Throughout the summer, I found myself repeating an argument about the Brewers front office: if the Brewers front office implements scouting, mechanical, and coaching adjustments with a given player, they have some form of prediction or forecast that forms an expectation for the impact of that adjustment. Consider the two major pitching developments for the Brewers, namely Jimmy Nelson’s delivery shift, pitch addition, and subsequent breakout, and Chase Anderson’s arsenal adjustment: given that the organization has kept biomechanical data for quite some time, it is reasonable to suspect that player development decisions about adding pitches or redesigning mechanics at the MLB level are data-driven to some extent.

Namely, if the Brewers front office understands that Nelson will change his delivery timing and throw a curveball, or Chase Anderson will shift his cutter and curve, they have some idea of the range of success expected by such a move. Even this is quite a conservative statement; given the amount of time invested in developing these players (for example, Nelson threw at least 640 innings before using a curve in 2015), a development such as adding a pitch or mechanical overhaul will not be taken lightly. It was my contention that the Brewers understood the benefits of these moves, and expected significant improvement because of these moves.

The flipside of the argument, which becomes more speculative and therefore much more interesting, is that the Brewers front office should be able to form a solid idea about the relative success or failure of a pitching mechanics or arsenal shift for a player. I gather that they should be expected to do the same for a batting mechanics adjustment, as well. This statement is not quite as radical as it sounds; it is not an inversion of “can” into “should” (where, “the Brewers can design data-driven formula to track the success of pitching mechanics and arsenal adjustments” becomes “the Brewers should be able to forecast the impact of mechanical and arsenal adjustments”). Forecasting involves the use of data collection, statistical methodology, and some form of modeling (this can come from relatively simple and straightforward measurements of change to more complicated methods such as linear regression, or ever more complicated methods still) in order to look at a series of projections and craft a statement about its most likely path; think about this in the way that Nate Silver encourages “probabilistic thinking” (providing a range of predictions instead of one), or the way PECOTA offers “percentile” projections and thousands of tests of any given season.

Granted, there are potential data issues that the ballclub could encounter (data could be incomplete and face additional questions of quality or collection errors, or the club’s analysts could make suspect decisions about the underlying concepts for their forecasts, etc.). Yet, that there are potential concerns with MLB data collection and forecasting should not be viewed as a reason to dismiss discussions of clubs’ forecasting expectations for particular mechanical adjustments; in fact, I’d argue that this is the whole point of an “analytical” movement in MLB front offices.

Stated simply, the Brewers front office probably had a very good idea of what their key pitchers’ adjustments would be worth on the field. At the very least, they should have forecast (and probably did forecast) the likely impact of those adjustments. At worst, if the Brewers forecast those mechanical adjustments and completely missed the breakout seasons, they now have additional data to expand their models. Now, they can return to their layers of data, and any previous forecasts, and investigate where their models succeeded and where they failed.

What the Brewers now have in Chase Anderson is a prototype: fans and analysts can break this prototype into any number of characteristics worth testing.

• Chase Anderson is listed as 73 inches tall and 200 pounds according to Baseball Reference; he throws with his right hand;
• he worked 418 MLB innings before his breakout;
• his breakout occurred in his age 29 season;
• he does not throw a slider according to Brooks Baseball; and so on and so forth.
• Each of these characteristics can be used to build comparisons with other MLB pitchers, in order to test lessons about Anderson’s arsenal and mechanical adjustments.

The trouble here, in terms of statistical theory, is that within the MLB there will be no randomized sample of a population of pitchers who could perform like Chase Anderson. Constructing such a sample would require meeting extremely narrow characteristics that already limit the underlying population. For example, according to Baseball Reference Play Index, 163 MLB expansion era pitchers were 73 inches tall, less than or equal to 210 pounds, and right-handed while working 100 or more innings during age-29, age-30, or age-31 seasons (limit that to age-29 seasons, and the list drops to 60; or focus instead on right-handed or left-handed pitchers, and that list expands to 231 pitchers; and so on). Luckily, there are statistical tools available for controlling for variables in a model that does not involve a randomized sample of a population.

Following the criteria listed above, here’s an example of pitchers most comparable to Anderson’s class, focusing specifically on the last two seasons. This will be helpful to begin the next installment of this series, which be an analysis of particular player acquisition targets for the Brewers:

Beyond the technical issues, an intriguing theoretical issue exists. Since one is ostensibly testing Anderson’s prototype in order to find another pitcher with similar mechanics, arsenal, or characteristics that could conform to the successful lessons passed to Anderson, we already know what we’re looking for (our pitching survey is biased). This is acceptable for one very specific reason: baseball players are extremely scarce, and pitchers especially approach the game with a relatively narrow set of strategies (the vast majority throw a fastball) and mechanical approaches (ex., the vast majority throw overhand), and rulebound constraints (delivery timing requirements, approach to the batter, etc.). Moreover, a front office is not simply “looking for baseball players,” they are “looking for baseball players that could be good,” or “looking for baseball players that could improve,” etc. What the Brewers can use their mechanical, arsenal, and coaching lessons to construct is a system, a system into which particular player prototypes can be included in order to apply lessons and logic of that system to coax future success. This is very obviously a difficult thing to do, and one should not expect an MLB front office to be successful in every case. Yet, one should expect an MLB front office to reasonably apply their successes to as many future players as possible in order to maximize those successful lessons (or even to improve upon, to build from player development failures).

In this way, assessing a pitcher’s mechanical approach is much like underwriting a real estate development deal: an MLB front office will have to make decisions based on extremely limited, or flawed, samples. Player acquisition and development is more akin to working within conditions of market failure than a perfectly competitive marketplace. Continuing the analogy, an underwriter for a multifamily project will not compare that project to single family homes, nor will an underwriter of an affordable housing multifamily building compare that project to a market rate multifamily set-up, and so on: there is a particular ideological approach and set of market constraints for each type of deal listed above, just as there are specific constraints for each class of MLB pitcher that can be evaluated. There certainly may be some scenarios in which assessing those real estate deals blindly and with an overreaching view is valuable (such as a regional land value survey), just as there may be some scenarios in which blindly assessing all baseball players would be valuable (ex., “What percentage of draft signees from the 2000s reached the MLB?”). But these conditions will not necessarily adhere to each particular transaction (and each particular player development decision is likely made with much more focused, narrow forms of knowledge, and much more problematic forms of data at that).

The Chase Anderson system can be applied to the 2017-2018 free agency, trade, and waiver classes, in order to answer one of the Brewers’ most difficult questions of the offseason: how will the club repeat rotational successes of 2017? How will the front office fill the void of the injured Jimmy Nelson? How will the club build on the success of Chase Anderson? Looking at these questions produces one of the most fun aspects of this coming offseason, for these questions can be addressed in a very particular manner by an openly analytical front office. What is especially fun is that when the Brewers eschew big name free agents (perhaps by necessity of market size, perhaps by choice) in favor of someone less well known, or perhaps more puzzling, fans and analysts should immediately look to the club’s prototypes in order to consider which lessons (from successes or failures) are being applied to the roster.

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry, USAToday Sports

What the Milwaukee Brewers should be doing this offseason is identifying free agents who could eventually bring a long-term asset, either via a trade or via the qualifying offer system. The Chicago Cubs did this several years ago, signing Scott Feldman to a short-term deal. They famously shipped the right-hander to Baltimore in 2013 for Jake Arrieta and Pedro Strop — an innocuous deal at the time, but one that has profoundly shaped the current Cubs franchise.

This isn’t to suggest that the Milwaukee Brewers can pull off a trade as lopsided as the Arrieta deal turned out to be. They should, though, be targeting Scott-Feldman-like free agents, ones who can be signed to short-term deals and ones with modest upside. None of these players will be exciting, the vast majority of them are currently fringe everyday guys, but the key is to find fringe guys who have the opportunity to produce solid numbers in 2016. It’s not unlike what happened with Gerardo Parra. The Brewers moved a couple low-end prospects for a fourth outfielder. A year later, Parra re-established his value and brought the Brewers a potential back-end starter for the next half-decade. David Stearns and his staff should target a couple players of that ilk.

Below are three free-agent targets that I have in mind.

AUSTIN JACKSON

The 28-year-old center fielder has been a below-average hitter for the past two seasons, posting an 86 wRC+ and 94 wRC+ over the past two years, respectively. His glovework has kept him employable, but a full-time stint in the National League in one of the best hitter’s parks in Major League Baseball may be enough to inflate the numbers to league-average status. He was a two-win player in 2015. In the friendly confines of Miller Park, he could do what Dexter Fowler did this past year — move from fringe center fielder who bounced around annually to a legitimate starting option.

Jackson could be a 15/15 guy with a middling batting average in Miller Park. As a rebuilding club, they’ll have the luxury to deal with his penchant for striking out and his extended cold spells at the plate. The club would hope they catch Jackson on an upswing in the early part of the 2016 season, one where he performs as a top-half center fielder and could be flipped at the trade deadline to a contender. Outfielders who can play defense are always in demand at the trade deadline — especially center fielders — and the Brewers are in a position to take a shot in the dark. Given the number of outfielders reportedly on the trade market this winter, too, the club may have a real shot to sign Jackson on a one- or two-year deal.

DILLON GEE

Gee is one of my favorite under-the-radar pitchers of the offseason. He’s a viable back-end starter who got squeezed out in New York due to their ridiculous rotation. He’s also a guy who has the stigma of spending much of the 2015 season in Triple-A and a guy the Mets couldn’t trade no matter how hard they tried. Despite this, the right-hander owns a career 4.03 ERA and has shown a better ability to miss bats than his strikeout rate would otherwise suggest. That may not sound exciting, but prior to the year in which the Cubs signed Scott Feldman and he was shipped to Baltimore, Feldman compiled a 5.09 ERA in 123.2 innings with the Texas Rangers.

Throughout his career, Gee has a career 9.1 percent swinging-strike rate and it increased very slightly to 9.4 percent this past season. That’s right around the league-average swinging-strike rate for starting pitchers, which is 9.3 percent. Thus, it seems disingenuous to claim that the 29-year-old hurler has terrible stuff or a repertoire that cannot succeed at the highest level. He also limits walks, which is a huge benefit. The problem, of course, is that Gee gives up the long ball too often and hasn’t necessarily translated his swinging-strike rate into actual strikeouts. These limitations are what could make him available on a short-term deal for Milwaukee — they’re never going to sign the finished article during a rebuild — but he actually showed a surprising amount of ground balls in 2015 and one wonders what changed in his repertoire and if its repeatable.

Gee suffered from a .355 BABIP in a very small sample in New York a year ago. Prior to that, he posted ERAs of 4.00, 3.62, and 4.10. That’s good enough for a back-end starter on a rebuilding club. If he can put together a quality couple months, too, he could be someone who nets an interesting prospect at the trade deadline. But, yeah, I warned you that these names would be uninspiring.

DALE THAYER

The icing on the cake: A 34-year-old veteran reliever who cleared waivers and was sent to Triple-A in 2015.

Thayer is only a year removed from a 2.34 ERA for the San Diego Padres and will surely be cheap this offseason. His overall numbers suggest that he was ineffective across the board, but his .286/.316/.427 slash line against righties belies the quality strikeout-to-walk ratio. Thayer struck out 20 percent of the right-handed hitters he faced, while only walking three percent. The right-hander has a long history of success against righties, too, holding them to a career .213/.276/.343 slash line. The dramatic drop-off in effectiveness as a 30-something is concerning; however, it’s important to recognize that his velocity didn’t drop much — only 92.2 mph to 91.9 mph with the fastball. The main issue seemed to be that he fell behind too often in the count, something he didn’t do very often in 2014.

Doug Melvin regularly brought in relievers on minor-league deals who ended up being very serviceable. Zack Duke is the most obvious example of this, but guys like Kammeron Loe found success after inking a minor-league deal with the Brewers. Thayer may be an interesting non-roster guy to bring into camp. He’s only a year removed from extreme effectiveness and didn’t really see his velocity decline. If he can throw more strikes, his fastball-slider combination becomes much more effective and he can improve the middle portion of the bullpen — and relievers are always in demand at the trade deadline, even if it’s just for something like international slot money.