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Here’s how the Brewers pitching staff looks when ranked by Average Runs Prevented. For additional context, each pitcher’s Games, Games Started, and Innings Pitched statistics are included.

Stats: 

Average Runs Prevented is the average of park-adjusted, league-adjusted estimates of a pitcher’s actual runs allowed compared to their expected runs allowed.

DRA Runs Prevented is the difference between a pitcher’s expected runs allowed and their DRA performance. 

Direction is the “Direction of Change” between a pitcher’s 2018 Average Runs Prevented and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented.

G is “Games” (total appearances); GS is “Games Started” (total starts); IP is “Innings Pitched.”

Why is this important? DRA is a pitching statistic that estimates each pitcher’s performance based on numerous contextual factors. DRA is a statistic that can describe a player’s performance on the field by correlating Runs Allowed per 9 IP (RA9) to DRA; it is modeled to consistently assess a player’s performance year-to-year; and it is modeled to predict next year’s RA9. Runs Prevented, on the other hand, is a purely descriptive statistic, simply aiming to measure the extent to which a pitcher compares to their park and league environments.

Before we get into the extended analysis, if you’d like to know why this topic is important, consider the following questions; for fun, the exercise could also end here, as there’s a lot to think about with this staff.

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

….which of these pitchers would you expect to improve in 2019?

By describing Runs Prevented and DRA Runs Prevented statistics year-over-year, it is possible to understand the absolute volatility of pitching performance. DRA is also potentially a tool that can be used to set someone in the right direction for analyzing statistical profiles in order to project improvement or decline.

Let’s take a look at MLB pitchers that worked in 2017 and 2018:

The value of using a statistic such as DRA is that the year-to-year Runs Prevented performance by MLB pitchers is absurdly volatile. The table above demonstrates the absolute value of change in several key statistics for pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018. 639 MLB pitchers worked in both 2017 and 2018 seasons. On the whole, this group was quite volatile, with the average change in runs prevented moving by nine runs prevented (positive or negative); a pitcher that worked in both 2017 and 2018 also saw their innings pitched total fluctuate between 33 and 34 innings, and their average games started fluctuate by four. Focusing specifically on starters (i.e., pitchers who started a game in 2017 and pitchers who started a game in 2018), the fluctuations are even wider.

These fluctuations would be the equivalent of Jhoulys Chacin becoming a slightly below average, slightly smaller workload pitcher in 2018, or improving steadily into “ace” territory; Freddy Peralta expanding into a more regular rotation role, or stepping back into a smaller replacement role; Corey Knebel fluctuating to a below average reliever or recovering his excellent high leverage form; or Josh Hader becoming “just” an average reliever or taking the next step in his high leverage ace development. These are just a few examples of the real impact that typical run prevention fluctuations can cause to a team. Each of these pitchers are likely to remain under Brewers contractual control in 2019, so it matters how their performances change.

Let’s dig deeper into that group of 639 pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018 to assess the descriptive value of DRA and Runs Prevented. A couple of caveats are in order. First, this is a biased analysis, insofar as I am expressly limiting my search to players that worked in both 2017 and 2018, which excludes a “true talent assessment” of players that missed either of those seasons for a multitude of reasons (from player development, such as Freddy Peralta, to injury, such as Jimmy Nelson). Second, since I will be describing the general direction of DRA, I am not using statistical methods to assess the significance of DRA’s predictions. With these caveats in mind, I think it remains useful to see how DRA assesses players within a single season, and across two seasons.

Now that we’ve discussed the average absolute value of Runs Prevented change between 2017 and 2018, let’s take an overview of this group of pitchers in terms of improvement or decline. Excluding pitchers with Runs Prevented totals between -2 and 2 in 2017 and 2018, which represents a relatively minimal range of fluctuation that could simply be explained by park factors or league environment, more pitchers declined than improved between 2017 and 2018. In many cases, these changes were quite major, as 132 pitchers declined by 10 or more Runs Prevented, while 53 pitchers improved by 10 or more Runs Prevented. The overall magnitude of major declining performances ensured that this group of 639 pitchers was -439 Runs Prevented (!!!) between 2017 or 2018; this means that if each 2017 team retained these pitchers, on average they would have been expected to lose approximately 44 more games (as a group) in 2018, all else held equal.

Based on 2017 performance, could anyone have predicted these directions of change among these pitchers? Once I assembled an Average Runs Prevented analysis of the 2017 MLB season, and isolated pitchers that worked in both 2017 and 2018, I analyzed several aspects of each player’s performance:

• I analyzed the 2017 Direction of Change, which is the change between 2017 Runs Prevented and 2017 DRA Runs Prevented, in order to assess whether a player overperformed or underperformed their DRA.

• I analyzed the 2017 Direction of Change and the difference between 2018 Runs Prevented and 2017 Runs Prevented, in order to assess whether a player’s between-seasons change (2017 to 2018) matched their 2017 underperformance or overperformance. Focusing on 2017 Direction of Change and between-seasons change is one way to describe the types of projections made by DRA.

• I assessed 2017 DRA Runs Prevented and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented in order to determine whether the statistic consistently estimated a pitcher’s contextual performance.

First and foremost, in terms of 2017 and 2018 consistency, DRA consistently assessed 389 pitchers as either Above Average or Below Average in both 2017 and 2018. Since the “Other Pitchers” group is quite a set of outliers, I provided a couple of key statistics about their DRA Runs Prevented.

In this case, the “Other” group is comprised of outliers, including pitchers like Wade Miley and Chase Anderson, as well as Lucas Giolito, Kyle Freeland, and Derek Holland, among others. This is an area where the biased selection of this group of pitchers could impact analysis, as developments such as a new pitch (by Miley) or backed-up stuff and command (by Giolito) create role discrepancies that would be difficult to predict without granular scouting information. Of course, these are precisely the types of uneven player development facts that teams attempt to exploit. Wade Miley was not a particularly good pitcher in 2018, indeed he could have reasonably been replaced (which is partially why he was available for a minor league contract entering 2018); his development to an average pitcher was worth 44 DRA Runs Prevented between 2017 and 2018, a massive improvement that is going to skew nearly any sample of players.

On the whole, it is worth noting that DRA Runs Prevented tracked better than Average Runs Prevented, in terms of absolute value of change, between 2017 and 2018. Among pitchers that worked in both seasons, DRA Runs Prevented fluctuated by approximately 8 runs, compared to approximately 9 runs by Average Runs Prevented. Not bad!

How does DRA work with this group of pitchers in terms of predicting the general direction of change between 2017 and 2018? Based on a pitcher’s internal 2017 difference between DRA and Runs Prevented, that pitcher’s typical improvement or decline between 2017 or 2018 matched the overperformance or underperformance (in terms of 2017 DRA versus 2017 Runs Prevented). DRA correctly assessed a pitcher’s expected performance change in 79 percent of cases:

Within this group of pitchers, DRA performs quite well in terms of assessing the actual size of the Runs Prevented change, as well as the direction. Once I categorized pitchers into groups of players that had Predicted Improvement, Predicted Decline, or some Other Prediction, I compared the change between 2017 and 2018 DRA Runs Prevented to 2017 and 2018 Actual Runs Prevented:

It should be underscored that this is a descriptive account of DRA’s predictions, rather that a statistical test of the significance of DRA’s predictions. Still, what is incredibly impressive about DRA is just how strong the statistic is in anticipating the shape of the run environment, and understanding the wide variance that can occur year over year.

What is interesting is that, according to DRA, the Brewers pitching staff was indeed better than average in 2018. However, there are 22 pitchers from that staff that might reasonably be expected to post a notable improvement or decline in 2019, if one assesses the extent to which they outperformed or underperformed their 2018 DRA. Thus, it is worth repeating the questions about who might be expected to improve in 2019, for even if the overall direction of the club’s pitchers may be expected to stay the course, their shape and distribution of Runs Prevented can all but expected to look quite different.

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.

The story of the Brewers’ remarkable winning streak that has carried them into the playoffs and now a League Championship Series matchup with the Dodgers has been the dominance and run-prevention of the bullpen. With a matchup looming against a much stronger team offensively than the Rockies (the Dodgers finished the season fifth in MLB in runs scored per game and first in True Average), not to mention a longer series and therefore more outs to “get,” it’s fair to ask how sustainable the heavy bullpen usage looks to be for the rest of the postseason.

Usage
Inning limits seem to be an inexact science at best, given what we know publicly.  There may be a slight effect in terms of injury prevention when drastic inning increases are managed by teams. But beyond injuries, suffice it to say that given the toll pitching takes on the human body (with the caveat that every pitcher is different), generally pitchers approaching substantial workload increases are more likely to fatigue. This makes sense on an intuitive level.

Among likely Brewers to make the NLCS roster as non-starting “out getters,” most of the pitchers seem to be in relatively good shape with regard to their innings in the previous season and well within their career highs, with a maximum of 14 games left in the season. Knebel, Burnes, and Woodruff in particular are encouraging in terms of how many innings they may have left over last year’s totals. Freddy Peralta has already pitched over 20 innings more than his 2017 season and might be managed more carefully, especially if the Brewers see him as a starter moving forward.

The real danger zone may be with Jeremy Jeffress, who, despite sitting out a few games to manage minor injuries toward the end of the season, is 11 innings above what he pitched last year. That may not or may not be a factor moving forward, but it is [checks math] a higher workload. As such, there could be fewer opportunities for Jeffress to cover multiple innings. Combined with his recent minor injuries that made him unavailable in Game 163, and his performance so far in October, it’s worth keeping an eye on the next area of the pitching staff to consider for the aggressive bullpenning Brewers.

Fatigue
This is where there is a small area of concern for Jeffress’ availability moving forward to the degree he has been used so far this season.

Source: BrooksBaseball.net

The one-mile per hour difference on Jeffress’ four-seam fastball might not be anything, and in fact comes with a major caveat of a sample size of just 15 times that he’s thrown it in October. But coupled with the recent minor injuries and increased workload, it certainly stands out among the other Brewer relievers, who are mostly throwing harder in October than they have in the season overall.

As a unit it seems like the Brewer bullpen isn’t suffering from any fatigue just yet in October. Somewhat unbelievably, Josh Hader is actually up two ticks on his fastball, and the young and promising duo of Burnes and “secret weapon” Woodruff are also up pretty significantly. Basically, if Craig Counsell is looking just at in-game performance or the metrics that might imply fatigue among his relievers, there’s seemingly little to raise a red flag.

Schedule
This is where the bullpen strategy gets a little tricky. During a 7-game series, how will the Brewers manage their run-prevention strength with also needing to cover more innings overall?

Playing a strictly “bullpen game” as the Brewers did in Game 1 of the Division Series is still workable but may be a bit more difficult to pull off when there are just simply more outs to cover. For example, if after Jhoulys Chacin and Wade Miley pitch Games One and Two, and Counsell decides to bullpen Game Three, he could find himself without Woodruff and Burnes for games Four and Five, leaving a shorthanded staff presumably with Gio Gonzalez and/or Zach Davies toeing the rubber to start Game Four. Perhaps a Game One bullpen game is in the cards again, as it would allow the Brewers to put their best pitcher, Johnny Wholestaff, up against Clayton Kershaw, and then have Chacin go for Game Two. That would allow the bullpen to get some extra rest for the travel off-day to Los Angeles before Game Three.

My head hurts.

At any rate, there are more decisions to consider in a longer series that has 3 games in a row, and it will also likely limit the number of relievers the Brewers are willing to burn for multiple innings at a time.

The bullpen overall looks to be in good shape given their usage so far in the season and at least by velocity, there doesn’t seem to be much drop off in production, either. The Brewers will, however, need some kind of help from their bats or a third starter especially in the middle 3 games of the series in Los Angeles if they want to maximize meaningful innings for their best run-preventing weapon.

Of course, the Brewers are a bit odd about what they look for in pitchers, with command studs like Zach Davies and reclamation projects like Wade Miley  more attractive to the front office than your stereotypical, and overpriced fire-ballers. The Brewers are focused on one thing above all else, that being a pitcher’s numbers on their first, second, and third times facing an order, and once you understand this, a lot of seemingly mysterious actions from the Milwaukee front office suddenly look very clear. For starters, for anyone who once claimed the Brewers need to add a starting pitcher, it will become clear that any starting pitcher would, to be valuable, need to be better at preventing runs on his third time through the order, than the vast majority of Brewer relievers are their first time through. Because the Brewers pull starters so early, most Brewer starters don’t routinely face a lineup three times, and even moreso in the playoffs. A new starting pitcher isn’t adding value by replacing just Zach Davies; A big name free agent stud needs to be better than Davies plus Josh Hader, or Jeremy Jeffress, or Corbin Burnes, or Brandon Woodruff, or Corey Knebel. As it turns out, there are basically no starting pitchers available as free agents, or otherwise, that actually fit the bill, and those that do are fantastically expensive. To the extent the Brewers do look for starters in the off-season, it’s unlikely you will think much of them because they will likely have a proven track record of excelling the first two times through the order, and not much more.

This brings us back to Anderson, who, in the grand scheme of things, was pretty good at preventing runs. But, the Brewers don’t care about the grand scheme of things, only the first two acts, and as it turns out:

First time through the order, OPS against.

1. Jhoulys Chacin – .577
2. Wade Miley – .601
3. Freddy Peralta – .633
4. Gio Gonzalez – .678
5. Junior Guerra – .695 (.908 the second time)
6. Zach Davies – .700
7. Chase Anderson – .758
8. Brent Suter – .769

Now, Anderson does improve drastically the second time through the order with a .639 OPS against, and it’s possible that a lot of this is just bad luck or noise, but the facts are the facts, and Anderson did give up 13 of his 30 home runs allowed his first time through the order. Given how the Brewers are constructed, falling behind early can be ruinous, and because the Brewers have depth, they don’t need to be cute about such things. Anderson has been a good Brewer and deserves a ton of credit for his efforts, but because of this one deficiency he simply couldn’t fit on a playoff roster. Over the course of his career he is not quite so bad, and has shown fairly normal “times through the order” splits, But the home runs make him prone to some early blowups, and being bad early is the one thing the Brewers can’t tolerate out of a starter. If he’s back next season, I’ll be shocked.

Junior Guerra has had an up-and-down season, which will deserve more analytical scrutiny once the season closes. Brewers fans largely wrote off Guerra after the righty experienced a forearm injury in July (on DL July 14-24), which preceded a truly dreadful stretch of baseball. Returning from the disabled list, Guerra started eight games, ultimately working 37.3 innings while allowing 38 runs (!!!) and a 32 strike out / 16 walk / 8 homer / 1.08 Groundball:Flyball peripheral performance. At this point, the Brewers replaced Guerra in the rotation with newly acquired southpaw Gio Gonzalez, himself looking for some redemption in a new locale.

Guerra’s fall was shocking in part because the righty maintained solid Runs Prevented throughout the year. On May 31, the splitter pitcher averaged approximately Nine Runs Prevented; that swelled to approximately 11 Runs Prevented through July, before returning to approximately Nine Runs Prevented on August 12 and plummeting to -1.3 Runs Prevented by August 24. Guerra bottomed out at an average of -9.0 Runs Prevented on September 9, meaning that the righty boasts one of the Top 10 Runs Prevented “declines” during the 2018 season:

What is notable, however, is that despite Guerra’s large decline from May through September, the righty ultimately provided (approximately) average production throughout the season. Ironically, Gio Gonzalez matches this trend for Guerra as well, as the lefty averaged approximately Four Runs Prevented for the Nationals despite falling to below average production by the time he was traded to Milwaukee.

So, the Brewers entered a playoff stretch run by moving one formerly productive starting pitcher into the rotation at the expense of another formerly productive starting pitcher. Yet, Craig Counsell provided Guerra a couple of opportunities to define his relief role while working in close deficits on September 11 and September 15, and the righty also made another appearance during last night’s series closing victory against the Reds.

I’ve dreamed on a Guerra relief role since the beginning, considering the righty’s command stature and splitter as two of the reasons that the righty might morph from a starting pitcher into a reliever. What is fascinating, however, is that while Guerra is absolutely lights out over 3.7 relief innings thus far (5 K / 0 BB / 0 HR / 1.33 GB:FB), that formerly elite splitter is nowhere to be seen. In fact, according to Brooks Baseball, entering Wednesday night’s match-up against the Reds, the righty had almost exclusively worked fastball / breaking ball in relief. At the time of this writing, Brooks Baseball data had yet to reflect Guerra’s last outing, but raw Gameday Play-By-Play suggests that Guerra was once more a two-pitch pitcher.

What is especially stunning about Guerra moving to a fastball / breaking ball relief profile is that the hurler is not even using his slider. According to Brooks Baseball, Guerra’s velocity, vertical movement, and horizontal movement profile on his breaking ball matches his previous “curveball,” rather than his well-known “slider.” Here’s how Guerra’s pitch profile looked as a starting pitcher in 2018:

To emphasize just how different this new version of Guerra looks from the old Guerra, here’s how Brooks Baseball classified his relief work in September 2017:

While it is too early to make note of any velocity changes on the fastball based on standard deviation on Guerra’s September fastballs as a starter and a reliever, it is worth diving into the sharp arsenal change exhibited by Guerra. According to Brooks Baseball, Guerra’s fastball / breaking ball blend is producing more whiffs and groundballs on his fastball than his starting pitching usage of the pitch, while the “curveball” effectively is acting like a splitter in terms of whiffs and groundballs. Notably, this combination of pitches finds Guerra working in entirely new areas of the strike zone with his fastball compared to his previous usage, with the caveat that this is an extremely small number of pitches to draw any meaningful conclusions.

With this curveball offering, however, Guerra has already thrown nearly as many pitches as a reliever compared to his entire time as a starter in 2018, and here it is worth noting that Guerra is scattering the pitch more evenly across the bottom of the strike zone while also moving it away from the upper-armside (inside against a righty bat) area of the zone:

Ultimately, I do not think assessing Guerra’s arsenal shift as a reliever is “much ado about nothing,” as the righty is suddenly answering a crucial question entering potential playoff series: who can help to stretch out close deficits? Granted, in the playoffs, pitchers like Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader will probably experience higher workloads. However, since the Brewers seemingly base Hader’s workload off of his recovery time, adding another reliever that can effectively work a couple of frames is extremely important (especially as starting pitchers work shorter outings as the season winds down). It cannot be understated that Guerra is also working for his future with Milwaukee, a club that is also arguably designing an unorthodox pitching staff that is based around systemic runs prevention rather than standard 1-through-5 starting pitching assessments. This is undoubtedly one reason Guerra had a job to begin with, and undoubtedly one reason the Brewers gave the righty every chance to succeed as a starter. Guerra the reliever could still potentially fit into a 2019 pitching staff that may double down on amorphous roles after general 2018 Runs Prevented success.

Now, perhaps it is time to dream bigger on that relief role for the stretch run, potentially the playoffs, and for 2019; in this regard, it is also time to scrutinize a relief role for Guerra. If it can be stated that Guerra exhausted the utility of his fastball / splitter / slider arsenal in Milwaukee, a new look at a hard, rising fastball and slightly slower curve combination could find the age-33 hurler staying on for at least one more go ’round. In this regard, it’s interesting to think about the pitchers in Milwaukee that have benefited from learning Guerra’s splitter, and now view the righty as a beneficiary of Pitching Coach Derek Johnson’s curveball instruction (recall that this is the pitch that revitalized Jimmy Nelson and Chase Anderson). When one role ends for a pitcher, a new pitch can present a new role; while this should not be viewed as magical thinking, nor a fail-proof development, for now it should be viewed as a new opportunity for Guerra to bolster Milwaukee’s high leverage relief group.

Miley, at first blush, was low-hanging fruit for this kind of punchline. The southpaw’s 2017 season was an inescapable disaster, and his 5.61 ERA / 5.27 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP)/ 7.61 Deserved Run Average (DRA) cocktail suggests that no amount of bad luck was to blame for his misfortune (his 5.3 walks per nine innings could have told you that, too). It was an ugly season, any way you slice it. If that were Miley’s line this year, he’d absolutely be the first man sent to the ‘pen.

Of course, that’s not Miley’s line this season. By the most basic (and, to a contending team, arguably the most important) of standards, 2018 Wade Miley has been quietly excellent: His results are beyond reproach. In 11 games started for Milwaukee spanning 57.7 innings (and including an injury-shortened one-out effort against Cleveland in May), Miley has pitched to an astonishing 2.18 ERA. He’s allowed three earned runs once this season, in a five-inning effort that resulted in a no-decision. Every other time out, he’s held his opponents to two earned runs or fewer.

Dip below the surface and the picture isn’t quite so rosy, true. But it’s rosy enough. Miley’s FIP for the year is a strong 3.72, and his DRA is 4.24, both bests since 2013. He’s striking out only around six batters per nine innings, which is a career low among full seasons, but not too out of the ordinary. Miley has never relied on blowing hitters away with elite velocity or ridiculous breaking balls.

Rather, when he’s at his best, Miley uses pinpoint control to compensate for middling stuff, giving him the results of a mid-rotation starter despite a repertoire that suggests a back-end or swing role. Never was this more evident than in his terrific rookie season for the Diamondbacks in 2012, when Miley spun 194.7 innings of 3.33 ERA / 4.18 DRA ball and rode his 1.7 BB9 to an All-Star nod and a second-place finish in Rookie of the Year voting (he finished just seven points behind Bryce Harper). He’s never quite equalled that output, but he’s come close, with a 4.23 DRA the following year and a 4.39 mark in 2014.

This season represents a welcome step back in that direction. Fans can thank the cutter, a pitch that Miley dabbled with only on occasion before deploying last year with 11.8 percent frequency. This year, that number is up to 38.5 percent, trading places and then some with his so-so sinker. The cutter finally gives Miley a viable weapon against right-handed hitters, who have hit Miley for a .775 OPS on his career. Perhaps it’s the novelty of the new pitch (and new division), but righties are batting just .160 against the cutter this year, which Miley likes to ride low and in. Miley has also wrangled his free passes down to a respectable 3.4 per nine innings, and he’s been even better lately: Over his last five starts (28.3 innings), that number is down to 2.2; over his last three, it’s sitting pretty at 1.6.

Of course, running the ball over the plate with greater consistency comes with its own inherent set of risks. But Miley has a much better defense behind him in Milwaukee than he did in Baltimore. Despite a greater number of balls in play, his Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) is down almost half a point from its ugly apex. Miley continues to be a solid ground ball pitcher, but his excellent 0.47 HR9 number is unsustainably low, as is the career-best .269 Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) allowed. He’s stranding over 80 percent of runners on base. Many of these numbers scream regression. Crucially, though, they doesn’t scream regression to “horrible.” Just to somewhere in the vicinity of that 4.24 DRA.

Miley is pitching well at the right time for Milwaukee. (Paradoxically, his injury-shortened season may have something to do with that. Miley has historically run out of gas in September, with a 5.08 ERA in just shy of 200 autumn innings. This year, he’s fresh.) He’s not the sort of pitcher you’d want starting a Wild Card game, never mind this year’s sterling bubble-gum stats. But he’s not exactly a liability of the “I can’t believe a contending team is giving this guy the ball” variety, either. He’s rediscovered his command with the Brewers and has experienced a good amount of luck. The result is an average pitcher, just as he’s been for much of his career. That makes him a perfectly fine bet to keep the team in the game for fifteen or so outs. Even as Gio González warms the bullpen bench, Miley has earned the right to soak up some more innings down the stretch. And with Junior Guerra struggling and Zach Davies something of an unknown after his return from injury, González will get his chance, as well.

Photo: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

Baseball Prospectus’s DRA is the best and most recent attempt to evaluate pitchers.  As its name (“Deserved Run Average”) suggests, however, it has a backward-looking component.  It attempts to apportion credit and blame for what happened while a pitcher was on the mound.  Context-based Fielding Independent Pitching (cFIP), which is another recent BP statistic, attempts to measure only true talent.  (A summary of DRA and cFIP are available here.)  Both are valuable resources, but they measure pitcher effectiveness in different ways.

Chase Anderson was good last year by any publicly available measurement, though.  His ERA was 2.74, his FIP was 3.59, his cFIP was 93 (where 95-to-105 is average, and a lower number is better), and his DRA- was 81.9 (here 100 is average, with a lower number better).  These were all career-best marks, so there were two possible interpretations: either Anderson had developed and taken a step forward, or 2017 was one of those unrepeatable career years that players occasionally have.

In 2018, Anderson has not been as good.  All of his cumulative numbers have regressed, and both his DRA- and cFIP are worse than his career average.  All of the public pitching stats agree that he has not been good, but they all agreed that he was good last season.  Both the forward-looking stats and backward-looking stats agree on this.

It is this conundrum I find the most interesting.  In broad strokes, we can break pitching metrics down into two categories: forward-looking and backward-looking.  FIP and cFIP are prospective, while ERA is retrospective.  DRA is somewhere between the two, but seeks to explain past performance.  And both sets believed Anderson was good last year in terms of underlying performance and run prevention.

But that performance has not carried over into this year.  The traditional regression examples are pitchers who have good ERAs but bad cFIPs or DRAs, which indicates that they just got lucky and there was no uptick in performance.  Those pitchers are expected to not be as good the next year.  By contrast, good peripherals (as taken into account by cFIP) that match good run prevention numbers are supposed to indicate that someone is able to sustain that performance going forward.  Anderson breaks that model, though.

There are possible explanations for this that don’t require metrics to have missed.  Anderson could be pitching while hurt this year, or he could have made a mechanical adjustment that has not worked.  But we don’t know whether that has occurred, so I am assuming he isn’t dealing with any physical issues beyond the general fatigue we expect big league players to battle through.  He could also just be an outlier in these numbers; a sample size of one is insufficient to draw overarching conclusions about the validity of the stats, and that is not what I am attempting to do here.

Anderson provides the fulcrum for this discussion, but he is just a part of a larger question about how to measure pitcher performance.  There has been increased focus on how accurate our defensive metrics are because they have not kept up with shift tendencies, but pitching, although not seen as reliable as offensive numbers, has not received similar scrutiny.  I don’t believe anyone is suggesting that the current pitching metrics are perfect, but I wonder what else is missing that can be incorporated to help fix this type of blind spot.

The most basic analysis of Anderson’s season last year would have been that it was just a career year and he was likely to return to being the type of fourth starter he had been previously.  DRA, cFIP, and similar metrics provided possible justifications for Anderson having made substantive improvements that would carry forward.  To this point, though, those possibilities have not panned out.

I do not intend to just point to pitchers who public metrics cannot comprehend.  Instead, Anderson demonstrates a specific phenomenon: he had a career year last season, but it was backed up by improved peripherals in such a way that we don’t normally see in fluky performances.  The statistics that try to remove luck from the equation thought that Anderson had improved, but, at least to this point, it appears he had not.

New Runs Prevented Workbook || Runs Prevented Primer

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KBQ19VcMZ4g7oW1jkGiYwxCadqjw3rYXkqN200f4lHc/edit?usp=sharing

This is not even some “to-be-expected” regression, as even if one wishes to look at Deserved Runs Average (DRA) throughout the season as a “true” measure of the Brewers talent (which should be cautioned), the Brewers would have been expected to allow anywhere between 23 and 30 fewer second half runs than they actually have allowed.

This is unforeseen and catastrophic.

The blame can be spread around to everyone, from the post-forearm injury Junior Guerra (10 IP, 9 runs on July 24 & 29), injured reliever Matt Albers (1.7 IP, 10 R), former? closer Corey Knebel (9.3 IP, 8 R entering Sunday), and even rookie rotation depth Freddy Peralta (19 IP, 17 R since the break). Worse yet, there is a sense of adding insult to injury, as newly acquired Joakim Soria hit the disabled list promptly after surrendering a grand slam home run in a devastating loss to San Diego, and quietly effective Taylor Williams hit the disabled list with an elbow injury. While fans will feel less sympathy for Matt Albers, who had a couple of different bouts of ineffectiveness surrounded by separate disabled list stints, the veteran righty was crucial to early season success (25 IP, 4 R through the end of May) and each day his injury status and effectiveness is not answered is a day that manager Craig Counsell must carefully ration Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader with little back-up. The same goes for Williams, and now Soria; while Jacob Barnes was previously an impact reliever and boasts solid peripherals and a 2.99 Deserved Run Average (DRA), his runs prevention performance in 2018 has not been to the level of that injured trio, and now it’s Barnes, Corbin Burnes, and Jordan Lyles trying to nail down the quietly effective support roles.

It’s as simple as this: the Brewers’ bullpen has two truly fantastic options in Jeffress and Hader, and those options will be great regardless of their surrounding cast. For the purposes of contending, however, this duo is amplified when Stearns’s excellent depth picks (Albers, Williams, even Corbin Burnes), closer (Knebel), and additional acquisitions (Soria) are performing well. Jeffress and Hader cannot do it themselves.

Injuries have also trimmed the rotation, as Brent Suter’s torn elbow ligament and Zach Davies’s back ailments have limited the Brewers’ effective rotational depth. Using Baseball Reference Three Year Park factors, both Suter and Davies combined for 18 Runs Prevented over 273 innings in 2017, offering excellent middle and replacement rotation depth. That level of impact depth performance will not be matched by the duo in 2018. Additionally, even if one could have argued that the club might not have expected Jimmy Nelson to return from his shoulder injury in 2018, having that materialize as a likely injury-scenario reality in 2018 is quite another ballgame. Consider this as Freddy Peralta meets a likely innings limit, Chase Anderson continues an uneven season, and Brandon Woodruff finds himself without a rotational role: #TeamDepth is now basically #TeamNecessity in terms of rotation building.

There’s no need to state it any other way: as much as one would like to criticize the Brewers pitching staff, and GM David Stearns for his failure to build a staff, the club is now to the point where injuries are diminishing even his strongest moves. The Soria trade looms loudest here, as the Brewers grabbed a legitimate high leverage, veteran reliever at the trade deadline and did not get six innings from his right arm before he hit the DL with a groin injury; Albers and Williams could be fan whipping posts when they were ineffective, but the Albers free agency deal looked like a brilliant low-cost gamble early in the season while Williams seemed poised to catapult himself into the high leverage workload discussion (Williams worked a 17.3 IP, 5 R stretch, Holding three leads, from June until the All Star Break).

Citing injuries to the pitching staff is not an “excuse” for the poor performance.

It would have been enough to deal with this group of recent injuries and setbacks, but the Brewers also simultaneously were gifted with a set of role reversions on the pitching staff. Corey Knebel’s descent from excellent closer in 2017 cost the Brewers a chance at a truly elite relief corps; according to Baseball Reference Three Year Park Factors, Knebel prevented nearly 25 runs in 2017. Even a 50 percent regression from that performance level would fit nicely with Jeffress and Hader, who have both been consistent Top 25 pitchers in the 2018 MLB. Add in the aforementioned struggles of Peralta, Barnes, and a bit of stalled usage from the shuttled Houser (he’s only worked two MLB appearances from July onward), and Counsell’s strategic options are looking much more thin while they are also being exasperated by some ineffective starts.

Beyond these role question marks, it is worth questioning the timing of the inclusion of Jorge Lopez in the Mike Moustakas trade. Since Lopez has served the season as an up-and-down member of the Triple-A / MLB “shuttle team” relief squad, discussions of the quality of Lopez’s performance were largely nonexistent at the trade deadline (I’m also guilty of this charge). But, it is worth emphasizing that as a back-roster depth strategy, the “shuttle team” prevented runs at a solid clip, especially when one considers the nature of this replacement role and the likely quality of other replacement pitchers to be acquired in their place.

In fact, these shuttle relievers combined to produce near-average aggregate performance for the Brewers, which leads one to question why Stearns traded Lopez and simultaneously decided to keep Brandon Woodruff at the Triple-A level to serve as replacement starting pitching depth. With Lopez in the Royals system and Woodruff now serving as starting pitching depth, the revolving door relief strategy is effectively dead at what could be the worst time of the season. Given that Woodruff boats a 3.55 DRA at the MLB level to accompany a 52 percent ground ball rate, while also demonstrating an average DRA at Colorado Springs with a consistent ground ball rate there, it is worth questioning why Stearns has not simply replaced Peralta with Woodruff (on the one hand) or simply promoted Woodruff to a steady MLB relief role (on the other hand). According to Brooks Baseball, the relief role is agreeing with Woodruff, who is throwing a sizzling 95-to-96 MPH fastball with more armside run than his 2017 variation, complete with steady change up and slider usage (both with more whiffs than in 2017, too).

This is not a bottomless pit (yet). That the Brewers remain the 12th best pitching staff in the MLB, within one standard deviation of the 10th spot, and sixth best pitching staff in the National League, should demonstrate just how good the club has been for most of the year. Indeed, this pitching staff has fallen off, and it’s important to underscore that it’s not simply “regression,” but a bad combination of regression, injuries, and strategic missteps at the worst possible time. But there could be a quick way out of this issue for the club:

• Get Zach Davies healthy, without any further setbacks, and use him to replace Freddy Peralta in the rotation.

• Develop an MLB role for Brandon Woodruff; preferably this would be a rotational role to spell another ineffective starter down the stretch (or add a sixth man for September), but even a well-defined one-inning bullpen role could be extremely helpful at the moment.

• Re-evaluate depth roles for Ariel Hernandez, Jordan Lyles, Alec Asher, and Aaron Wilkerson, and make any necessary waiver trades to boost the pitching staff. E.g., is Jordan Lyles the right arm to work in the shadow of the successful Triple-A shuttle crew? Is now the best time to make a potential long-term development play for Ariel Hernandez?

• Reconsider Adrian Houser’s shuttle role in favor of a regular one-inning role.

With the assumption that some combination of Soria, Albers, and Williams can get healthy for the stretch run, and that some of the “role regression” pitchers can make adjustments at the MLB level once again, this is a pitching staff that can improve quickly and regain its flexible frontier of roles and runs prevention that were celebrated in April and May. With Zach Davies healthy, a waiver trade acquisition (or two), and potentially prominent roles for two righties that can rush it up there (Woodruff and Houser), this pitching staff can rebound. Now we wait and watch.

Now the 2018 Brewers are on pace to challenge the 1988 Brewers for the best pitching staff in franchise history. As it stands, the Brewers could basically pitch average baseball for the remainder of the season and finish with the third best staff in franchise history; as the table above shows, Milwaukee has already surpassed their 2017 Runs Prevented total this season.

The purpose of this post is not to present a normative argument about whether or not the Brewers should be expected to produce the best pitching season in franchise history. Evidence abounds in all directions. First and foremost, at the time of this writing, the trade deadline has yet to pass, which means that the Brewers could further improve their pitching; second, the latest average Runs Prevented table demonstrates that the Milwaukee hurlers are already approximately 12 runs from their May 31 pace, meaning that the club has slowed slightly in their elite Runs Prevention; additionally, key injuries and subsequent ineffectiveness (ranging from Brent Suter and Zach Davies to Matt Albers and, of course, Jimmy Nelson) also impact projections of runs prevention. Alternately, Chase Anderson has prevented approximately seven runs since the beginning of June, and is beginning to look like a rotation leader at the same time the club traded for Joakim Soria and recalled Corbin Burnes to bolster the bullpen. If anything, this swirling set of evidence might allow one to believe that the pitching staff will at least remain steady.

Rather, I am going to investigate the pitching staff structure for a few of the best franchise pitching staffs listed in the table above. The purpose here will be fun, first and foremost, as almost everyone can name the key Brewers batters and supporting casts of the club’s great offensive performances (ten of the top 13 runs production seasons come from the 1978-1983 and 2009-2012 roster cores), but the great pitching staffs beyond Teddy Higuera, Ben Sheets, and CC Sabathia remain underappreciated or perhaps even unknown. Furthermore, by comparing the structures of these great staffs, one can get an idea of how pitching roster construction has evolved over time. For example, the 2018 Brewers may very well end up producing the greatest bullpen in franchise history, but how does their rotation compare? On the other hand, one might expect the classic 1980s clubs to be rotation-first, in terms of value.

Defensive Efficiency
Prior to investigating Baseball Prospectus pitching profiles of these classic Brewers pitching clubs, it is worth emphasizing that most of the top Brewers pitching teams were also typically very good fielding teams relative to their respective leagues.

Indeed, the table above demonstrates that the 2018 Brewers shares the top of these fielding profiles with the 1992 club, which were the most efficient fielding unit on the Junior Circuit. Here, I am using defensive efficiency to assess fielding because it is a basic number that calculates the extent to which a fielding unit converts outs. The outliers here are the 2005, 2011, and 2017 Brewers clubs, which prevented runs despite mediocre fielding performances (they prevented approximately 26, 47, and 47 runs, respectively, despite their middle of the road fielding).

Roster Construction
Teddy Higuera had quite a career for the Milwaukee Brewers, posting single season WARP totals above 4.0 in three of nine seasons. Higuera’s best year in Milwaukee occurred during the 1988 season, in which the southpaw worked nearly 230 innings while striking out 192 batters to only 59 walks. Using Deserved Run Average (DRA), a statistic that scales pitching performance to numerous contextual components, Higuera was better in 1988 than in any other season in Milwaukee, and those results total nearly 7.0 WARP.

Yet the 1988 club was also a crossing of two eras in Milwaukee, where the fading glory of Harvey’s Wallbangers (who never got the consistent ace they deserved in Higuera) would congeal into a roster core that could never quite get Robin Yount and Paul Molitor into the playoffs with a second generation of talent. Behind Higuera, the 1988 squad featured four prominent contributors age-25 or younger in Juan Nieves (23), Don August (24), Chris Bosio (25), and Bill Wegman (25), ostensibly giving the Brewers a stable pitching rotation around which their next contending seasons could follow. Yet injuries, ineffectiveness, and inconsistencies derailed this group, leaving 1988 their best performance. Of these youngsters, Bosio was en route to beginning a stretch of several quality pitching seasons, and in fact the righty was more valuable each of 1989, 1991, and 1992 (compared to 1988).

Chuck Crim deserves mention, of course, because the 26-year old rubber arm worked more than 100 innings over 70 appearances. Not only did the righty work 42 multiple inning appearances according to Baseball Reference, but he also inherited 68 runners. In terms of percentage points, Crim’s strand rate was eight points better than the league average, meaning that aside from his own exceptional runs allowed total, Crim added several Runs Prevented simply by stranding runners that occupied bases when he entered ballgames; this performance foreshadowed Brian Shouse’s efforts for the excellent 2008 pitching staff (60 IR / 20 scored), as well as Jeremy Jeffress and Dan Jennings (62 IR / 14 scored (!!!) entering Sunday) in 2018. This excellent performance is reflected in Crim’s leads converted statistics, as the righty successfully produced nine saves and 13 holds, against only two blown save or hold opportunities.

The Crim mention is a perfect transition to the 2017 pitching staff, which featured a few excellent starting pitching performances boosted by an even better bullpen. Thus appears Jacob Barnes in the club’s top performers for 2017, as the hard near-cutter / slider reliever is not only a throwback to the bread-and-butter 1980s reliever (enter Crim, a favorite media comp for Barnes, too), but also one of the only 2017 Brewers pitchers to accumulate more than 1.0 WARP. What is interesting about the 2017 pitching staff also foreshadowing the strengths of the 2018 staff, and that is the sheer depth of the pitching operations. Eventually, the pitching-by-depth gamble unraveled as the club faced injuries and a rotating cast of fifth starter ineffectiveness down the stretch. But along with the more popular impact relievers of Corey Knebel and Josh Hader, Barnes was one of the key reasons for the club’s success in 2017 and, like Crim and Hader, another deep round MLB draft success story.

By the way, let it be said that for any other critiques of the Brewers current GM, David Stearns sure can build a runs prevention unit. Despite being in his third season as GM, and ostensibly leading the club through a rebuilding phase, Stearns already boasts two of the 17 average or better pitching staffs in franchise history. Interestingly enough, for all the grief President Doug Melvin gets about his apparent inability to assemble a pitching staff, the highly regarded Harry Dalton also had the same issue. While Sal Bando is not highly regarded by most Brewers fans, the GM sure could build a pitching staff, and Bando (more than Melvin or Dalton) is Stearns’s target for building quality pitching; Dalton and Melvin are obviously the targets for beating postseason appearances.

Comparing Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson, and Zach Davies, who was an excellent Runs Prevented starter in 2017 even if his WARP did not look great, to the 1988 squad should underscore the difficulty of building a consistent rotation. Producing a great starting rotation certainly does not come close to guaranteeing pitching success in the following season, when injuries, mechanical adjustments, and inconsistencies that were absent in the “great year” can creep up in the following campaign. Once again, though, the Brewers have a group of truly controllable, quality starting pitching arms (as they did in the late-1980s), but it is worth raising questions about the scouting profiles and future prospects of these arms following the mechanical adjustments and injuries that have plagued 2018. The book is not closed, however, as Chase Anderson has shown over his last ten starts (59.7 IP, 3.02 ERA, four quality starts); if all goes well, Anderson’s contract extension would be well-justified if he comes anywhere near Chris Bosio’s best four years in Milwaukee.

2008 needs no introduction, as the Brewers media and Twitter recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of the CC Sabathia trade. Of course, as Sabathia rightfully carries the reputation as the arm that saved that season, it is always worth emphasizing that Ben Sheets was phenomenal in 2008 as well. Sheets managed a 3.13 DRA and 5.3 WARP across 31 starts, including an electrifying 1-0 complete game effort over the Padres while pitching through a torn elbow ligament. In terms of pitchers putting their careers on the line for Milwaukee, it’s tough to top Sabathia and Sheets, as both pitchers risked millions of dollars on the 2008-2009 free agency market to will the Brewers to their first playoff appearance in a generation; Sheets lost the bet for future millions, while Sabathia cashed on an uncanny performance.

But oh, ode to Manny Parra, Dave Bush, and Carlos Villanueva, the sometimes frustrating but often dependable low rotation and swingman crew for the mid-00s Milwaukee teams. Bush was worth approximately 10 WARP to the Brewers over his 2006-2008 seasons, with 2006 being the high mark; Villanueva and Parra each had their best Milwaukee years in 2008, which is not a bad thing to occur during a playoff race. This trio of pitchers seems quite comparable to many of the 2018 Brewers group, for this trio either had unassuming stuff, or serious profile questions or command concerns when the stuff was there. While one will be quick to point out that the 2018 Brewers do not (yet) have their Sabathia, nor do they have their Sheets, one can find semblances of the Bush, Parra, and Villanueva trio in profiles such as Junior Guerra, Jhoulys Chacin, Wade Miley, and/or Freddy Peralta. This is not an insult: the 2008 trio have never truly received enough credit for their respective roles in carrying the rotation early in the season, nor for their overall value.

Finally, if 1988 was the best franchise pitching season, 1992 exemplified the turn of generations once more, as Jamie Navarro and Cal Eldred were set to join Bosio and Wegman atop the pitching staff. This time, Wegman bested Bosio in terms of value, but both pitchers were quite strong, producing nearly 10 WARP for those 1992 Brewers. Eldred and Navarro also acquitted themselves well, although they would reprise the injuries, inconsistencies, and ineffectiveness that has served as a theme throughout these pitching profiles.

In 1992, one can suddenly see the eras shift, as baseball’s strategic tides moved toward relief pitching prominence, and these Brewers had a deep and fantastic bullpen. Fetters, Holmes, and Orosco were not even the most prominent relievers on the staff (see Plesac, Dan; Henry, Doug; and Austin, Jim). What is stunning about this group is that despite their excellent and deep composition, the Brewers were near the bottom in the American League in both Saves and Holds, and their relievers mostly faced low leverage innings according to Baseball Reference. In 1992, 42 percent of Brewers relief appearances qualified as low leverage; to get a sense of what that might look like, consider than the 2018 Brewers are nearly the exact opposite, with 36 percent of relief appearances qualified as high leverage. It is interesting to think about this strategic snafu of 1992 during a current season in which managers are reaching for their bullpens early and often in order to gain every advantage possible.

Yet is a bullpen ever a vehicle for anything other than strategic failure? Is there a proper way to manage the pen over an extended period of time? If the 2018 Brewers are going to catch the 1988 squad to produce the best pitching season in franchise history, hopefully manager Craig Counsell effectively dispatches those Runs Prevented in the most strategic manner possible.

Baseball Prospectus. Milwaukee Brewers Individual Statistics by Team [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Milwaukee Brewers Franchise [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Park Factors and League Encyclopedia [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Runs Prevented were calculated using the average of park factors between Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference sources, with the addition of a basic league environment runs prevented stat as well. Each Brewers team was assessed by average runs prevented and standard deviation.

Bullpen management has obviously changed a great in the last twenty years, so it’s no surprise that good teams are relying more heavily on relievers than they have at other points in baseball history.  Starting pitchers are throwing fewer innings, and they are being replaced earlier in games with a parade of hard-throwing relievers.  Front offices are now manipulating their rosters to make more and more relievers available, as the 10-day DL and the increasing reliance on club-controlled pitchers allows GMs to shuttle relievers back-and-forth between the minor and major leagues.

Until the 1980s, no team had made the playoffs with a starting rotation that averaged fewer than six innings pitched.  Last year, though, only the Nationals had a rotation that averaged precisely 6.0 innings per start.  Baseball is obviously changing.

This year, though, the Brewers are trying to take that to the extreme.  They are currently averaging 5.2 innings per start, which is the seventh-lowest in all of baseball.  No team in the history of baseball has ever made the playoffs with that short an average start.  It is worth noting, however, that the two teams directly behind the Brewers in average start length are the Dodgers and Giants, both of whom would consider themselves to be in a playoff race.  Injuries have forced those teams to rely on their bullpens, though; Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Rich Hill, Jeff Samardzija, and Kenta Maeda have all spent time on the disabled list.

It is fair to note that the Brewers remain without Jimmy Nelson and have now lost both Chase Anderson and Zach Davies to the DL at various times.  But the Brewers’ five most-used pitchers are about how they would have drawn it up in spring training (albeit in a different order): Jhoulys Chacin, Chase Anderson, Brent Suter, Junior Guerra, and Zach Davies.  Milwaukee’s reliance on the bullpen has been a feature rather than a bug.  Josh Hader has been stretched into a multiple-inning reliever, and Suter has been available out of the pen a couple times.  You have to get all the way down to Corey Knebel and his thirteen appearances before you reach a member of the Brewers’ pen who has averaged less than an inning per outing.

As it is still June, I don’t know if this pattern will continue.  Maybe when Nelson comes back and as Anderson and Davies (hopefully) re-establish their health, the Brewers’ starting pitchers will be able to go deeper into games.  But as I mentioned above, no team whose starting pitchers averaged 5.2 innings per start has ever made the playoffs.  In fact, only the 2016 Dodgers have ever made it averaging even 5.3 innings per start.  As the season wears on, the team’s standout relievers may struggle.  Josh Hader, Matt Albers, and Jeremy Jeffress may tire as they get called upon more and more.

Of course, the relievers may be totally fine as well.  There are reasons for optimism.  The aforementioned Davies and Nelson injuries can take pressure off the bullpen if each starter comes back at full strength, and Corey Knebel spent a month on the DL so he may be fresh enough to pick up the slack if/when some of the other relievers start to struggle.  I do find it interesting, though, that even if this era of bullpen reliance, no playoff team has ever asked its bullpen to do this much.

Photo Credit: Ken Blaze, USA Today Sports Images