta, Dan Jennings (yes, Dan Jennings), and Woodruff gained significant Runs Prevented advantages in the replacement ranks as well. On top of these depth successes, the rotation was not bad overall; Suter and Guerra were close to true Number Three starters, and Anderson was close to a true Number Two starter. Chacin was better than a typical Number Two starter, boasting a Runs Prevented performance that almost placed him in a phantom “Number One” role for the club.

What is startling on this model is that the Brewers typologies also worked according to DRA. Once an analyst accepts that the club did not have a True Ace or True Number One starter, the threshold for assessing DRA is lowered significantly. Witness Chacin, for example, who was assessed against DRA that were significantly better than 4.00 on the first two models; his DRA performance looks much better on the final model, because once you stop comparing him to Aces, the comparison becomes more realistic. The Brewers deep organization also performs very well against median DRA requirements on this model, which raises a question about which model’s expectations one should use going forward.

The last remaining criticism for fans and analysts rests on how one interprets Deserved Run Average results for the Brewers rotation. On any model one chooses, be it based on Games Started, Team Rotational Turns and Scarcity, or Actual Runs Prevented performance, the Brewers’ rotation was good in 2018. Now it is worth digging through these models during the offseason, in order to gain important lessons for Corbin Burnes, Woodruff, and Peralta during their potential first full workloads in 2019, and even for reworking Jimmy Nelson. Milwaukee has proven the success that can come with aggressive rotational swings and an organizational pitching strategy, coupled with elite, efficient fielding.

An underrated 2018-2019 offseason would find David Stearns making moves to further improve the fielding (such as improving Right Field, and then working Christian Yelich primarily as a Left Fielder), which should in turn help boost the pitching depth strategy going forward. As it stands, the Brewers do not even need an external pitching move; this makes potential offseason moves even more interesting for speculation.

While the series is over and done with and the team should be looking forward and planning for next season, there was one decision I wanted to revisit from Game Seven. Before the game, the pitcher usage had been fully mapped out, with contingencies built in based on what actually occurred once the game started. Thus, lifting Jhoulys Chacin for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the 2^nd inning with two outs and runners on second and third was not a surprise, nor is it a decision I feel qualified questioning. However, I think using Jonathan Schoop as the pinch hitter in that specific spot was a legitimate tactical error which contributed to the Game Seven loss.

Leverage Index is a stat which quantifies the importance of a situation in a game, where the average is 1.0 and the higher the number, the higher leverage the situation. That plate appearance had a leverage score of 1.86, making it the highest leverage plate appearance in the game for Milwaukee, yet Jonathan Schoop was the batter at the plate.

Up to that point, Schoop was 0-for-7 in the playoffs, including two pinch hitting appearances. Schoop’s performance since coming to Milwaukee had no hidden indicators that he was good selection for this spot. Other than running into a few balls, Schoop hadn’t hit in three months and spent October swinging at everything. Using Schoop didn’t even get Milwaukee the platoon advantage, so there was no old-school baseball rationale either.

Walker Buehler attacked Schoop with sinkers. He threw only nine sinkers in the game, and four were in this at-bat. Schoop only swung at two of the pitches, both of which were arguably balls, but he still grounded out the end the threat.

Domingo Santana would have been a better choice for the situation. Since his recall on September 1, Santana slashed .409 batting average /.458 on-base percentage /.909 slugging percentage in pinch hitting appearances during the regular season, and added another two hits and two walks in ten playoff pinch hit opportunities. Pinch hitting is an acquired skill and Santana had at least shown some knack for it in the past six weeks. He did get a pinch-hitting appearance with one out in the fifth inning, but the leverage index on that at bat was .97, almost exactly half of Schoop’s plate appearance.

With the aggressive use of the pitching staff, it’s slightly baffling as to why they held back their best pinch hitter and Curtis Granderson in favor of Schoop. None of them played in the field, so no defensive considerations seemed to play into the decisions, so it should have purely been the best hitter in that spot. You cannot save a better hitter for a higher leverage situation which may never come, and it didn’t in Game 7.

Jeremy Jeffress had a poor postseason, as I’ve unfortunately noted in the past two weeks. He allowed runs in three of his eight appearances and only had one game where he didn’t allow at least two baserunners. On Saturday entered the game in the 6^th inning with a runner on first and wound up giving up a backbreaking home run to Yasiel Puig which shot the Dodgers’ win expectancy up to ninety-one percent. In Jeffress’ 1 and 1/3 innings, he threw twenty pitches, none of which were splitters. It was only his third game this season where he threw at least twenty pitches and no splitters. All of those outings have occurred since September 10^th.

Starting in September, Jeffress drastically reduced his splitter usage. For the season, batters hit .209 against the pitch with only a .045 isolated slugging percentage, making it one of his most effective pitches. The splitter also had a seventeen percent whiff rate, on par with Jeffress’s curveball. However, those whiffs almost completely disappeared in September and October, with only one swing and miss on eighteen total splitters.

While it probably doesn’t fully explain Jeffress’s struggles, his pitch mix lost its balance when he stopped throwing the splitter and he started struggling. If it was a matter of feel, he has the whole offseason to regain confidence in the pitch or develop another weapon to induce swings and misses, because his results took a step back in October.

Christian Yelich had a tough postseason, but his struggles shouldn’t be a cause for concern for Brewers fans. First, the approach pitchers took against Yelich is not sustainable for a full season, unless they’re prepared to walk him at a rate comparable to Barry Bonds. Here’s the zone profile for Yelich for all of 2018:

Here’s Yelich’s zone profile during the playoffs:

While there was some effort to stick with the general plan to pitch him low and away, there’s a lot of blue in the strike zone and a lot of red bordering it. Pitchers spent three weeks staying away from Yelich, which makes sense after his second half of the season. However, pitchers will have to throw him more strikes in 2019. Yelich also maintained his plate discipline during the barrage of balls. He cut down on his swings on non-fastballs and also swung and missed less on breaking and offspeed pitches, while staying around his seasonal fastball whiff rate. By focusing on pitches in the zone, Yelich will lure pitchers back into throwing more strikes and he should pick up at the start of next season where he left off on October 1^st.

Unfortunately, there’s no new series to preview this week for the Brewers. While the result fell short of what fans were hoping for, it’s important to remember the ride to Game Seven and not focus on the NLCS loss itself. This was a fun team to follow all season and is poised to repeat its performance next season while also changing expectations on what a pitching staff should be in terms of usage and the best fits of skills in each role. The organization works as one unit and made an experiment like Travis Shaw: Major League Baseball Second Basement evolve from a sarcastic joke to a legitimate option by the end of the season. Remember the fun in getting to this point and start getting excited about what team will be put together this offseason.

P.S. They’re still not trading for/signing an ace.

Of course, the rotation was not that unstable, as there were “sub-rotational cores” beneath those aforementioned four- , five- , and six-man turns, which basically means that manager Craig Counsell would frequently stick with three starters and then rotate out two other arms. Yet even here the manager would change the order of the three main starters as necessary. The 2018 Brewers rotation could afford such flexibility because the club aggressively used minor league assignments for pitchers with contractual option years; they signed guaranteed MLB contracts (like Chacin) and minor league deals (like Miley), spatially staggering their production across organization levels; they made additional acquisitions (Gio Gonzalez); and, perhaps most importantly, there really was no pitcher “set” in the rotation as a true, standalone ace (in the sense that most fans and analysts use the term “ace”; in fact, Wade Miley and Jhoulys Chacin each produced excellent seasons).

This is a pitching staff designed for attrition, and the club was forced to deal with contingencies throughout the entire season. One suspects that Jimmy Nelson was out longer than expected for the front office, even if they publicly noted that the righty would miss a “chunk” of 2018; Nelson missed the entire season. This opened up spots, at varying points, for Zach Davies and Brent Suter, who both suffered injuries throughout 2018. Wade Miley was also on-and-off the disabled list early on, which offered additional room for the Brewers to “prove” their organizational depth. And so they did: the pitching rotation was fantastic, all things considered, precisely because the organization did not keep ineffective pitchers on the mound for long, and they were able to shuffle competent depth up-and-down between Triple-A Colorado Springs and the big club.

Keep this in mind for the offseason: this is a pitching rotation that could look much more “traditional” in 2019 if Jimmy Nelson returns, Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff are returned to formal roles, and Jhoulys Chacin, Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, and the gang are afforded roles in some capacity. Yet this is also a team, should Jordan Lyles and Jake Thompson stick around, that could produce the same revolving door results. It all depends on how the season goes, and the Brewers proved in 2018 (even where it may not have been their preferred plan) that a club can succeed simply by building a roster prepared to withstand the full extent of the season.

In March, responding to the (exhausting) constant calls for the Brewers to trade excess outfield depth for starting pitching, I presented the Brewers roster as a true-depth marvel ready for wear-and-tear. I found it important to demonstrate that, across the MLB, teams were not finding regular starters in the field, be it in the outfield or at specific infield positions. It may not be the case that MLB teams prefer to operate this way, but due to player development cycles, injuries, and other transactions, teams operate with revolving door player rosters much more than fan imaginations allow.

In 2018, attrition was the name of MLB once more.

Like 2017, only six outfields in the MLB featured three 100 game starters, including two repeat teams (but only five repeat players) from 2017. This demonstrates that even where teams had consistent, regular starting outfields last season, those outfields were not sustained into 2018. Regular starting groups come and go quickly in the MLB.

The 2018 Brewers are a fantastic example of why this type of roster shuffle occurs. At the beginning of the season, fans may have been most upset about the outfield depth because they would either have liked to pencil in Ryan Braun / Lorenzo Cain / Christian Yelich or Yelich / Cain / Domingo Santana, but not both. I suspect give Santana’s exceptional 2017 campaign and quick ascent into fan-favorite territory, fans would have preferred to see the Yelich / Cain / Santana outfield penned into the list above. Yet it simply was not meant to be; Santana could not cut it throughout the first two months of the season, and needed another stint at Triple-A to redevelop his bat; Ryan Braun was not a regular outfielder due to injuries and (thanks to Santana) early season stints at first base. But it all worked out: Keon Broxton provided phenomenal defense during call-up stints, Hernan Perez did what Hernan does, and even Eric Thames started 31 games in the outfield (!!!). Counsell did whatever was necessary to put the best team on the field, and once again, even if this was not the ideal team in the minds of the front office or field management staff, this squad was the ideal of weathering the storm.

The same story goes for the infield in 2018, where the Brewers were perhaps the most radical team in MLB, both with their Hernan Perez usage and their Travis Shaw / Jonathan Schoop experiment. But even here, the less-than-ideal scenario played out, as Orlando Arcia required additional minor league seasoning, and a group of second basemen could never really get it figured out for a sizable chunk of the season.

Keep these lessons in mind when you’re designing your ideal 2019 Brewers squad. Simply stated, the expectations that MLB teams would not find regular starters across the diamond held throughout the season, and the Brewers showed exactly how clubs can take advantage of that. Furthermore, it’s already possible to imagine how the club will elude 100-game starters at many positions, even without injury; for instance, second base could easily be a turnstile between Perez, (hopefully) Shaw, arbitration-eligible Jonathan Schoop, Mauricio Dubon, and Keston Hiura; if Mike Moustakas sticks around, Shaw will take time away from second base and first base “regulars”; and one might expect the Brewers to design more quality depth after some of their left-handed pitching match up weaknesses were regularly exposed.

A roster without regularity could present another fantastic endeavor for both David Stearns and Craig Counsell in 2019, because the next step in their puzzle requires them to develop their top prospects at the MLB level (if they are not traded) while defending a National League Central Championship bid. The club cannot punt the latter effort in order to accomplish the former, so the Brewers will need to be creative in shuffling their roster around to create time for prospects and contending players alike. In this regard, the lucky outcome of 2018 was that it was simply a practice run that went sideways and turned into a League Championship Series run. May 2019 be another practice run.

Alternately, things are not going to work out as you expect in 2019. But that’s not categorically a bad thing. Let’s use this offseason to think through roster building and understand how the Brewers can place their best foot forward using all 40-man roster spots.

Woodruff debuted in the big leagues last season and didn’t exactly light the world on fire, posting a 4.81 ERA and an ugly 123 DRA- across eight starts and 43.0 innings. He was ranked as Milwaukee’s #7 prospect to begin the year by Baseball Prospectus, and the knock against him was that “the stuff doesn’t jump off the page—or scouting sheet—and he may lack a consistent swing-and-miss offering in the majors…and the command profile is only average. Woodruff might be better served airing it out in short bursts.” Perhaps those evaluators were on to something.

Woodruff did begin the year in the starting rotation, but ended up as one of the club’s many rotating, optionable arms on the shuttle between Colorado Springs and Milwaukee. He finally started to come into his own during the final month of the season, when he was brought back to the big leagues and plugged into a multi-inning role within Milwaukee’s vaunted “run prevention system.” He ended the regular season with an improved 3.61 ERA while tossing 42.3 innings, though this time his work came across 19 appearances (four starts). He struck out 47 batters for the highest strike outs per nine innings (10.0 K/9) he has ever posted in the majors or minors. A sparkling Deserved Run Average valued his overall production as 30 percent better than that of a league-average pitcher. Woodruff has now made three postseason appearances, logging 10. and 1/3 innings with a 2.61 ERA and 15 strikeouts against two walks.

Perhaps predictably, it seems that a move to the bullpen has allowed Woodruff’s stuff to play up a few ticks. He saw a significant improvement on his fastball velocity, per Brooks Baseball, jumping from an already-hard 94.81 MPH in 2017 all the way to 95.96 MPH during the 2018 regular season and playoffs. He’s added about 40 RPM of spin to his four-seamer and another inch of armside movement, as well, and has joined the growing group of hurlers that focus predominantly on working the pitch up in the strike zone, generally keeping it inside on right-handers.

Woodruff’s fastball improved from -1.2 runs in 2017 (according to linear weights from Pitch Info) to +4.5 runs in 2018. Batters have hit only .207 against it this season, a vast improvement over the .302 average the posted in 2017. The righty boosted his whiff rate with the offering by a couple of points and uses the four-seamer as his go-to pitch with two strikes, especially to left-handers; 37 of Woodruff’s 60 punchouts between the regular season and playoffs have come on his fastball.

But it isn’t just Woodruff’s heater that has improved. He’s added a mile-per-hour to his slider and changed the shape of it, turning into more of a 3-t0-9 pitch (reading numbers on a clock) rather than the 2-to-8 movement he was getting on it in 2017. Batters are now whiffing at the pitch more than 14 percent of the time, where it was below 10 percent in 2017. The movement and velocity on Woodruff’s chanegup are similar to 2017, but the results are not; opposing hitters whiff on the pitch nearly 16 percent of the time and have batted .273 with a .000 SLG against it, whereas those numbers were 9.89 percent and .316 (.632 SLG) in 2017. After punching out a measly 6.7 batters per nine with an 8.4 percent swinging strike rate in his previous campaign, Woodruff is striking out batters like never before while generating swinging strikes at a robust 10.4 percent clip.

In addition to his pitches having a little bit more zest, Woodruff has also worked to address his other perceived shortcoming: he’s throwing more strikes. The righty’s walk rates have been similar across the last two seasons (2.93 BB/9 vs. 2.98 BB/9), but his zone rate has improved from 48.6 percent up to 51.1 percent. Called Strike Probability is a metric that attempts to quantify how skilled a player is at working in and around the strike zone; it is meant as a measure of control, and Woodruff’s Called Strike Probability jumped from 0.46 in 2017 all the way up to 0.50 in 2018. In terms of control, Woodruff ranked among the top 20 percent of MLB pitchers (minimum 42 innings, for a total of 382 pitchers).

The Milwaukee Brewers will undoubtedly continue to blur the lines between “starter” and “reliever” with their 27-outs approach going forward, and that could benefit Brandon Woodruff over the long term. Without the pressure of having to work deep into a ballgame, Woodruff has been able to “let it eat” over shorter, multi-inning stints, which has led to improved stuff and results across the board. It seemed at times like Woodruff’s future with Milwaukee was up in the air while he was yo-yo’d around during the regular season, but it now appears that he will be an integral part in the pitching plans for David Stearns and Craig Counsell in the years to come.

Baseball does not get any better than this series.

With these pitching match-ups set, it’s possible to assess the Runs Prevention comparisons for the starters, and also look at the current depth in both squads’ bullpens. These figures come from the season ending Runs Prevented worksheet, assembled on October 2, 2018. If you’re new to Runs Prevented, I’ve linked a couple of primer articles below; the gist of it is that Runs Prevention is a descriptive statistic (not a predictive one) about the quality of a pitcher’s Runs Allowed performance scaled to their average ballpark and league environment.

Runs Prevented Primer || Playoffs! ||
Sharing Worksheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kf2hMxo9p4H92R7S5N7y-_d-AhrayPJgGFXjPKLpKDs/edit?usp=sharing

Game Four finds a relatively even match up between Gonzalez and Hill, as Gonzalez improved significantly in September with the Brewers. Hill was one of the innings pitched workhorses for the Dodgers rotation, and his full-season mark of approximately 6 Runs Prevented places him squarely within the top twenty percent of all MLB pitchers.

The match-up between Wade Miley and Clayton Kershaw is all thanks to Craig Counsell’s limitations on the veteran’s workload during Saturday’s game, which allows Miley to turnaround on so-called short rest. This isn’t to belittle the effort behind Miley’s pitches, but it’s not as though the left is returning on short rest after throwing 100 pitches; given the relative success with this strategy involving Jhoulys Chacin during the League Divisional Series, one cannot be surprised that Counsell is trying it again. Both Kershaw and Miley are veritable veteran leaders of their respective rotations; the former was the second-best pitcher on the Dodgers staff (behind on Walker Buehler), while Miley is the third-best pitcher on the Brewers staff (behind Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader).

This is ace versus ace territory, in the playoffs! A potential top rotation versus top rotation match-up probably will determine the trajectory of the series.

pic.twitter.com/VcKQlBwHRc

— DeathToFlyingThings (@SpectiveWax) October 13, 2018

Turning to the bullpens tonight, one can see that the Dodgers have a relative advantage in terms of resting their key relievers in Game Three. Of course, one can question that rest, as it came at the expense of an additional inning from the rookie Buehler and the subsequent insurance runs tacked on. Milwaukee had a 1-0 lead when Buehler came to the plate in the bottom of the fifth inning with a runner in scoring position; the righty remained in the game then, and allowed another run in the sixth before allowing two additional runs in the seventh. One wonders how Pedro Baez or Ryan Madson would have fared after effectively silencing Brewers bats in Games One and Two.

Craig Counsell had no problem going to his main guys in Game Three, but it is also worth questioning that decision when one assesses the relative strength and lack of workload of some of his rested relievers. Freddy Peralta has yet to throw a pitch, and one could question whether his fastball heavy approach would have been a favorable change in view against Dodgers bats, especially once a four-run lead was established. Junior Guerra’s poor Runs Prevented numbers largely occurred as a starter; he’s been an entirely different pitcher as a reliever. Comparing Runs Prevented figures between Counsell’s “rested” relievers and his Game Three choices, it’s easy to see why he worked so hard to get Jeremy Jeffress back on track, and why he went to Josh Hader and Corey Knebel, too (Knebel, of course, entered when the game was 2-0 and the tying runner was at the plate).

Entering Game Four, one almost has to expect an appearance from Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff, Junior Guerra, Corbin Burnes, and/or Xavier Cedeno in order to patch things through to Game Five. Obviously, Hader hardly threw any pitches last night, and as Counsell told the FS1 crew, if he’s cleared by trainers and feels good, Hader’s availability will be a “play it by ear” situation (read between the lines: expect Hader if the game is very close and on the line). At some point, one must expect that the Brewers will need to use this secondary group of relievers, both because Knebel and Jeffress have thrown between 50-60 pitches over four days, and because the group of “rested” relievers is quite solid in their own right. While the national commentary about the Brewers has been a sore subject for many following the series from the midwest (and rightfully so, in many cases), if Games Four and Five feature crucial moment meltdowns from the Milwaukee pen, commentators will undoubtedly look to the managerial decisions during that four-run lead as a source of criticism.