Another week, another chance to mention that the Brewers are in in first place. After starting the week by winning a home series against the Cardinals, the Brewers did suffer a setback to start their road trip. The interleague schedule granted Milwaukee three winnable games against a terrible Chicago White Sox team, and the Brewers […]
Tag: 2018 Brewers
Kratz and the Journey of Catching Depth
“Teams always need catching depth, and that often seems to mean they need Erik Kratz.” – BP Annual, 2017 The odds have always seemed stacked against Erik Kratz finding a career in baseball. Kratz was born on June 15th, 1980, to a devout Mennonite family in Telford, Pennsylvania, which also happens to be Jamie Moyer’s home […]
The Next Big Steps
The Brewers exited their month of May with a much deserved day off, winning 19 of 27 games on the strength of a 134 Runs Scored (RS) / 104 Runs Allowed (RA) run differential for the month. By allowing 3.85 runs per game, the pitchers remained significantly better than average (+14 RA), but the story […]
Chase Anderson: FIP-Beater?
Chase Anderson’s 2018 season has been quite different from his 2017. His strikeout rate has dropped, his walk rate has risen, his ground ball rate has dropped, and his home run rate has risen. None of those trends are indicators of success, so it is no surprise that his ERA is almost two runs higher […]
Weekend Recap: Anderson HR
The Brewers blitzed through another week, plus Memorial Day, going 7-1 at home against the Diamondbacks, Mets and Cardinals. They scored fifty-one runs and allowed twenty three over the eight games, outpacing their seasonal averages of 4.31 runs scored and 3.70 runs allowed per game. While three teams in the National League have a better run […]
Fun With Pythagoras: Doubt
Entering Sunday, the Brewers bats had posted their best offensive output of the season, a runs scored total so large that a mediocre-to-bad offense suddenly had a much more positive season trend (or at least closer to average). Our Beloved Milwaukee Nine extended a four game lead over the nearest National League Central rivals w, […]
BPMilwaukee Exclusive: Robot Ump Experiment
Baseball Prospectus is, in general, at the forefront of ball-tracking systems, and Wayne Boyle, Sean O’Rourke, Jeff Long, and Harry Pavlidis have spent countless hours researching and writing about the the technology, and flaws inherent in all current ball-tracking systems. Earlier this year they wrote an outstanding piece about the various issues that baseball would […]
Braulio Ortiz and the Curse of One Great Tool
Quick, think of the loudest tools in the Brewers system. Hit tool? Keston Hiura. Throwing arm? That’s Brett Phillips. (Laugh also belongs to Phillips.) Curveball? I’ll take Adrian Houser here. What about the fastball? There are some fun arguments to be had. Taylor Williams is pretty electric. Brandon Woodruff can touch 98. How about a […]
Weekend Recap: Logan, Villar
The Brewers completed their successful road trip, taking series in both Arizona and Minnesota to go 4-2 for the second consecutive week and maintaining their lead in the NL Central. The name of the game this week was run prevention: the pitching staff allowed only sixteen runs. Milwaukee is currently 14th in MLB in DRA, […]
Who is Josh Hader?
Brewers left hander Josh Hader is causing quite a stir thanks to his strike out mania. The Milwaukee reliever began the season with a fascinating 15.3 IP performance in 10 appearances, striking out 31 of 53 batters faced. But the breakout arguably occurred on April 30, 2018, when Hader completed an eight out save (2.7 […]