Related Reading:
Rebuilding by Elo Rating
Translating OFP
Cashing Out OFP

There are some contracts remaining like Matt Garza, although I’d hardly call trading Garza and cash for 40-45 OFP prospect “rebuilding” as fans commonly mean it; the same goes for Neftali Feliz. Carlos Torres, Wily Peralta, Scooter Gennett, and Chase Anderson are also getting paid by the Brewers this year, but their status as arbitration assets ensures that they are relatively cost-controlled for the club and extremely cheap to release. There really isn’t a sense that Torres, Peralta, Gennett, or Anderson would drive a “rebuilding” deal, since one also must question whether a club would really surrender a 50+ OFP player for Gennett or Torres (no offense to either player; when the Dodgers needed 2B help, this would be akin to trading Yusniel Diaz for Gennett). The rebuild is done in terms of personnel.

Interestingly enough, the rebuild is also closing up in terms of timeframe. If one counts three years from the catalyst of the rebuild (2015’s midseason firesale by President Doug Melvin), July 2017 and next offseason (2017-2018) are the only remaining rebuilding windows (of course, even the lack of personnel to trade away suggest that these windows will be barren of opportunity). Using a more common measurement of assessing a rebuild from the time a new GM is hired (such as the three-year rebuilds under Cubs President Theo Epstein or Astros GM Jeff Luhnow), the Brewers are now halfway finished with their rebuild under GM David Stearns:

Given the quick moves by both Melvin and Stearns, the severity of the rebuild, and the strong drafts in 2015 and 2016, Milwaukee is approximately two windows away from winning now. One can suspect that 2017 will indeed serve as a development year for the franchise, which will allow players to thrive given the wide open roster and few established MLB jobs. Development will be key for players like Jonathan Villar and Zach Davies, who are currently leading the franchise as Most Valuable Rebuilding assets. Since Davies has already played in the MLB since late 2015, I forgot to include the Gerardo Parra trade in my last post on OFP and trade assessment, so here’s Davies’s value:

Like the Villar trade, Davies turned an already successful day-of-trade return into excellent on the field value in 2016. Due to deals like those involving Davies and Villar, the latter of which was not even a true rebuilding deal, Milwaukee’s rebuild is speedily producing on field value. In fact, due to the swift development of Davies and Villar, the Brewers’ value received from the 2015 deadline doubled, and the 2016 offseason value is steadily increasing:

It should be noted that the sharp shift in assets traded between 2015-2016 offseasons / deadlines and the 2016-2017 offseason also shows just how far the Brewers rebuild has come. This offseason, there simply were not many contracts to trade away, whatsoever. Since the front office actions from the previous deadlines were so extreme, relatively few moves were necessary to continue rebuilding prior to 2017. Given this fact, it is worth further scrutinizing Khris Davis, Martin Maldonado, and Will Smith trades, as the organization acted outside of necessity to move MLB assets for parts that are either extremely risky, much less valuable, or some combination of the two. By being so thoroughly swept into rebuilding mode, it is questionable as to whether the Brewers lost focus of simply building the best possible baseball team with both current and future assets.

In their Top Ten for 2017, Baseball Prospectus mentioned that Milwaukee’s system is volatile, and the remaining value to be cashed out from the rebuild reflects that risk. After all this effort, the most valuable assets remain at the MLB level (Davies, Villar), and there remain some significant question marks about the very best OFP in the minor league system.

Of course, some of these question marks will be valuable even if the best possible ceiling is not reached. For example, imagine that Lewis Brinson hits the Leonys Martin comp from the Top Ten list; Martin has produced nearly 9.0 WARP, although much of that value is on the strength of 40.2 Fielding Runs Above Average as opposed to a .245 Total Average at the plate. Entering arbitration for the 2016 season, Martin boasted a $33.8 million depreciated surplus for the Mariners; entering 2017 arbitration, that figure was $15.4 million for two seasons of arbitration reserve. Those surplus figures are significantly below the value of a 55-70 OFP prospect, but the overall career production of $60.9 million in value is almost exactly in line with the historical value of a 60-65 OFP prospect. So, even if Brinson does not become the monster all-around CF that many fans hope, he can still make good on the Lucroy/Jeffress trade with a Leonys Martin career.

This last chart should show just how much of the Brewers’ build now stands latent in the minor league system. The rebuild now requires development, rather than trades, which is a large shift for the Brewers front office. Thus far, David Stearns has proven adroit at creating value in most trades, with just a few misses to his name. But, more than anything, the GM has proven to be extremely aggressive, which perhaps explains some of the question marks (like the Khrush, Maldonado, or Will Smith deals). Building the franchise will now require patience, as well as an intuitive sense of when to seize a contending moment with trades; in this regard, Stearns’s aggression could become one of the most interesting factors should the club choose to turnaround the rebuild into contending trades in record time.

Related Reading:
Austerity and Collusion
Grading the System

Revisiting the motivation for rebuilding, one can state that the Brewers are ostensibly trading wins now for hopefully winning later (whether or not the Brewers will win more at a later date but for rebuilding is an open question). If one assumes that this is a legitimate strategy for improving the franchise, instead of a simple and easy way to sit on cash and transfer labor costs to poverty-level minor leaguers, one can use Overall Future Potential for prospects, WARP and contracts for MLB assets, and a variation of Benefit-Cost Analysis to assess the solvency of this strategy. I’ve spent much of the offseason working on pricing mechanisms, and the back-of-the-envelope approach that appears to work best (for the time being) includes two assumptions:

(1) MLB surplus value can be calculated by depreciating WARP against a player’s contractual status (I depreciate a player’s WARP to 70 percent of its three-year production range, and then judge that against control years and contract [if that player has a guaranteed contract]. Non-guaranteed contracts are assumed to be cost-free for MLB clubs because a reserved or arbitration-level player can be released at no cost).

Of course, there is reason to believe that actual MLB teams do not always work to equilibrium in trade, and that MLB teams may assess players at their current (or higher) value instead of a depreciated value. This example should show why something as seemingly straightforward as trading Ryan Braun would be so difficult; the veteran is worth anywhere from one 55 OFP or two 50 OFP prospects to one 65-75 OFP prospect or two 55 OFP prospects; that’s like the difference between trading for Cody Bellinger and Jose de Leon or trading for Brian Reynolds and Ty Blach. Or even why trading for someone like Yasiel Puig is not a clearly defined value play whatsoever.

(2) Minor league surplus value can be calculated by judging the full range of Wins Above Replacement produced in all of MLB history, and then depreciating that level of production by the odds that a player will make the MLB. For my purposes, I do not use individual risk assessments, but rather depreciated historical OFP categories to 20 percent of their monetary value (on the assumption that roughly 20 percent of minor league players will reach the MLB). Obviously, more complex models could be designed where individual risk could be assessed based on a player’s body type, mechanical approach, tools, draft class, minor league level, and bonus cost to the parent club (among other potential measurements).

With these assumptions in mind, here are the Brewers’ major transactions from July 2015 onward, ranked by surplus value added. In this model, all figures appear as the players would have been assessed (roughly) on the day of the trade:

In this scenario, the Brewers rebuild is well behind the cash savings, which suggests that the rebuild has been either poorly executed or that rebuilding itself is simply not as valuable as cash (the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, and San Francisco Giants would be among the teams that agree with this latter statement).

Based on the day-of-trade, the Brewers rebuild is approximately $20 million to $60 million behind the club’s cash savings. One could conceivably combine these figures to suggest that the minor league assets and stored up cash are worth roughly 52 future WARP. But this is an entirely meaningless figure; for, when will that WARP be cashed out? Will the cash actually be spent on the MLB club? If the current minor league surplus value is not effectively developed by David Stearns and the Brewers organization, and Mark Attanasio and the Ownership Board pocket the cash, the rebuilding will be worth considerably fewer WARP.

Of course, one problem with the first model is that these trades did not appear in a vacuum, but instead occurred within the context of a league in which players can be developed, re-signed, and traded. Looking at how the Brewers players traded performed, and how development shifted for Brewers prospects, the Brewers rebuild has produced a much greater surplus total.

This chart should resonate with several areas Brewers fan intuition. Milwaukee’s trade of Khris Davis looked great on the day of the trade, but after a fantastic year by Khrush and a year in which Jacob Nottingham’s prospect status was downgraded, the trade has significantly cost the Brewers. Of course, this is not the be-all, end-all of the trade; if Davis performs below his 2016 level, and Nottingham takes a step forward in 2017, the trade could swing in favor of Milwaukee. The same must be said of the currently fantastic looking trades atop this list: if Luis Ortiz, Lewis Brinson, Brett Phillips, and/or Josh Hader either fail to reach the MLB or reach the MLB closer to their floor than their respective ceilings, the value of these trades will plummet. Finally, Jonathan Villar was a steal on the day of that trade, and the flexible power/speed/discipline infielder’s surplus added shows why an extension of $20 million is laughable from the MLB front office; if the Brewers split their surplus value with Villar, a reasonable extension offer starts at $38 million (and I gather that anyone who suggests that Villar simply spit on that and take the $20 million has never produced nearly $80 million in value for an organization).

It should go without saying that Jonathan Villar is by far the most valuable player in the Brewers system, the certain MVP of the rebuild, and obviously any extension offer should reflect that.

Extracting the Brewers’ trade returns from the context of moves that were out of the club’s control (such as the Diamondbacks’ decision to trade Jean Segura, or the Cardinals’ decision to extend Jonathan Broxton), here are the major shifts in value from the Brewers rebuild:

The good news is, thus far the players that Milwaukee returned in these trades have appreciated in value for the club. For losing Rymer Liriano, Hader and Brinson both improved their respective prospect assessments while in Milwaukee’s organization; Nottingham does not rank as highly as he did when he was traded, but he’s still worth between three-and-six wins for Milwaukee (in terms of surplus value). The Will Smith trade appears to be the only true blemish on David Stearns’s trade record thus far, as the trade lost value for Milwaukee on the day it happened and the players returned have yet to appreciate in value. However, with a catcher’s job wide open in 2017, perhaps Andrew Susac can prove that assessment wrong. At the top of the list, the Jason Rogers trade is probably the most likely to decline in value as the Brewers determine whether Keon Broxton will have a starting job or a bench job, and the prospects returned in the Carlos Gomez / Mike Fiers deal are quite risky for all their surplus value. At this point, perhaps the most intriguing value play are the righties returned for Adam Lind, who are entering their range of potential breakout seasons as they advance in the Brewers system.

Adding in approximately $35 million in unchanged surplus value from the Thornburg, Maldonado+, Broxton, and Hill trades, the Brewers turned roughly $270.3 million in organizational assets into $433.7 million in organizational assets. This progression must be weighed against the players traded away; in the chart that tracks shifts in value above, it is worth mentioning that the players involved in those ten trades now provide at least $231.4 million in surplus, which is quite solid given that several reserve / arbitration players lost a year of control (which significantly eats into value). It must be emphasized that 2017 production from Davis, Fiers, Jeffress, Lucroy, Smith, etc., could significantly increase any valuation of these trades. Ultimately, the Brewers trades look quite solid, as a relatively stable set of Brewers organizational assets turned into $163.4 million in surplus value and another $80-to-$120 million in cash; together, there are as many as 75 WARP in this combination of cash and ballplayers. In terms of value, Jonathan Villar crushes all comers, as the infielder is worth nearly 18percent of the organization’s surplus value acquired in these trades; Lewis Brinson is next, claiming 15 percent of the organization’s surplus value from these trades.

This progression of analysis should show the volatility of rebuilding, and also show that the statement “the Brewers must cash out these prospects’ surplus value at exactly the right time” is not a mundane truism but rather a crucial truth. Given that player surplus value can fluctuate wildly from season to season, failing to execute a win-now trade at the right time, failing to promote a prospect to an MLB at the right time, and failing to develop potentially valuable but risky prospects loom as serious challenges for a rebuilding club. Thus the rebuild is indeed over in Milwaukee, and it is certainly true that the merits of the club’s rebuild will now be assessed on the ability of the front office to either develop or trade these prospects.

Related Reading
Creating Surplus Analysis and Depreciation Models
Normative Analysis
The Ideal 40-Man Roster

On the Difficulties of Assessing Prospects and MLB Players
First, that an “MLB player” has actually cracked the big leagues and developed some type of role can either enhance or diminish that player’s value. Either way, once that player’s value is expressed in WARP, or some other clearly defined MLB statistic, it becomes much clearer and therefore (usually) “depressed” compared to the OFP of a prospect. (Only a few can be, say, Scooter Gennetts, 50-grade prospects who actually become 4.0 career WARP MLB players! [This is a good thing, not a dig at Gennett.]). Obviously, there are MLB players with non-linear career arcs, role changes, fast or slow declines, etc., across the prospect spectrum — no 60 OFP prospect is guaranteed to become an All-Star, and a 45 OFP prospect may put together a season as a starting player at some point. Future grades and future roles are not concrete.

Second, prospects are judged in completely different ways than MLB players. An MLB player is almost always judged according to three criteria: (1) production, (2) role, and (3) contract. Sure, “production” could be nitpicked with advanced analytics — one could write programs valuing players based on physical and mechanical traits, instead of outcomes (like, say, Strikeouts / Walks / Homers for a pitcher). This is still a concrete analysis of “what has happened” that will arguably weigh what has happened much heavier than what will happen (unless one is attempting to work on a specific type of regression analysis that aims to forecast a player’s traits as future production).

But a prospect can be judged according to best possible ceiling, actual floor, distance between ceiling and floor, proximity to the MLB, risk, individual tools (i.e., the Brewers took a chance on Adam Walker because of his power), aggregate approach / mechanics, projection, and — if you’re bold — even statistics! Even a player like Brett Phillips or Miguel Diaz is difficult to judge, not to mention someone like Phil Bickford, Demi Orimoloye, or Gilbert Lara.

• Miguel Diaz was assessed with a 60 OFP grade during an immensely successful 2016 campaign at Class-A Wisconsin, but he was somewhat old (age-21) for his level and has mechanical, size, injury, and workload questions that leave some to lean on the chance that Diaz is a relief pitching wildcard. So…striking a balance here is quite difficult, between the odds that Diaz has a chance to reach 3.0 / 2.0 / 2.0 WARP seasons as an MLB player, or that his career takes a 1.0 / 0.0 / 0.0 reliever path. Without even considering risk or any other aspect of Diaz’s development here, monetizing those WARP figures suggests that Diaz could be worth anywhere from $7.0 million to $49.0 million in terms of production value for an MLB team. There’s nothing satisfying about that spread.

• Phillips, a much more advanced and theoretically less risky prospect than Diaz, even exhibits the unsatisfactory aspects of grading prospects in a manner that allows them to be compared to MLB players (for the sake of grading trades and grading roster moves, for instance). There’s the 55 OFP Phillips, a tricky prospect with some bat questions but an overall full-package that allows him to project in either CF or RF, and there’s the 2016 Phillips that caused some evaluators to raise questions about platoon or bench futures. Digging deeper into Phillips’s campaign, nothing is easy — do you judge his statistics on the surface of his age, overall AVG / OBP / SLG line in the Southern League, and focus on issues of strike outs, or do you dig into the context for age-22 seasons in the Southern League and emphasize that even with all the warts, Phillips had one of the most productive seasons in the League? Again, nothing clear-cut or satisfactory here, although depending on how an analysts leans into this information, one could emerge with the positive picture of a left-handed bat that will draw the fat end of a platoon with some discipline and power promise to make the defense worth while (which is perfect counterpart to a current Brewers RF who may be short on chances to correct his own platoon issues). Again, nothing satisfactory here — the 3.0 / 2.0 / 0.0 WARP Phillips may be less likely, but even a platooning Phillips could do better than 1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0 WARP progressions.

Economics and Taking the Longview
The other issue with assessing minor leaguers is their contractual reserve status with their parent clubs. First, minor leaguers are criminally underpaid, leaving clubs that are looking to shed MLB contracts for prospects in the wondrous position of downgrading costs from (at least) $550,000 to maybe $10,000 (or less). When the Brewers swapped Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers (and an international bonus slot) for Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips, Adrian Houser, and Josh Hader, they surrendered at least $14 million in likely contracts (for 2016-2017) for what was almost certainly less than $2 million in likely contracts (for 2016-2017). That salary relief is worth nearly 2.0 WARP, on top of the surplus value and OFP the Brewers acquired in Hader, Houser, Phillips, and Santana.

Moreover, it is problematic to consider whether prospects should be evaluated for their immediate likely contribution to an organization (i.e., their trade value and maybe their first two or three years as an MLB player), or evaluated on the grounds that an MLB club potentially reserves their contractual rights for six-to-seven years. This is a difficult judgment because it will twist the values of prospects with high floors that may be able to contribute almost immediately to an MLB club, and it will also twist the values of prospects that could have huge OFP payoff that may legitimately be a half-decade away (even players like Lorenzo Cain and Jake Odorizzi are solid examples of this, as they each took at least three years to morph into their best and most-productive MLB selves, even though they were both relatively advanced prospects when traded prior to the 2011 season). Cain himself is a prospect who looked like his 2009 “Perfect World Projection” was 100 percent accurate (4.2 WARP prior to 2014), and then he turned on the burners to nearly triple that value in his next three seasons. This may be a vote in favor of using a prospect’s immediate future as a valuation tool, but once again, there are many unsatisfactory aspects of this method.

As an example, the Zack Greinke trade shows just the issue with assessing prospects.

• Even slapping a 45 OFP relief grade on Jeremy Jeffress to enter 2011 gives the righty a huge potential contract surplus for years of control. Incidentially, Jeffress’s career WARP has almost perfectly matched the $14.7M approximate value of a 45 OFP ([1.0 / 1.0 / 1.0] * 70 percent), which leads one to wonder whether simply using a monetized WARP version of OFP is the best way to assess prospects on the same transactional scale as MLB players.
• By that measure, the Brewers received exceptional trade return from their Alcides Escobar-lead package, by more than 3.0 WARP ($29.2M).
• However, if one considers the value of contractual control — which the Royals adroitly demonstrated with Cain and Escobar, and did not with Jeffress or Odorizzi, the Brewers paid more than 9.0 WARP (-$66.5M) to acquire Greinke and Yuniesky Betancourt for a potential playoff push.
• In terms of what actually happened, both teams maximized their deals — the Brewers received actual contractual value and production worth 15 percent more than the advertised sticker price at the time of the trade, and the Royals turned Cain and Escobar into a whopping $277.1M total surplus (six times their advertised sticker price!) while spinning Odorizzi as a part of what became the club’s Pennant and Championship-defining trade.

Hypothetical Modeling
As an example of the difficulties of judging prospects, consider a potential trade involving Ryan Braun, a proven elite MLB left fielder. Even with his guaranteed four-year contract, Braun’s track record (improving into his 30s, no less!) shows a total surplus of $45.8M, meaning that the opportunity cost for trading Braun is at least six wins. Following my investigation of the Astros’ trade for Brian McCann, I suspected that MLB teams do not necessarily consider a player’s depreciated performance when trading for an MLB player; in this case, Braun’s three-year production value is $58.8M, and his total surplus value (including his contract!) is worth $96.8 million.

Depending on how one reads it:

• Braun’s total surplus is hardly worth the total, full contract reserve of any average-or-better prospect (leading me to conclude that this method is problematic).

• Depreciated Braun may be worth the basic value of one 60 OFP prospect and a bench-profile throw-in.

• Non-depreciated Braun may be worth the basic value of at least two 60 OFP prospects (although this seems high).

• Braun-plus-cash is legitimately the best way to improve the prospect return for the veteran.

• Using contract surplus for a prospect, instead of total surplus, Braun is worth approximately one 60 OFP and 50 OFP prospect package.

• Of course, given the individual prospects involved, even these figures may not be helpful. A 45-50 OFP prospect that makes an adjustment to maximize a particular approach or tool could become a 55 OFP prospect. A 60 OFP prospect like Isan Diaz may appear out of thin air. Risky, low-minors plays (like Freddy Peralta, Carlos Herrera, and Daniel Missaki in the Adam Lind trade) may help to maximize the value of a potentially risky veteran trade.

Ultimately, the prospect valuation issue shows the difficulty of Cost-Benefit Analysis, where disparate elements of a transaction must be assessed on the same terms. Obviously, there is no real comparison between an MLB player and a prospect; “prospects are prospects” for a reason. Even the Brett Phillips of the world — legitimately good prospects that provide solid trade return for MLB veterans (like Carlos Gomez and Mike Fiers) — could become bench / platoon options that do not deliver on their full promise. For this reason, prospect monetization assessments based on WARP or projected WARP may always look a little funky, as there is such a harsh range of realities to consider. By slogging through the comparisons, however, one can begin to appreciate that there can indeed be value in swapping such divergent assets as MLB players for prospects.

It was also a season where a number of moves needed to be made, as the franchise was officially changing directions from trying to contend to rebuilding.

A number of players, therefore, changed hands. The Brewers team we once knew was no more, and a whole new flock of young, and not so young players were given a chance at the major league level.

In the minors, this season was a glimpse into the future. The development of some major prospects was arguably the most important part of this season. If they all had poor seasons, then the Brewers could have easily gone from a good but not great farm system to a poor one, which would have set the team back for a number of years.

But, that didn’t happen. Yes, some prospects had setbacks or didn’t perform to what was expected, but on the whole, a number of young prospects shined. Perhaps most notably was Josh Hader, who came into the season with a lot of questions. Mainly as to whether he could start due to his weird delivery. Hader went on to have a great season, dominating at the AA level. While his ERA doesn’t look good in Colorado Springs (AAA), he still managed to strike out 11 batters per nine innings, and his FIP is respectable.

The development of prospects within the system was definitely important, but perhaps the most important aspect of this season came from the players that emerged throughout the year.

During the offseason, the Brewers front office made a number of buy-low moves in hopes that a few of them panned out. If none of them did, then the cost of acquiring them wasn’t all that high, and wouldn’t hurt the team financially. That said, it was important for the development of the franchise for at least few of them to pan out, and low and behold, a few did. Junior Guerra, Jonathan Villar, Hernan Perez, Tyler Thornburg, Keon Broxton, and Zach Davies all emerged as productive players this past season.

While the Brewers didn’t have a ton of success on the field, as was expected, the development and emergence of these players at the major league level was a welcome sight for a franchise in need of some major league talent. It was a crucial part in the development because now the team has a number of options.

Many rebuilds are centered around prospects. In fact, many rebuilds are thought of primarily through the lens of prospects, their acquisition, and their development. This type of thinking can make teams blind to other possibilities of acquiring talent. However, Milwaukee will succeed going forward, and this primal idea should be something we remember most from this team. Many of these players will help the future Brewers teams to come. One example is Jonathan Villar, who was by WARP one of the five best shortstops in all of baseball in 2016. He won’t be playing shortstop going forward due to Orlando Arcia’s arrival, but this gives the Brewers more options, and eventually makes them a better team.

Villar can now be moved to either second base or third base, and most of his value comes from his ability to hit the ball. His bat, therefore, should transfer to whichever position he moves. The question will obviously be whether or not he can keep this up going forward, but the fact that he has shown, for an entire season that he has this ability, means that the Brewers can be hopeful this will continue. Sometimes, some players, just need a change in scenery, others break out from making adjustments. One major adjustment is that he’s started hitting off-speed and breaking pitches better than in years past.

But Villar only represents one of the many players I listed before. These other players will now not only help the Brewers with the on-field play, but also by increasing the talent pool of the franchise. The Brewers now have a number of options in the outfield, infield, and the pitching situation doesn’t look as dire as last year, when just about every pitcher on the Brewers staff looked like he would have a hard time cracking a competitive team’s top five.

The Brewers rebuild isn’t completely done, but we will probably see a transition phase next season. More prospects will start making their debuts, and we’ll start getting a clearer picture as to how this team will look going forward.

We haven’t yet gotten out of the tunnel, but we are starting to see some of the light.

An important aspect of the Cubs transition from rebuilding team to contender was their decision to enter the free agent market. Addison Russell, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo are excellent players, but they obviously needed help; no organization can create the necessary depth to build a World Series team just from internal options (save maybe the 2008 Rays). The Cubs developed all the talent they could, but they knew they still had certain needs that they had not addressed, with starting pitching being key among them. They subsequently went into the free agent market and signed Jon Lester, and then John Lackey.

It is worth noting that the Cubs purposely forewent pitching; when they traded their big leaguers for minor leaguers during Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer’s first couple years, they appear to have prioritized getting back position players. The Jeff Samardzija (for Addison Russell) and Matt Garza (for Mike Olt, although Carl Edwards also came in that trade) trades are good examples. They also spent their high draft picks on position players, taking Kris Bryant when Jon Gray–who some had rated higher than Bryant–was still available. The Brewers, though, are not doing this, especially with regard to trades.

Unless Milwaukee decides to trade Ryan Braun, Jonathan Lucroy was the club’s last big trade chip heading into this new competitive window. He was also therefore their last big chance to retool the farm system and add to it. But the club’s two biggest trades in the last year-plus–Lucroy and Carlos Gomez–have included pitchers as significant pieces and not just hitters. The addition of Josh Hader and Luis Ortiz enhanced the organization’s pitching depth, and it has also signified a departure from the Cubs’ strategy.

There are logical reasons for this–the Brewers were never going to sign a Lester-caliber pitcher–but the upshot is that there isn’t a glaring hole on the projected future roster the way there was in Chicago. But the Cubs also showed the value of augmenting through free agency when the time is right, and the Brewers can (and should) take some lessons from that.

The timing of the Brewers’ rebuild is a bit of a controversial topic, as some believe the Brewers should continue their tear down (and thus likely trade Braun) and some believe they could conceivably take a leap towards competition as early as this year. I lean more towards the latter, but I recognize that there is some uncertainty. For one, the Brewers will be relying on Arcia to take a step forward. For another, other players who like they could be contributors at positions not currently locked down (Lewis Brinson and Jacob Nottingham) are not yet even in the big leagues.

Therefore, the question is how big the club should go in free agency this year. I thought David Stearns took a smart approach last year by looking for low-risk flyers, and I imagine he will continue to do that this year. But the relevant question is whether he should look beyond that lower class of free agent.

I tend to think the answer should be no because the Brewers cannot afford to carry any mistakes. They no longer have any massive holes that need filling (center field, where Brinson and/or Brett Phillips should presumably be up at some point, and third base, where Jonathan Villar has moved with Scooter Gennett proving competent at second), so there is less urgency than there has been in the past.

Most importantly, though, the Brewers don’t know exactly where they will need to augment. Obviously, in a best case scenario, all their prospects will work out and Arcia, Brinson, and Domingo Santana will anchor a lineup while Ortiz and Hader top the rotation. However, the Brewers are smart enough to know that won’t happen, but they are not smart enough to know which ones won’t succeed. For that reason, I would advocate patience.

They will have the opportunity to fill their holes once they figure out where exactly those holes are. At this point, though, there isn’t enough information to determine where money should be allocated, so patience is the best route. They should still jump on opportunities to buy low (an example might be Jason Castro), but I would caution against any longer-term deals until they have a better sense of their next competitive roster. Unfortunately, they are forced to be stingier because of the market size, and this path gives the team the best chance to maximize the dollars they inevitably spend in the future.

Podcast:
Season Wrap

Basically, the Brewers used 50 total players in 2016. This includes any player who pitched even one inning or who had one at bat. But, what does this mean? Is this a normal trend of player usage? And does it have any relationship to winning?

To answer these questions, I scraped data from Baseball-Reference. I scraped all Brewers who played on a Brewers roster dating back to 1970.

Here are how many position players played for the Brewers per year.

On average, 21 position players play on a Brewers roster every year since 1970. In 2016, the Brewers used 23 position players, slightly above average, but not all that much. There is a lot of variance from year to year, but for the position players, the usage remains between 20-24 players.

The 1970 and 1971 seasons were the years in which the Brewers used the most position players, but those were its first years as a franchise. It’s likely that in those years, the Brewers were trying unproven players. Making them more dispensable, and easier to change.

The pitcher’s usage, though, is a different story.

Throughout the years, the Brewers have been using more and more pitchers every year. 2016, actually had the highest usage of pitchers, tied with 2006 with 27 total pitchers used. This is eight more used than the average number of pitchers used per year of 19.

The rise in bullpen usage is no secret. Each year it seems that starters are pitching fewer, and fewer innings and relievers are encompassing more of the team’s innings pitched per year. And as Rob Arthur showed, we are currently seeing an extreme of that development in the playoffs. Especially with the usage of Andrew Miller. The question isn’t whether more relievers will be used in the future, but how much more.

Obviously, the more relievers used, the more pitchers one needs on a roster, as pitchers are more frequently injured and many relief pitchers can come up from AAA to make a spot appearance if the arms in the pen have been over utilized.

In the Brewers’ case, this season also saw the demotion of Wily Peralta, Taylor Jungmann, injuries to Michael Blazek, Corey Knebel, and more. The trades of Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith opened the door for other, less experienced pitchers. Pitchers such as Junior Guerra, Jacob Barnes, Brent Suter, Damien Magnifico, etc., received their chances because of this combination of moves.

Plus, the fact that the Brewers are rebuilding probably made them more open to giving new and more pitchers a shot, seeing if they could catch lightning in a bottle.

As a whole, 2016 was the season, in which the Brewers used the most players in their franchise’s history.

Previously, the most players used were in 2015, 2006, and 2002, when the Brewers used 49 players. On average 40 players are used each year.

The trend is obviously going up, but considering the previous two charts, it seems evident that this trend is primarily caused by the increased usage in pitchers.

I think an assumption which can easily be made from this is that the Brewers are using more players because of their record. Meaning, they used 50 players because of the fact that they had a down year, and the fact that they are rebuilding might make them more prone to using more players. They can also give more youngsters a chance, especially with September call-ups. As opposed to when they are good, because they can’t afford to give “lesser” players a chance, as it could cost them a crucial win.

Therefore, I looked at the relationship between wins and the count of players used each year, suspecting to see a slightly negative relationship. This would mean that there would be more players used on losing teams.

It’s somewhat hard to tell from the graph but there is a small negative relationship between wins and the count of players used each year. There is also a -0.21 correlation.

Basically, the record doesn’t have a huge impact on the amount of players used in a season. There are other factors to consider, but I would suspect that in the Brewers case the primary cause for the rise in total player usage is due to the rise in reliever usage as a whole.

As relievers become more specialized, there will naturally be more of them used. Many pitchers have the ability to throw one inning in the majors, and more jobs are opening up each year. There’s also a lot of variance in reliever success, meaning that it is likely that there will be more turnover from year to year, more so than in years past.

This article has been updated to correct a sentence about reliever usage.

Alas, the Brewers did not trade Braun. The rebuilding effort closes as the club no longer categorically needs to trade its veteran and face of the franchise. Now, the front office can work in other directions.

The Brewers’ rebuild included 10 “true rebuilding trades,” in the sense of shedding veteran contracts for minor league talent. Trades like the Jason Rogers deal, or the Jean Segura / Tyler Wagner deal, are better named “counterbuilding” deals, since either (a) roster reserve players or prospects were traded, or (b) prominent MLB talent was returned (such as Chase Anderson and Aaron Hill in the Segura / Wagner deal). It is certainly arguable that landing a prospect like Isan Diaz helps rebuild the farm system (it does!), but even returning Diaz does not counteract the fact that Milwaukee returned significant MLB talent in the deal.

All together, former President and GM Doug Melvin made four arguable rebuilding moves, and Stearns made six arguable rebuilding moves. Melvin returned nine minor leaguers, Stearns twelve (with another to be named). These two GMs certainly overhauled the system, as approximately six or seven Top 10 organizational prospects appeared in those deals, and another set of players have already worked at the MLB level or even secured MLB roles (see Zach Davies [quality rotational RHP], Corey Knebel [quality bullpen depth], and Domingo Santana [potential starting RF]).

Should Stearns trade either Braun or Garza for minor leaguers during the offseason, that would respectively comprise the club’s eleventh and twelfth rebuilding deals, and close the rebuilding era.

The rebuild is over: pushing against fans that expect a long and protracted rebuild, it is crucial to emphasize that the Milwaukee front office no longer has contracts to shed. Or rather, the remaining contracts have reasserted their value (Braun) or become potential DFA/outright release options (Matt Garza). I especially hate to say this in the case of Garza, who always seems to have the stuff to compose a comeback that never materializes (save for his brilliant start against St. Louis, while makes the comeback more tantalizing). It’s easy to say that since pitching is so weak in contemporary MLB, Garza could find a new home via trade for 2017, but the 5.9 K9 and 4.79 DRA make that point more difficult.

From Cot’s Contracts, the remaining Brewers guaranteed contracts:

So, the rebuild is over: the Milwaukee front office no longer needs to make any traditional rebuilding deals in the sense of sending away veteran contracts in favor of cheap, minor league prospects. This is excellent news, for now the club can focus on acquiring talent for different purposes:

• The Brewers front office can trade players under reserve control to improve the club in the short or long term.
• Milwaukee can generally act in “counterbuilding” mode, where the front office uses minor league depth, second-chance opportunities, and other moves to add MLB-ready roster value.
• The Brewers can trade from their stockpile of top prospects to acquire immediate MLB help (yes, it will be time for the Brewers to trade top prospects. Brace yourself!).
• Milwaukee can graduate prospects and allow them to gain their sealegs at the MLB level (and perhaps solidify MLB roles, too).

It is interesting to consider this path as the club finishes a season in which they are hovering around 70 wins. PECOTA had the Brewers winning 70 exactly entering the twilight getaway against St. Louis; this morning, Pythagoras says 71 wins, and the .429 winning percentage says 69 wins; and, a tough September schedule logically suggests fewer wins (the Brewers’ record against remaining opponents roughly hints at a 10-19 closing run). Certainly the end of the rebuilding campaign in its traditional sense does not mean that the Brewers will immediately play competitive or contending baseball in 2017, or even that September call-ups will immediately make their mark (they could, or they might take a while to adjust to MLB life).

However, it is important to keep pushing the assumptions of roster building: if 2016 was all about opening a skeleton roster by clearing out the last remaining veteran contracts, making the most logical traditional rebuilding trades, and simultaneously trying out “second chance” players and other depth talent for MLB roles, September 2016 opens another era entirely. Now, the Brewers can test their own stockpile of prospects, or trade them; they can continue to use the MLB stage as a trying ground for future values, but now the construction of those future values will be different.

The front office logic now necessarily moves from the “shedding contracts / stockpiling prospects” phase and into the more exciting abyss of developing the best possible team on the field. This is an abyss in the sense that it is a complete unknown; here, the “rebuilding” term expands from the narrow sense of “trading veterans” to a broader definition of “taking the time to design a young roster core.” This is an abyss in the bleakest sense of lacking future knowledge or competitive probabilities.

From here, the Brewers will have quite an interesting club insofar as the front office has complete freedom to develop the best possible roster for the present and future. And so, with September opening, and more prospects emerging from the minors onto the 40-man roster, and no more rebuilding trades to be made, the future of the contending Brewers and the present of the rebuilding Brewers merge. How long this gray area will last will depend on the creativity of the front office and the performance of the players: will the best possible team emerge in one year, two years, or more?

So too, for fans, will this time be much more exciting than the rebuilding trading period: now it is time to move from the drawing board to prove that the plans were well-designed. A rebuild will eventually have to prove itself, and that time is coming much sooner than many Brewers fans anticipate.

• (1) Casual fans that will tune out rebuilding
• (2) Everyday fans that vocally oppose rebuilding
• (3) Everyday fans that support rebuilding “as is”
• (4) Everyday fans that support tanking

These distinctions might seem useless, or trivial at best, but nearly every future value decision for the organization will find vocalized groups across the internet. #BrewersTwitter is quite a divided place, a perfect environment to find this type of debate. For the purposes of this feature, the most interesting difference will be between (3) and (4). Given David Stearns’s rebuilding trades (such as the Khris Davis or Jonathan Lucroy deals) and counterbuilding trades (such as the Cy Sneed or Trevor Seidenberger deals), it is easy to anoint the rebuild a smashing success. Stearns has added to Doug Melvin’s previous rebuilding deadline deals with future values across the organization.

Yet, glancing at the standings after play finished on Sunday, one might be disappointed with the Brewers’ relative lack of futility. Or, perhaps, shocked at the futility across MLB as a whole. Alongside other stated rebuilds in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and Atlanta, teams like Arizona, the White Sox, and Minnesota utterly failed at building competitive rosters, and the Padres, Rockies, Athletics, Rays, and Angels are in some kind of limbo. Struggling contenders in the Bronx and Kansas City might also fall into the “tank standings,” depending on how their battered ranks play out the string as well.

By almost any rank, the Brewers are quite likely to draft Ninth in the 2017 Rule 4 draft. If the bottom falls out on the second half, the club could make a valiant effort at the Seventh seed, but at least five other clubs face roughly the same prognosis.

Why does this matter? One suspects that the reason some fans support pure tanking — where the front office fields a largely replacement level team in order to lose as many games as possible (thereby maximizing draft placement) — is that the highest possible draft position yields an extreme draft slot bonus advantage, not to mention the best shot at superior talent. Indeed, by the fifth pick, the median MLB draftee is basically a replacement level player; fans might not expect it, but if a club drafts sixth and merely gets that player to the MLB, that’s quite a solid pick in terms of history. In this case, however, one might focus solely on the draft slot bonuses, since larger draft slots give a team the chance to sign “above slot” / “difficult signability” players later in the draft (see the Brewers with Chad McClanahan and several other picks in 2016; or, more famously, the 2015 Houston Astros maximal first round).

Pricing out the first ten draft picks should show the benefit of tanking, as well as the dangers of failing to tank: if a front office wishes to tank, they ought to really go for it, for if they miss and draft third or even fourth, they have lost significant value without necessarily adding future values elsewhere in the roster. For this exercise, I priced out bWAR (drawing draft figures from Baseball Reference) by placing WAR in the context of a 90-win, $150 million club fighting for roughly $20 million in playoff revenue (a rough estimate), which is arguably a scenario in which each additional win is most important (and therefore priced accordingly).

On the whole, the draft is extremely overrated as a means of acquiring talent. It is one tool for acquisition. Nevertheless, one might see that a successful tanking effort yields a chance to acquire approximately $50 million in future value.

Pricing Brewers Future Values

Comparing additional means of acquiring talent, one can also find that a potentially tanking club could be mistaken in placing such importance on using the draft for acquiring talent. For the 2016 Brewers, David Stearns exhibited one of the benefits of not tanking: Stearns added MLB future values in Jonathan Villar, Keon Broxton, Rymer Liriano, Junior Guerra, and Hernan Perez through a variety of means (trade, waiver, and minor league contract). Taking one example, the Brewers have played .647 ball in Guerra’s starts, and while that pace takes at least four losses away from a Brewers “tank effort,” establishing Guerra’s future value is much more significant (and much more valuable than four losses in the the tank standings).

While each of these players may not earn a roster spot on the next contender, they each have defined a role that can help the Brewers reach a more competitive status faster than expected. Some of these players may start on a rebuilding club, while establishing their benefits as potential bench or depth options for a contender. In this sense, MLB roster roles are demonstrably flexible, which should give a rebuilding club all the incentive in the world for acquiring MLB ready future values.

The six players on this roster demonstrate the value of rebuilding: on a contending club, one might not have expected the Brewers to provide roles for each of these players. Their valuable performances as a group provide a great lesson for the next contending Brewers club, which will need to maximize low cost talent acquisitions. In this case, Jacob Barnes is a “future value discovery” since he graduated to the MLB and established a role during the rebuild; someone like Corey Knebel is not counted because Knebel established his basic role last season. So, this group does not even exhaust the Brewers’ future values (which still includes Orlando Arcia, Jorge Lopez, Michael Reed, and others on the 40-Man Roster).

A rebuilding effort can also be enhanced by shedding contracts and currently valuable MLB players, in order to add to the future depth and potential production for the organization. The 2016 Brewers also excelled in this regard: imagine a Brewers club that won even fewer games than their current outlook. Would such a club have featured a successful return by Jonathan Lucroy? Would Jeremy Jeffress have become a successful closer? Would Aaron Hill have reestablished his value as a trusty veteran? These are not trivial questions: along with southpaw Will Smith, this gang of players produced 5.7 WARP for Milwaukee, which provided a great opportunity to trade them for more future values (including top prospects, organizational depth, wild cards, and even another MLB level “second chance” prospect).

Comparing the Ninth Pick to the First Pick above, one might complain that the Brewers failed during their 2016 campaign, since they left at least than $40 million in talent acquisition value on the table (by failing to reach a top pick). Even failing to reach the Fourth Pick arguably costs the organization millions. However, one must weigh that gamble against the cost of failing to discover roles for Villar or Guerra, to say nothing of Zach Davies solidifying a rotational role, Barnes coming on in a depth role, and even Perez and Broxton making excellent cases for good bench roles or organizational depth roles (at the very least). Another 10 WARP from these players, at minimum, roughly breaks the club even with a First Pick value, and the Brewers will still likely draft within the Top Ten, while also reserving the players acquired in midseason trades.

Even accounting for discrepancies in valuing established MLB roles versus prospect value versus draft value, the Milwaukee front office came away with a veritable haul in 2016. Together, the six players above, along with Lewis Brinson, Luis Ortiz, Andrew Susac, Phil Bickford, Wendell Rijo, and Aaron Wilkerson are worth significantly more than $50 million in future value. This scenario does not even need rosy predictions; some of these players may indeed fluctuate in value, or even see a trade result from their 2016 performance. These scenarios do not categorically reduce the future values of their established 2016 roles.

With this in mind, it is worth comparing the Brewers 2016 future value discoveries to the teams that are likely to draft ahead of Milwaukee next June. For, one can find that in many cases, these clubs produced brutal 2016 campaigns without necessarily discovering new future roles throughout their rosters (or without making grand asset-shedding trades, as the Brewers did). The Twins and Diamondbacks arguably had the best campaigns in recovering or developing future values in 2016, while the Braves, Angels, Athletics, and Rays did not necessarily uncover new future roles at the MLB level. That scenario may not be problematic for a club like Atlanta, which has the inside track on the First Pick in June 2017, but it could be extremely disappointing for a team like the Angels or Athletics, who basically have the pressure of extracting their full future values from the 2017 draft to account for their 2016 campaign.

This is quite a gamble for these clubs, and one must bet that if Brewers fans are watching the “Tank Standings,” fans in Tampa or Anaheim are watching their respective team’s draft positions even more carefully. For example, the Rays could reasonably draft anywhere from Third to Sixth, depending on how August and September plays for the bottom of the league. That fall could be worth more than $9 million in talent acquisition for Tampa Bay, which they may not have recouped in their deadline deals and 2016 future value discoveries.

Hindsight is 20 / 20, but even heading into 2016, one could have reasonably argued against a tank effort for Milwaukee. First and foremost, given the rebuilding efforts in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cincinnati, the Brewers front office would have to have been fairly certain that their bottom feeding roster would be more futile than four other clubs (before considering injuries and ineffectiveness that define other failed 2016 clubs, such as the Twins or the Angels). Tanking is an incredibly risky strategy, arguably more risky than making organizational depth trades for “second chance” players like Jonathan Villar, or providing roster space to waiver claims like Junior Guerra. Judged against the First Pick, the Brewers need to return more than $40 million in future value for their failed tank, but judged against the Fourth Pick, they only need to recoup $6 million. In this light, Milwaukee’s gamble for second chances and counterbuilding appears to be markedly successful.

Nearly every Brewer "prospect" is struggling mightily at all levels of the system. Wow! Some rebuilding job!

— JS Comments (@JSComments) July 15, 2016

It’s a part of the sports world, along with sports talk radio and vapid sports television like Baseball Tonight, that I work hard to separate myself from. It’s all shout and no substance, more or less just raw male rage desperately seeking an outlet.

But Sunday morning, @JSComments posted an interesting excerpt from the print edition, a letter to the editor from a man named Dick Maase from Waukesha who believes the “Brewers will never be consistent winners.” Behold, in all its glory:

Brewers pic.twitter.com/bET2RSfJfc

— JS Comments (@JSComments) July 24, 2016

To be fair, this is significantly less unhinged or raging than the majority of @JSComments posts. I understand Maase’s increasing discontent with the Major League system and its tiers of haves and have nots; I devoted lots of bytes on BPMilwaukee to my complaints about it over the offseason.

But I think if we want to enjoy ourselves when we watch baseball — and that is what we’re going for, right? — I think we have to be careful not to fall into this totally negative zone Maase has found himself in, by his own admission. And I think to do that, we need to divorce ourselves from this idea that sports are supposed to be a totally equal playing field.

We can implement revenue sharing and salary caps and hard slotting and international spending limits all we want, but we’re dreaming if we think any sort of system is going to create a baseball world where Milwaukee and New York are operating with equal resources, or Milwaukee and Chicago, or Milwaukee and St. Louis. These things aren’t possible; market size, history, and prestige will always be a part of baseball.

It can be frustrating, for sure, but it makes our victories all that much sweeter. Robin Yount playing his entire career for the Brewers was made all the more special by the fact the franchise had never before seen somebody of his level. The Brewers’ 2008 playoff chase and 2011 NLDS win may have been blips in the history of bigger and older franchises, but the energy it brought to Milwaukee was huge. It was a true payoff for the years of losing and waiting.

If you want to maintain your happiness as a sports fan, you need to have an ability to appreciate things in context. Because things aren’t equal, and no matter how much we meddle with the rules and regulations, they never will be. It’s only natural to be frustrated, but if you can’t summon an appreciation for what we do get in Milwaukee — the great players, the awesome environment at the ballpark, the ridiculous swell of excitement when the Brewers do manage to win — your disappointment isn’t ever going to be cured, even if Milwaukee does manage to win a World Series in the near future.

But maybe I’m being unrealistic and the entire state has been spoiled by being Packers fans.

Sorry, but the Packers need a better quarterback than Aaron Rodgers

— JS Comments (@JSComments) November 15, 2015

Yeah, forget everything I just said. We’re all lost causes.

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Yet, even if Gennett may eventually become a platoon second baseman, or even was previously a platoon second baseman, it is important to understand the value of each and every contrarian season. Gennett now has 390 career games, including 324 starts, and counting, over parts of four seasons. This is not the profile of a platoon second baseman who will fight for a big league role. Gennett has also served as a member of an extremely successful platoon for the 2014 Brewers (on the offensive side, anyway), weathered injuries and a minor league demotion in 2015, and survived a front office regime change. It is important to look at Gennett’s approach in 2016, because an entirely new question bubbles beneath the surface: can Gennett’s improvements in 2016 lead to a continued starting role for the Brewers? 2016 is now another year in Gennett’s strange journey of delaying MLB inevitability.

Some may scoff at this question as unnecessary or trivial, especially if one believes that the Brewers will take several years to rebuild. One may emphasize that the role of starting second baseman for a rebuilding club is not necessarily a crucial organizational decision. I disagree vehemently with both of these arguments. Rebuilding is about aligning current roster assets for maximal future value; if Gennett can continue his role as a starting second baseman, he either (1) hastens the contending years by clarifying the potential performance of a club controlled contract, (2) improves the industry perception of his trade value to another contender, and/or (3) extends his career outlook to potentially add veteran presence to a future Brewers contender (among other potential outcomes). I don’t believe any of these outcomes are insignificant, either for Gennett’s own career potential (especially in terms of salary) or for the Brewers as an organization.

While looking for hints at Gennett’s improvement in his statistics and approach, one thing is certain: selectivity is the true name of the game. This has been covered by BPMilwaukee, and is emerging as one of the clear and intriguing storylines of the year; indeed, one of the leaders of the patient and selective Brewers is in fact Gennett. According to Brooks Baseball data, Gennett’s performance against secondary pitches has shifted, with the curveball now serving as his favored off-speed offering (as opposed to the slider, which Gennett smoked for a .340 AVG and .491 SLG in 2015). This is an interesting aspect of Gennett’s approach, but the clear victory for the second baseman is in his approach to fastballs, sinkers, and cutters.

What is especially fascinating about Gennett’s approach against hard pitches is that he has not necessarily improved in every single area. Some of his approach and outcomes remain similar, in terms of groundballs, line drives, and flyballs, for instance. The biggest shift, as many have noted, is that Gennett is swinging less, and this has especially improved his fastball approach. Using Brooks Baseball data, here is the hard pitch profile for Gennett in 2016:

The combination of selectivity and power is difficult to ignore. This is where discusssing plate discipline leaps from evidence to voodoo, but it simply appears that by swinging less, Gennett is actually reaching his pitch more frequently. By his pitch, I mean a pitch that Gennett can drive for power. It is difficult to judge this profile for sustainability in the sense that Gennett still hits sinkers for groundballs, has not significantly changed his outlook on batted balls in play (in terms of percentage), and has not necessarily mitigated any swing and miss tendencies. However, what jumps off the page is the fact that Gennett is swinging less frequently, coaxing more balls from pitchers (and therefore more walks), and subsequently driving the ball for significantly more power.

This transition in approach carries over to left handed pitchers, which is Gennett’s notorious area of weakness. In fact, Gennett’s new ability to select, and therefore dominate, the fastball is driving the majority of his success against lefties. Yet, once again, even where Gennett is failing to improve batted ball outcomes versus lefties, his selectivity is allowing him to reach base:

What is encouraging about this development is that it is not some across the board, astronomical improvement. There are areas where Gennett still needs to develop his approach, which is less damning now that one can clearly see that he is developing his approach against big league competition. If Gennett can sustain this adjustment, one might reasonably ask, what is the next adjustment? Since these adjustments are twofold, Gennett also has several ways to redefine his approach going forward. If the slugging dries up somewhat, Gennett can use his selectivity to fight his way on base; if that dries up, perhaps his selectivity will help him hit his way aboard. It would not be surprising to see a 2017 batting line that looks much different from this 2016 line, as Gennett can use this base to morph once again.

Of course, manager Craig Counsell has also praised Gennett’s defensive adjustments as well, and it is worth investigating whether or how the Brewers’ current shifting attitudes and practices are also impacting his glove. Not only has the 26 year old second baseman made strides to correct some of his weaknesses at the plate, but he has also improved his defensive performance (his 2016 FRAA of 0.2 is easily the best of his career). This shores up the other aspect of Gennett’s role: now, when the bat slumps, there may be another tool to carry Gennett in the field. As a result, one might argue that at the moment, Gennett has completely shifted his future value from that popular “platoon second baseman” judgment to a “starting second baseman” option.

The value in this role change is extreme, even if Gennett is not a star. First and foremost, if Gennett sticks as a starter, the Brewers can slowly and carefully develop their now robust second base pipeline of prospects without the big league club wanting for production. Secondly, when Orlando Arcia arrives, should Jonathan Villar move to third base, the club’s infield improves even further if they can rely on Gennett to produce in a regular role. This helps the club to solidify a certain level of production while also advancing prospects that have the tools to improve the club (such as Arcia’s elite shortstop defense). By presenting fewer questions for the 2017 Brewers, Gennett shows that a quiet aspect of rebuilding an MLB club can also manifest in organizational depth veterans redefining or solidifying their MLB roles. If the 2017 Brewers are a better club because they can rely on Gennett to perform, that is a clear victory for the organization and Gennett.