Ryu is good. The Brewers have trouble in their must-win scenario.

Brewers bats have been sleeping throughout much of the Dodgers series, with their Game One outburst and Clayton Kershaw the highlight (the club was also roughly average in Game Three, capitalizing on a long start by rookie Walker Buehler with some third-time through the order heroics). Here’s the rub for the Dodgers: they have a relatively traditional rotation, in the sense that Ryu and company are the types of pitchers a manager would simply leave on the mound to get out of their own trouble in most cases. Ryu justified any such managerial faith in 2018, shifting his times-through-the-order On Base Percentage Plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) from .585 (first time) to .682 (second time) and then .558 (third time) in a manner that suggests improvement throughout the game. For reference, the 2018 National League starters went .684 (first time) / .718 (second time) / .777 (third time), which means that Ryu was better than average each trip through the batting order, and substantially so in the much-maligned third trip. There’s a bit of a selection bias evident here, as Ryu only logged 65 batters faced in 13 games the third time through the order, meaning that if he was not knocked out of the game during his second trip through, he probably had his great stuff working.

In terms of stuff and approach, I find it stunning how much “Ryu is Ryu.” While there’s some fidgeting against the Brewers in the League Championship Series, for the most part Ryu has been the same pitcher in October that he was throughout 2018. What is striking about that first LCS start against the Brewers is that Ryu went away from his change up and curveball, in favor of throwing more sinkers to Brewers batters. This strategy ostensibly was intended to keep the Brewers off of the cutter and potentially keep the ball on the ground, but only one of those outcomes worked; Brewers bats boasted a .333 batting average on the sinker, and slugged .667. The sinker did yield the highest percentage of groundballs for the southpaw, but not with the benefit of keeping the Brewers bats from squaring up the cutter. The cutter simply was not working in Game Two, as the Brewers nabbed their homer off of the pitch, slammed a couple of line drives, and only whiffed approximately 6 percent of cutters (which is not far from Ryu’s 8 percent whiff rate on the pitch for the season, to be fair).

The secret to Ryu’s first start against the Brewers was those off-speed offerings, which the lefty can present to batters at two different speeds below his fastball, while also breaking the pitches to different sides of the plate. Both of these pitches offer Ryu distinct looks, and the Brewers were baffled by them the first time they faced the southpaw during the LCS. Zach Crizer noted that the Dodgers’ other notable lefty, Clayton Kershaw, leaned heavily on the spinners during his second outing against the Brewers, and used those offerings plus the shadows in Los Angeles to quiet the Brewers bats. This begs the question of whether Ryu was “too cute” in moving away from his bread-and-butter pitch mix for the 2018 season, and whether a similar pitch selection development is in store for Brewers bats in Game Six.

Miller Park will offer beautiful batting visibility for the close of the series, which raises another distinct advantage for Ryu’s slow stuff. First, Milwaukee mostly sat on the heavy stuff during their first meeting in Milwaukee, and Ryu did not see the Brewers at any other point in 2018. So working with the slow stuff will truly provide a new look against Brewers batters. Second, without shadows or any of the other afternoon oddities that have presented the series thus far, working with different break and three speed levels (four if you count the cutter) will allow Ryu to counteract the excellent batting conditions in Milwaukee. Working 92-83-74 is no joke, and if Ryu works from cutter to go 89-83-74 that’s not going to be a picnic either.

Thus the series rests on one crucial adjustment. Ryu can attempt to implement his Game Two plan once more, in an attempt to keep the ball on the ground and beat Brewers bats with his hardest stuff. Or he can change that edition of his pitching approach, in favor of his more familiar pitch mix from the season. The problem for the Brewers batters is that that pitch mix from the season was one that yielded great success for the southpaw: if Milwaukee has this adjustment in mind, they must seriously watch the change and curve, and look for Ryu to manipulate the ball in many different shapes. Given the Brewers’ success against the hard stuff during Game Two, expect a type of aggression from Milwaukee as well; if Milwaukee can see that cutter or one of the fastballs, and get a good swing on one, watch them swinging early in counts to drive that pitch. This will undoubtedly result in some frustrating one pitch plate appearances, but it could be the necessary antidote to late count off speed offerings.

The playoffs present an uneven environment for predicting (or even projecting) potential pitching performances.

First, there’s the “any given day” concern, which holds that in any given day your starting pitcher simply might not have their stuff; this happens regularly throughout a 162-game season, but pitchers typically have anywhere from 10 to 20 to 30 additional starts in which to make adjustments. For example, Blake Snell, the best pitcher in the MLB according to Average Runs Prevented, allowed five runs twice, four runs once, and three runs once; Wade Miley, the Brewers’ best starter by Average Runs Prevented, allowed four runs twice and three runs twice. On those particular days, both of these solid-to-great pitchers were not of great use to their club (the bats would have to pick them up!), but over 12 additional starts for Miley and 26 additional starts for Snell, adjustments held up. The Brewers have even seen this with Clayton Kershaw, who got hit hard in Game One before adjusting for Game Five of the LCS.

Second, the playoffs are an absurdly uneven environment in terms of distributing runs. On average, each team is scoring approximately 3.9 runs per game in the 2018 playoffs thus far, which is notably lower than the regular season environment. So on the whole one might expect that better pitching prevails, even against the best offenses. But this really is not the case; in 26 games, the road team has scored more than four runs 11 times, while the home team has scored more than four runs 9 times. Thus 38 percent of the time a batting team has been better than average, and 12 percent of the time a batting team has been exactly average (four runs scored). Batting teams have been resilient in making adjustments, and the ratio of average or better games leads to questions about the extent to which “pitching wins championships” (if pitching is “better than average” half the time, it’s not clear that that’s the resounding vote in favor of loading up on elite pitching in order to win in the playoffs).

Third, regular season runs prevention figures should not be expected to hold up even in that same season’s playoffs, for the playoffs are not a “war against attrition” (as are 162 games). Instead, the playoffs force teams to make roster decisions to typically stick with their very best players for five-to-seven games, disallowing in-series roster moves (with the exception of injuries). This results in extremely uneven roster management, and example of which could be Craig Counsell leaning on three of his elite relievers rather than using his whole group of relief pitchers for much of the playoffs.

Finally, it’s worth diving into the particular match-ups that occur in each series. For example, both the Dodgers and Brewers bats have been held “cold” throughout the NLCS, averaging 3.20 Runs Scored per Game each (yes, the NLCS is “tied” at 16 runs apiece). Ironically, the Dodgers ace pitchers have not been as strong as their bullpen throughout the series, whereas it’s been the Brewers starting pitching that has notably out-performed the excellent bullpen. Both of these facts can be analyzed on a match-up by match-up basis given the nature of a short series; one particular relief move truly can neutralize a batter, or backfire. In terms of Houston, their “true ace” rotation was generally crushed by Red Sox bats, which is worth underscoring: the Red Sox had the best offense in the playoffs, the Astros the best pitching, and Boston still managed to score 29 runs over five games (a good total in any environment).

I’m not saying this to discourage discussion about aces (yes, everybody likes elite starting pitching), or to suggest that pitching is not important (it is!). I simply wish to emphasize that (a) regular season pitching quality does not categorically translate to playoff pitching quality, (b) you can stress the individual match-ups in a short series where each team is leaning on a very small percentage of their organization, and (c) you should not rely on bumper sticker narratives. Pitching wins championships, except for when hitting does.

The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the 2018 season with a payroll of more than $187 million, according to Cot’s Contracts, more than double Milwaukee’s figure. In fact, that number alone would comprise approximately 70 percent of the Brewers’ total revenue. Those contracts feature players like Clayton Kersaw, an elite southpaw who defies the rule that aces don’t exist, the exception that proves the rule, a pitcher boasting approximately 66 career Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). That’s no fluke; Kershaw may not be as magical these days as he works in his age-30 season, but the lefty still managed a 3.11 Deserved Run Averaged (DRA). By comparison, Jimmy Nelson, the Brewers ace that everyone missed due to injured in 2018, posted a DRA of 3.32 last year. Ryan Braun, the Brewers’ best player, falls short of Kershaw by 20 WARP; Gio Gonzalez, the waiver trade deadline acquisition that serves as Milwaukee’s best career pitcher, has produced half the career value as Kershaw.

Related Reading:
Rebuild Rebuilding
Playoffs!
Sprint

But that’s not it; the Dodgers traded for superstar shortstop Manny Machado, they boast elite prospects from Cody Bellinger to elite reclamation projects like Justin Turner. The best position player prospect developed onto the 2018 Brewers is Orlando Arcia, who could certainly build a career as a glove-first shortstop, but struggled in 2018 before a demotion to Triple-A helped him his offensive production. Los Angeles boasts such a deep batting order that you might be forgiven if you forget that Yasiel Puig, Matt Kemp, Max Muncy, Enrique Hernandez, Yasmani Grandal, or Chris Taylor are a part of it (at any given moment); in fairness, though, I suppose the Brewers bullpen works the same way, as L.A. faithful might forget about Jeremy Jeffress, Josh Hader, Joakim Soria, Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, and company. Perhaps in a few years we’ll be writing about how the Brewers’ best pitching prospects developed onto the 2018 club (Hader and Burnes) forged their respective careers in the 2018 stretch run; that remains to be written.

By using Baseball Reference Multi-Year Park Factors, the Dodgers are easily the better team. Park-adjusting Runs Scored and Runs Allowed, and scaling them to the National League, one would have expected the Dodgers to win approximately six more games than the Brewers.

Team Deserved Run Average says the same (Los Angeles comes in at 3.51 while the Brewers are at a [still-respectable] 4.31); True Average (TAv) says the same, although it’s closer (Milwaukee’s overall batting performance of .275 is just behind the Dodgers’ MLB-leading mark of .280). The key areas where Milwaukee has the edge are in fielding (both in terms of Defensive Efficiency and Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency, although, again, it’s close), and the bullpen (again, it’s close).

Thankfully for all of us, they don’t play the games on paper. Thankfully for Brewers fans, fielding and bullpen can help to decide playoff series. On the field, the Brewers have a fighting chance.

It’s so easy to call the Dodgers the better team. What’s fascinating about the Dodgers, however, is that on the whole their overall on-field performance was worse than Milwaukee’s throughout the season. One way to measure the overall strength of a ballclub throughout the season is to average the team’s Winning Percentage pace (against a 162 game schedule) and average the team’s so-called “Pythagorean W-L” (this is the difference between a team’s Runs Scored and Runs Allowed translated into expected wins and losses).

Certainly, the Dodgers’ overall average Runs Scored and Runs Allowed performance looks much stronger than that of Milwaukee, but between games 28 and 81 the teams were basically equal to one another (that’s not an inconsequential number of games, either; that’s fully one third of the season). Interestingly enough, the Dodgers and Brewers started the season in completely inverse fashion. Los Angeles struggled to produce actual wins despite strong underlying run differential fundamentals, while Milwaukee used a bunch of close game victories to drive a mediocre run differential to elite record. Those following @BPMilwaukee on Twitter know that via Daily Pythagorean reports, the Brewers were basically an 84-win club as late as September 1.

Viewing these data in progressive fashion, one can see how each season unfolded:

Brewers fans loved to pick out random dates from the season and proclaim that Milwaukee was basically a .500 team. For this hobby, Los Angeles may have even been the better team to follow. On June 5, the Dodgers were 30-30; it even took a four game winning streak to get there. Of course, the Dodgers were battling quite a set of injuries, as one could literally form an All-Star team from some of their key beleaguered players from the first three months of the season. The rest is history, anyway, as the Dodgers sustained .600 baseball for three months to reach the playoffs. The underlying elements always looked good, and the on-field results eventually followed suit.

Milwaukee’s hot streaks came in fits and starts, by comparison. The Brewers were also a 30-30 baseball team, with their stretch occurring from June 1 through August 8 (the pessimists will point out that they really went 33-37 from late May deep into August!). Like the Dodgers, the Brewers snapped out of it and then some, basically book-ending their mediocrity with lights-out May and September campaigns.

For both teams, the successful narratives converge in September, which was the best month for both clubs in terms of actual record and runs scored / runs allowed. And so, their fates continued in Game 163, and through the Divisional Series, to what appears as a predestined series. Who else could take on these almighty Dodgers, the big-spending small market club that seemingly does everything right (save for ranking their executives’ criminal culpability). When you’re tempting to fall back on the narrative that the Dodgers indeed are the better team, as I frequently have been while studying both teams this week, remember that in the case of converting actual wins, the Brewers have been better for the entire season; when it comes to surging at the end of the season and forcing crucial games, both teams are equal. So why should there be any other League Championship Series on the Senior Circuit?

#ThisIsMyCrew #OurCrewOurOctober

Most Brewers fans would scoff at the notion that Milwaukee could rebuild their club under similar ideologies or structures as one of baseball’s largest television markets, for the common note would be that the Dodgers always have larger margins of error given the fact that they can simply sign any player they please to overcome any failed acquisitions. The Dodgers do have an embarrassment of riches, but focusing too much on that fact will miss that their most valuable batter was originally signed as a minor league free agent (Justin Turner); their third most valuable batter was another minor league free agent (Max Muncy); their best homegrown batter in 2018 was drafted in the fourth round (Cody Bellinger); and Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernandez were both acquired via relatively lateral trades (the former involving a stalled Top 100 prospect, the latter thrown-in with the payroll clearing Dee Gordon / Dan Haren trade). The pitching side of things for the Dodgers is less scrappy, but Walker Buehler (24th overall pick); Alex Wood (three-team salary-clearing, counterbuilding deal); Ross Stripling (5th round); and Kenley Jansen (amateur free agent, converted catcher) each serve as extremely valuable (2.0 WARP+) arms that were “off-market” acquisitions. Like the Brewers, the Dodgers have received ample value from players preceding their current front office reign, which also shows the importance of integrating talent, independently assessing talent, and avoiding a “my guys” approach.

In short, the Dodgers are effectively doing the things that small market front offices should do well, and then mastering the big market move as well. That they were able to rebuild their front office without faltering at the big league level should be a model for MLB teams regardless of market size (for example, designing the types of decision trees and strategic models that were praised during Friedman and Zaidi’s first offseason need not be restricted to large markets).

Luckily, if teams working in television markets smaller than Los Angeles were eyeing the Dodgers’ rebuilding efforts but balking at their feasibility, that Behemoth’s League Championship Series foe happens to have designed another blueprint for rebuilding while remaining relatively competitive. Certainly, no one would call a 73-win 2016 Brewers campaign a “tank” effort, as that win total is typically within one standard deviation of a .500 record. As former BPMilwaukee Editor J.P. Breen puts so well, to the Brewers’ credit, they began rebuilding before the cupboards were bare; as one will recall, Milwaukee revamped their draft approach for the late Bruce Seid’s final draft in 2014, and was experiencing something of a system resurgence in 2015 prior to any open rebuilding efforts (as many diehard Brewers fans will debate, some believe a “soft” rebuild can be dated back to the Yovani Gallardo trade, which netted current high leverage reliever Corey Knebel and Top 10 prospect contender (and 40-man roster member) Marcos Diplan).

Brewers: just 1.4 fWAR from pre-FA homegrown players this year. Subtract them entirely, they’d still be a playoff-caliber team. Despite bottom-third payroll. Competitors: Cardinals 18.9, Cubs 17.1, Pirates 13.3, Reds 4.3. David Stearns is the best GM in the game.

— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) September 18, 2018

Recently, NEIFI Analytics recognized David Stearns for assembling a roster with very little “true homegrown talent,” a point that was picked up by Curt Hogg and J.R. Radcliffe at JSOnline. First, one will be tempted to simply emphasize that the Brewers have been “lucky,” so yes, let’s get that out of the way and agree that good circumstances are key for a contending run (especially for a small market). Now, let’s revel in the extremely simple way that David Stearns assembled the Brewers without tanking: Stearns (and his able Front Office team) recognized that cheap talent need not solely originate from the draft, which categorically allowed him to toss aside the idea that the Brewers needed to assemble multiple high draft picks (and their relatively long development cycles) in order to rebuild the organization. (This is such a crucial point that it should be consistently parsed and analyzed throughout the offseason!) Instead, Stearns recognized that there is much freely available talent in the MLB, and many of those players simply need places to play.

In case you’re hoping to point out that the rebuild afforded Milwaukee the luxury to allow a gang of “flyer”, longshot future value plays to develop on the diamond, it is worth emphasizing that Stearns did not throw aside this strategy even while the Brewers were contending. Witness the 2017-2018 offseason, when the Brewers were following a missed postseason bid with minor league free agency deals (and subsequent roster spots) to players like Wade Miley; reliever J.J. Hoover; first baseman Ji-Man Choi; utilityman Nick Franklin; and later, waiver, Player To Be Named Later, or cash transactions involving Erik Kratz, Dan Jennings, Tyler Saladino, and Brad Miller. It’s easy to cite the major success stories in Milwaukee, such as Junior Guerra, Jesus Aguilar, Hernan Perez, and even Oliver Drake (yes, Oliver Drake), but digging into the everyday moves by Stearns and company reveals that this group wins from the top-down simply by not leaving any stone unturned, and constantly seeking to add value at the margins of the roster. With moves like this, it’s not difficult to dream up a 2019 season-opening rotation that features RHP Jake Thompson and Jordan Lyles; Milwaukee’s front office designed a system for recognizing talent through any means of acquisition, and then consistently and constantly implemented, refined, and revised that approach. (To understand how special this is, imagine how easy it would have been for the Brewers to rush out and beat one-year deals to Lance Lynn, or spend their available revenue on Jake Arrieta, as opposed to Wade Miley, to sell a contending team to a fanbase.) One can expect that Stearns and company have learned their lessons, and hopefully for Brewers faithful, they are also refining those lessons into an aggressive and smart 2018-2019 offseason strategy.

So the tank is dead. Rebuilding is dead. Let us simply return to player development cycles, which are long, long, full of variance, and subject to pricing errors.

Long live competitive baseball, now exemplified by the television behemoth Dodgers, strong market Cardinals, and the tiny Milwaukee Brewers. What is crucial to takeaway here is that both of these organizations designed a specific system for success, and carefully implemented that system with transactions that fit their specification and systemic goals. This is not simply to say that every team must follow these molds, but rather that the molds for contending in the MLB are plentiful. In the absence of those molds, the Brewers and Dodgers have at the very least demonstrated the embarrassment of riches that is freely available in the murky depths of MLB transaction wires, should one choose to look. At the very least, the Brewers and Dodgers give an opportunity to every MLB club to evaluate their player development and strategy supply chain systems, for every team has deep draft picks, every team has a chance at the waiver wires, and every team has a chance at minor league free agents. This message might be loudly received in San Francisco and New York (Mets), where rebuilding efforts could justifiably be underway given new front office searches; but one can also hope that clubs like Cincinnati, Miami, and San Diego pay attention as well.

This post was edited to remove a duplicate table entry.