This isn’t to suggest that Milwaukee will suddenly embrace statistical analysis — they already had — or begin to eschew day-to-day scouting activities. Instead, I simply mean to indicate that Stearns and Arnold represent a level of youth, creativity, and research that has not really existed in the Brewers organization. The appointment of Ray Montgomery was perhaps a harbinger of this transition, but Stearns cements the Brewers’ full commitment to the “new” model within baseball — one that seeks to utilize rigorous statistical analysis, painstaking research methods, extensive scouting, on-the-field coaching, and roster creativity to maximize the success of the team.

The challenge for Stearns and Arnold, though, isn’t going to be whether the club can emulate successful rebuilds like the one in Houston or the one in Chicago. The real difference maker in Milwaukee will be discovering the next competitive advantage that no one has exploited, the next market inefficiency, if you will. Simply using mountains data on framing, spin rates, defensive efficiency, and the like to drive coaching methods and roster decisions won’t be enough. Houston is doing that. Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago are doing that. The Brewers must catch up in this area, sure, but the organization must employ something new. Because all things being equal, if the Brewers simply catch up and start doing what the successful organizations are doing, the organization’s small-market status will always keep them from reaching the levels they hope to achieve. All things being equal, the four clubs mentioned above (among others) will always be able to outspend Milwaukee. That will always be the competitive advantage that trumps all when everything else is equal.

Of course, the club will be able to field the occasional contender, if they score big on a couple back-to-back drafts (which they may have done in 2014) or if they orchestrate a couple of perfect trades that infuse the farm system with controllable, elite talent. The goal, though, is consistent contention. With a smaller budget than much of the league, the Brewers’ front office has to be better than the existing quality ones that already exist and will come to exist in the future.

I suspect a lot of talk will surface next season of expanded scouting networks in Asia, of increased budgets in the analytics department, of greater amounts of advanced-scouting data being given to the coaching staff. That’s great, and needed, but the true barometer of success will be what comes out of Milwaukee that is truly novel. Does the organization finally pour money into the lower levels of the system, providing things like team chefs to ensure the players eat well and aren’t relying on Burger King at 11pm after a three-game series in Kane County, Illinois? Does the organization pay their minor leaguers enough so they can devote all their offseason to training, instead of working odd jobs to pay rent? Does the organization discover a way to better prevent arm and shoulder injuries in their pitching staffs? Does the organization pioneer a new strategy in the bullpen or the rotation, maximizing the effectiveness of the whole pitching staff without overtaxing arms?

I obviously don’t have any specific examples of undiscovered advantages in Major League Baseball. My relatively-barren bank account is proof enough of that. However, I do believe the organization’s fundamental challenge is that it’s not good enough to do everything well that the other teams are already doing. That will just bring the occasional brief window of contention to Milwaukee, a boom-and-bust cycle that is inherently unsustainable. For the Brewers to bring a consistent winner to the state of Wisconsin — something for which Mark Attanasio desperately pines — the front office must be smarter than everyone else. They must be willing to buck the league’s trends, be willing to stand out and be criticized. They must be willing to do things that the majority of us won’t immediately understand. They must constantly be ahead of the curve.

That’s obviously a tall order for any front-office staff. I wonder if that’s even remotely possible. Perhaps the best for which the Brewers organization can hope is occasional contention — and, really, I think that can be enough for a franchise that largely avoids the spotlight of the national sports media — but I’m increasingly convinced that sustainable, long-term success in Milwaukee can only come if David Stearns and Matt Arnold are able to create something special, something no one has seen before.

And, if we’re truly being honest, that would only be able to last so long before a team like the Dodgers or Yankees open up the checkbook and make an offer Stearns or Arnold cannot refuse. Just ask Andrew Friedman and the Tampa Bay Rays about that.

A few observations:

1. Nyjer Morgan stole the show, and there wasn’t really any other way it could have gone. Doug Melvin revealed that when the Nationals first called asking if the Brewers had any interest in acquiring Morgan, Melvin said no. It took both an injury to Corey Hart and some prodding from Mark Attanasio for Melvin to initiate the deal. For once, an owner’s meddling actually helps.

Nobody dressed for filming better than Tony Plush:

The entire team, including the crustiest of its veterans like Shaun Marcum and Randy Wolf, had nothing but great things to say about Morgan’s energy. One of the featured games in the DVD’s rundown of the regular season was the Brewers’ eight-run comeback victory over the Twins on July 2nd (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIN/MIN201107020.shtml). There was no better exhibition of that energy and the power it had on the team, as Morgan went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and four RBI via a two-run home run to kickstart the rally and the two-run double to tie the game in the ninth inning. Morgan eventually scored the winning run in a win that kept the Brewers tied with the Cardinals atop the National League Central at the time. Between moments like those and his series-winning hit in the NLDS, the Legend of Tony Plush is a rich one.

2. It was interesting hearing Ryan Braun’s Brewers teammates talk about him in that brief period between the 2011 playoffs and the first reports of Braun’s later-overturned positive steroid test. Braun wasn’t described a vocal leader, more as a player who leads by example and through his performance. But the respect he commanded from his teammates was obvious. Jonathan Lucroy gushed with praise for Braun: “Braunie, I think, personifies a baseball player. He’s a hard worker. He represents himself well. Carries himself well. Very professional.”

Lucroy is as buttoned up as it gets in the Brewers dugout — remember the “nerd power” signs from the dugout in 2014 — and this is about the highest complement you’ll ever hear a baseball guy like him give a fellow teammate. Lots of those around Braun — Aaron Rodgers in particular — were devastated by his eventual implication in the Biogenesis scandal, as much for his persistent lies and defensive posture following the initial positive test as for his being labeled as a “cheater.”

When Braun acknowledged his actions, Lucroy said, “If he comes back and is a good teammate and performs and contributes to the team winning, I don’t see why he won’t be welcomed back with open arms.” And so it’s been over the past two seasons, but it’s hard to imagine we’ll ever hear much about Ryan Braun, Consummate Professional, ever again.

3. I want more playoff games at Miller Park if only to see the amazing way the sun shines through the stadium glass during the weird 4:30 PM playoff start times:

4. I haven’t watched Game Five of the National League Division Series in the four years since, and I completely forgot about the complete robbery Diamondbacks outfielder Chris Young put on what would have been at least a game-tying double on a rocket hit by Jerry Hairston, Jr., in the sixth inning. But once I saw the highlight begin to play, the ball looking like a sure hit and maybe even a home run as it left the bat, the total feeling of shock and loss of that play came rushing back. It felt a lot like this:

Amazingly, Yuniesky Betancourt dropped an opposite-field hit to score the tying run with two out. He was unquestionably the weak link on this team, but he hit a steamy .310/.326/.500 with five extra-base hits and six RBI in the postseason for Milwaukee. Which makes it all the more disappointing that the season ended in the National League Championship Series.

5. And about that, it is an absolute gut-punch four years later that this DVD is called “The Next Step.” The loss to the Cardinals of all teams in the NLCS was going to hang over this team like a cloud regardless. It feels absolutely wrong for that to be the end of the story. But after a 2015 season in which the Brewers were all but gutted and that looks to be the beginning of a rebuilding year, seeing the glory of 2011 portrayed as a failure, as not enough, makes the whole thing seem pretty futile.

This game doesn’t care about your storylines. The next step doesn’t just happen. I’d rather celebrate the success for what it was rather than lament what it could have been.

6. But hey, at least Nyjer Morgan is still amazing:

It’s a continuation of an amazing trend from the regular season: When Escobar swung at the first pitch of the game, the Royals were a ridiculous 42-17 (.711). The Royals are now 4-1 when Escobar swings at the first pitch and 1-1 when he takes a pitch in the postseason; I’m willing to bet, knowing how superstitious baseball players can be, Escobar will be swinging at the first pitch the rest of the way. Just listen to Ned Yost talk about the energy Escobar’s first pitch swings give his team.

“And, I mean, there are times where he will get up there and swing at the first pitch of the game. Our guys go crazy when he does that, because our percentage in winning ball games when Eskie swings at the first pitch is huge. As soon as Eskie swings at the first pitch, you hear everybody in the dugout go: ‘We’re winning today. We’re winning today.’”

This is the kind of analysis we’re used to from Ned “Rickie is a run scorer, you guys have no concept” Yost. The Royals’ record when Escobar swings at the first pitch is a classic packaged-for-the-media statistic, something to build a story around (“the Royals are loose cannons on the edge who don’t play by the rules!”). The predictive link can’t be satisfactorily disproven, especially not when the Royals are on a run like this. Fans will be eager to buy into the story and believe their team is special. As they should — it’s incredibly fun, even if it might be more likely the team is special because they win despite their unorthodox play.

On paper, Escobar remains the same disappointing hitter the Brewers shipped out in the Zack Greinke trade four years ago. His line in five seasons with Kansas City (.264/.298/.346) is nearly identical to his work in 192 games for Milwaukee (.250/.298/.335). He rode a wave of Royals fan support into the All-Star Game but hit a brutal .220/.256/.264 with fewer hits (65) than games played (72) in the second half. His batting line is indistinguishable from Jean Segura’s over the past two years (.252/.285/.331). He’s not the one who got away, I just wish he had caught playoff fire in Milwaukee instead of Kasnas City.

In the playoffs over the past two years, Escobar is now hitting .301/.323/.441. He has been everything the scouts saw in him as a Double-A stud back in 2008, when he hit .328/.368/.434 and rocketed up top-prospect lists. He makes things happen with his speed, he makes big defensive plays, and his ability to make contact has made him a difficult out for even the American League’s best pitchers. Or at least he has for 22 playoff games, despite the fact that the 973 regular season games he has played suggest he is by far the worst regular leadoff hitter in the major leagues.

I expect at some point before this postseason ends, the Royals will pay for batting Escobar in the leadoff spot. There’ll be a ninth inning where he’s facing Roberto Osuna or Hector Rondon or Jeurys Familia with two outs and the Royals will wish they had a superior hitter like Ben Zobrist, Lorenzo Cain or Eric Hosmer up. There will be a time they’ll wish their leadoff hitter knew how to take a walk — his next postseason walk will be just his second in over 100 plate appearances. The Blue Jays already paid for this themselves when Ben Revere batted against Wade Davis with two on and nobody out in the ninth inning of game two. He struck out to end an 0-for-5 night and the game ended with Edwin Encarnacion in the on-deck circle.

But the Royals won’t change anything. And they can’t, really. Not because of what an extremely weird first pitch statistic says, but because of that energy Yost talked about that has emanated from the Royals dugout in the playoffs each of the past two years. Call it Royals Devil Magic or whatever you want. The Royals have shown they can draw power from Escobar’s indiscriminate approach at the top of their lineup, and they can rally around it. It’s the kind of energy that fuels both quick strikes and late comeback rallies, the kind of energy that makes a team believe it’s never out of a game. At this point, it seems well worth whatever minimal gain the Royals might get from dropping Escobar in the order.

I doubt what’s happening with Escobar in Kansas City could have happened in Milwaukee, because this Royals team is special. Alcides Escobar still is who he is, a light-hitting shortstop who belongs at the bottom of most batting orders. He probably wouldn’t have moved the needle much for the Brewers at all in the past few years. But intangibles like the Royals Devil Magic aren’t tidy little attributes that can be added and subtracted from a ledger. They’re the result of combinations of talent and personalities and absurd happenings like Kansas City’s record when Escobar swings on the first pitch. These moments aren’t planned, they just happen, and when they do, there’s not much else you can do but marvel at them.

Baseball, to me, is about the cognitive stimulation. It’s not about numbers or watching the game in a sabermetric fashion — if that’s even a thing — but rather thinking through a game. I try to think with the pitcher, guessing the pitch and the location prior to the rock-and-fire. I flip it around and put myself in the hitter’s head, processing the situation, the count, the opposing pitcher’s tendencies. It’s about the give and take of the game of baseball, the way the game truly challenges us to try and understand it. Sure, beautiful moments happen in every game. A titanic home run, a gorgeous back-handed play at third base, a breathtaking back-door slider on a 3-2 count for a punch out, a back-handed flip to the shortstop to start a scintillating double play. Those moments are truthfully short and disparate, but they mean more because I’m cognitively invested in the game, for a lack of a better phrase.

I understand the need for feeling and passion in sport, though. It’s why I’ve gravitated toward soccer (#YNWA) in recent years and why my wife and I love college basketball. Both sports are two hours of an emotional roller coaster, a white-knuckled ride that has an unbelievable payoff when the “right team” emerges victorious. Every damn week. It’s glorious.

Sports elicit raw emotion in a way most of us don’t get in everyday life. Traveling an hour to get to a 9-5 job that has questionable meaning outside of a paycheck or spending entire weekends in the library ahead of a Monday final in college becomes monotonous in short order. One of the few times when we really feel is when we watch sports.

But baseball is different in some ways. It’s slower and allows for ample room to breathe and think critically. It invites us to participate in a way that most sports do not. Again, as mentioned earlier, it appeals fundamentally to the cognitive and aesthetic parts of our brains in a symbiotic fashion — not that other sports cannot engage the mind, but that baseball invites it more naturally because of its structure.

Because that’s the root of my interest in baseball, my fandom doesn’t wane during a rebuilding stretch. The game doesn’t lose its attractiveness when the number of losses far outweighs the victories. I’m still enamored with the process, the individual battles between pitcher and hitter, between the pitcher and the runner at first. I have a preferred outcome to those duels — one that has the Brewers winning — but baseball isn’t about that end result for me.

I readily admit that not everyone has a similar kind of interest in baseball. It’s more about feeling and the euphoria associated with winning and pennant chases. Those fans naturally lose interest in down years, but they shouldn’t be shamed for this. How they derive their enjoyment is merely different. Perhaps this is the primary cause of declines in attendance when teams are losing. Without the emotional payoff available, investing time and energy is simply not worth it.

And that’s okay. One way of watching and enjoying baseball is not better than the other. Proverbial dick-measuring contests regarding who is a “true fan” and who is merely a bandwagoner are worse than pointless. They miss the point completely and risk driving fans away from a beautiful and challenging game.

In short, the upcoming rebuild in Milwaukee will still attract those fans who derive pleasure from something more than wins and losses. I’m one of those fans. Many of the folks who read this site are that type of fan. That’s why a rebuild doesn’t frustrate or scare me. But I do recognize the other side of the coin and those who say Brewers baseball is dead or unimportant until they’re ready to compete once more, and I’m not interested in making value judgments about them. They’ll be back. We should embrace them when they return, too.

Brew Crew Ball || On “selfie girls” and alienating your fans

I want to thank Nicole Haase (@NicoleHaase) for writing this piece and putting on Brew Crew Ball, allowing me to talk about this with a Brewers connection. This is an absolute must-read, if there’s ever been one in this space before. It’s time to make a change. I’m going to go in on this issue below, but please don’t take that as an excuse to skip Haase’s brilliant piece. I’m a straight, white, American male; I don’t know a damn thing about being ostracized at a sporting event. I am not the opinion that matters.

On Wednesday, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ TV crew of Bob Brenly and Steve Berthiaume completely embarrassed themselves by spending a full two minutes shaming a group of young ladies for having the audacity to take pictures of themselves during a lull in the action of a thrilling 1-0 game between the third- and last-place teams in the NL West. If you can get through it without rage-quitting I encourage you to watch the entire video of the incident, which is embedded in Haase’s piece, so you can get the full scope of how preposterously sexist these two act.

What is gained by this juvenile, gate-keeping mentality from the Arizona booth? By now, these women have assuredly seen themselves as the story has circulated around social media. We now know that this was a sorority from Arizona State – when it comes time to plan their next group event, I bet “go to a baseball game to be mocked by a regional sports broadcaster and then by the entire internet for being regular people in 2015” is not going to be super high on the priority list. Everyone takes selfies now. One of the last games I attended this year was the September 15th game between Milwaukee and St. Louis. I bet you can guess how that ended, and I would have had to at the end of the evening, because I spent the innings after Ariel Pena was pulled from his first MLB start exploring the wonders of the new Snapchat update with my girlfriend. We left in the eighth inning because it was Tuesday and the Brewers aren’t very good and literally who cares.

Never mind that this whole thing was happening during the between-innings break and the run-up to the first batter of the inning. Never mind that the segment literally begins with a promotion asking fans to take pictures of themselves and send them in. Never mind that while Brenly and Berthiaume are breathlessly lambasting these women for not paying attention to the game, they are also not paying attention to the game, even though doing so is literally their entire job description. Never mind that 15+ (the camera never pans out to show exactly how large the group is, presumably in fear of showing the rows of empty seats not occupied by Real Baseball Fans) women decided of their own free will to show up to a baseball game on a Wednesday in late September to watch two teams who had both long been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. No, never mind all of that. This is baseball, and if you’re going to ignore any part of a baseball game, you had better do in the Real Baseball Fan way — by getting up six times to buy a Miller Lite and fighting a guy because he’s wearing different colored laundry.

And if you want to keep your faith in Brewers fans, stop before you get to the comments section.

Grantland || The Great American Pitching Experiment: Why the Reds Won’t Stop Starting Rookies (Sept. 30, 2015)

Let’s get back to talking about the on-field product. During a September 18-20 series, Milwaukee and Cincinnati did something that hadn’t been done in over 100 years: in their three-game series, every starting pitcher for both teams was a rookie. Results went as one might expect. Two of the weakest offenses in the National League combined for 36 runs on 71 hits. It was part of a larger experiment for the Reds, who haven’t used a non-rookie pitcher since July 28th, while Milwaukee’s reliance on rookie pitching has been due more to extremely poor performance (Matt Garza, Kyle Lohse) and injury (Jimmy Nelson, Wily Peralta).

Of course, the Brewers haven’t been quite so extreme in their use of rookies on the mound. They’ve now used a rookie in 13-straight games as of Thursday night and will almost certainly finish the season with rookies as well, bringing their streak to 17 when it’s all said and done. Extending beyond that, Milwaukee’s starting rotation has been startlingly young for much of the second half of the year, particularly in September – the last Brewers’ starter who’s seen his 27th birthday is Garza, who last pitched during game one of a September 5th double header. Things haven’t gone well at all for the Reds during their rookie-heavy stretch, going 19-40 over that stretch as of Jonah Keri’s writing on Sept. 30, including an active 12-game losing streak that has allowed the Brewers to clinch fourth place (yay) in the NL Central.

FanGraphs || Projecting Milwaukee’s Slew of Late-September Call-Ups (Sept. 25, 2015) (Chris Mitchell)

Chris Mitchell (@_chris_mitchell) spent some time projecting out the first several years of the six prospects who were called up from the Southern League runners-up Biloxi Shuckers last Tuesday. He’s got some encouraging things to say about outfielder Michael Reed and right hander Jorge Lopez, each of whom had breakout seasons in 2015. If we want to get real optimistic with it, we can cherry-pick Bernie Williams and Jordan Zimmerman as comps for Reed and Lopez, respectively, according to Mitchell’s system. Mitchell doesn’t have too much positive to say about the rest of the Biloxi invasion, none of which are highly regarded prospects — Adrian Houser (#27) is the only other of the group on the MLB.com Top 30 prospect list for Milwaukee. He almost completely writes off Yhonathan Barrios, who has impressed during his short audition over the past week — though he fails to mention that Barrios, a converted infielder, has only been pitching for two years.

It’s been well-established that Braun struggled with nerve issues in his hand/thumb last year, which prevented him from even keeping both hands on the bat through impact. The fact was largely ignored by many. I talked about Braun’s bad habits that developed because of the injury. I also suggested that his early-season slump would subside and the 31-year-old would pick it up. Since April 28, Braun is hitting .300/.373/.543 with 24 home runs — a .916 OPS that is eerily close to his career .913 OPS.

In other words, Ryan Braun can still rake.

Those leading the PED witch hunts now have to cope with the fact that the Brewers’ right fielder hasn’t tanked post-PEDs. This poses significant problems for the PED narrative. How does one hold that Braun’s numbers during his prime were a sham, now that he’s once again performing near his career norms? Does one plug one’s ears and ignore this season? Does one push in all the chips and baselessly assert that he must be back on the juice? How does one pick and choose which negatively-testing players are actually positive without defaulting to dislike or he fits the narrative?

What this entire discussion ignores, though, is that Ryan Braun is not the only wrench in the whole post-PED argument. Many of the highest-profile hitters who have been connected with PEDs in the past are tearing the cover off the baseball this year. Alex Rodriguez, the league’s favorite anti-hero, recently launched his 32nd homer and has a 137 OPS+, which is only five points below his career average. Nelson Cruz moved to Seattle, one of the worst offensive environments in the majors, and has 42 home runs. Furthermore, David Ortiz is nearly 40 years old and is hitting .273/.361/.555 with 35 home runs.

Those are just four prominent names. We could talk about Melky Cabrera’s red-hot second half or how Jhonny Peralta has a better OPS+ in St. Louis (110) than he had during his stints with Detroit or Cleveland. But I want to focus on the quartet of Braun, A-Rod, Cruz, and Ortiz because they’re the most prominent members of the recent league-wide PED scandal.

One of the counter-arguments that could be presented against the picture I’m trying to illustrate is that home run totals do not necessarily reflect true power. Braun, Ortiz, and Rodriguez all benefit from short porches in their respective home fields. The batted-ball data quickly dispels that line of thought.

All four players rank amongst the league’s leaders in average batted-ball distance and batted-ball velocity. To put A-Rod’s 29th-place ranking in velocity in perspective, he ranks 29th of 315 batters who have at least 100 at-bats with velocity readings — so he’s still in the elite nine percent of the league by that measure as a 40-year-old third baseman.

One could, I guess, do some mental gymnastics and try to invent a way for these four to be taking PEDs without being caught, despite higher testing rates than the rest of the league. But if one won’t accept negative tests as acceptable evidence, then one must do the same with the remainder of Major League Baseball and no player is clean. Perhaps one assumes that a player is always dirty because he was that way in the past, but that’s nothing more than a moral judgment and isn’t grounded in anything verifiable.

At some point, the baseball community must realize that hitters hit. It seems likely that a player’s usage of performance-enhancing drugs in the past didn’t increase his hitting ability by much, which creates some cognitive dissonance. If something was illegal or against the rules, then it must significantly increase performance. Maybe. But it’s also possible that PEDs did nothing more than keep players on the field and off the trainer’s table. This doesn’t even address the fact that pitchers are throwing harder than ever before, yet we assume the PED problem is gone because the “power” has declined — when the power has seemingly transitioned to the mound.

All of this most directly pertains to the Hall of Fame and guys like Barry Bonds, Jeff Bagwell, and Roger Clemens. In the next couple decades, however, Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz will become eligible for the Hall of Fame. Ryan Braun may claw his way into the discussion, depending on his next half-dozen years, but one has to imagine his PED usage will at least impact his chances for the Brewers’ Walk of Fame.

It will be interesting to see how the PED discussion evolves over the next decade. As more “tainted” players have great years post-PEDs, baseball writers and Hall of Fame voters may recalibrate their stance on steroids and be more willing to vote for them. Likely, the conversation will transition to the character clause, rather than the actual numbers, because the real issue is that PED users took something away from us. When they admitted guilt, were connected to PEDs or tested positive, they took away the innocence of watching Barry Bonds’s record-breaking season or the home-run battle between McGwire and Sosa. The positive tests and media leaks stripped away the joy and left us with skepticism.

I don’t think Braun, or many other players, will be forgiven for that — no matter how much data is amassed after PED suspensions. The Brewers’ right fielder is 33 percent more valuable at the plate than the average major leaguer this year because gifted hitters don’t forget how to hit, nor do they become endowed with significantly increased power because they took banned substances. Hitters hit, and Ryan Braun is still one of the best hitters in the National League.

That year, it was just a two-man race between Braun and Kemp. Sure, Fielder got a first place vote, but he probably shouldn’t have and wasn’t seriously in the broader discussion. Both outfielders had amazing seasons. They put up great numbers, were young, and were rising stars. The difference, though, was that one was on a winning team and the other was on a losing team. Braun’s Brewers won the NL Central; it was the first time the Brewers won a division since 1982, when they were back in the American League.

There was a lot of debate as to who should receive the MVP. Matt Kemp statistically had the better numbers. He had a TAv of .357 versus Braun’s .345 TAv, and he played center field, which allowed him to have a higher WARP (9.49 Kemp, 6.82 Braun). Braun that year actually finished seventh in all of baseball in WARP. So what gives? Why did Braun win the MVP over Matt Kemp?

Not all, but a good part of any award argument stems from a self-imposed meaning of MVP — specifically centering on the word valuable. It’s strange, for some reason many writers, announcers, and media members get fixated with the word. It’s due to its apparently complex meaning. The way it is defined is unclear.

When one says “most valuable player,” one is referring to one specific thing: the player and his value (that is, the value attributed to the player). After all, valuable means having considerable monetary worth. If the MVP voting were left to that, then it would be rather simple, at least in terms of its goal and its definition. It would refer strictly to the player of the highest worth. For example, if I asked what is the most valuable dollar, one would quickly answer the 100-dollar bill. Why? Because it has the most value, it’s worth the most. The value of the 100-dollar bill is one hundred dollars. It doesn’t matter whether a poor person or a rich person possesses it, its value would still be 100 dollars. On one hand, it certainly would seem more valuable to a poor individual, as he or she would need it, while a rich individual wouldn’t need it as much. But, then, one is discussing the relative value of the bill pertaining to its owner.

When putting this into baseball terms, the Most Valuable Player represents the value of the player, however one wants to measure it. The main point is that the value of the player should not be dependent on the team. For example, whether Braun was on the Brewers or the Dodgers would be irrelevant, his value would not change. His value would be his production, and it would, therefore, be irrelevant whether he “lead” his team to the playoffs or not.

And now we arrive at the vagaries of the word valuable or value in baseball.

Here is what the BBWAA is told:

“There is no clear-cut definition of what Most Valuable means. It is up to the individual voter to decide who was the Most Valuable Player in each league to his team. The MVP need not come from a division winner or other playoff qualifier.

The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:

(1) Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
(2) Number of games played.
(3) General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
(4) Former winners are eligible.
(5) Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

You are also urged to give serious consideration to all your selections, from 1 to 10. A 10th-place vote can influence the outcome of an election. You must fill in all 10 places on your ballot. Only regular-season performances are to be taken into consideration.

Keep in mind that all players are eligible for MVP, including pitchers and designated hitters.”

The main problem here is with the first guideline, and mainly it’s implication of “Actual value of a player to his team.” I think this is where the confusion starts to happen, because this statement is inherently contradictory to words MVP. In this definition, the player must provide value specifically in relationship to his team. With that being said, this does not mean that value is necessarily contextualized. Words, just like so many of them, are dependent on the sentence in which they are used. Value or valuable here is no different.

Vince Gennaro, someone for whom I have great respect, once said, “…the award is called the Most Valuable Player, it’s not the player of the year award, in my book.”

The Most Valuable Player means the best player, since the value being described here is specific to the player. The problem here is not with the word valuable in MVP, but with the word value in the first instruction the BBWAA is given for MVP. Not only are the statements contradictory, but now value is being described in a team context. It is, therefore, no longer the Most Valuable Player award, but rather the Most Value A Player Can Provide To His Team award.

That being said, this doesn’t mean that a player needs to be playing for a contender, as the definition clearly states. What this does mean is that the definition is, therefore, open for interpretation and has a myriad of vague implications, which a writer can justify in different ways. Really what this includes is more subjectivity, in that the voter must define for himself what value to a team means. Maybe that’s what the league wants.

There’s always a ton of debate around the MVP, who should get it and what it means. That debate might be good for the baseball industry. I have no idea whether that is true or not, although I would be surprised if it wasn’t true. If it were simply who is the Most Valuable Player or who is the best player, then Matt Kemp would have won in 2011 without much controversy. (Mike Trout also would have won in 2011 & 2012, but I probably shouldn’t touch that issue.) The order of things would be in place and the award would be fair.

But baseball, on many counts, isn’t fair. If we truly wanted to recognize the best team every year, then we would go back to a time before 1969, when the winner of the National League and the winner of the American League faced each other for the World Series. The playoffs are not fair and they certainly do not represent the best team. They are rather a set of random variation events in small sample sizes that create a lot of excitement. And that’s probably the point. Baseball is, after all, an entertainment product, and the MVP creates a lot of intrigue and entertainment. Whether that entertainment comes from seeing your favorite player recognized or from the on-going debates of who wins the MVP, it’s all part of the product and maybe there’s therefore nothing wrong with the MVP. Maybe it’s just fine as it is. Maybe it’s better that Braun won the MVP over Kemp. Maybe we simply need to stop looking for ways to define it and simply appreciate it for the value of excitement and debate.

The Blue Jays have been winning in every way imaginable. They’re a threat to score double-digit runs every game. Their pitching, bolstered by the David Price acquisition, has been fantastic, having recorded a 2.71 ERA with 198 strikeouts and 53 walks (3.7 K/BB) over 262 innings. The few times their offense has been stymied through six or seven innings, opposing pitchers have been forced to go through that murderer’s row of Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion one last time. They’re scoring 6.4 runs and allowing just 3.1 per game. It’s as pure domination as is possible in the best baseball league in the world.

The Blue Jays have been very reminiscent of the 2011 Brewers. They’re a squad making big moves to hit a rare competitive window before it closes, with preseason moves like the Russell Martin signing and of course the big trades to acquire Price and Tulowitzki at the deadline. They have obviously had big-time talent since the start of the season, but major holes in the roster led to inconsistency until trade season allowed them to patch the team up. Unlike the Jays, those Brewers made most of their moves in the offseason, but early injuries to Zack Greinke and Takashi Saito effectively turned them to midseason acquisitions.

It was the pitching staff, complete with the acquisition of Francisco Rodriguez at the All-Star Break, that set up the Brewers’ incredible 27-5 run from July 26th through August 28th. It was this run that won the Brewers their first division title in 29 years, as Milwaukee went from tied for the division lead with St. Louis to up eight games by the streak’s conclusion. The pitchers allowed just a 2.62 ERA in 289 innings and struck out 222 against 70 walks. The bullpen in particular was lights out, as Kameron Loe, John Axford, Takashi Saito, and Francisco Rodriguez all posted ERAs under 3.00 in August and combined to allow just nine runs in 41.1 innings (1.95 ERA) with 42 strikeouts and just 11 walks.

The Blue Jays will match the Brewers’ 27-5 stretch if they can win either their next three games or seven of their next eight. As white hot as they’ve been, you’d have to assume the Jays are roughly an .800 winning percentage team to give even odds on either of those happening, and I’m not ready to call this Blue Jays team a 128 or 129-win level squad. Consider that: the Blue Jays have been playing at a superhuman level for a month and change, and they still have a formidable task in front of them to match what the 2011 Brewers did over the 32-game stretch that locked them into the National League Central lead.

During those games in August as we got into the meat of the streak, the Brewers looked as invincible as I’ve ever seen a baseball team. Never did I have more confidence that I would turn on and the game would be a victory, whether I was tuning in from the first pitch or catching the crew down a few in the middle innings. It was like having the confidence of watching a CC Sabathia game during his ravaging of the National League in 2008, but on a daily basis. It’s a magic I’m not sure another Brewers team will capture for another decade, if not longer. They had a special energy then, perhaps no more visible than when they ruined the Pirates season with a three-game sweep they finished August 14th at Miller Park, capped off by Nyjer Morgan with the huge flourish on a walk-off sacrifice.

I feel that same energy as I listen to the Rogers Centre crowd erupt as the Jays launch homer after homer into the bleachers. There’s nothing quite like a streak like the one the Blue Jays are in the midst of right now, and Blue Jays fans should savor the feeling. You never know when it will be back again.

That eventually shifted to defensive value, as teams across the league began embracing the opinion that the importance defense has been dramatically undersold. The advent of framing statistics for catchers caused the baseball community to re-calibrate their valuations of many major-league catchers. Guys like Austin Hedges, a light-hitting defensive specialist for the San Diego Padres, suddenly became top-100 prospects. As defensive and framing metrics continue to reconstruct the way baseball fans and front-office members understand player value, it’s only natural that we start casting our collective eyes toward the horizon in search of the next market re-orientation.

One may rightly think that health and nutrition, especially in the minor leagues, will get heightened attention over the next few years. Perhaps we’ve seen the beginning of this with Gabe Kapler joining the Dodgers’ front office last winter. More baseball organizations will realize that investing resources more heavily in the minor-league system will increase the success rate (or graduation rate, if you will) of the farm system.

Maybe the next frontier is neurological. More researchers are attempting to understand how neurological changes impact baseball players, and moreover, they’re trying to identify neurological training techniques to improve performance. Any organization that can take massive steps forward in this realm will undoubtedly enjoy a leg up on the competition.

The revolution already upon us, however, is the uplift of the relief corps. For the past decade, the conventional wisdom has been to avoid spending big money on the bullpen, as relief pitchers are, by definition, fungible and unpredictable. Only foolish teams sign relievers to three- or four-year deals worth $10+ million. I know that I ascribed to this philosophy in recent seasons, begging the Brewers to allocate their resources outside the bullpen, viewing relievers as nothing more than unattractive and volatile assets.

At the same time, more big-league teams are beginning to augment their bullpen with elite arms and enjoying better success in the win column. The Kansas City Royals famously outperformed expectations in 2014, making the postseason for the first time in years and almost winning the World Series. Their success in no small part came from the unbelievable trio at the back-end of the bullpen. Greg Holland (1.44 ERA), Wade Davis (1.00 ERA), and Kelvin Herrera (1.41 ERA) combined for a dazzling 201.2 innings and 49 saves. Moreover, the threesome had 98 total “shutdowns” in the bullpen, as opposed to just 16 “meltdowns.” To put that in perspective, there are 19 relievers who already have double-digit meltdowns on their own this season, and over a month remains in the regular season.

Shutdown bullpens are being utilized to effectively compensate for mediocre or below-average starting rotations.

The Yankees are 14-games over .500 and have a starting rotation with a combined 4.25 ERA. The Royals are 28-games over .500 and have the 22nd-ranked starting rotation (4.27 ERA) in all of baseball. The Blue Jays are 14-games over .500 and have the 14th-ranked rotation (4.11 ERA) in the majors. Sticking in the American League, even the Orioles have a .500 record despite a 4.30 ERA from their rotation, which is the seventh-worst in the league.

All of these teams have partly accomplished this because their bullpens have been stellar. The four teams mentioned all have a top-10 bullpen in terms of run prevention, and all four have tremendous back-end options. Whether it’s Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances or Zach Britton and Darren O’Day, an elite relief corps from the seventh to the ninth inning can cover up for many flaws in the starting rotation. Taking this to an extreme, the Yankees actively passed on many free-agent starters this winter — even though they obviously could have afforded them, if motivated — and spent their money on Andrew Miller instead. The Yankees understood that having a lock-down bullpen limits the need for starters to pitch deeper into games.

Take a look at the combined win percentage for top relief corps this year:

Out of the above top-10 list, only the Cleveland Indians have a record below .500 as of Monday evening, and they rank at the bottom of the list. It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that the elite relief corps belong to the most successful organizations in the league; however, too many people still treat the bullpen as a thrift-store entity, something that should be purchased on the cheap and never relied upon to last.

The Milwaukee Brewers should take note of this during their rebuilding process. As relief contracts remain relatively cheap — though this could admittedly be blown out of the water this offseason — the organization should look to bolster their bullpen in whatever means necessary. It should be a way to increase the win percentage of the club without tying up massive amounts of money over the long-term, thus not impeding the overall rebuilding process. Look at what the Astros did this winter, for example. They had the worst bullpen in Major League Baseball in 2014, but signed Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek. They also picked up Will Harris off waivers. All three of those pitchers have been key cogs in the Astros’ quality bullpen, which has been one of the reasons why the club has won so many close games in 2015.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Brewers should solely look to the free-agent market. The club has the building blocks of a solid bullpen — something discussed at length on BP Milwaukee – with Francisco Rodriguez and Will Smith. However, it means the organization should be willing to move some of their fireballing pitching prospects to the bullpen and push them through the system. Stop trying to shoehorn guys like Johnny Hellweg, Damien Magnifico, and Brandon Woodruff into the starting rotation. Let their big stuff flourish in the bullpen. Be willing to do what the Blue Jays did with Roberto Osuna this year, even if it didn’t work with someone like Miguel Castro. Do not pray their command suddenly clicks or their secondary stuff finally develops. Put them in the bullpen and let them fly.

The Brewers no longer have a farm system devoid of talent, especially at the upper levels. The big-league roster is not barren. The club has talent with which to work, and they’re hoping to short-circuit their rebuild and have a competitive team as soon as 2017. While that’s an admirable goal, the front office should recognize the growing trend in the league and fashion a shutdown bullpen. That means spending and developing relief arms. As such, that should help alleviate some of the problems the organization has had finding quality starting pitching.

In short, it’s rare that big-league teams consistently win over the course of a 162-game season without a top-tier bullpen. The Nationals and the Tigers serve as great examples of this. On the other hand, counterexamples (such as the Dodgers) exist, but must compensate through well-above-average offenses and starters. The Milwaukee Brewers would be wise to recognize the growing trend in the game. Elite back-ends of the bullpen can utterly transform a team’s win percentage. This doesn’t mean spending stupidly, but it does mean spending on a bullpen within reason. It means not being afraid to develop a pitcher as a reliever. It ultimately means understanding the value in an elite bullpen and what it does for the remainder of the team.

As the Brewers try to figure out who will play third base and center field and as the club continues their elusive search for a True Ace, the front office should turn to the bullpen as a potential difference maker. It won’t be popular, but teams across the league are showing that it’s effective.

From 2007 through 2014 (and the first week or so of 2015), I felt the Brewers had a chance to compete every year, even if it was occasionally a slim one. Their offense was always laden with enough talent — thanks to great players like Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Carlos Gomez, J.J. Hardy, and Jonathan Lucroy — which inspired confidence that if they could just squeeze a little bit of production from the supporting cast, a winning season was possible. Now only Braun and Lucroy remain among the Brewers stars, and neither of them has been at their best in 2015. It’s clear that if the Brewers will compete in the second half of this decade, another Great Brewer (or two) must make himself apparent, and soon.

A couple of years ago, fellow blogger Larry Granillo mailed me some old Brewers media guides that were taking up too much space during his move. My favorite of the bunch is this one, from 2006:

I have a lot of love for this campy, extremely mid-2000s piece of baseball kitsch. None of these players are Brewers any more, and two of them are unemployed. But here, they’re the future. They’re the youth movement. The Brewers had won 81 games out of nowhere in 2005, the team’s first sign of baseball life since 1992. These four — combined with the talent in the minors and yet-to-be-drafted players like Braun, Yovani Gallardo and Corey Hart — comprised the core of the only competitive Brewers squads I’ve seen in my lifetime.

Hall was a four-year veteran, the oldest of the bunch, yet still only 26. Hardy and Fielder made their major-league debuts in 2005, and Weeks had played just seven games in 2003 prior to coming up for good in 2005. Weeks, Fielder and Hardy had combined for under 1,000 career plate appearances. Only Hall had extended major-league experience; the other three were rookies still trying to find their sea legs in The Show. But we already knew what the likes of Geoff Jenkins and Doug Davis could do. If you believed in the future of the Brewers in the mid-2000s, you believed in these young players.

It’s pretty amazing to think of what these four players did in the years to pass. Their careers were just beginning, and neither the stiff major-league competition nor any of the seemingly infinite pitfalls of injuries prevented their careers from lifting off. Even Hall, the worst of the bunch, finished his Brewers career with 102 home runs, tied with Sixto Lezcano for 19th in team history.  In the years that followed, these four players reached five All-Star games for the Brewers (and Hardy deserved another one in 2008), hit 493 home runs, and compiled 53.0 WARP. They had produced all of 5.0 WARP collectively before that, four of those coming from Hall’s breakout 2005 season (.291/.342/.495, 17 homers, 18 stolen bases, and average-to-good defense all across the infield).

We can only hope the next wave is this successful. Hopefully, as this year concludes and 2016 begins, the next fearsome foursome to capture our hopeful baseball souls will become clear. Maybe it will include Jimmy Nelson, who has pitched like he belongs in the top half of a rotation since early June (2.98 ERA, 72 strikeouts in 87.2 innings over his past 14 starts). Rotation mate Taylor Jungmann has made his case as well, with a dazzling 2.23 ERA, sharp 2.82 FIP. He has allowed over three earned runs just once in 13 starts, startling consistency from a pitcher in his first crack at the major leagues. 

Who else will be the future? Domingo Santana, who kicked off his Brewers career with a laser beam homer off Gio Gonzalez on Friday night? Orlando Arcia, whose glove could make him a rock behind Brewers pitching like J.J. Hardy was before? What about Brett Phillips, the centerpiece of the Gomez trade, or Gilbert Lara, the teenage phenom from the Dominican Republic the Brewers aggressively signed last year? The Brewers have a number of exciting young prospects, but most of them are still a breakout season, minors or majors, away from becoming the kind of young player who really inspires hope in a competitive future.

It’s because of this uncertainty that I’m not ready to say I have hope for the Brewers yet. It’s why the question for this club isn’t, as it has been for the past eight years or so, “What can we do in the offseason to make the playoffs?” but rather, “How many years away are we?” But leafing through my Brewers junk and finding this gem of recent history reminded me of what hope for this team can look like, and that the future just might be closer than you think.