Baseball Prospectus: Milwaukee Brewers Team Audit

Make no mistake about it, Brewers fans and analysts, this is a trap. It’s so easy to polish off phenomenal expectations at a time like this, and rejoice that the Brewers get to play an apparently easier stretch of schedule entering the break. But the team is experiencing some injuries of attrition in the field, just as the offense has finally produced a stretch of 30 games averaging better than 2018 NL / Miller Park runs scored (more on that later). The rotation has done a fantastic job, as has the elite bullpen, which are only getting attention due to a couple of recent blow-ups and blown leads….mostly occurring in games where the batters still cannot get it together.

So in honor of this schedule, which is certainly a trap, let’s have some fun with 21 statistics that are neither here, there, nor anywhere for what will certainly Attrition Central for #TeamDepth. If the Brewers can escape this stretch of play with a 9-12 record, that’s probably correction enough for the run differentials and a sign that the war of attrition did not go terribly wrong.

Ten
Ryan Braun is having a somewhat tough year balancing some new fielding assignments, relatively part time play, nagging injuries once again, and hard-hit batted balls with relatively bad luck. But it’s not all bad for the face of the franchise: in 9.7 percent of his plate appearances, Braun has hit for extra bases (12 doubles, one triple, and eight home runs). By comparison, the average National League bat hits for extra bases in approximately 7.6 percent of plate appearances.

Twelve
For the season, much has been made of the Brewers batters’ ten shutouts. In fact, this is quite an important number for Milwaukee batters, as the total Runs Scored “zero” has appeared more frequently than all but one run total: two runs.

For the 2018 campaign, the Brewers have scored two runs more frequently than any other outcome by the offense. What’s worse is that this number is not really accompanied by very good run totals, either; five runs is very nice, and it’s good to see that number tied with “0” for second place, but after that both of “3” and “1” are below average run totals.

Sixteen
For all the criticisms that Brewers baserunners have faced for their aggressive style over the years, it seems that the exceptional baserunning performance of Milwaukee has mostly escaped fan consciousness. Undoubtedly this is due in part to the fact that the Brewers are not scoring runs at an average clip. But, according to Baseball Prospectus Baserunning Runs, the Brewers are the third best team in the MLB in terms of baserunning production. Translating this to stolen bases, Lorenzo Cain leads the team with 16 steals in 19 attempts, ahead of Jonathan Villar (10 / 12), Christian Yelich (9 / 10) and Ryan Braun (7 / 9). In fact, Milwaukee is the second best team in the National League in terms of stolen bases (58 of 71 attempts). Run, run, run!

Twenty
Only the New York Mets have attempted fewer sacrifice bunt attempts than the Brewers in 2018. Milwaukee has attempted 20 bunts thus far, with successful sacrifices 14 times; this is good for a success rate that is higher than the league average. Ironically, for the lack of runs scored, Milwaukee is not only a great base running team, but they are also posting average or better situational hitting statistics according to Baseball Reference. This occurs across categories: sacrifice bunts, productive outs, baserunners scored, and advancing baserunners (with less than two outs at third base and zero outs at second base). The problem for the Brewers is simply that they do not get enough batters on base frequently enough…

Thirteen
….and when the Brewers do get baserunners on, their tendency to hit ground balls results in the highest percentage of ground ball double plays in the National League (13 percent of GIDP opportunities). This is notably worse than the NL average of double plays produced in ten percent of opportunities. So much for strike outs being a bad thing!

Four
One wonders if the defensive flexibility of the ballclub might actually explain some of the troubles the club has in terms of scoring runs…the Brewers only have four players with more than 50 starts at one position (Lorenzo Cain and Travis Shaw lead as the most regular regulars with 70 starts, followed by Villar (55) and Arcia (53) in the middle infield). Jesus Aguilar does not even have 50 starts at first base this year; Christian Yelich’s most regular position is left field…for 32 games, and catcher and right field have also been impacted in the games started department (probably due to the respective performances of Manny Pina and Domingo Santana more than strategy).

I was certainly in the camp that expected defensive flexibility to be a strength for these Brewers, and I certainly do not think it is a downright liability given the performance of the fielders. But given the performance of the offense, I think it is worth questioning whether flexible defensive roles have an impact on batting performance for these players.

Nine
Why are the Brewers pitchers so good? Their groundball percentage is fading to the middle of the pack, minimizing their ability to produce double plays as well. However, Milwaukee arms excel at limiting fly balls, and their 9.46 percent pop-up rate is the best in the MLB according to Baseball Prospectus.

Five
For all the rumblings about the Brewers relief pitching hitting their regression to the mean, it’s worth noting that the pitchers are not terribly far above average in some stats to begin with. For instance, the Brewers rank fifth in the National League with 32 percent of their Inherited Runners Scored, despite inheriting fewer runners than the league average (100 versus 106 for the typical NL team). This is an indication of how the club is quite good with inherited runners scored, but not necessarily perched atop the league.

4.3 at 23
It’s too bad that the Brewers pitchers are not yielding more ground balls, because Orlando Arcia remains one of the best shortstops in baseball despite his lack of playing time. Arcia has the fewest games played of any SS in the Top 10 for Fielding Runs Above Average. Yet, the 23-year old glove-first fielder ranks sixth in FRAA with his 4.3 mark. Another statistic worth remembering: at 23, Arcia is tied for Carlos Correa as the youngest elite defensive shortstop, and among shortstops with at least 60 games only Ahmed Rosario of the Mets is younger (but he’s nowhere near as good defensively). If you like more straightforward statistics, according to Baseball Reference Arcia remains one of the very best MLB shortstops with 10 Defensive Runs Saved; only Freddy Galvis and Addison Russell are better in the NL.

Second Best at .336
Jesus Aguilar is having a fantastic season, boasting a .336 True Average (TAv) and 1.4 FRAA. That offensive performance is second only to Freddie Freeman among first basemen with 60 or more games played.

One
For their fantastic pitching staff, the Brewers only have one player in the top ten percent of all MLB, in terms of Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). That player is lefty high leverage reliever Josh Hader, ranked as 40th (!) with 1.54 WARP. No full-time reliever ranks higher, and only one pitcher better than Hader is younger (Jack Flaherty).

Ten
Many Brewers fans are suggesting that the club needs an ace in their pitching rotation. When I host chats on BPMilwaukee Twitter (@BPMilwaukee), the most common questions since the off season typically concern the quality of the MLB rotation. Throwing out the extremely advanced stats, let’s look at games started and ERA+ (a contextual assessment of Earned Runs Average). Here we are, half way through the season, and only ten clubs have at least three starters with 10 GS and an ERA at or above league average: the Red Sox, Cubs, Cleveland, Tigers, Astros, Angels, Mets, Cardinals, Nationals, and Brewers.

Seventeen / 40 Percent
If you’re interested in an ace, though, using the colloquial definition of someone who can lead a rotation in terms of performance and starts, who would be better than Jhoulys Chacin? Sorting all MLB starting pitchers by games started and ERA+, Chacin meets the strongest definition of good performance in a heavy workload.

Of course, including advanced contextual statistics, it is worth questioning whether the club will see some course correction from the starting pitchers. Here, Junior Guerra’s 4.69 DRA is the best among Brewers starters with at least 60 innings pitched. That’s good for 71st in the MLB. Yet, once Guerra is working between the lines, his splitter remains one of the best in the game at inducing swings-and-misses; thus far Guerra is yielding nearly 40 percent whiffs-per-swing on the split (only slightly lagging his 2016 performance that put that pitch on the map).

Thirteen / Forty-Three
Overall, the Brewers pitching rotation forms quite a strong unit: the club’s starting pitchers have 13 Runs Prevented as a group. This performance helps the team maximize a phenomenal bullpen, as the Brewers can frequently keep the game close. With a bullpen that has prevented 43 runs, the starting pitchers are often handing close games to relief pitchers that are ready to help convert those games into wins.

Six
When is a better than average offense not really that good? Over the last 30 games for the Brewers, it turns out! Those big ticket runs totals against Philadelphia have gone a long way toward improving Milwaukee’s season long offensive figures….

….but for all that, over the last 30 games the most frequently Runs Scored total for the Brewers has declined from the season leading 2 RS. Twenty percent of the Brewers’ games since they returned from Minnesota have ended with 1 RS for Milwaukee. If you missed seeing 2 RS, do not worry, for that remained the second most frequent run total over that time.

Seventeenth in Right
Domingo Santana is a tough player to figure out right now. If someone had told Brewers fans that the right fielder would have -2.6 FRAA roughly halfway through the season, most would have expected that he would be in the running for one of the most valuable right fielders in the MLB. Alas, in True Average (TAv), Santana’s mark of .259 (i.e., roughly league average) ranks 17th of 24 MLB RF with 60 or more games played.

Fourteen
Perhaps Lorenzo Cain is able to produce so many stolen bases in part because he’s on first base so frequently: the Brewers Center Fielder is drawing walks in 13.8 percent of his plate appearances!

Nineteen (Two)
Without park adjustment, across the 2018 MLB the Brewers’ offense currently ranks 19th in terms of Runs Scored. Their pitching staff currently ranks 2nd in terms of Runs Allowed.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

Of course, these Brewers look very, very bad in some areas of the game. One can use Pythagorean W-L, or Run Differential (Runs Scored / Runs Allowed), to estimate a club’s expected record based on their underlying elements. In this case, the results are much uglier than .500. If one had told Brewers fans and analysts that their favorite club would be 4-8 after the first dozen games, that would probably cause a bit more pause than a .500 record. How did we get here?

• The starting pitching has been worse than many people expected, even worse than many naysayers could have imagined.

• Much of the bad starting pitching performance is due to poor fielding. While the Brewers starting pitchers are 11 runs below average thus far (!!!), these arms have also allowed four more runs than expected based on Fielding Independent Pitching (which is awful this early in the season). A 41 RS / 53 RA club might have been able to eat more innings, or given a few close games more breathing room.

• More importantly, the starting pitching’s poor performance has occurred early in games. Only Chase Anderson and Zach Davies have completed six innings of work thus far in the season, which means that in three additional turns through the rotation the bullpen has required (at least) another inning of work.

• Innings pitched workloads over nine inning games are one thing, but since the Brewers have played in so many close games, the workload has been compounded by extra innings games. Milwaukee has already played three extra innings games thus far in 2018; to put that in perspective, seventeen MLB teams have yet to play two extra innings games in this young season.

• The fielding really is bad. According to Baseball Prospectus Defensive Efficiency and Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency statistics, the Brewers fielding unit is easily in the bottom third of the MLB. This is somewhat surprising given that (a) the Brewers had a relatively middle-of-the-road fielding unit in 2017 and (b) the Brewers’ offseason moves largely were meant to improve the defense (see Eric Sogard, Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich transactions as examples).

• Of course, the batting performances thus far have been terrible. In fact, based on the 2018 National League and three-year Miller Park factor, the Brewers have average nearly one run below average per game. The bats have scored five or more runs in 5 games thus far; the trouble is, when they are not scoring runs, they are not scoring runs. In this department, the Brewers have also scored two-or-fewer runs in 5 games thus far. You can say what you want about the pitching, but you’re not going to win many 0 run support games.

• Beyond the performances, the poor play on the field has been compounded by injuries. Currently, Christian Yelich and Corey Knebel have joined Jimmy Nelson, Boone Logan, and Stepgen Vogt on the disabled list. Meanwhile, Lorenzo Cain is also nursing a day-to-day injury, which produced the club’s listless batting order that appeared in last night’s loss in St. Louis. There’s no other way to say it: the Brewers have a pretty good team on the DL right now, which is certainly not an excuse for poor play (especially for a team that was supposed to call depth its strength), but is one explanation for the gloomy attitude among Brewers fans.

• Ultimately, there also seems to be this attitude among Brewers fans that since success was unexpected in 2017, every game in 2018 would be a referendum on those expectations. It is as though Brewers fans are simultaneously terrified and angry about the mounting poor play, while also angrily pounding their fists in vindication: “See, I told you the rotation was bad! See, I told you this wasn’t a good team! The front office was fooled by their 2017 team!” That sort of attitude does not help anyone, but in an era where fans identify more with roster-building and playing along as General Manager, rather than imagining themselves as ball players and aligning themselves with labor, this produces fan sentiments that are sensitive and easily bitter towards shortcomings on the field.

So what’s going right? According to Baseball Prospectus, first and foremost, the Brewers pitchers are yielding relatively high percentages of ground balls and pop-ups. This essentially means that the pitchers are doing their job of limiting hard contact and keeping the ball on the ground. Given the general career fielding profiles of the Brewers defense, one might expect the Brewers’ Runs Allowed profile to self-correct should Milwaukee arms continue to allow solid groundball and pop-up percentages. Additionally, although the Brewers rotation has not been designed to strike batters out (48 of 269 batters struck out thus far), they are limiting the walks (22 of 269 batters). While the home run total must come down, thus far the strikeout-to-walk ratio is a sign of success.

Of course, it is more difficult to see the silver linings with the Brewers offense. In fact, the Brewers bats have batted-ball statistics that their pitching staff would like to see: Milwaukee batters are thus far keeping the ball on the ground and popping up at strong percentages, which is not a good trend to see for an offense. Despite all this, it is worth noting that the Brewers True Average of .246 is basically around the league median; currently, a .258 TAv is a Top 10 performance among MLB teams, and six teams have TAv between .245 and .249. It is worth noting that, thus far, the Brewers batters have ended significantly more plate appearances after the first pitch in 2018 than 2017, but they are not succeeding in those plate appearances: their .305 / .317 / .441 batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage slash line is notably below average for first pitch plate appearances.

One key silver lining statistic that the “home run or nothing” vultures may be thrilled to see: the Brewers are significantly limiting their strike outs thus far (near 10 percent improvement), knocking the ball into play more frequently. Their home run rate has plummeted from 3.7 percent in 2017 to 2.1 percent in 2018 thus far, which is certainly something to continue watching. As Milwaukee continues to knock the ball into play more frequently, they must change their orientation away from a groundball and pop-up team. “Home run or nothing” is not a bad offense if the home runs mean a club is not grounding out and popping up.

As the season progresses, it is worth tracking home runs, fly balls, and runs scored per game across the MLB. Thus far, the run environment has deflated, which is another interesting element to consider regarding the Brewers’ roster construction. Compared to the run environment of 2016-2017, the Brewers pitching staff is even better than its current performance, but the deflation in runs scoring amplifies every shortcoming on the mound. Alternately, it is worth questioning whether a shift in the ball is affecting batter across the league. Given MLB efforts to speed up the pace of the game, as well as their ambivalent responses to the “bad press” of various (independent) corroborations of juiced baseballs during 2016-2017, it is plausible that MLB could have put the lid on the juiced ball.

Ultimately, this is not “small sample size” warning to throw out the analysis above: the Brewers have several shortcomings that cannot continue. The bats cannot continue to walk at low rates, or hit the ball on the ground, or pop up. Somehow, adjustments at the plate must center around maximizing patience and discipline to drive the ball around the ballpark. The fielding cannot continue their inefficient play, and this has nothing to do with errors; errors are one thing, but inefficiencies around the diamond are hurting a Brewers pitching staff that is meant simply to feed a defensive unit. In fact, the arms must continue to feed ground balls and pop-ups to their fielders…that’s one trend that should be maintained.

Yet, so long as Christian Yelich is injured, so long as Jimmy Nelson is injured, so long as Corey Knebel is injured, so long as Stephen Vogt and Boone Logan are injured, it is worth seeing a club scraping by at .500 as an extreme strength. #TeamDepth has already been tested, and the club is doing what many of us expected they would do anyway: they are playing in close games, night after night, and must use their strong bullpen and fielding to make that equation work. Now the equation of players executing that strategy have changed, which is not an excuse; indeed, that’s the whole point of #TeamDepth. It’s worth punting this 6-6 start, considering each .500 point as a 0-0 event from which the team can be newly evaluated. Put aside the 4-8 run differential, even: we know what adjustments the Brewers need to make, and we know they have one of the deepest clubs in the game to attempt to execute those adjustments. Now it’s time to see if it works.

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry, USA Today Sports Images.