Yet, if anything the 2017-2018 Brewers have also proven that developmental time is not linear at the MLB level, and furthermore, GM David Stearns has not been afraid to deal from stockpiles of future high floor roles to improve the club. Most prominently, Stearns traded center field prospect Lewis Brinson, many fans’ and analysts’ projected 2018 MLB starter, as a part of the package to acquire Christian Yelich, despite center field being a position of need. Now the Brewers have a need to improve second base, and another clear-cut top prospect at the position (Keston Hiura, and Mauricio Dubon behind him); simply judging Stearns’s past, one should not rule out a trade involving Hiura should the price be right and the return bolster a position of strength.

On the opposite spectrum for the Brewers is left-handed starting pitching, which is arguably the sole position on the roster decimated by both injury (Brent Suter) and free agency (Gio Gonzalez, Wade Miley). Worse yet, unlike a position such as second base (which is a clear position of need), left handed starting pitching was a relative strength for the Brewers in 2018. Unlike second base, there’s no notable southpaw prospect ready for the rotation.

• Suter scouts as a prototypical depth player, but his full-time fastball approach, wicked tempo, and strange angles arguably helps his stuff “play up” at the big league level; by no means was Suter great, but he certainly did not sink the club, and was one of the reasons that the “replacement by design” rotational shuffle of interchangeable pitchers could work.

• On the other hand, Gonzalez served as a crucial replacement for the Brewers, indeed producing exceptional value on any rotational assessment despite having only been acquired after August 31.

• Similarly, Wade Miley could arguably be listed as the “Ace” of the club, and certainly stands as one of the team’s developmental successes. Even if Miley had discovered his cutter by the middle of 2017 with Baltimore, the Brewers recognized his pitch development and helped the southpaw double down on his approach and command the strike zone.

Milwaukee boasts significant pitching depth entering the 2019 season, arguably forming the strength of the organization through their run prevention system. Yet left-handed starting pitching is a weakness even given the context of this particular organization. There are no notable left-handed starting pitching prospects that are near reaching an MLB-ready floor for 2019, and there is little in the way of organizational depth behind Brent Suter (who, given the nature of Tommy John surgery, may not be ready to pitch until very late in 2019). Thus Brewers fans looking for the club to make a splash in free agency could reasonably look at southpaw starters.

There are arguably three particular classes of pitchers among the “true” left-handed starting pitching free agents in 2019. (Here I’ve excluded elite arms like Clayton Kershaw and David Price, who could choose to opt out of contracts, but only would do so on the sense that they could best $35 million Average Annual Value (AAV), which would be the required level to beat their current deals). Cot’s Contracts and Sportrac Data were used to construct a free agency list.

• Elite 2018 or Notably Better than Average Pitchers (by WARP and Runs Prevented): Patrick Corbin, Dallas Keuchel, J.A. Happ, and Hyun-jin Ryu

• Very Good Pitchers (by either WARP or Runs Prevented): Gio Gonzalez, CC Sabathia, Brett Anderson, and Wade Miley

• Depth Pitchers: Drew Pomeranz, Francisco Liriano, Jo-Jo Reyes, and Ross Detwiler.

The following table is one method of conveying player value for this lefty free agency class into monetary terms. I’ve used a three-year depreciation model, reflecting the fact that over time players typically lose value from their current performances (this is also a means of presenting relatively conservative contract projections). I’ve updated previous surplus assessments by presenting a rolling assessment of three-year models (2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018), plus a “maximum” projection based on full 2018 performance. This number can be compared against the general “Three Year Trend” to determine whether a pitcher is on an upward or downward trajectory (equally tough cases here are Keuchel and Corbin, for completely different directions of performance).

• Depreciated1, Depreciated2, Depreciated3: three-year surplus value salary estimates, based on WARP from 2014-2016, 2015-2017, and 2016-2018 (in order).
• ThreeYear: this demonstrates the relative change in contractual value from 2016-2018 to 2014-2016. This is a rough estimate of a pitcher’s contractual “trend.”
• Immediate: this is a three-year surplus value salary estimate based solely on 2018 performance without any depreciation. It should be read as some type of ultimate “short term bias” value (i.e., the most biased observer from 2018 would offer Patrick Corbin a 3-year contract worth more than $120 million).

It is tempting, giving the success of pitching coach Derek Johnson in Milwaukee, as well as the success of the fielding efficiency, front office analysis, and general pitching player development, to assess the offseason free agents by looking for “The Next Wade Miley.” But this is suspicious thinking for at least two key reasons: first, many players in the MLB change their pitching approaches and development without the success of Miley; second, the Brewers simply have the opportunity to re-sign Miley from the free agency pool if the club believes that his development pattern is sustainable and he can continue to provide rotational depth. There is nothing wrong with doubling down on a successful system when the same reasoning and critical measures are used to assess that system the second time around.

To demonstrate the extreme nature of what Miley accomplished in Milwaukee, witness his progression from bread-and-butter southpaw in 2016 to his current format of pitching:

According to Brooks Baseball, Miley was already morphing his pitching approach in 2017, and that does not simply involve his insistence on incorporating the cutter after July 2017. Miley switched from his “primary” rising fastball to his “secondary” running-and-sinking variation, which took selections away from his change, slider, and curve in 2017. The veteran lefty was basically becoming an all-forms fastballer, blending three fastballs at the expense of off-speed and breaking offerings. 2018 reversed that to a stunning extent, as Miley reduced the total percentage of primary, secondary, and cut fastballs he threw, and completely reorganized his secondary stuff around the cutter. What is interesting about Miley is that he traded groundballs for whiffs with the cutter, while whiffs “played up” with other pitches once he focused on the cutter. This is the fantastic accomplishment of Miley’s 2018: not simply the development of a new prominent pitch, but the systemic development of that pitch in a manner that improved his other offerings. It would be foolish to suggest that most pitchers could be expected to thrive with such a reinvention.

Among these pitchers, there is no “next Miley,” unless you want to lean heavily into suggesting the Brewers acquire Jo-Jo Reyes and Ross Detwiler as potential depth contracts (Detwiler has the “Brewers pitches” necessary to pique interest here). But that does not mean that the Brewers should not seek any of these southpaw free agents:

• Patrick Corbin is on the frontier of baseball as a slider-first pitcher, which is crucial in a game where the slider determines leverage in many cases (including diminishing a key divisional rival for the Brewers). Signing Corbin could be a huge deal for the Brewers, both for keeping the lefty away from divisional rivals looking to improve pitching (the Reds could certainly gamble here, given their excellent batting group and lack of arms, as well as the contending Cubs). If there’s anywhere that Corbin’s margins-of-the-strike-zone approach could succeed, it’s Milwaukee, although that doesn’t necessarily mean his profile is less risky overall. The Brewers could take the next step of working with Corbin to balance his new curveball with his slider. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $100 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $150 million. (If the rumored contract ranges around 4-years and $120 million are true, I would call Corbin a potential bargin, even).

• Dallas Keuchel is an interesting pitcher insofar as he remains relatively consistent as he ages, even though his surplus grade demonstrates a harsh decline due to falling off from previously elite seasons. Even without being an elite pitcher, Keuchel remains quite good, and he’s tinkering with his approach to move away from his “true” sinking fastball and toward a cutter-offspeed approach. Keuchel’s potential knock working in Milwaukee would be using a relatively extreme groundball approach in front of an aggressively unorthodox defense, which would mean the Brewers would need to truly sell the veteran on their fielding approach. A Keuchel deal could be the most likely to end up “sideways” due to this profile.  Ideal Contract: 3-years, $75 million. Maximum deal: 4-years, $100 million.

• Wade Miley is entering his age-32 season having completely revitalized his pitching approach; by all appearances seems to be a likable and supportive teammate in Milwaukee; and against the Dodgers even flashed a hard fastball that demonstrates that his approach could continue to morph in 2019. It would not surprise me if the Brewers have an arsenal plan with Miley to take additional steps beyond the cutter, and I’d sign Miley before any of these guys due to that likely fact. Additionally, as the Brewers mature into perennial contenders (hopefully), they would do well to prove to players that they will turn some rehabilitation projects / value-depth plays into hard cash deals. There will be a time when value signings refuse to come to Milwaukee if their value produced never materializes into bigger cash. Start here. Ideal Contract: 2-years, $20 million, with a third-year option. Maximum: 3-years, $36 million.

• Gio Gonzalez is slowly morphing into a potential change-up first pitcher, making him a true veteran “junkball” option. Ideal Contract: 3-years, $36 million. Maximum deal: 3-year, $45 million.

• Given J.A. Happ’s age, the southpaw could potentially be a short-term deal with beneficial playoff experience and a fastball-first approach that could fit some aspects of Brewers pitching strategy (notable fastballers Freddy Peralta and Suter come to mind, for example). One-year contract between $12 million and $17 million.

• If you’re obsessed with the idea of making “the next Wade Miley” work in Milwaukee, Drew Pomeranz could be the biggest name among southpaws to make that work. Pomeranz struggled through 2018 as a bigtime fastball-curveball approach. In fact, the cutter even featured more prominently during Pomeranz’s successfuly 2016 season. Unfortunately, the groundballs and whiffs simultaneously dissipated, leaving this lefty a potentially expensive gamble with an arsenal, approach, and batted ball in flux. Pomeranz is a potential project. One-year, $10 million.

• It is not clear that Hyun-jin Ryu or CC Sabathia would be likely to come to Milwaukee given their recent roles in big markets (for quite some time) and playoff team roles. Francisco Liriano had a tough year in Detroit, and I unfortunately think there are better contracts offered to the other pitchers on this list.

• No lie, I’d hand out a minor league deal to Ross Detwiler, too, if he would be willing to work within the Brewers pitching development system. This southpaw is another potential “true junkball” lefty, but along with heavy change up usage Detwiler has also added a cutter, and could move away from his sinking fastball to his rising-riding primary variation.

On its face, that may sound a bit extreme. Hank Aaron wore Brewers blue, after all, as did Robin Yount and Paul Molitor. But rattle off a list of all-time Brewers greats, and you’ll pretty soon get to names like Ben Oglivie or Cecil Cooper. Great players, both, but not demonstrably better than Grandyman, who has two key traits working in his favor.

The first is his longevity. At 37 years old, Granderson is in his fifteenth major league season. The second is that he’s really, really good at baseball. Better perhaps, than many casual fans realize. Granderson has four seasons of 5+ WARP to his name, including one as recently as 2015. The only other current Brewer for whom that’s true is Ryan Braun, whose last such season came in 2012. (Cecil Cooper had two; Ben Oglivie had none.) For his career, the lanky lefty has racked up 44.4 WARP, most of that on the strength of his powerful bat (332 career home runs, .286 career True Average [TAv]).

That’s a superlative career by any definition. It’s also one that is coming to an end. Barring an incredible surge in the next year or two, Granderson doesn’t have any more 5 WARP campaigns in the tank. He may not play next year at all; he spent last offseason waiting for an offer to come his way before signing with Toronto weeks before Spring Training. If that offer hadn’t come along, he was prepared to hang up his cleats. The same is true for this offseason.

That all puts Granderson in a different class of Brewers: those whom most people will forget ever suited up for the Milwaukee nine.

He’s in good company there. Over the years, Milwaukee has hosted a number of good-to-great players for half a season here or a season there, often just in time for a run at the playoffs or as the last stop before the beckoning, sunny pasture of retirement. That Granderson has had a positive, if small, impact on the team places him among the best of these players, too, with room to move up the list in the event of any October heroics.

In no particular order, here’s a look at some of Granderson’s peers on the all-time Brewers cameo list.

Willie Randolph, 1991

Second baseman Willie Randolph burst into the majors in 1975 at the age of 21, playing for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was traded to the Yankees that offseason, along with Ken Brett (brother of George) and Dock Ellis (fan of hallucinogins), for Doc Medich (who finished his own fine career with a Brewers cameo). Randolph spent 13 of his 18 big league years in the Bronx, where he made five of his six career All Star teams and won a World Series in 1977. He was a patient hitter with a good hit tool but not much power, and a terrific defender at the keystone.

In 1991, Randolph was 36 years old and nearing the end of his playing career. He signed a one-year deal with the Brewers and produced a fine season, although his defense had begun to erode. Randolph batted .327/.424/.474 over 512 plate appearances, accumulating 3.1 WARP and striking out just 38 times. In 2011, FanGraphs named Randolph’s ’91 campaign as the second-best by a hitter who went the whole season without hitting a home run. He hung around the league for one more year before calling it quits, finishing with 2,210 hits and 51.8 WARP.

An addendum: Randolph was named manager of the New York Mets prior to the 2004 season and guided them to the NLCS in 2006, where he lost in seven games to the Cardinals (once a Brewer, always a Brewer). He joined Milwaukee’s coaching staff in 2009 as a bench coach, after losing out on the vacant managerial position to Ken Macha. He remained a Brewers coach for two years, before closing out his coaching career with a stint in Baltimore.

Julio Franco, 1997

Franco is remembered well for his agelessness; he spent parts of 23 seasons in the big leagues, finally retiring after 2007 at the age of 48. By that point, he had mustered 42.3 WARP and a .298 career batting average, though his days of swiping 30+ bags were some sixteen years in the rearview mirror.

Impatient with the 1994 strike, Franco took his bat and glove overseas and played the 1995 season in Japan. In 1996, at the tender age of 37, Franco returned to the MLB with Cleveland, where he had spent six seasons in his prime. He hit well in ’96, riding a .290 TAv to 1.7 WARP in 112 games. 1997 wasn’t quite as kind, and Cleveland released him in the midst of a mediocre campaign propped up by a good batting average.

Milwaukee swooped in, signed him, and sent him out to the field for 42 games. Franco was a first baseman and DH by this point in his career, after starting out as a shortstop. He hit .241/.373/.348 for the Crew, good for 0.4 WARP. He managed 1.1 total WARP between Cleveland and Milwaukee; it stood as his finest season between that year and his eventual retirement. Franco made the playoffs seven times, all coming after he had turned 37. He never won a World Series.

Franco Fun-Fact: He never struck out more than 83 times in a season.

Jim Edmonds, 2010

With 72.9 career WARP, Jimmy Baseball may deserve a spot in Cooperstown. At the very least, he deserves to still be on the ballot. Life isn’t always fair, though, so Edmonds is stuck waiting around for the Veterans Committee.

A great defensive center fielder, Edmonds could swing quite a bit, as well. He finished his career with a fantastic .303 TAv, though he fell just shy of two big milestones; Edmonds is forever stuck on 1,949 hits and 393 homers.

Bearing those numbers in mind, it’s a shame that he didn’t find an offer to his liking before the 2009 season. Dissatisfied with his suitors, Edmonds opted to sit out the whole year. At age 40, the Brewers gave him another shot at the majors, and Edmonds delivered. He spent 73 games in Milwaukee in 2010, batting .286/.350/.493, and tallying an astonishing 8.6 Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA). That effort netted Edmonds 2.6 WARP in just 240 plate appearances; Milwaukee shipped the veteran out in a waiver trade to the contending Cincinnati Reds, who were swept out of the NLDS by the Phillies

It’s not all tears for Jim though; Edmonds won a ring, with the Cards, regrettably, in 2006. (Sorry, Willie Randolph-managed Mets!)

CC Sabathia, 2008

Everybody knows how this one went down. The Brewers traded a suite of talented prospects for half a season of CC Sabathia, easily the greatest Rent-A-Brewer in team history. Sabathia started 17 games for the Crew down the stretch, many of them on short rest, and tallied a staggering 4.6 WARP in that time. Taken as a whole, the 2008 season (all 253 innings of it) stands alone as the best of a storied career.

The veteran lefty has a decent shot at Cooperstown, particularly if the voting block comes to their senses concerning pitcher performances. He’s sitting on 68.3 career WARP thanks to a neat late-career resurgence, with a tidy 3.71 career DRA. Sabathia turned 38 this season, but if he comes back in 2019, he’ll probably lock down his 250th win; he’s just shy now, at 246.

Sabathia has spent the last ten years playing for the Yankees, so it will not surprise you to learn that he won a World Series in 2009. Pity he didn’t come closer in 2008; he was gassed after carrying the team for three months.

Ray Durham, 2008

Ray Durham is the closest historical analogue to Curtis Granderson’s situation. Durham was acquired to shore up the infield and bench through the 2008 Wild Card chase. Like Granderson in ’18, Durham wasn’t the Brewers’ flashiest mid-season addition that year. (See above.) Also like Granderson, Durham performed well in Brewers blue, to the tune of a .280 TAv, solid defense, and 0.9 WARP over 122 plate appearances. (Granderson, a late August waiver addition, hasn’t played as much for the Crew, but he’s still managed 0.3 WARP and a .311 TAv in 54 plate appearances.)

Durham finished with an even 36.0 WARP and 2,054 hits. Had he been a better defender, his value would be even higher; still, few players would say no to a career slash line of .277/.352/.436.

One more similarity to Curtis Granderson: Durham was in his fourteenth big league season when he became a Brewer, and had never won a World Series. Granderson is in his fifteenth, still searching for a ring. He’s come close on numerous occasions; Granderson played for the Tigers when the Tigers were good (World Series appearance in 2006), the Yankees when the Yankees were good (ALCS in 2010 and 2012), the Mets when the Mets were good (World Series appearance in 2015), and was traded to the Dodgers in time for their run to the Fall Classic last year.

He’s an easy player to like, with a laidback personality and a devotion to charity. There are indications that, if given the keys to the league tomorrow, he’d make a better commissioner than one Mr. Manfred, or at least a better marketing director than the one Mr. Manfred employs. He’s a mentor to prospect Corey Ray; here’s hoping his career numbers wear off on the youngster. By all accounts, Granderson is one of the finest people to play the game, let alone a tremendous player. Let’s hope his 2018 ends on a happier note than Durham’s 2008.

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.

Related Reading:
Cashing Out OFP
Translating OFP

Anyway, it’s fun to continue testing the model, so let’s head back in time to assess one of Doug Melvin’s iconic moves. The Brewers’ previous President and GM famously went all-in on July 7, 2008 by trading for one of the very best arms in the game, and perhaps the best available trade asset in the MLB at that moment. To that point, franchise ace Ben Sheets had heroically paced a beleaguered pitching rotation with 96 K / 26 BB / 12 HR in 117.0 IP and 11 of 17 quality starts (including a shutout and two additional complete games). Given Sabathia’s monstrous second half for Milwaukee, where the southpaw almost seemed to will the Brewers to the playoffs, it’s easy to forget that Sheets was one of the elite pitchers that season (4.81 WARP, 3.37 DRA, and 0.3236 Post-Tunnel Break, good for twelfth best among MLB pitchers with 1000 pitchpairs); his efforts to win while pitching through a torn elbow ligament also cost him millions on the impending free agency market. On July 7, 2008, the Brewers were 3.5 games behind the division-leading Cubs, and they were outplaying a .513 Pythagorean Winning Percentage (based on Runs Scored and Runs Allowed). Something was going to give, but with Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun coming into their own, and Sheets’s free agency the first closing window for these Brewers, this was a great chance to improve the club.

For the day-of-trade analysis, I’ve priced out Michael Brantley as the PTBNL. Considering Taylor Green as PTBNL leads to different questions, although it is worth noting that neither Brantley nor Green made the Baseball Prospectus Top Prospects entering 2008. One could even argue that Green would have been priced similarly at this point and time. This model shows that in terms of Sabathia’s purest short-term value, Cleveland arguably undersold his OFP:

Once again, the tricky aspect of Benefit-Cost Analysis is considering the window through which one constructs value. If an analyst is inclined to depreciate Sabathia’s three-year-plus-2008-first-half performance, a second half with the southpaw does not look thrilling for the Brewers. Here, the ace might add a win to the club, although given their proximity to the playoff race on July 7, one win could add as much as $20 million or more in revenue to Milwaukee. On the other hand, an analyst using Sabathia’s immediate performance would conclude that the ace was just the type of asset suited to add several wins to the Brewers. Certainly, Sabathia was the type of asset worth surrendering top prospects from the Milwaukee system, especially given that the farm was already on a downward trajectory after graduating that classic young contending core.

Obviously, one can apply this analytical rigor to the prospect assessments as well. Despite a top ranking for Milwaukee, Baseball Prospectus recognized that defensive and contact shortcomings could sidetrack LaPorta’s power/discipline package. Nevertheless, even those risks gave LaPorta a strong price (and entering 2009, LaPorta was even ranked ahead of Carlos Santana in Cleveland’s system!). Even on the day of the trade, Cleveland returned a relatively risky prospect package for a proven ace like Sabathia; Brantley was the most advanced and seasoned prospect by that point, and even he did not grade into the top rankings of a middling Brewers system. Green might have even been viewed as a more interesting prospect gamble at that point; Rob Bryson was a depth arm with very little professional experience; and even for all his glamor, LaPorta had just reached his 100th professional game at the time of the trade. Zach Jackson was interesting insofar as he had a very high ceiling for a lefty depth arm, and perhaps his best case scenario would be bolstering a pitching staff losing its ace during a 37-51 first half (as a fun aside, Cleveland actually outplayed Milwaukee after the trade!).

Brewers fans could easily write off those prospects after Sabathia worked four consecutive quality starts to begin his tenure in Milwaukee, including a shutout and two additional complete games before the calendar even turned to August. When your team is the team that is trying to win MLB games, suddenly those risks look much steeper on those prospects, and the ceilings look less attainable. It may be an unjustifiable bias, but then again, there are many inputs, outputs, and interpretations necessary to run a Benefit-Cost Analysis. When the dust settled, Sabathia’s seven complete games (three shutouts!), 128 K / 25 BB / 6 HR, and 2.45 DRA drove a 4.5 WARP in the second half. Most importantly, Milwaukee actually made the playoffs, immediately paying out that prospect gamble with playoff revenue (which must be included in post hoc analysis).

The playoff revenue should not be underestimated: if one takes the harsh depreciation of Sabathia, and expected the trade to be a talent deficit for Milwaukee, the revenue (along with Sabathia’s WARP) covers the vast majority of any talent deficit in the trade. Adding in compensatory draft picks under the old, problematic draft-and-free-agency system made the trade look fantastic after one year:

It’s quite difficult to assess the value of a single draft pick. Historically, the Brewers had two strong picks to compensate for losing Sabathia. Yet, to say that the Brewers could potentially gain five wins from the 39th and 73rd picks does not seem quite right. Thus, in order to judge those compensatory picks, I steeply depreciated those picks against the odds that even the vast majority of 39th and 73rd picks fail to reach the MLB. Even this depreciated model makes those draft picks appear quite valuable. In addition to the production on the field and the playoff revenue, Milwaukee’s front office could reasonably gain an additional win in surplus through those compensatory picks. Given the short window and lack of prospect value leaps (or decline) for Cleveland to this point, the trade was swinging heavily in Milwaukee’s favor.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see Michael Brantley’s breakout as one of the factors that could potentially dig into the value Milwaukee received in the trade. However, it’s worth pushing back on this by noting that even after three-and-a-half years, the additional players involved in the Sabathia deal, as well as the Brewers’ compensatory picks, stalled. The Sabathia deal seemed to linger in the air of the front office, as Melvin clearly took the lesson to be a valuable one when he unloaded for Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke to lead the 2011 and 2012 Brewers pitching staffs (both quite solid-to-great deals). Even Brantley appeared to be in a difficult position, failing to deliver defensively in centerfield, and not necessarily producing enough offense to offset that performance.

Even three-and-a-half years are not sufficient for assessing some trades.

As an aside, it’s interesting to question how a market rate deal for Sabathia could have worked out in Milwaukee, especially with an opt-out clause as signed in New York. Looking back at the three-years after Sabathia’s tenure in Milwaukee, one could argue that pumping that playoff revenue back into a huge deal with the southpaw could have been beneficial for the Brewers. This would obviously have completely changed the timeline for contending in Milwaukee, however, and probably would have netted a completely different set of supplemental deals for the franchise. Anyway, never forget that Sabathia produced 17.8 WARP during his first three years with the Yankees, serving as one of the most valuable free agent pitchers in history (those three years alone were worth nearly $125 million for New York’s Junior Circuit club).

Looking at the final tab, the Brewers received incredible short-term surplus from Sabathia. In fact, the lefty actually produced surplus that matched nearly 70 percent of his highest day-of-trade value estimate: thanks to Sabathia’s performance, the Brewers actually cashed out surplus in on-field wins, which should bar none be considered successful. Sabathia’s production (at his contract rate!) and playoff revenue shredded the depreciated surplus estimate of $13.4 million for the ace. If one wants to be particularly bold, prorating this surplus from Sabathia’s half season to a full campaign gives the Brewers quite a trade return in annual terms. Of course, Michael Brantley’s breakout for Cleveland more than makes up for Matt LaPorta’s bust (and really, the non-return of Jackson and Bryson to boot), and technically, one could argue that Milwaukee’s failure to maximize those supplemental draft picks in 2009 ate into some of Sabathia’s value.

56 percent of Brantley’s total value to Cleveland was produced in 2014. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the prescience of Cleveland’s extension offer to Brantley to avoid arbitration entering 2014. To that point, the outfielder claimed approximately 3.7 WARP on reserve contracts, providing relatively solid value to Cleveland. After moving to left field from center field, Brantley leapt from significantly below average FRAA to a serviceable 2.4 FRAA figure, bolstering that .271 TAv to drive a 2.5 WARP 2013 season. Depreciating that 2013 season against his previous performances, Brantley offered Cleveland approximately $22 million in surplus to the club entering arbitration for 2014, but the $17.5 million total value in 2013 perhaps added an exclamation point to that depreciated figure. Cleveland GM Chris Antonetti maximized every ounce of that surplus, handing it all to Brantley in a neatly wrapped four-year, $20.5 million deal with an additional signing bonus of $3.5 million and $1 million buyout on a 2018 option. Even with an injury-plagued 2016 and average 2015 campaign in the rearview, that huge .320 TAv, 20 HR / 20 SB 2014 season from Brantley pretty much completed the full extension.

With these positive figures, it must be emphasized that Brantley has the benefit of eight-and-a-half years from the day of the trade to reach this level of surplus for Cleveland; in this regard, the high monetary value produced must be prorated in much the same way Sabathia’s must be prorated, which leaves a lack of a satisfactory answer to the long-term-versus-short-term question in Benefit-Cost Analysis for MLB trades. It’s difficult to determine when and how teams succeed or fail in trades, especially given that short-term and long-term outlooks, not to mention specific teambuilding goals, can produce wildly fluctuating assessments. Nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine living in the universe where Sabathia was not a Brewers ace for those magical three months.

With the heaviest of hearts, let’s roll it out:

Beyond the Box Score || The Saddest Teams of 2015 (Mar. 9, 2016)

Henry Druschel, whose work can also be found at BP Wrigleyville, devised his own metric, the Depression Scale, to explore which team’s fan base experienced the most pain in 2015. Because you lived through it, and because the article is featured in this space, you already know the Brewers are featured prominently in the “top” five.

Not only did the Brewers fail on the surface in terms of wins and losses, they also wildly underperformed compared to preseason expectations, even those of the computers whose projections were less optimistic than the rose-colored glasses-wearing fan. They also endured a number of spirit-crushing losing streaks, which cemented Brewer Nation’s place among the most pained fan bases of 2015.  

Baseball America || Top 20 Rookies For 2016 (Mar. 11, 2016)

Running down the top Rookie of the Year candidates entering the league this season, John Manuel takes a break from the standard practice of ranking prospects according to their overall potential and instead explores the ones with the greatest present value. Ranked sixth, behind five prospects who are expected to either start the season with their respective teams or receive the call up in the season’s first few weeks, is Orlando Arcia. And, ultimately, his timeline is anyone’s guess at this point. The slick-fielding shortstop has spent exactly one full season at every level up until this point of his career, but he showed a polish last season in Double-A that belied his age and may make it difficult for the Brewers to put off his promotion to the big leagues if he gets off to a blistering start in Colorado Springs.

The list is composed largely of the same few teams, as the Brewers join the Dodgers, Twins, Rangers and Nationals as clubs to have multiple entries – those five teams compose 60 percent of the list. Milwaukee’s second entrant is right-hander Jorge Lopez, who checks in at no. 16. The 23-year-old hurler enjoyed a cup of coffee last September and will most likely start the season in Triple-A Colorado Springs, along with Arcia. While the major-league rotation seems set for now, Lopez will be one of the first candidates to slide in should any of the team’s starters get injured or traded or experience a prolonged period of ineffectiveness.

Brew Crew Ball || How to Explain Ryan Braun to Your Kids (Mar. 10, 2016)

Responding to the hilariously out-of-touch comments made by Goose Gossage regarding Jose Bautista, Ryan Braun and the “nerds ruining baseball,” Derek Harvey offers a bit of tongue-in-cheek parenting advice. In his “Old Man Yells At Cloud” diatribe, Gossage ripped the state of the game today, calling it a disgrace in an interview that was laced with so many expletives, it would make Howard Stern blush. I would suggest Gossage take a good long look in the mirror before he starts throwing words like “disgrace” at others, but hey, no one wants to have to look at that mug for too long, so I get it.

The Hardball Times || How Much Is Your Team’s All Star Worth In Prospects? (Mar. 7, 2016)

Taking a look at the rebuilding Cleveland Indians of 2008 and 2009, John Marsh explores the worth of an All Star when constructing a trade. The Brewers, of course, were involved in the first big sell of those Cleveland teams when they swapped a quadruplet of prospects for Indians’ ace CC Sabathia. The trade, in retrospect, seems to have worked out for both teams — though in a very surprising way for Cleveland. Sabathia was an unstoppable monster for the Brewers over the second half of 2008, starting on three day’s rest over and over, putting up impossible numbers to metaphorically drag the Brewers to the playoffs. And while the Indians certainly received long-term production in exchange, it wasn’t from the expected source. The headliner of the deal, Matt LaPorta, fell far short of expectations. Michael Brantley, the Player To Be Named Later in the deal, proved to be a late bloomer and has provided enormous value for Cleveland over the past couple of years.

“I want a ring, it’s as simple as that,” Sabathia told the Associated Press on October 2 as he waited to make what would be his only postseason start with the Brewers. “If I’m healthy and feel fine, I want the ball.” Sabathia was the ultimate team player, and the fact that he was taking these risks for the team and the fans only amplified the cheers at Miller Park. “For a team, a guy going out on three days’ rest shows the importance of the situation and your teammates appreciate it,” catcher Jason Kendall said, “It’s a special thing for a team.”  

Sabathia, inevitably, has become a contrast for the Great Innings Limit Impasse of 2015 between Matt Harvey and the Mets. Reporters have already sought out Sabathia for comment on the issue, who was clear on his absolute apathy on the matter. But the question remains: If Sabathia was willing to sacrifice his body and his future earnings, why isn’t Harvey?

CC Sabathia, who risked his free agency by pitching on short rest in '08, said, "I don't care about what is going on with Matt Harvey."

— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) September 6, 2015

It’s an argument that collapses in the face of context. Sabathia was a six-year veteran in his fourth year of collecting multi-million dollar salaries. His fourth-year arbitration award from Cleveland was a cool $11 million and kicked his career earnings up to $36.5 million. Sabathia had already reached the point where the pursuit of money was more about bragging rights and legacies than about purchasing power and providing for a family. Not so much for Harvey, who has yet to make over $700,000 in his three-year career. He’s doing well, but not well enough to keep him out of the labor market until the end of days, which is a problem when you’ve spent your entire life training for a single vocation.

And, more importantly, Sabathia had missed all of 50 days on the disabled list for his career to that point, all from abdominal injuries, not arm injuries. Sabathia neither had to worry about a prior Tommy John surgery. Nor did Sabathia have to consider the fact that his high innings counts would only lead to further scrutiny of his medicals once he hit the free agent market, something that Harvey may have noted when his bosses nixed a trade that would have sent Carlos Gomez from the Brewers to the Mets just over a month ago over a supposedly balky hip.

And to be clear, I think it’s wrong to frame this as Harvey simply making a choice not to pitch. His agent Scott Boras made that clear when he told CBSSports.com’s Jon Heyman, “These are doctor’s opinions… Matt Harvey would love to pitch. But the surgeon who saved his career and other surgeons consulted have said that for maximum safety he is not to exceed 180 innings for the year.”

In a world where athletes need to be in crutches or a sling before fans, coaches, executives and even teammates might believe an injury is real, the right of an athlete to seek out his own doctor’s opinion and have that opinion respected is critical. Just look to the C.J. Wilson situation earlier this year, in which some in the Angels’ organization expressed skepticism that he couldn’t push through an injured arm, even though doctors told Wilson his bone spurs had expanded to “all four sides of [his] elbow.”

It’s not just about facing some undeserved ribbing from teammates. Keith Hernandez discussed the Harvey issue and its intersection with baseball’s labor battles on the Mets broadcast Saturday night:

Well, I don’t know where the miscommunication started here. We’ve got differing sides. You would think something like this would’ve been etched in stone.

Now, as a player, Gary, and speaking purely as a player, I am going to trust my agent and my doctor, in Matt’s case surgeon, as to where I’m at. And I’m gonna go by their advice. I’m not gonna trust management. Marvin Miller and the union fought for a second opinion, for the right of a player to get a second opinion. There’s a conflict of interest with team doctors. And it used to be in the old days, what the team said was it, and you didn’t have an opportunity to go outside. Well, that was a good thing that Marvin did.

Meanwhile, Harvey has been bludgeoned by the New York baseball press, with a number of outlets and writers declaring that Harvey is letting the Mets down or doing the club a disservice. Nothing has made that viewpoint clearer than the New York Daily News with this incisive front page from Sunday:

That backlash hasn’t been limited to journalistic outlets, as Mets fans on Twitter have been vocal with their disapproval. Daily News reporter John Harper says Harvey is aware.

Collins indicated Harvey is "well aware'' how badly Mets fans are crushing him on Twitter. Hinted it could impact his inn. limit decision.

— John Harper (@NYDNHarper) September 6, 2015

If, as Scott Boras said, the medical issue is about “maximum safety,” then it’s understandable that Harvey may want to reconsider. His career is not only about money. It’s possible the adoration and acceptance of Mets fans, the respect of his teammates, the potential glory of a potential 2015 playoff run, and the legacy implications of pitching through fatigue or injury might be worth the risk in Harvey’s head. He’ll have a lot to think about over the next week as he decides what to do for the rest of September (he said through The Players’ Tribune on Sunday that he will pitch in the playoffs if the Mets make it, but he was exceptionally vague about how he and the Mets will handle the final stretch of the regular season).

This is all a huge part of what made Sabathia’s Herculean effort in Milwaukee so special. Nobody forced or coerced Sabathia to take the risks he did in 2008. It was his choice to hoist the team on his back and carry it to the postseason. It’s not just his effectiveness but his effort and his sacrifice that Milwaukee fans recognized with a standing ovation when he returned to Miller Park in 2014 and why Milwaukee’s collective love for Sabathia continues to this day.

But that decision is not management’s to make, and it’s not the fans’ decision to make either. It’s Harvey’s to make, equipped with the best information from his doctors. If the Mets don’t like it, they can either release him or fight the union and try to force him to pitch. Athletes don’t owe us the labor of their bodies, and no matter how healthy Matt Harvey looks, he still doesn’t owe the Mets and their fans his right arm if it risks his health and his future.