Using Baseball Reference multiyear park factors, the Brewers offense finished nearly 30 runs better than their league environment, and Baseball Prospectus park factors have the club performing even better; by True Average, the Brewers are tied with Houston as the fourth best offense in the MLB. According to Baseball Prospectus Batting Park Factor, the actual mix of parks the Brewers batted in was fourth toughest in baseball, meaning that the Brewers were likely to play in environments suppressing runs by approximately five percent.

Like 2018, the Brewers head into next season with a seemingly clear set of positions to improve, and seemingly clear prospects or internal development options to accomplish that goal.

• Orlando Arcia features prominently in calls for offensive improvement, as the elite gloveman suffered serious setbacks at the plate prior to his Triple-A demotions. Arcia’s glove makes roster decisions truly difficult, as the shortstop has impacted the game on the defensive end from the time he reached the MLB. If he bats anywhere near his second half line of .290 average / .320 on-base percentage / .396 slugging, the glove will play (for reference, the eighth batting order spot hit .229 / .304 / .357, so second half Arcia would easily clear that hurdle).

• Second base is a roster challenge, as Noah Nofz highlighted earlier today. It’s easy to dream on the future in terms of Keston Hiura’s potential, but it’s also worth remembering that the Brewers needed to improve center field for 2018 and still traded away their best development options there (Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison). A trade of Hiura is not out of the question should Slingin’ Stearns get requisite return. The trouble is how the Brewers juggle additional roster elements and free agents there, as opposed to the development pains (or pay offs) of sticking with Hiura.

• Catcher is probably the most popular fan option for improving the club, because it offers the flashiest trade opportunity (J.T. Realmuto) and a couple of the best free agents in the 2019 class (e.g., Yasmani Grandal). Yet, it is worth emphasizing the strength of the Brewers’ fielding behind the dish in 2018, in order to frame offensive performance. Neither Manny Pina nor Erik Kratz were that bad at the plate in 2018, and both were exceptional defenders. Using Adjusted Fielding Runs Above Average, which is a fielding statistic adjusted to assess the nuances of throwing, blocking, and framing for catchers, Kratz (11.1, eighth best) and Pina (6.3, nineteenth best) produced plenty of defensive value for the Brewers. Of course, Grandal is the rare free agent catcher that can produce both excellent offensive and defensive value….

• Right field is a difficult position to assess because it’s become quite barren behind Domingo Santana for multiple reasons. First, midseason trades included Brett Phillips, who would have been an excellent candidate for a glove-first, power-speed fourth outfielder to help boost that corner position. Next, Christian Yelich does not produce good defensive value off of left field, which raises questions about Ryan Braun’s future role (in left field) and the value of keeping Yelich’s bat in the order at any defensive cost (September-level production rendered that question moot for the time being). Furthermore, there are not necessarily advanced outfield prospects that would be considered strong enough to knock Santana off of right field. All this either makes right field the perfect position for an external acquisition, or for staying put with Santana.

The trouble, of course, is that should the Brewers simultaneously develop Arcia and Hiura at the MLB level, and keep Kratz and Pina, this entire series of completely justifiable roster moves could produce an offensive black hole in the 6th / 7th / 8th batting spots when things are going rough (or, in Hiura’s case, just getting started). This is where the Brewers’ most important wager occurs: they must weigh the long-term development plays (both Arcia and Hiura have clear “role ceilings” that are better than average at the MLB level) against the need to contend in 2019 (and produce runs to do so). All of this is potentially compounded when one reasonably figures that Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich cannot possibly be expected to be as good as they were last season; obviously this does not mean that they cannot maintain performance or even improve, it just should not be viewed as a certain outcome.

Baseball Prospectus True Average is an effective statistic because it weighs and combines a more complete picture of offensive production than other metrics, and presents the result in an intuitive number similar to batting average. A player with a .260 TAv is an average player. Aspects included in TAv that are not included in some other metrics are situational hitting and errors, plus alternative weights on strike outs and bunts, among other elements. So, let’s use TAv to assess the Brewers offense: with the descriptions above in mind, how do the elements of the club compare to the MLB positional landscape? What is the positional landscape?

Not unlike pitching staffs, positional ranks across the MLB are split among groups of players for each team. The ideal of plugging in a starting player at each position was always just an ideal, as injuries and platoon strategies have been widespread since the early 20th century ballgame; now, MLB front offices may simply be even more willing to try bizarre positional formats (such as the Brewers’ positional flexibility) and substitution patterns (think 2018 L.A. Dodgers, here). Thus, the split between players with 300 (or more) plate appearances and those working below that threshold is quite large.

It should be noted that outside of the corner infield positions, there are no other positions on the diamond where the median player and the regular player are better than average according to TAv. This should be intuitive in some sense, underscoring the importance of teams finding players that can work at least 300 plate appearances in a season. Of course, the median playing time at each position should demonstrate the difficulty of assembling even a group of players that can work 300 PA at a position; often teams will need to rely on a group of players that fall short of even that mediocre playing time threshold. This uneven playing time environment, set against a foundation that establishes the importance of finding a batting order full of regular players, should demonstrate why and how teams can make wagers or trade-offs with their players (for example, the club can weigh Arcia’s shortstop defense against the value of piecing together a couple of other options at the position; that’s just one example).

With this background in mind, let’s compare major 2018 Brewers batters to the median playing time and regular TAv for their respective positions (as grouped by Baseball Prospectus. Note: I have no idea where Eric Thames went in these CSV):

Milwaukee effectively gambled on both Cain and Yelich, who were team leaders in production and playing time beyond the league median. Yet this dynamic top of the order duo hardly exhausted the positions at which the Brewers effectively stacked regulars. Travis Shaw, Ryan Braun, and Jesus Aguilar were each fantastic compared to their respective positional leaguewide performances; Hernan Perez and Manny Pina were not necessarily as far from “average” batting production as most fans think. Outside of regular workloads, Domingo Santana and Mike Moustakas turned out to be crucial depth players, albeit for different reasons. Retaining contractual rights to Aguilar, Braun, Cain, Shaw, and Yelich should be viewed as extremely positive news for the 2019 club, even with all the caveats about regressing performances, etc.

On this model, the benefits of “standing pat” in free agency and trade markets should have some appeal, as one can see that weighing the defense at catcher and shortstop, or simply waiting for Keston Hiura and(or) Mauricio Dubon to arrive at second base need not be viewed as a drag on the offense. In fact, Hernan Perez can probably cover second base in an effective manner to open the season, allowing the Brewers to free up cash and prospect resources to double down on their pitching staff. Right field becomes an interesting question, as Santana’s closing month produced a final True Average that held up against regular MLB right fielders.

Of course, one can expect that David Stearns will not simply stand pat this offseason. The point, then, is to understand that there is no linear narrative about the Brewers bats improving in 2019. This group of players surged to close 2018, made some crucial developmental strides (in the case of Arcia) and mechanical tweaks (in the case of Braun) that could bode well for future performances. There is no clear path to improving the offense without spending significant cash or prospect resources.

While the series is over and done with and the team should be looking forward and planning for next season, there was one decision I wanted to revisit from Game Seven. Before the game, the pitcher usage had been fully mapped out, with contingencies built in based on what actually occurred once the game started. Thus, lifting Jhoulys Chacin for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the 2^nd inning with two outs and runners on second and third was not a surprise, nor is it a decision I feel qualified questioning. However, I think using Jonathan Schoop as the pinch hitter in that specific spot was a legitimate tactical error which contributed to the Game Seven loss.

Leverage Index is a stat which quantifies the importance of a situation in a game, where the average is 1.0 and the higher the number, the higher leverage the situation. That plate appearance had a leverage score of 1.86, making it the highest leverage plate appearance in the game for Milwaukee, yet Jonathan Schoop was the batter at the plate.

Up to that point, Schoop was 0-for-7 in the playoffs, including two pinch hitting appearances. Schoop’s performance since coming to Milwaukee had no hidden indicators that he was good selection for this spot. Other than running into a few balls, Schoop hadn’t hit in three months and spent October swinging at everything. Using Schoop didn’t even get Milwaukee the platoon advantage, so there was no old-school baseball rationale either.

Walker Buehler attacked Schoop with sinkers. He threw only nine sinkers in the game, and four were in this at-bat. Schoop only swung at two of the pitches, both of which were arguably balls, but he still grounded out the end the threat.

Domingo Santana would have been a better choice for the situation. Since his recall on September 1, Santana slashed .409 batting average /.458 on-base percentage /.909 slugging percentage in pinch hitting appearances during the regular season, and added another two hits and two walks in ten playoff pinch hit opportunities. Pinch hitting is an acquired skill and Santana had at least shown some knack for it in the past six weeks. He did get a pinch-hitting appearance with one out in the fifth inning, but the leverage index on that at bat was .97, almost exactly half of Schoop’s plate appearance.

With the aggressive use of the pitching staff, it’s slightly baffling as to why they held back their best pinch hitter and Curtis Granderson in favor of Schoop. None of them played in the field, so no defensive considerations seemed to play into the decisions, so it should have purely been the best hitter in that spot. You cannot save a better hitter for a higher leverage situation which may never come, and it didn’t in Game 7.

Jeremy Jeffress had a poor postseason, as I’ve unfortunately noted in the past two weeks. He allowed runs in three of his eight appearances and only had one game where he didn’t allow at least two baserunners. On Saturday entered the game in the 6^th inning with a runner on first and wound up giving up a backbreaking home run to Yasiel Puig which shot the Dodgers’ win expectancy up to ninety-one percent. In Jeffress’ 1 and 1/3 innings, he threw twenty pitches, none of which were splitters. It was only his third game this season where he threw at least twenty pitches and no splitters. All of those outings have occurred since September 10^th.

Starting in September, Jeffress drastically reduced his splitter usage. For the season, batters hit .209 against the pitch with only a .045 isolated slugging percentage, making it one of his most effective pitches. The splitter also had a seventeen percent whiff rate, on par with Jeffress’s curveball. However, those whiffs almost completely disappeared in September and October, with only one swing and miss on eighteen total splitters.

While it probably doesn’t fully explain Jeffress’s struggles, his pitch mix lost its balance when he stopped throwing the splitter and he started struggling. If it was a matter of feel, he has the whole offseason to regain confidence in the pitch or develop another weapon to induce swings and misses, because his results took a step back in October.

Christian Yelich had a tough postseason, but his struggles shouldn’t be a cause for concern for Brewers fans. First, the approach pitchers took against Yelich is not sustainable for a full season, unless they’re prepared to walk him at a rate comparable to Barry Bonds. Here’s the zone profile for Yelich for all of 2018:

Here’s Yelich’s zone profile during the playoffs:

While there was some effort to stick with the general plan to pitch him low and away, there’s a lot of blue in the strike zone and a lot of red bordering it. Pitchers spent three weeks staying away from Yelich, which makes sense after his second half of the season. However, pitchers will have to throw him more strikes in 2019. Yelich also maintained his plate discipline during the barrage of balls. He cut down on his swings on non-fastballs and also swung and missed less on breaking and offspeed pitches, while staying around his seasonal fastball whiff rate. By focusing on pitches in the zone, Yelich will lure pitchers back into throwing more strikes and he should pick up at the start of next season where he left off on October 1^st.

Unfortunately, there’s no new series to preview this week for the Brewers. While the result fell short of what fans were hoping for, it’s important to remember the ride to Game Seven and not focus on the NLCS loss itself. This was a fun team to follow all season and is poised to repeat its performance next season while also changing expectations on what a pitching staff should be in terms of usage and the best fits of skills in each role. The organization works as one unit and made an experiment like Travis Shaw: Major League Baseball Second Basement evolve from a sarcastic joke to a legitimate option by the end of the season. Remember the fun in getting to this point and start getting excited about what team will be put together this offseason.

P.S. They’re still not trading for/signing an ace.

Jeremy Jeffress has had an up and down playoffs. While he’s provided three scoreless outings, Jeffress has allowed fifteen baserunners in 5.7 innings and that has led to four runs scoring as he was on the mound. In a look at Jeffress last week, I noted that when he’s locked in, he’s looking to keep the ball down in an effort to induce groundballs and whiffs. In the first two NLCS games in Milwaukee, he did not succeed in keeping the ball low or out of the strike zone. While Jeffress is still hitting his favorite spot low and away, he’s leaving the ball up and in the zone entirely too much compared with the regular season. Batters have been able to lay off his low pitches because he’s leaving enough hittable pitches in the zone.

Against the Dodgers, Jeffress has only induced whiffs on his curveball, and his whiff rate on that pitch is slightly below his season average. Two percentage points isn’t particularly noteworthy, until one notices that he’s not getting any other whiffs. Expanding the sample to include the NLDS helps his curveball numbers, but the only other whiffs are against his fourseam fastball and also below his regular season whiff rate.

The veteran’s velocity is right around his season numbers, so there isn’t a dramatic drop off, nor is he overthrowing his pitches. However, he is seeing less movement overall. All of his pitches are moving less horizontally and are closer together now. Back in April, he had his largest spread, when his average curveball and sinker were eighteen inches apart. Vertically, the fourseam and curveball had a thirteen-inch difference. Because Jeffress isn’t hitting his spots, each of those ranges have narrowed and batters have less territory they need to worry about it. Game One of the NLDS didn’t scare Craig Counsell about inserting  Jeffress into high pressure situations, nor should it have based on his track record this season. However, with the plethora of options at his disposal and the little room for error nature of a best of seven series, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was an attempt to get Jeffress a lower leverage situation in Game Three or Four to get him back on track.

Dodgers pitchers have taken note of the Rockies’ approach to Christian Yelich and are not throwing him much to hit. After he had a 10.5 percent walk rate during the regular season, that number has skyrocketed to 37.5 percent in the playoffs. Pitchers are still avoiding the middle of the zone when throwing to Yelich and they seem content to throw him balls in an effort to make him chase bad pitches. To his credit, Yelich has not expanded his willingness to swing out of frustration. During the regular season, Yelich had been vulnerable to pitches away from him and while he didn’t miss those pitches often, he also didn’t hit them for much power. With the season he had, Yelich is the guy the opponents are going to fear and want to pitch around. By not swinging at bad pitches, Yelich has forced pitchers to make a choice: they can walk him or take a chance and throw it in the strike zone. Yelich’s approach will let him continue to accumulate walks and eventually he’s going to run into a few pitches and make the opposing team wish they had just walked him.

Corbin Burnes had a spectacular start to his postseason career. In two NLDS games, he pitches four innings and only allowed one baserunner while striking out five batters. Unfortunately, his last game was not quite as successful. Burnes is a fastball/slider pitcher, throwing the fastball for around sixty percent of his total pitches, and he’ll usually mix in a curveball. During Game 2, Burnes abandoned his curveball and threw his fewest sliders in a month. While he got swings on five of his eleven pitches, there were no swings and misses. Burnes had a whiff rate 32.1 percent during the regular season, which was 53^rd out of 442 pitcher who threw at least 570 pitches.

Burnes got whiffs on about a quarter of his sliders, but only threw two on Saturday. The speed on his slider was the lowest it had been since early September. It seems like he was having trouble locating his fastball. Burnes’s fourseasm fastball is generally located inside on his arm side or low and away. In a limited sample size, Burnes appeared to be all over the place with his fastball in Game Two and did not fool the Dodgers hitters. He rarely throws the pitch glove side and up, yet three fastballs ended up there, and he had threw well below the strike zone. It seemed like he focused on trying to get a feel for the fastball above trusting his arsenal.

Burnes will pitch in at least one of the games in Los Angeles and it will be interesting to see how he approaches the hitters. Ideally, the Burnes that kept the ball down against the Rockies and utilizes his breaking pitches to keep hitters off balance steps on the mound. When he gets those swings and misses, he can string together some scoreless innings for a team that is seeking to mix and match its way to a pennant.

Orlando Arcia has a hit in each playoff game he’s started and his streak extends to six games including the end of the regular season and his solo home run started the scoring in Game Two. The home run came on a first pitch cutter which caught enough of the bottom of the zone, in one of the areas in which Arcia demonstrated some power this year.

Arcia set a new standard for futility this year. His .268 OP was below his batting average last year. His .307 slugging percentage was below his OBP last year. The only position player with more than 100 plate appearances who had a lower OBP than Arcia was Eric Sogard.

Arcia’s hot streak began in September. While he’s not drawing many walks, his batting average since September 1 is above .300 and he’s slugging .443, which would be his MLB best by around forty points. He’s always been a whiffy hitter. Arcia swung and missed at 28.8 percent of the pitches he saw in 2018, which is around his career average of 27.5 percent. However, one area Arcia has cleaned up is his misses on pitches which most batters should hit. Before September 1, Arcia had huge holes in his swing almost everywhere. High and low and even belt high pitches could be missed. However, since September 1, Arcia is missing less, especially towards the middle of the zone, which are pitches any hitter should drive. The numbers bear out that he’s whiffing less on all types of pitches. Arcia doesn’t need to turn into Christian Yelich, but if he can bat eighth and get a hit a game, the Brewers will definitely take that offensive performance with his superlative defense. He isn’t likely to be a player who decides a series, but if he can be a player who puts some pressure on a pitcher facing the bottom half of the order, Arcia can provide a boost for the offense.

As the Brewers head west for three games in Los Angeles one point to monitor is the bullpen usage. While Craig Counsell goes into every game with a set plan in mind, emergencies do occur even in games which seem well at hand, such as the 8^th inning of Game 1. The 2-3-2 format will put a large amount of stress on Milwaukee’s pitching staff. I would guess that the pitching appearances have been scripted and written in pencil in advance of the publication of this article, any plan which relies on a large amount of players performing creates more opportunities for something to go wrong. Without an off day, there are no chances to reset the bullpen. Milwaukee can make it through these three games, but it feels like they’ll need some innings from their starters in at least one game so the bullpen gets a chance to rest. Jhoulys Chacin will start Game 3. He already had a five inning start in the NLDS and he led the staff with 5.5 innings pitched per start during the regular season. If Chacin can provide at least five innings tonight, he’ll put the Brewers in position to take at least one game in Los Angeles and guarantee that there will be at least one more game played in Miller Park this month.

Jeremy Jeffress struggled in his Game One appearance. The Rockies started the inning with three singles, then an Orlando Arcia error allowed a fourth straight runner to reach base before Jeffress settled down and recorded the next three outs. Looking at his pitch plot, he spent too much time in the strike zone.

About sixty percent of Jeffress’ pitches are sinkers or curveballs. His approach is to keep the ball low, either inducing swings on balls below the zone or living in the bottom third, extending from the middle to wide of the zone. The intent is even more pronounced when the sinker and curveball are isolated. Whether due to playoff jitters or just poor placement, Jeffress threw two sinkers that caught much more of the plate than he intended.

The playoffs are a heightened atmosphere where each mistake is magnified and takes on an outsized importance, but as his subsequent two scoreless appearances showed, this was one bad outing and there doesn’t seem to be a flaw that could come back to haunt Jeffress. His fourseam fastball velocity was slower than in any outing since April, but it ticked back up in Game Two and Three, and none of his other pitches showed any decrease in speed. There seemed to be some loss of horizontal movement, but the two pitches with the biggest drops were his sinker and curveball, which also rely on vertical movement for their deception. The sinker moved more than ever, while the curveball did suffer some loss in vertical movement.

Even taking into consideration his unexplained medical absence from the NL Central tiebreaker game, I think that there’s not much cause for concern with Jeffress. The team immediately inserted back into high pressure situations and he’ll continue to contribute as a back end member of the bullpen.

One of the major storylines coming into the series centered on how the Brewers would handle Trevor Story. Single season numbers against a team are too small of a sample size to be regarded as having any type of predictive value, but Story’s .333 batting average /.387 on-base percentage /1.222 slugging percentage slash line, which included seven home runs in seven games, worried some fans and pundits and became a talking point after the Rockies won the Wild Card Game.

It turned out that no one needed to worry, the Brewers executed their plan perfectly. They planned to keep the ball out of the strike zone and dare him not to swing. During the regular season, Story swung at thirty-two percent of the pitches he faced out of the strike zone. That number went up in the NLDS. The Brewers kept the ball low and away. The approach was best exemplified by his at-bat against Jeremy Jeffress in Game 1. Jeffress had run into some trouble and Story came to the batter’s box with runners on first and second with two outs and a chance to win the game with a hit. Jeffress threw three curveballs, none of which were particularly close to the strike zone, and Story waved at all three pitches.

Story finished the series 2-for-12 with six strike outs and one of his hits came in the bottom of the ninth in Game 3 when the series had already been decided. This pitching staff can lock down any batter in the league and will be up for the challenge of whichever team emerges from the other side of the National League bracket.

Josh Hader made fifty-five appearances during the regular season. He pitched on one or no days’ rest for sixteen of those outings. How often Hader will be used will continue to be a sub-plot throughout the postseason run.

Hader pitched four times last week, including the tiebreaker game. If the gloves are off, it was inevitable that he would need to pitch on back to back days, which he hadn’t done since August. After throwing 1 and 1/3 innings in Game One, Hader was used in a high leverage situation in Game Two to get Milwaukee out of an inning with a runner on third base and two outs. His spot in the lineup came up in the next half inning and Jonathan Schoop pinch hit for him, so Hader only threw twenty-two pitches in the two appearances. He exceeded that number in more than half of his 2018 games.

Hader added another seven pitches in Game Three and by finishing the series so quickly, he’ll get some extra time off. The middle of the NLCS includes three games in three days and it is unlikely that the Brewers can avoid using him in at least two of those games. The Brewers will need to hope that their regular season usage plan for Hader will keep him fresh for these important games.

The Brewers finished in the top 10 in MLB in baserunning runs. The area where they far outpaced all of baseball was opportunities to advance on wild pitches, passed balls and balks. Milwaukee is an aggressive team on the base paths; they were top four in stolen base opportunities. There is value in putting pressure on opposing pitchers and defenses and giving them something real to worry about when a batter reaches base. However, the team could use this next week to tighten up their running game. There were a few baserunning gaffes against the Rockies. The competition will level up in this next round and beyond, and Milwaukee cannot give away outs on the base paths from ill-advised advancements.

Jesús Aguilar struggled against the Rockies. He hit 1-11 with a walk a home run and four strikeouts. Aguilar started to scuffle in the second half, when he slashed .245/.324/.436, well below his first half line of  .298/.373/.621. As the year went on, Aguilar’s absurd numbers against fastballs went down, but his power against non-fastballs completely fell off a cliff.

Through the first two games, Colorado pitchers made sure to attack Aguilar low and away, which has been a season-long focus for pitchers. They also noticed the numbers in the above chart and gave him fewer fastballs to hit. For the season, he faced around sixty percent fastballs and never dipped below fifty five percent for a month. Fewer than half the pitches he faced in the NLDS were fastballs. The best news for Aguilar coming out of the series is that his home run came off a curveball. To get pitchers to respect him again, he probably needs to start laying off those pitches as much as possible. The effect of pitchers going low and away is even more pronounced when fastballs are stripped out of the zone plot. Aguilar can’t dramatically improve his pitch recognition on the fly, but even something like taking any pitch that appears like it’ll go below his belt will help him out because right now decent breaking balls are giving him fits and it’s creating a hole in the lineup.

Christian Yelich collected two walks in each game of the series. His regular season walk rate was 10.5 percent, but in the NLDS it approached fifty percent. In his second at bat of Game One, Yelich hit a home run off a poorly placed changeup. Pitchers had some success with changeups against Yelich in 2018, but all of them were inside or low; otherwise, Yelich had a good chance of hitting it far. After that, Rockies pitchers had their own plan to avoid getting hurt by Yelich.

While pitchers generally looked to get inside on him or keep the ball low, Colorado was all over the place, so long as the pitch wasn’t in the middle of the zone. They seemed content to make Yelich chase bad pitches, or take a walk. He also saw more fastballs than in any other month in the 2018 season. To Yelich’s credit, he was willing to take the walks. Pitchers have had more comfort pitching this way to Yelich because Lorenzo Cain has struggled at the plate. He went 1-12 with two walks; Games 1 and 2 was only the second time he went hitless in two straight playoff games. If Cain can get on base, pitchers may feel more pressure to give Yelich pitches in or closer to the strike zone. If they don’t, then it gives Ryan Braun the opportunity to hit with more men on base.

With Atlanta’s escape against the Dodgers last night, there’s a Game Four in that series (today, Monday, October 8). Brewers fans will want the series extended to a Game Five to ensure another cross-country trip for their eventual opponent. According to Baseball Prospectus’ adjusted standings, the Dodgers are the best team in the league and they’ve played like the superior team against the Braves so far, but this is why the games are played on the field.

The common dismissal of Cain takes two forms, both of which are worth evaluating if we are to take the idea of “Value” seriously (or, they’re just plain fun to consider, if you like baseball):

• Lorenzo Cain is a great player, but he is not worthy of MVP discussions because he’s not a “traditional” candidate, as his candidacy depends on Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stats.

• Lorenzo Cain is a great player, but his value depends far too much on fielding statistics, which are quite uncertain and therefore cannot be relied upon for MVP debates (plus, a defensive candidacy also makes Cain a “new-school” candidate, and therefore much-less attractive than an old-school all-hit, no-field candidate like Yelich).

Both of these complaints are quite worthwhile, even where they exhibit ideological shortcomings about measuring baseball, for they tackle the issues of “concept validity” and “false certainty” for the so-called “analytics movement.” Concept validity is, roughly, the idea that when a descriptive or analytical measurement is constructed, it actually captures what it purports to measure. This is one of the most difficult analytical foundations to adhere to when measuring phenomena. In terms of baseball analysis, the common complaint that WAR stats do not measure value is actually a type of complaint about concept validity, even if some of the folks muttering that complaint would scoff about entering into a methodological argument. But it’s worth taking up that claim, to some extent, because if one can discern that WAR does not actually measure what it claims, there is a legitimate cause to examine its use in MVP debates. Additionally, it is possible that WAR measures exactly what it claims and yet still does not serve the task of determining Most Valuable Player, which shifts the debate to the concept validity of an MVP.

False certainty is a much easier claim to assess, especially in the context of WAR stats that have not uniformly reported margins of error, and therefore present an impression that each player is some well-defined distance away from every other player (for example, by Baseball Prospectus Wins Above Replacement Player, Christian Yelich is the best player in the NL at 6.52, approximately 0.20 “wins” better than Marlins catcher J.T. Realmuto and 0.78 “wins” better than teammate Cain). Baseball Prospectus does report uncertainty for many of their statistics, which will hopefully begin a trend of other websites doing the same, and an expansion of uncertainty reporting for the most commonly-used stats. This is simply an area for more work, and there are excellent analysts leading the call for including uncertainty in the publication of baseball stats.

What is curious, to my mind, is that Lorenzo Cain has faded in National League WARP standing (he’s now approximately seventh best among players with 500 PA), but that has not fully impacted his case for Most Valuable Player. As cited above, Cain’s rank for Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Stolen Bases are stellar, and if one moves away from those standard statistics, baserunning metrics also point to Cain as an elite player, and Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) places Cain better than the median NL player with 500 PA. The largest complaint one can make about Cain is his slugging percentage (which at .425 is notably better than average, anyway), and this is typically the argument that most fans and analysts are really making about Christian Yelich when they uphold his MVP candidacy: he is currently out-slugging all NL players thanks to his torrid second half.

It is worth emphasizing that if one views the MVP award as a “Best Hitter” award, and defines hitting solely on the basis of batting performance, Christian Yelich is a great candidate for MVP; his True Average (TAv) leads NL players with 500 PA (at .346), matching his top Batting Average and Slugging Percentage. But how close is Yelich to other offense-first candidates? Yelich is one of six National League players with 500+ PA and a TAv above .320, and to demonstrate uncertainty, here’s how close they are in key categories:

This is an excellent group of batters, including several (Yelich, Paul Goldschmidt, Freddie Freeman, and Anthony Rendon) that demonstrate excellence across the AVG / OBP / SLG spectrum. These are complete hitters (and that’s not to take away from Freeman with the glove, who trounces these other hitters in terms of FRAA), and in some cases Yelich will win because he got hot at a crucial time and edged out the others. That’s not a knock on his talent, just like losing out to Yelich would not be a knock on any of these other hitters.

Demonstrating the proximity of these players in terms of counting stats and overall batting ratios should enter some uncertainty in terms of using batting statistics to define an MVP candidate: basically, with this group of players, everyone is splitting hairs (and I’m glad I do not have an MVP ballot, for this reason).

Lorenzo Cain finishes ninth in TAv (.313) among NL batters with 500+ PA; to demonstrate the strength of that production, he’s shades worse than Bryce Harper (.318) and tied with teammate Jesus Aguilar (.313) for overall offensive prowess. Javier Baez has fallen to 13th on this list (.309), and to gauge his overall production, he’s roughly as good as Travis Shaw at the plate (.307!). Thus, it is worth noting that one must ask, “Is an MVP solely judged by batting performance?”, in order to consider guys like Cain and Baez in the MVP race. But this should hardly be viewed as a detrimental assessment of these players, and more of a crucial discussion about the concept validity of “MVP” and the uncertainty of the statistics involved. If this second tier of batters falls below the first, it’s not by much.

This meandering discussion takes leads to a necessary assessment of fielding statistics. What is particularly difficult about fielding statistics is that most fans and analysts have taken to the idea that since fielding statistics do not align across sources (such as FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, The Fielding Bible, MLB Advanced Media, and Baseball Prospectus), they are therefore not valid stats. This is another way of saying that, apparently, because different fielding statistics use different assumptions to assess fielding, they are not valid or dependable as a group (it should be noted that the validity and dependability of a statistic would then be assessed on its own merits of construction, data inputs, and methodological assumptions and corrections, not its ability to corroborate other measurements). Yet consider the difference between Batting Average, On-Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage, for example; completely different players could rank in completely different ways for each of these stats, but none of those facts would invalidate the individual stat (this would be like saying, “because Slugging Percentage says Khris Davis is great but Batting Average says Khris Davis is not, we cannot trust Slugging Percentage as a stat”). In short, it is worth questioning the motivation and validity of commonly stated concerns about fielding statistics, and each fielding statistic should be assessed against its own internal construction and assumptions.

If batting performance is used as the gate for MVP discussions, and fielding statistics are used to provide comprehensive performance assessments, there are several ways that one can assess MVP candidates. For example, among NL non-catchers with 500+ PA, the only player in the Top Quarter of both TAv and FRAA is Freddie Freeman; J.T. Realmuto’s Adjusted FRAA rates him among the Top Third of all MLB catchers, which severely boosts the value of his excellent batting performance. If one ranks the top NL TAv performers by FRAA, the top five players are Freddie Freeman, Javier Baez, Jesus Aguilar (a seriously underrated defensive first baseman), Paul Goldschmidt, and Lorenzo Cain. Travis Shaw, Matt Carpenter, and Brandon Nimmo round out the top batting producers that are also average-or-better fielders.

This type of discussion narrows a list of “all-around” MVP candidates quite well, but it raises another series of problems that WAR purports to solve: how does one assess the excellence of Yelich’s batting performance against the overall package of Cain’s baserunning, fielding, and offensive production? To this observer, reducing this debate to a “new school” problem is ridiculous, simply because the pure baseball skills and role demonstrated by Cain would play in any era, as would Yelich’s classic high-AVG, high-SLG, high-RBI knock out punch at the plate.

This is perhaps what makes Cain/Yelich such a fun one-two punch for the Brewers, as they exhibit completely opposing and yet complementary skills on the diamond, without sacrificing aesthetically pleasing and productive traits like a .300 AVG. Viewing this complementary nature is one reason that narrowing an MVP discussion to Baez versus Yelich is maddening, as it is not entirely clear that Baez is the best of the “all-around” MVP candidates, and it is not clear that if one were to choose to isolate a single representative from the Brewers, Yelich resoundingly beats out Cain.

Add in a group of first basemen that excel with the glove, and a truly elite catcher, and this MVP race should be used as a proving ground for celebrating the uncertainty of concepts like “Value” while also working to assess their concept validity. So too is this an excellent opportunity to turn away from the false certainty provided by each type of baseball metric, and imagine constellations in which the assembly of each of these elements help to define why one player in this crowded NL MVP field is most deserving of the award. Insofar as I am not yet ready to abandon Cain-for-MVP arguments, it is worth emphasizing the conundrum of this crowded, talented pack.

Only a few short weeks ago, there was a legitimate question of over who was the MVP of the Brewers, as both Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain had strong cases. An unfortunately timed injury to Cain slowed his pace, while Yelich has only increased his production throughout the season. Since the All-Star break, Yelich is slashing .352 batting average /.417 on-base percentage /.709 slugging percentage, and he is now third amongst National League position players in Batting Wins Above Replacement Player (BWARP). Yelich has made a few changes to his approach which made this breakout possible.

Comparing pre- and post-All-Star break performance, Yelich is facing the same basic arsenal and attack plan from pitchers. As noted when I looked at his performance immediately after the All-Star break, pitchers want to attack Yelich low and away. That plan hasn’t changed over the past few months. The only notable difference in attack has been a slight uptick in fastballs. This season Yelich has seen his highest percentage of fastballs since 2015. In the first half, he saw 58.6 percent fastballs, which was up a tick from 2017, but in line with 2016 and well below the approach his first few years in MLB. However, since mid-July pitchers have thrown fastballs almost 62 percent of their pitches. Yelich hasn’t seen such a high proportion of fastballs in several years. In fact, he’s seeing 69.2 percent fastballs in September, as pitchers have almost given up on throwing him breaking balls. If that rate holds, it’d be the most fastballs he’s seen in a month of games since August 2015.

Yelich’s whiff numbers look virtually identical before and after the break. Looking at his zone profiles, he is whiffing less frequently, both above and below the strike zone when compared with earlier in the season, although he appears to only be swinging less on high pitches. One area where he appears to be locked in is breaking pitches. Yelich had been swinging at around 40 percent of breaking balls he faced, which is slightly higher than his career numbers, but not dramatically out of line. Yelich has swung at 56 percent of those pitches recently, which is completely out of character with his career.

However, Yelich is completely locked in on breaking balls at the moment. He’s killing every breaking pitch that is a strike. Those numbers are compounded by his slugging against all other pitches. Since the All-Star break, you cannot throw Christian Yelich a strike. Pitchers are aiming low, but when they miss, he smashes the ball. They are loath to pitch up in the zone, because he’ll hit mistakes there as well and whiffs at even fewer of those pitches.

The only weakness in Yelich’s game recently has been when pitchers throw sinkers. In his career he slugs .491 against the pitch, his second best number. He bested that number in the first half, but the pitch has caused some trouble in the second half of the season. Pitchers have done a good job keeping the pitch in tougher to square areas. Yelich is swinging and missing at sinkers, even when they’re thrown in his hot zones. When he does make contact, he’s hitting a lot of ground balls, which depresses his batting average against and slugging percentage.

Based on these numbers, if a team wants to get Yelich out, all it needs a sinker specialist who can place the ball low and away and not leave one over the plate. This is an exploitable weakness, and definitely something to watch when scouting potential playoff opponents. However, if a pitcher misses his spot, Yelich will hit it. If a pitcher throws anything other than a sinker, Yelich will hit it as well. If he continues his torrid pace through the next week, there is a real chance that he becomes the fourth Most Valuable Player as a Brewer.

Corey Knebel had a rough start to the season. Injuries and ineffective performance actually led to a demotion in late August to try and sort the righty out. Since he returned to Milwaukee, Knebel has thrown 10.3 innings and allowed two hits and two walks while striking out eighteen batters.

Knebel is throwing fewer fastballs in September after elevating his fastball rate earlier in the season. In his successful 2017, he threw approximately 72 percent fastballs, with the rest of his pitches curveballs. He was over 73 percent fastballs before September but is at approximately 67 percent in September, which is actually his lowest fastball usage rate over the last two seasons. The percentage differences here are all fairly small, but when a pitcher only has two pitches, and one of those pitches is hittable, then any predictability can be perilous.

Earlier in the season, Knebel’s velocity was done. In 2017, he averaged nearly 98 mph on his fastball and his velocity increased every month of the season. His April fastball velocity was around .5 mph slower this season, but unlike 2017, it has stayed relatively flat throughout the year. It also has less vertical and horizontal movement when compared with 2017 and has lost a little motion as the season has progressed.

It looks like Knebel made some mechanical changes while in the minors to try and shore up his arsenal. His vertical release point started close to this low point from 2017 and dropped through August to a new low. He has raised it in September, though he still does release the ball, specifically his fastball, at a lower point than in 2017. Knebel also appears to have moved closer to the third base side of the rubber, his furthest position in two years.

All of these tweaks have led to great results from both of this pitches. Since his return, both hits have come against his fastball, but batters haven[t had much chance against either of his pitches. The twenty seven percent whiff rate against his fastball is his best month. After laying off his fastball more early in the season, he’s inducing more swings in September.

Even though it looks like we’re seeing the 2017 Corey Knebel in September, Craig Counsell has not reinserted him into the closer role. Only 2.7 of his innings have come in the 8^th inning or later. His aLI (Average Leverage Index), a statistic that considers the game situation in which a pitcher is working, is .79 since September 1; anything below 1.0 is considered low pressure. For reference purposes, his aLI in 2017 was 2.11 and it was 1.69 before his demotion. Considering the strength of the bullpen, Knebel isn’t needed to anchor the late innings. Notwithstanding his struggles, Knebel’s 2.90 DRA is still fifth on the team. A month ago, it was questionable whether Knebel would make the postseason roster, but his recent performance shows that he can still contribute, even if in a less important role in the bullpen.

Milwaukee begins a huge three game series tonight in St. Louis. The team can clinch a playoff berth, as well as place themselves in a strong position to host the Wild Card game. The teams are 8-8 against each other in 2018, with all but three of those games occurring in the first half of the season. The Cardinals are coming in hot. They won five of their six games last week against the Braves and Giants. They’ve outplayed their expected record by 5.2 games, which is 1^st in the National League and 3^rd in MLB.

Even after the recent spate of bullpen blowups, Brewers relievers still have a 3.57 Deserved Run Average (DRA), which is 4^th in MLB. To that embarrassment of riches, the team has added Joakim Soria, who pitched a scoreless inning during Friday’s win. Thus far in 2018, Soria is on pace for a career best DRA (2.20), which would place him second on the team. He also ranks 16^th in MLB in DRA for all pitchers with a minimum of 38 innings pitched. His performance has been fueled by a career high swing rate (49.4 percent) while also allowing a career low contact rate on pitches in the strike zone (75.5 percent, which is also the 6^th lowest number in MLB). It’s also important to note that his swinging strike rate jumped over 30 percent in 2017 for the first time in his career and he’s kept those gains in 2018.

Soria has tinkered with his arsenal throughout his time in MLB. Last year, he threw his fastball less than 50 percent for the only season in his career, replacing those missing fastballs with a career high usage rate for his changeup. Based on the results last year versus his whole career, there wasn’t a performance reason for this new approach, and he’s reverted back to a pitch mix that closely mirrors his 2016 season while trading some curveballs for his slider (and it should be noted that our mother site noted last week that Soria has increased his slider usage in July at the expense of the curveball).

Soria’s game plan shifts based on the handedness of the batter.  When facing lefthanders, he’s a fastball/changeup pitcher. Early in the count, batters can expect a fastball, then start to worry about the changeup when Soria gets ahead in the count or has two strikes. Lefthanders are swinging and missing on 17 percent of the changeups they face from Soria.

Against right handed hitters, Soria is willing to use more of his repertoire. His fastball rate drips to 53 percent, with its highest rates coming on the first pitch of the at bat and when the count is even. While the changeup remains a go to pitch with two strikes, he’s been much more willing to mix in his curveball and slider. Taking a peek at his July numbers, which admittedly only encompasses 10 games and 9.7 innings out of 41 total appearances and 39.7 innings for the season, his confidence in the slider is even more apparent. It’s his two-strike pitch and it’s usage is almost on par with his fastball when he’s ahead in the count. Batters have whiffed on the slider 23.8 percent for the whole season and that’s jumped to 28.1 percent in July.

Soria has had success this season with both of his approaches, though his strikeout rate exploded since he started relying more on his slider. Because he’s had success against batters from both sides, Soria slides in the bullpen as yet another devastating late inning option who doesn’t need to be matched up. While the starting rotation has the weakest DRA out of any of the contenders for a playoff spot in the National League, Soria joins a bullpen that will shorten games and give the Brewers a chance to compete with any team.

Christian Yelich is in the middle of a thirteen-game hit streak. He went 2-4 on Sunday, actually bringing down his on base percentage from the first twelve games of the streak. Yelich is right behind Jesus Aguilar for the team lead in True Average (TAv) amongst lineup regulars and his .332 would be a career high.

The biggest driver of Yelich’s improved performance have been his power numbers. According to Statcast, he’s produced the best hard hit percentage, barrel percentage and exit velocity of his career. While pitchers have generally sought to attack Yelich low and away, he hasn’t been taking the bait and instead has been swinging at pitches he can hit. In almost every sector of the strike zone, Yelich has improved his isolated power numbers this season compared with his career. Yelich has always feasted on fastballs, but now he’s generating power on all pitches:

Pitchers haven’t changed their approach much from 2017 because he can handle everything right now. The only place to get him to swing and miss is throwing either too high or too low to be a strike, but if those pitches miss, then they get launched. For a team that regularly shuffles its lineup and has faced injury issues, Yelich’s presence has provided consistency where there is little to be had. He’s currently 11^th in the National League in BWARP and is a serious candidate for down ballot MVP votes. If he can continue his offensive tear, Yelich may help to power the team to a division title.

The Brewers have another tough week ahead of them with no days off and substantial travel. A four-game series in Los Angeles against the Dodgers begins tonight, followed by a trip home to face the Rockies for three games. The Dodgers have the second best record in the National League, yet have underperformed their Pythagorean over under by 5.4 games, which is the worst mark in MLB. Meanwhile, the Rockies have overperformed their Pythagorean over under by 3.4 games which is 4^th in MLB. Colorado has the third best road record in the National League, so one cannot assume they will be pushovers just because the games are at Miller Park.

Baseball Prospectus: Milwaukee Brewers Team Audit

Make no mistake about it, Brewers fans and analysts, this is a trap. It’s so easy to polish off phenomenal expectations at a time like this, and rejoice that the Brewers get to play an apparently easier stretch of schedule entering the break. But the team is experiencing some injuries of attrition in the field, just as the offense has finally produced a stretch of 30 games averaging better than 2018 NL / Miller Park runs scored (more on that later). The rotation has done a fantastic job, as has the elite bullpen, which are only getting attention due to a couple of recent blow-ups and blown leads….mostly occurring in games where the batters still cannot get it together.

So in honor of this schedule, which is certainly a trap, let’s have some fun with 21 statistics that are neither here, there, nor anywhere for what will certainly Attrition Central for #TeamDepth. If the Brewers can escape this stretch of play with a 9-12 record, that’s probably correction enough for the run differentials and a sign that the war of attrition did not go terribly wrong.

Ten
Ryan Braun is having a somewhat tough year balancing some new fielding assignments, relatively part time play, nagging injuries once again, and hard-hit batted balls with relatively bad luck. But it’s not all bad for the face of the franchise: in 9.7 percent of his plate appearances, Braun has hit for extra bases (12 doubles, one triple, and eight home runs). By comparison, the average National League bat hits for extra bases in approximately 7.6 percent of plate appearances.

Twelve
For the season, much has been made of the Brewers batters’ ten shutouts. In fact, this is quite an important number for Milwaukee batters, as the total Runs Scored “zero” has appeared more frequently than all but one run total: two runs.

For the 2018 campaign, the Brewers have scored two runs more frequently than any other outcome by the offense. What’s worse is that this number is not really accompanied by very good run totals, either; five runs is very nice, and it’s good to see that number tied with “0” for second place, but after that both of “3” and “1” are below average run totals.

Sixteen
For all the criticisms that Brewers baserunners have faced for their aggressive style over the years, it seems that the exceptional baserunning performance of Milwaukee has mostly escaped fan consciousness. Undoubtedly this is due in part to the fact that the Brewers are not scoring runs at an average clip. But, according to Baseball Prospectus Baserunning Runs, the Brewers are the third best team in the MLB in terms of baserunning production. Translating this to stolen bases, Lorenzo Cain leads the team with 16 steals in 19 attempts, ahead of Jonathan Villar (10 / 12), Christian Yelich (9 / 10) and Ryan Braun (7 / 9). In fact, Milwaukee is the second best team in the National League in terms of stolen bases (58 of 71 attempts). Run, run, run!

Twenty
Only the New York Mets have attempted fewer sacrifice bunt attempts than the Brewers in 2018. Milwaukee has attempted 20 bunts thus far, with successful sacrifices 14 times; this is good for a success rate that is higher than the league average. Ironically, for the lack of runs scored, Milwaukee is not only a great base running team, but they are also posting average or better situational hitting statistics according to Baseball Reference. This occurs across categories: sacrifice bunts, productive outs, baserunners scored, and advancing baserunners (with less than two outs at third base and zero outs at second base). The problem for the Brewers is simply that they do not get enough batters on base frequently enough…

Thirteen
….and when the Brewers do get baserunners on, their tendency to hit ground balls results in the highest percentage of ground ball double plays in the National League (13 percent of GIDP opportunities). This is notably worse than the NL average of double plays produced in ten percent of opportunities. So much for strike outs being a bad thing!

Four
One wonders if the defensive flexibility of the ballclub might actually explain some of the troubles the club has in terms of scoring runs…the Brewers only have four players with more than 50 starts at one position (Lorenzo Cain and Travis Shaw lead as the most regular regulars with 70 starts, followed by Villar (55) and Arcia (53) in the middle infield). Jesus Aguilar does not even have 50 starts at first base this year; Christian Yelich’s most regular position is left field…for 32 games, and catcher and right field have also been impacted in the games started department (probably due to the respective performances of Manny Pina and Domingo Santana more than strategy).

I was certainly in the camp that expected defensive flexibility to be a strength for these Brewers, and I certainly do not think it is a downright liability given the performance of the fielders. But given the performance of the offense, I think it is worth questioning whether flexible defensive roles have an impact on batting performance for these players.

Nine
Why are the Brewers pitchers so good? Their groundball percentage is fading to the middle of the pack, minimizing their ability to produce double plays as well. However, Milwaukee arms excel at limiting fly balls, and their 9.46 percent pop-up rate is the best in the MLB according to Baseball Prospectus.

Five
For all the rumblings about the Brewers relief pitching hitting their regression to the mean, it’s worth noting that the pitchers are not terribly far above average in some stats to begin with. For instance, the Brewers rank fifth in the National League with 32 percent of their Inherited Runners Scored, despite inheriting fewer runners than the league average (100 versus 106 for the typical NL team). This is an indication of how the club is quite good with inherited runners scored, but not necessarily perched atop the league.

4.3 at 23
It’s too bad that the Brewers pitchers are not yielding more ground balls, because Orlando Arcia remains one of the best shortstops in baseball despite his lack of playing time. Arcia has the fewest games played of any SS in the Top 10 for Fielding Runs Above Average. Yet, the 23-year old glove-first fielder ranks sixth in FRAA with his 4.3 mark. Another statistic worth remembering: at 23, Arcia is tied for Carlos Correa as the youngest elite defensive shortstop, and among shortstops with at least 60 games only Ahmed Rosario of the Mets is younger (but he’s nowhere near as good defensively). If you like more straightforward statistics, according to Baseball Reference Arcia remains one of the very best MLB shortstops with 10 Defensive Runs Saved; only Freddy Galvis and Addison Russell are better in the NL.

Second Best at .336
Jesus Aguilar is having a fantastic season, boasting a .336 True Average (TAv) and 1.4 FRAA. That offensive performance is second only to Freddie Freeman among first basemen with 60 or more games played.

One
For their fantastic pitching staff, the Brewers only have one player in the top ten percent of all MLB, in terms of Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP). That player is lefty high leverage reliever Josh Hader, ranked as 40th (!) with 1.54 WARP. No full-time reliever ranks higher, and only one pitcher better than Hader is younger (Jack Flaherty).

Ten
Many Brewers fans are suggesting that the club needs an ace in their pitching rotation. When I host chats on BPMilwaukee Twitter (@BPMilwaukee), the most common questions since the off season typically concern the quality of the MLB rotation. Throwing out the extremely advanced stats, let’s look at games started and ERA+ (a contextual assessment of Earned Runs Average). Here we are, half way through the season, and only ten clubs have at least three starters with 10 GS and an ERA at or above league average: the Red Sox, Cubs, Cleveland, Tigers, Astros, Angels, Mets, Cardinals, Nationals, and Brewers.

Seventeen / 40 Percent
If you’re interested in an ace, though, using the colloquial definition of someone who can lead a rotation in terms of performance and starts, who would be better than Jhoulys Chacin? Sorting all MLB starting pitchers by games started and ERA+, Chacin meets the strongest definition of good performance in a heavy workload.

Of course, including advanced contextual statistics, it is worth questioning whether the club will see some course correction from the starting pitchers. Here, Junior Guerra’s 4.69 DRA is the best among Brewers starters with at least 60 innings pitched. That’s good for 71st in the MLB. Yet, once Guerra is working between the lines, his splitter remains one of the best in the game at inducing swings-and-misses; thus far Guerra is yielding nearly 40 percent whiffs-per-swing on the split (only slightly lagging his 2016 performance that put that pitch on the map).

Thirteen / Forty-Three
Overall, the Brewers pitching rotation forms quite a strong unit: the club’s starting pitchers have 13 Runs Prevented as a group. This performance helps the team maximize a phenomenal bullpen, as the Brewers can frequently keep the game close. With a bullpen that has prevented 43 runs, the starting pitchers are often handing close games to relief pitchers that are ready to help convert those games into wins.

Six
When is a better than average offense not really that good? Over the last 30 games for the Brewers, it turns out! Those big ticket runs totals against Philadelphia have gone a long way toward improving Milwaukee’s season long offensive figures….

….but for all that, over the last 30 games the most frequently Runs Scored total for the Brewers has declined from the season leading 2 RS. Twenty percent of the Brewers’ games since they returned from Minnesota have ended with 1 RS for Milwaukee. If you missed seeing 2 RS, do not worry, for that remained the second most frequent run total over that time.

Seventeenth in Right
Domingo Santana is a tough player to figure out right now. If someone had told Brewers fans that the right fielder would have -2.6 FRAA roughly halfway through the season, most would have expected that he would be in the running for one of the most valuable right fielders in the MLB. Alas, in True Average (TAv), Santana’s mark of .259 (i.e., roughly league average) ranks 17th of 24 MLB RF with 60 or more games played.

Fourteen
Perhaps Lorenzo Cain is able to produce so many stolen bases in part because he’s on first base so frequently: the Brewers Center Fielder is drawing walks in 13.8 percent of his plate appearances!

Nineteen (Two)
Without park adjustment, across the 2018 MLB the Brewers’ offense currently ranks 19th in terms of Runs Scored. Their pitching staff currently ranks 2nd in terms of Runs Allowed.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USA Today Sports Images

The first Deserved Run Average (DRA) statistics are available for the 2018 season, although they should be published with a grain of salt because the corresponding Run Elements are not yet posted on Baseball Prospectus. As always, the statistic was improved over the offseason, and a new article about the improvements is forthcoming at Baseball Prospectus (keep your eyes out for it, probably next week). In the mean time, as the U.S. Census says, let’s Compare With Caution!

So, obviously since DRA are available, it’s time to cue the time honored #WhyDoesDRAHateMyTeam? twice over, as both the Brewers and Cubs probable starters for this series have….suspect underlying performances thus far:

In the full extent of the Brewers pitching staff, the recent pitching surge that is basically keeping the club on a Playoff Contending pace can be called into question by both DRA and contextual Fielding Independent Pitching (cFIP) statistics. Below is a table of Runs Prevented estimates, using (1) Baseball Reference three-year park factors for Miller Park, (2) Deserved Run Average, and (3) cFIP averages scaled to the aforementioned park environment. For more on Runs Prevented, read this.

Milwaukee’s pitching staff is still expected to prevent runs at an above average rate for the season (probably a +14 RA season), but that’s quite a long distance from their current exceptional performance. What’s going on? Well, the early inefficiencies in the field have been nicely wrapped up, and now the Brewers couple one of the top ground ball pitching staffs in the MLB with one of the most efficient ground ball defenses in the MLB. In fact, only Cleveland is better thus far. In many ways, this should not be surprising, as one could have surmised that the offseason pitching acquisitions were largely designed to feed ground balls to an excellent ground ball defense. So here we are: Milwaukee is in an odd place for underlying run elements, as the pitching staff on the whole is not expected to be a strike out machine, and Miller Park will likely encourage walks and home runs from opposing bats. Given these elements, one might expect that the Brewers outperforming their peripheral numbers will be a story all year.

Entering Chicago, what is especially exciting is that the Brewers bats are heating up. One might readily attribute that performance to the return of Christian Yelich to the Brewers batting order, in order to form a killer 1-2 punch with Lorenzo Cain. Indeed, according to Baseball Reference the Brewers boast average lead off production (including the all-important .333 On Base Percentage [OBP]), and notably better than average production from the second spot (118 OPS+, including .342 OBP). But, the remainder of the Brewers order is starting to thaw out, which is allowing the club to produce runs throughout the batting order. These production types range from singles machine Jonathan Villar to mashers like Travis Shaw and Eric Thames.

Thus far, a few question marks remain across the diamond, specifically regarding right fielder Domingo Santana. Despite concerns about a lack of playing time for Santana after the Brewers acquired Cain and Yelich, the right fielder has played in 23 of the club’s 25 games thus far, essentially working as a starter (Santana has the third most PA among position players). But, Santana has yet to get going, basically producing at the same level as Orlando Arcia without the prime defensive position and production (Arcia at least has 2.3 Fielding Runs Above Average to his name, and serves a crucial function as one of the ground ball efficiency fielders for the Brewers infield). Arcia can be hidden at the bottom of the batting order for time immemorial so long as the glove continues to stick; to that end, Baseball Prospectus ranks Arcia as the third best fielding short stop in the MLB thus far in 2018 (after ranking fourth best in 2017). Santana remains one of the worst right fielders in baseball, which is fine when the bat carries the profile; one wonders with Jesus Aguilar smoking the ball around the ballpark whether the Brewers will continue to employ Braun / Cain / Yelich outfielders for the time being.

Entering Wrigley Field, the Brewers have their work cut out for them. The club is playing great baseball, even with the caveat that they’re playing poor teams. But that’s always a catch-22 for MLB clubs: if good teams fail to beat the bad teams, fans rail against them (“The Brewers play down to their competition!”), but if good teams whip bad teams, fans move to some other narrative (“The Brewers can beat bad teams but can they beat good teams?”). So, the excellent Brewers pitching staff squares off against the phenomenal Cubs bats, a true strength-versus-strength match-up. Milwaukee arms will attempt to coax Cubs bats to keep the ball on the ground and hopefully get some help from a Chicago that has yet to thaw out in 2018. Meanwhile, the scuffling Cubs arms are nowhere as good as many expected thus far, and they face a Brewers offense that is finally participating throughout the batting order. It’s never to early to begin testing assumptions, but it’s worth remembering that very little hangs on this series, save for the underrated good guys taking on the Evil Empire.

Photo Credit: Denny Medley, USA Today Sports Images

Of course, these Brewers look very, very bad in some areas of the game. One can use Pythagorean W-L, or Run Differential (Runs Scored / Runs Allowed), to estimate a club’s expected record based on their underlying elements. In this case, the results are much uglier than .500. If one had told Brewers fans and analysts that their favorite club would be 4-8 after the first dozen games, that would probably cause a bit more pause than a .500 record. How did we get here?

• The starting pitching has been worse than many people expected, even worse than many naysayers could have imagined.

• Much of the bad starting pitching performance is due to poor fielding. While the Brewers starting pitchers are 11 runs below average thus far (!!!), these arms have also allowed four more runs than expected based on Fielding Independent Pitching (which is awful this early in the season). A 41 RS / 53 RA club might have been able to eat more innings, or given a few close games more breathing room.

• More importantly, the starting pitching’s poor performance has occurred early in games. Only Chase Anderson and Zach Davies have completed six innings of work thus far in the season, which means that in three additional turns through the rotation the bullpen has required (at least) another inning of work.

• Innings pitched workloads over nine inning games are one thing, but since the Brewers have played in so many close games, the workload has been compounded by extra innings games. Milwaukee has already played three extra innings games thus far in 2018; to put that in perspective, seventeen MLB teams have yet to play two extra innings games in this young season.

• The fielding really is bad. According to Baseball Prospectus Defensive Efficiency and Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency statistics, the Brewers fielding unit is easily in the bottom third of the MLB. This is somewhat surprising given that (a) the Brewers had a relatively middle-of-the-road fielding unit in 2017 and (b) the Brewers’ offseason moves largely were meant to improve the defense (see Eric Sogard, Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich transactions as examples).

• Of course, the batting performances thus far have been terrible. In fact, based on the 2018 National League and three-year Miller Park factor, the Brewers have average nearly one run below average per game. The bats have scored five or more runs in 5 games thus far; the trouble is, when they are not scoring runs, they are not scoring runs. In this department, the Brewers have also scored two-or-fewer runs in 5 games thus far. You can say what you want about the pitching, but you’re not going to win many 0 run support games.

• Beyond the performances, the poor play on the field has been compounded by injuries. Currently, Christian Yelich and Corey Knebel have joined Jimmy Nelson, Boone Logan, and Stepgen Vogt on the disabled list. Meanwhile, Lorenzo Cain is also nursing a day-to-day injury, which produced the club’s listless batting order that appeared in last night’s loss in St. Louis. There’s no other way to say it: the Brewers have a pretty good team on the DL right now, which is certainly not an excuse for poor play (especially for a team that was supposed to call depth its strength), but is one explanation for the gloomy attitude among Brewers fans.

• Ultimately, there also seems to be this attitude among Brewers fans that since success was unexpected in 2017, every game in 2018 would be a referendum on those expectations. It is as though Brewers fans are simultaneously terrified and angry about the mounting poor play, while also angrily pounding their fists in vindication: “See, I told you the rotation was bad! See, I told you this wasn’t a good team! The front office was fooled by their 2017 team!” That sort of attitude does not help anyone, but in an era where fans identify more with roster-building and playing along as General Manager, rather than imagining themselves as ball players and aligning themselves with labor, this produces fan sentiments that are sensitive and easily bitter towards shortcomings on the field.

So what’s going right? According to Baseball Prospectus, first and foremost, the Brewers pitchers are yielding relatively high percentages of ground balls and pop-ups. This essentially means that the pitchers are doing their job of limiting hard contact and keeping the ball on the ground. Given the general career fielding profiles of the Brewers defense, one might expect the Brewers’ Runs Allowed profile to self-correct should Milwaukee arms continue to allow solid groundball and pop-up percentages. Additionally, although the Brewers rotation has not been designed to strike batters out (48 of 269 batters struck out thus far), they are limiting the walks (22 of 269 batters). While the home run total must come down, thus far the strikeout-to-walk ratio is a sign of success.

Of course, it is more difficult to see the silver linings with the Brewers offense. In fact, the Brewers bats have batted-ball statistics that their pitching staff would like to see: Milwaukee batters are thus far keeping the ball on the ground and popping up at strong percentages, which is not a good trend to see for an offense. Despite all this, it is worth noting that the Brewers True Average of .246 is basically around the league median; currently, a .258 TAv is a Top 10 performance among MLB teams, and six teams have TAv between .245 and .249. It is worth noting that, thus far, the Brewers batters have ended significantly more plate appearances after the first pitch in 2018 than 2017, but they are not succeeding in those plate appearances: their .305 / .317 / .441 batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage slash line is notably below average for first pitch plate appearances.

One key silver lining statistic that the “home run or nothing” vultures may be thrilled to see: the Brewers are significantly limiting their strike outs thus far (near 10 percent improvement), knocking the ball into play more frequently. Their home run rate has plummeted from 3.7 percent in 2017 to 2.1 percent in 2018 thus far, which is certainly something to continue watching. As Milwaukee continues to knock the ball into play more frequently, they must change their orientation away from a groundball and pop-up team. “Home run or nothing” is not a bad offense if the home runs mean a club is not grounding out and popping up.

As the season progresses, it is worth tracking home runs, fly balls, and runs scored per game across the MLB. Thus far, the run environment has deflated, which is another interesting element to consider regarding the Brewers’ roster construction. Compared to the run environment of 2016-2017, the Brewers pitching staff is even better than its current performance, but the deflation in runs scoring amplifies every shortcoming on the mound. Alternately, it is worth questioning whether a shift in the ball is affecting batter across the league. Given MLB efforts to speed up the pace of the game, as well as their ambivalent responses to the “bad press” of various (independent) corroborations of juiced baseballs during 2016-2017, it is plausible that MLB could have put the lid on the juiced ball.

Ultimately, this is not “small sample size” warning to throw out the analysis above: the Brewers have several shortcomings that cannot continue. The bats cannot continue to walk at low rates, or hit the ball on the ground, or pop up. Somehow, adjustments at the plate must center around maximizing patience and discipline to drive the ball around the ballpark. The fielding cannot continue their inefficient play, and this has nothing to do with errors; errors are one thing, but inefficiencies around the diamond are hurting a Brewers pitching staff that is meant simply to feed a defensive unit. In fact, the arms must continue to feed ground balls and pop-ups to their fielders…that’s one trend that should be maintained.

Yet, so long as Christian Yelich is injured, so long as Jimmy Nelson is injured, so long as Corey Knebel is injured, so long as Stephen Vogt and Boone Logan are injured, it is worth seeing a club scraping by at .500 as an extreme strength. #TeamDepth has already been tested, and the club is doing what many of us expected they would do anyway: they are playing in close games, night after night, and must use their strong bullpen and fielding to make that equation work. Now the equation of players executing that strategy have changed, which is not an excuse; indeed, that’s the whole point of #TeamDepth. It’s worth punting this 6-6 start, considering each .500 point as a 0-0 event from which the team can be newly evaluated. Put aside the 4-8 run differential, even: we know what adjustments the Brewers need to make, and we know they have one of the deepest clubs in the game to attempt to execute those adjustments. Now it’s time to see if it works.

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry, USA Today Sports Images.