New Runs Prevented Workbook || Runs Prevented Primer

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KBQ19VcMZ4g7oW1jkGiYwxCadqjw3rYXkqN200f4lHc/edit?usp=sharing

This is not even some “to-be-expected” regression, as even if one wishes to look at Deserved Runs Average (DRA) throughout the season as a “true” measure of the Brewers talent (which should be cautioned), the Brewers would have been expected to allow anywhere between 23 and 30 fewer second half runs than they actually have allowed.

This is unforeseen and catastrophic.

The blame can be spread around to everyone, from the post-forearm injury Junior Guerra (10 IP, 9 runs on July 24 & 29), injured reliever Matt Albers (1.7 IP, 10 R), former? closer Corey Knebel (9.3 IP, 8 R entering Sunday), and even rookie rotation depth Freddy Peralta (19 IP, 17 R since the break). Worse yet, there is a sense of adding insult to injury, as newly acquired Joakim Soria hit the disabled list promptly after surrendering a grand slam home run in a devastating loss to San Diego, and quietly effective Taylor Williams hit the disabled list with an elbow injury. While fans will feel less sympathy for Matt Albers, who had a couple of different bouts of ineffectiveness surrounded by separate disabled list stints, the veteran righty was crucial to early season success (25 IP, 4 R through the end of May) and each day his injury status and effectiveness is not answered is a day that manager Craig Counsell must carefully ration Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader with little back-up. The same goes for Williams, and now Soria; while Jacob Barnes was previously an impact reliever and boasts solid peripherals and a 2.99 Deserved Run Average (DRA), his runs prevention performance in 2018 has not been to the level of that injured trio, and now it’s Barnes, Corbin Burnes, and Jordan Lyles trying to nail down the quietly effective support roles.

It’s as simple as this: the Brewers’ bullpen has two truly fantastic options in Jeffress and Hader, and those options will be great regardless of their surrounding cast. For the purposes of contending, however, this duo is amplified when Stearns’s excellent depth picks (Albers, Williams, even Corbin Burnes), closer (Knebel), and additional acquisitions (Soria) are performing well. Jeffress and Hader cannot do it themselves.

Injuries have also trimmed the rotation, as Brent Suter’s torn elbow ligament and Zach Davies’s back ailments have limited the Brewers’ effective rotational depth. Using Baseball Reference Three Year Park factors, both Suter and Davies combined for 18 Runs Prevented over 273 innings in 2017, offering excellent middle and replacement rotation depth. That level of impact depth performance will not be matched by the duo in 2018. Additionally, even if one could have argued that the club might not have expected Jimmy Nelson to return from his shoulder injury in 2018, having that materialize as a likely injury-scenario reality in 2018 is quite another ballgame. Consider this as Freddy Peralta meets a likely innings limit, Chase Anderson continues an uneven season, and Brandon Woodruff finds himself without a rotational role: #TeamDepth is now basically #TeamNecessity in terms of rotation building.

There’s no need to state it any other way: as much as one would like to criticize the Brewers pitching staff, and GM David Stearns for his failure to build a staff, the club is now to the point where injuries are diminishing even his strongest moves. The Soria trade looms loudest here, as the Brewers grabbed a legitimate high leverage, veteran reliever at the trade deadline and did not get six innings from his right arm before he hit the DL with a groin injury; Albers and Williams could be fan whipping posts when they were ineffective, but the Albers free agency deal looked like a brilliant low-cost gamble early in the season while Williams seemed poised to catapult himself into the high leverage workload discussion (Williams worked a 17.3 IP, 5 R stretch, Holding three leads, from June until the All Star Break).

Citing injuries to the pitching staff is not an “excuse” for the poor performance.

It would have been enough to deal with this group of recent injuries and setbacks, but the Brewers also simultaneously were gifted with a set of role reversions on the pitching staff. Corey Knebel’s descent from excellent closer in 2017 cost the Brewers a chance at a truly elite relief corps; according to Baseball Reference Three Year Park Factors, Knebel prevented nearly 25 runs in 2017. Even a 50 percent regression from that performance level would fit nicely with Jeffress and Hader, who have both been consistent Top 25 pitchers in the 2018 MLB. Add in the aforementioned struggles of Peralta, Barnes, and a bit of stalled usage from the shuttled Houser (he’s only worked two MLB appearances from July onward), and Counsell’s strategic options are looking much more thin while they are also being exasperated by some ineffective starts.

Beyond these role question marks, it is worth questioning the timing of the inclusion of Jorge Lopez in the Mike Moustakas trade. Since Lopez has served the season as an up-and-down member of the Triple-A / MLB “shuttle team” relief squad, discussions of the quality of Lopez’s performance were largely nonexistent at the trade deadline (I’m also guilty of this charge). But, it is worth emphasizing that as a back-roster depth strategy, the “shuttle team” prevented runs at a solid clip, especially when one considers the nature of this replacement role and the likely quality of other replacement pitchers to be acquired in their place.

In fact, these shuttle relievers combined to produce near-average aggregate performance for the Brewers, which leads one to question why Stearns traded Lopez and simultaneously decided to keep Brandon Woodruff at the Triple-A level to serve as replacement starting pitching depth. With Lopez in the Royals system and Woodruff now serving as starting pitching depth, the revolving door relief strategy is effectively dead at what could be the worst time of the season. Given that Woodruff boats a 3.55 DRA at the MLB level to accompany a 52 percent ground ball rate, while also demonstrating an average DRA at Colorado Springs with a consistent ground ball rate there, it is worth questioning why Stearns has not simply replaced Peralta with Woodruff (on the one hand) or simply promoted Woodruff to a steady MLB relief role (on the other hand). According to Brooks Baseball, the relief role is agreeing with Woodruff, who is throwing a sizzling 95-to-96 MPH fastball with more armside run than his 2017 variation, complete with steady change up and slider usage (both with more whiffs than in 2017, too).

This is not a bottomless pit (yet). That the Brewers remain the 12th best pitching staff in the MLB, within one standard deviation of the 10th spot, and sixth best pitching staff in the National League, should demonstrate just how good the club has been for most of the year. Indeed, this pitching staff has fallen off, and it’s important to underscore that it’s not simply “regression,” but a bad combination of regression, injuries, and strategic missteps at the worst possible time. But there could be a quick way out of this issue for the club:

• Get Zach Davies healthy, without any further setbacks, and use him to replace Freddy Peralta in the rotation.

• Develop an MLB role for Brandon Woodruff; preferably this would be a rotational role to spell another ineffective starter down the stretch (or add a sixth man for September), but even a well-defined one-inning bullpen role could be extremely helpful at the moment.

• Re-evaluate depth roles for Ariel Hernandez, Jordan Lyles, Alec Asher, and Aaron Wilkerson, and make any necessary waiver trades to boost the pitching staff. E.g., is Jordan Lyles the right arm to work in the shadow of the successful Triple-A shuttle crew? Is now the best time to make a potential long-term development play for Ariel Hernandez?

• Reconsider Adrian Houser’s shuttle role in favor of a regular one-inning role.

With the assumption that some combination of Soria, Albers, and Williams can get healthy for the stretch run, and that some of the “role regression” pitchers can make adjustments at the MLB level once again, this is a pitching staff that can improve quickly and regain its flexible frontier of roles and runs prevention that were celebrated in April and May. With Zach Davies healthy, a waiver trade acquisition (or two), and potentially prominent roles for two righties that can rush it up there (Woodruff and Houser), this pitching staff can rebound. Now we wait and watch.

Now the 2018 Brewers are on pace to challenge the 1988 Brewers for the best pitching staff in franchise history. As it stands, the Brewers could basically pitch average baseball for the remainder of the season and finish with the third best staff in franchise history; as the table above shows, Milwaukee has already surpassed their 2017 Runs Prevented total this season.

The purpose of this post is not to present a normative argument about whether or not the Brewers should be expected to produce the best pitching season in franchise history. Evidence abounds in all directions. First and foremost, at the time of this writing, the trade deadline has yet to pass, which means that the Brewers could further improve their pitching; second, the latest average Runs Prevented table demonstrates that the Milwaukee hurlers are already approximately 12 runs from their May 31 pace, meaning that the club has slowed slightly in their elite Runs Prevention; additionally, key injuries and subsequent ineffectiveness (ranging from Brent Suter and Zach Davies to Matt Albers and, of course, Jimmy Nelson) also impact projections of runs prevention. Alternately, Chase Anderson has prevented approximately seven runs since the beginning of June, and is beginning to look like a rotation leader at the same time the club traded for Joakim Soria and recalled Corbin Burnes to bolster the bullpen. If anything, this swirling set of evidence might allow one to believe that the pitching staff will at least remain steady.

Rather, I am going to investigate the pitching staff structure for a few of the best franchise pitching staffs listed in the table above. The purpose here will be fun, first and foremost, as almost everyone can name the key Brewers batters and supporting casts of the club’s great offensive performances (ten of the top 13 runs production seasons come from the 1978-1983 and 2009-2012 roster cores), but the great pitching staffs beyond Teddy Higuera, Ben Sheets, and CC Sabathia remain underappreciated or perhaps even unknown. Furthermore, by comparing the structures of these great staffs, one can get an idea of how pitching roster construction has evolved over time. For example, the 2018 Brewers may very well end up producing the greatest bullpen in franchise history, but how does their rotation compare? On the other hand, one might expect the classic 1980s clubs to be rotation-first, in terms of value.

Defensive Efficiency
Prior to investigating Baseball Prospectus pitching profiles of these classic Brewers pitching clubs, it is worth emphasizing that most of the top Brewers pitching teams were also typically very good fielding teams relative to their respective leagues.

Indeed, the table above demonstrates that the 2018 Brewers shares the top of these fielding profiles with the 1992 club, which were the most efficient fielding unit on the Junior Circuit. Here, I am using defensive efficiency to assess fielding because it is a basic number that calculates the extent to which a fielding unit converts outs. The outliers here are the 2005, 2011, and 2017 Brewers clubs, which prevented runs despite mediocre fielding performances (they prevented approximately 26, 47, and 47 runs, respectively, despite their middle of the road fielding).

Roster Construction
Teddy Higuera had quite a career for the Milwaukee Brewers, posting single season WARP totals above 4.0 in three of nine seasons. Higuera’s best year in Milwaukee occurred during the 1988 season, in which the southpaw worked nearly 230 innings while striking out 192 batters to only 59 walks. Using Deserved Run Average (DRA), a statistic that scales pitching performance to numerous contextual components, Higuera was better in 1988 than in any other season in Milwaukee, and those results total nearly 7.0 WARP.

Yet the 1988 club was also a crossing of two eras in Milwaukee, where the fading glory of Harvey’s Wallbangers (who never got the consistent ace they deserved in Higuera) would congeal into a roster core that could never quite get Robin Yount and Paul Molitor into the playoffs with a second generation of talent. Behind Higuera, the 1988 squad featured four prominent contributors age-25 or younger in Juan Nieves (23), Don August (24), Chris Bosio (25), and Bill Wegman (25), ostensibly giving the Brewers a stable pitching rotation around which their next contending seasons could follow. Yet injuries, ineffectiveness, and inconsistencies derailed this group, leaving 1988 their best performance. Of these youngsters, Bosio was en route to beginning a stretch of several quality pitching seasons, and in fact the righty was more valuable each of 1989, 1991, and 1992 (compared to 1988).

Chuck Crim deserves mention, of course, because the 26-year old rubber arm worked more than 100 innings over 70 appearances. Not only did the righty work 42 multiple inning appearances according to Baseball Reference, but he also inherited 68 runners. In terms of percentage points, Crim’s strand rate was eight points better than the league average, meaning that aside from his own exceptional runs allowed total, Crim added several Runs Prevented simply by stranding runners that occupied bases when he entered ballgames; this performance foreshadowed Brian Shouse’s efforts for the excellent 2008 pitching staff (60 IR / 20 scored), as well as Jeremy Jeffress and Dan Jennings (62 IR / 14 scored (!!!) entering Sunday) in 2018. This excellent performance is reflected in Crim’s leads converted statistics, as the righty successfully produced nine saves and 13 holds, against only two blown save or hold opportunities.

The Crim mention is a perfect transition to the 2017 pitching staff, which featured a few excellent starting pitching performances boosted by an even better bullpen. Thus appears Jacob Barnes in the club’s top performers for 2017, as the hard near-cutter / slider reliever is not only a throwback to the bread-and-butter 1980s reliever (enter Crim, a favorite media comp for Barnes, too), but also one of the only 2017 Brewers pitchers to accumulate more than 1.0 WARP. What is interesting about the 2017 pitching staff also foreshadowing the strengths of the 2018 staff, and that is the sheer depth of the pitching operations. Eventually, the pitching-by-depth gamble unraveled as the club faced injuries and a rotating cast of fifth starter ineffectiveness down the stretch. But along with the more popular impact relievers of Corey Knebel and Josh Hader, Barnes was one of the key reasons for the club’s success in 2017 and, like Crim and Hader, another deep round MLB draft success story.

By the way, let it be said that for any other critiques of the Brewers current GM, David Stearns sure can build a runs prevention unit. Despite being in his third season as GM, and ostensibly leading the club through a rebuilding phase, Stearns already boasts two of the 17 average or better pitching staffs in franchise history. Interestingly enough, for all the grief President Doug Melvin gets about his apparent inability to assemble a pitching staff, the highly regarded Harry Dalton also had the same issue. While Sal Bando is not highly regarded by most Brewers fans, the GM sure could build a pitching staff, and Bando (more than Melvin or Dalton) is Stearns’s target for building quality pitching; Dalton and Melvin are obviously the targets for beating postseason appearances.

Comparing Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson, and Zach Davies, who was an excellent Runs Prevented starter in 2017 even if his WARP did not look great, to the 1988 squad should underscore the difficulty of building a consistent rotation. Producing a great starting rotation certainly does not come close to guaranteeing pitching success in the following season, when injuries, mechanical adjustments, and inconsistencies that were absent in the “great year” can creep up in the following campaign. Once again, though, the Brewers have a group of truly controllable, quality starting pitching arms (as they did in the late-1980s), but it is worth raising questions about the scouting profiles and future prospects of these arms following the mechanical adjustments and injuries that have plagued 2018. The book is not closed, however, as Chase Anderson has shown over his last ten starts (59.7 IP, 3.02 ERA, four quality starts); if all goes well, Anderson’s contract extension would be well-justified if he comes anywhere near Chris Bosio’s best four years in Milwaukee.

2008 needs no introduction, as the Brewers media and Twitter recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of the CC Sabathia trade. Of course, as Sabathia rightfully carries the reputation as the arm that saved that season, it is always worth emphasizing that Ben Sheets was phenomenal in 2008 as well. Sheets managed a 3.13 DRA and 5.3 WARP across 31 starts, including an electrifying 1-0 complete game effort over the Padres while pitching through a torn elbow ligament. In terms of pitchers putting their careers on the line for Milwaukee, it’s tough to top Sabathia and Sheets, as both pitchers risked millions of dollars on the 2008-2009 free agency market to will the Brewers to their first playoff appearance in a generation; Sheets lost the bet for future millions, while Sabathia cashed on an uncanny performance.

But oh, ode to Manny Parra, Dave Bush, and Carlos Villanueva, the sometimes frustrating but often dependable low rotation and swingman crew for the mid-00s Milwaukee teams. Bush was worth approximately 10 WARP to the Brewers over his 2006-2008 seasons, with 2006 being the high mark; Villanueva and Parra each had their best Milwaukee years in 2008, which is not a bad thing to occur during a playoff race. This trio of pitchers seems quite comparable to many of the 2018 Brewers group, for this trio either had unassuming stuff, or serious profile questions or command concerns when the stuff was there. While one will be quick to point out that the 2018 Brewers do not (yet) have their Sabathia, nor do they have their Sheets, one can find semblances of the Bush, Parra, and Villanueva trio in profiles such as Junior Guerra, Jhoulys Chacin, Wade Miley, and/or Freddy Peralta. This is not an insult: the 2008 trio have never truly received enough credit for their respective roles in carrying the rotation early in the season, nor for their overall value.

Finally, if 1988 was the best franchise pitching season, 1992 exemplified the turn of generations once more, as Jamie Navarro and Cal Eldred were set to join Bosio and Wegman atop the pitching staff. This time, Wegman bested Bosio in terms of value, but both pitchers were quite strong, producing nearly 10 WARP for those 1992 Brewers. Eldred and Navarro also acquitted themselves well, although they would reprise the injuries, inconsistencies, and ineffectiveness that has served as a theme throughout these pitching profiles.

In 1992, one can suddenly see the eras shift, as baseball’s strategic tides moved toward relief pitching prominence, and these Brewers had a deep and fantastic bullpen. Fetters, Holmes, and Orosco were not even the most prominent relievers on the staff (see Plesac, Dan; Henry, Doug; and Austin, Jim). What is stunning about this group is that despite their excellent and deep composition, the Brewers were near the bottom in the American League in both Saves and Holds, and their relievers mostly faced low leverage innings according to Baseball Reference. In 1992, 42 percent of Brewers relief appearances qualified as low leverage; to get a sense of what that might look like, consider than the 2018 Brewers are nearly the exact opposite, with 36 percent of relief appearances qualified as high leverage. It is interesting to think about this strategic snafu of 1992 during a current season in which managers are reaching for their bullpens early and often in order to gain every advantage possible.

Yet is a bullpen ever a vehicle for anything other than strategic failure? Is there a proper way to manage the pen over an extended period of time? If the 2018 Brewers are going to catch the 1988 squad to produce the best pitching season in franchise history, hopefully manager Craig Counsell effectively dispatches those Runs Prevented in the most strategic manner possible.

Baseball Prospectus. Milwaukee Brewers Individual Statistics by Team [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Milwaukee Brewers Franchise [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Park Factors and League Encyclopedia [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Runs Prevented were calculated using the average of park factors between Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference sources, with the addition of a basic league environment runs prevented stat as well. Each Brewers team was assessed by average runs prevented and standard deviation.

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 Brewers’ offensive struggles last week were exacerbated by the injury to Christian Yelich. He got hurt in the St. Louis series finale and sat out the weekend series against the Cubs. The Brewers placed him on the 10 day DL yesterday, with the hope that he’ll be out the minimum. Yelich leads the team in TAv amongst regulars (.346) which would also be a career high for him. With the caveat that these numbers are based on the first week of games, Yelich is running a career high swing rate (45.36%) as pitchers are pitching to him more in the zone than in his previous seasons (55.67%). While he’s making slightly less contact than last year, because he’s swinging more it seems like that’s a positive so long as pitchers are throwing strikes. Looking at his whiff rate, in that first week he wasn’t missing on anything that wasn’t low.

Previously, Yelich had issues on offspeed and breaking pitches. While it’s not fair to say he couldn’t handle non-fastballs, he did more damage against the hard stuff. With that in mind, it is encouraging to see that he’s had success against all types of pitches so far. While I don’t expect Yelich to exceed his 90^th percentile PECOTA projection, this type of performance is worth the steep price in talent which the Brewers sent to Miami.

The Brewers are also dealing with a bullpen injury. Corey Knebel is slated to be out for four to six weeks due to a hamstring issue. The Brewers didn’t announce a replacement closer and the weekend series didn’t create an opportunity for the picture to clear up. Regardless of who gets the saves through May, Jacob Barnes figures to be in the mix for a prominent role. Before a rough outing on Saturday, Barnes had pitched six scoreless innings, allowing only three baserunners and striking out five.

Barnes is a two pitch pitcher, relying almost exclusively on his fourseam fastball and slider, at around a 55/45 ratio. The fastball is used most as the first pitch of the at bat or when the batter is ahead, with the slider used when Barnes is ahead in the count, since that’s his swing and miss offering. Based on both his career numbers and pre-April 7 results, there’s an argument to be made that he should throw his slider more often.  Batters just can’t seem to do much damage against the pitch. The biggest knock against the slider is that he rarely throws it in the zone, so batters can lay off the pitch and see it go for a ball. Except they don’t lay off  when it goes below the strike zone and they do swing and miss.

Based on that background information, without even looking at Barnes’ stat line from Saturday, it was clear something was amiss when Barnes threw twenty-one fastballs out of his twenty-four total pitches in the outing. That’s not a plan for success for him, even taking into account the fielding miscues.

Before he reached on a single, Victor Caratini faced seven pitches from Barnes. After two misses with the fastball for balls, Barnes uncharacteristically threw a slider while behind in the count. After that pitch though, Barnes threw four fastballs in the middle of the zone and is lucky that Caratini didn’t do more damage in the at bat.

This is one inning in one game and the opposition was aided by two errors, but in a critical situation, the game plan needs to be better. Jacob Barnes’ slider is his best pitch, and he needs to deploy it more often in these situations.

After a week at home, the Brewers hit the road next week for two tough matchups in St. Louis and New York. The Brewers will get their second looks at Miles Mikolas and Carlos Martinez, while Adam Wainwright will take the other start. Milwaukee has Jhoulys Chacin and Brent Suter lined up for the first two games, while the series finale is still TBA.

Baseball Prospectus:
Why PECOTA Hates Your Favorite Team
13 Noteworthy Projections

Since PECOTA is a probabilistic model, which means that it is designed to reflect the most probable outcome in a distribution of projected outcomes, Brewers fans should keep in mind that “84” is not some special or magic number. As demonstrated last season, a club that was expected (at best) to flirt with .500 surged ahead and competed for the playoffs, but that surge was not even greater than one standard deviation away from the projected win total. These Brewers could indeed use their strengths to once again push the club ahead of schedule by contending for a playoff spot or winning the division in 2018, or they could indeed sputter in development patterns or role depreciation and return closer to .500. What PECOTA reflects is that the Brewers’ big offseason moves (trading for Christian Yelich, signing Lorenzo Cain) did not guarantee them a playoff spot or even playoff contention, but instead, “more probable” competition or “more probable” playoff contention.

So, what’s going to make the Brewers “tick” in 2018? Here are my favorite picks from 2018 Brewers PECOTA:

PECOTA “punts” the Yelich Trade
Standing behind the curtain during some of the PECOTA work throughout the offseason, it was very interesting to see that the trade involving Lewis Brinson, Monte Harrison, Isan Diaz, and Jordan Yamamoto for Christian Yelich….did not really “move the needle” on the Brewers’ 2018 expected win total. This is surprising given the court of public opinion, but there are two specific reasons that the trade does not immediately yield an absurd advantage for the 2018 Brewers: (1) Lewis Brinson’s high floor is real, and (2) Christian Yelich could experience some role depreciation. It’s always so easy to look at the best possible outcomes or potentialities in each trade; Brinson the future superstar, Yelich the 5.0 WARP player, but it’s also worth emphasizing Brinson’s risk in reaching his peak role and Yelich’s fluctuation between varying degrees of serviceable-to-great production.

Don’t get me wrong: Christian Yelich is a very good baseball player, and his contract makes him worth every potential prospect future that the Brewers surrendered. PECOTA thinks so, too, projecting Yelich primarily as a Brewers left fielder working a .279 TAv and serviceable fielding at a corner position. That’s good for 2.7 WARP, second only to Lorenzo Cain (3.5 WARP). But, remember that floor for Brinson? Even if the center fielder fails to reach his fullest and best hit tool (and therefore, fullest and best power) in the MLB, he’s still a speedy, strong defense, strong arm player in the center of the diamond. PECOTA projects Brinson at .262 TAv and an overall plus on defense for the Marlins, which is good for a club leading 2.5 WARP. This is great for both teams: the Brewers land a quality outfielder under control for five years who has already shown his developed peak abilities at the MLB level (while rounding out the club with a left-handed bat and better plate discipline), while Marlins fans immediately landed the face of their rebuild, the best player on their team, and (at best) someone who neutralizes the toxic offseason orchestrations of Project Wolverine.

Zach Davies and Orlando Arcia Remain Quietly Competitive
As mentioned, the Brewers contended in 2017 due to the “high floor” strengths of their youngsters: players like Orlando Arcia and Zach Davies were not set up to be immediate superstars, but still maintained quality, consistent MLB seasons that propelled the team along “behind the scenes.” PECOTA projects the same for 2018, although this time Zach Davies is leading the pitching staff with a solid 4.43 DRA over 170+ innings, good for a 1.6 WARP. Arcia sits behind Cain and Yelich in terms of overall WARP, but the young shortstop is projected to continue onward with excellent defense and a serviceable bat at shortstop. One could look at these players’ projections and emphasize that PECOTA sees them declining from their absolute 2017 WARP, but I don’t think the WARP is the point here. Instead, what matters is that this duo is still viewed as a quality backbone of the club, even with some attrition, which will undoubtedly serve crucial roles for grinding through 162.

The Outfield Depth is a Problem
Projecting the Brewers’ outfield depth was a nightmare. I previously wrote about how a rotational system can make five outfield spots work for Yelich, Cain, Santana, Ryan Braun, and Brett Phillips, but it’s much more difficult to put those ideals into the mixer and dissect the potential probabilities. Probability #1, which PECOTA currently projects sans Santana trade, is that Ryan Braun plays right field, but only some first base and left field, and therefore loses all of his defensive value. Both Braun and Santana suffer in this universe, creating a total of 1.9 WARP (but 75 extra base hits!) and TAv below .280. Comparable players for Domingo Santana are Oswaldo Arcia, Jonny Gomes, and Joc Pederson, and his plate discipline regresses (98 strike outs and 36 walks in 315 plate appearances). Granted, I do think there is still a path of optimism about the current roster depth (perhaps Braun works 1B more frequently, and Santana receives more regular playing time across the outfield, interleague designated hitter, and pinch hitting roles), but I do not think that means PECOTA is categorically mistaken for the pessimistic trends for Braun or Santana. After all, the current roster mash up is designed in a way to particularly showcase flaws for both Braun and Santana, which does not mean they’re bad baseball players (in fact, their TAv are projected to contend for best overall offensive production on the club), they simply may be imperfect ballplayers for this current roster.

Chase Anderson is Chase Anderson
There are many good stories about the 2017 Brewers, but it’s tough to find one that’s better than Anderson’s arrival as an impact starting pitcher. Anderson resonated with Brewers fans not simply because he was a previous low-to-mid rotation depth option who arrived as one of the very best pitchers in the National League, but because he also vindicated the mechanical, analytical, and strategic approach of pitching coach Derek Johnson. In 2018, PECOTA projects some of 2016 Anderson to return, particularly in the shape of walks, hits, and home runs, without phenomenal gains in strike outs or ground balls. Underlying modeling views Anderson as one of the most likely pitchers on the Brewers to “collapse” in 2018, and less likely to “improve,” and it’s not hard to squint and see a scenario in which a comparable of Dustin McGowan is suitable for the righty’s age-30 campaign. Even with all of this noted, Anderson’s DRA is projected at 4.59 for the year, which should be a better than average performance if the offensive environment holds steady. There is value in that performance over 168.0 innings pitched, and this type of season still validates the contract extension that Anderson signed.

The Bullpen is Fantastic
As a group, the primary Brewers bullpen as currently constructed looks fantastic. Josh Hader and Corey Knebel are projected as the most likely relievers to improve in 2018, but Jeremy Jeffress, Boone Logan, and Matt Albers also receive relatively strong scores in the category. The current main group is projected to produce a DRA below 4.30, which should demonstrate the potential for average or better production in most offensive environments that the arms face in 2018. Some red flags float beneath the surface, however, as the walk rates are slightly worse than average for the relief group, and outside of Adrian Houser, Jeffress, Albers, and Jacob Barnes the group is projected to have relatively low ground ball rates. Yet, even outside of Knebel and Hader the relievers are projected as a strong strike out group, suggesting that some of the slider-heavy moves of the offseason should pay dividends in high leverage situations.

Prospects Begin Appearing on the Scene
One of my favorite aspects of digging into PECOTA projections is the appearance of new faces to the MLB. Caden Lemons, Keston Hiura, KJ Harrison, and Tristen Lutz are all listed as highly improbable MLB players by PECOTA, but their appearance on the radar after the 2017 draft means that the system is now generating comparable players for this group. Jacob Nottingham was added to the 40-Man Roster at the beginning of the 2017-2018 offseason, and one of the comparable names that popped up in his player line is Jonathan Lucroy, which is fascinating for many reasons (not the least of which is Lucroy’s general reputation as a defense-first catcher for the beginning of his career, and Nottinghma’s floor as a back-up catcher with pop). Mauricio Dubon appears as one of the more probable MLB prospects for the club, and his line is a very serviceable utility infielder (.250 batting average, .380 slugging percentage).

Brewers fans might be most excited to see Corbin Burnes at the bottom of the club’s starting pitcher list with three starts, as the pop-up righty prospect is given relatively favorable odds to reach the MLB and a set of comparable players that effectively grade out his reliever risk, reliever potential, and (most excitingly) his starting pitching potential. Additionally, Adrian Houser is given lower odds of reaching the MLB in 2018, but seeing the power sinker reliever in the mix leads to an exciting scenario where the entire Carlos Gomez / Mike Fiers trade return is potentially playing with the Brewers during the same season.

It’s a good reminder that even though common perception is that the Brewers system took a big hit with the Christian Yelich trade, there is still an intriguing group of prospects potentially knocking at the door for 2018. Add an asterisk to this potential 83-win season, as one that exhibits contending-ready talent and depth roles that are still developing for more future success.

Photo Credit: Ken Blaze, USAToday Sports Images

Edit: Updated at 7:15 AM to reflect updated win total, from 84 to 83.

Related Reading:
130 Games of New Wave
An Ode to Chumps

What is underrated about this gang of audacious upstarts is their potential for playoff personality and supreme star power transition on the national stage. These Brewers have a set of undeniable villains on their roster, as well as some stylish counterpoints, workingman depth, and future stars. I’ve previously called these Milwaukee Nine the 2002 Angels for the Ivy League Analytics era based on their penchant for turning an unsuspecting roster into a contender with (almost) everything falling the right way. That team saw a blend of aging stars (Kevin Appier and Tim Salmon, for example), unsuspecting breakouts (Scott Spiezio and maybe even Ramon Ortiz), and newcomers (Troy Glaus and John “Mr. Clean” Lackey) ride a combination of their best possible seasons (in most cases) to World Series glory. Should the Brewers continue their success, fans and analysts will probably be tempted to look back on this team and see a group of players where almost everything went right.

But these contenders have star power in another way, which solely exists through their respective personalities. Who are these 2017 contenders? Milwaukee features a roster of unexpected stars, unexpected depth contributors, and veterans who are holding court while a gang of younger prospects are forging their own identities as stars. [Stats compiled Wednesday evening, June 21, 2017].

THE SLUGGING VILLAINS: Eric Thames (.334 Total Average [TAv]) and Ryan Braun (currently on DL, .292 TAv)
Eric Thames is amazing: there was so much anticipation wound within the fanbase after his signing, and any ideals about the slugger’s shifted plate mechanics may have been mitigated by fan dissatisfaction with the shrewd business of cutting Chris Carter, the home run king of the 2016 National League. Yet herein rests the first contradiction of the 2017 Brewers, namely that a cost-saving move was not a tank move designed to orchestrate a team bad enough to land the top pick of the 2018 draft. Thames cut cost, yes, but aligned the 2017 roster to immediately compete and contend. There must be a supercomputer somewhere in Miller Park that GM David Stearns and company leaned on to analyze their $15 million deal to Thames with this as their forecast.

Yet Thames must be the villain. The positively sculpted first baseman looks like he stepped out of an Austrian body building contest, so much so that one wonders why the MLB does not allow ripped baseball players to don fitness speedos at the plate. Surely Thames is ripped enough to handle such an outfit, and one wonders if he’s the Aroldis Chapman of the Brewers insofar as his workouts are so intense as to force his teammates from the gym at said time. With Thames, greater baseball surely feels that Milwaukee is reinstalling PED use within the Post-Steroids Era landscape, which is terrible for the moralizers until their favorite team has their own alleged user. Could you imagine Cubs fans reacting to a Kris Bryant positive test, or a Jake Arrieta doping clinic scandal? The loudmouthed John “This Late 30s Resurgence Is Totally Natural” Lackey would certainly have nothing to say of his own teammates’ almost certain doping (and when Balco drug dealers insist that half the game is using, one must simply wonder who among each team is indeed using. And who cares?)

Mood: pic.twitter.com/GrxEO1ImjS

— Steve (@BrewersKeepTUTH) June 17, 2017

So Thames became the perfect villain, not simply for his bodybuilding finesse and outlandish WWE-style personna, but also for his legitimate appeal to playing the heel. I happened to be in Milwaukee for one of Matt Pauley’s WTMJ pregame shows around the time of Weathergate at Wrigley Field, and Thames had just appeared with a supposed heel at WWE’s NXT event in the Chicagoland area. Pauley set up the scenario for Thames as heel. Here the villain persona is perfect: Thames, just recently accused of using PEDs by the #1 wife-leaving chicken-eating punk Lackey (who files “knows a villain when he sees one” under “takes one to know one”), is appearing in Chicagoland alongside an entertainment industry heel ready to pump his own sculpted body alongside the wrestler:

Just catching up with NXT and I can only imagine the fantastic chats Kev had with Milwaukee Brewers superstar Eric “The River” Thames. pic.twitter.com/EKjKfh1CeL

— Tom aka The Big Dog™ (@TomBlargh) May 21, 2017

Even more perfect than Thames’s christening as a bona fide villain is his place in the batting order next to baseball’s evil cause celebre, that man who has improved since his involvement and suspensions from the Biogensis scandal, Ryan Braun. Braun is a perfect heel to play alongside Thames, a sort of veteran who understands “evil is just business,” the kind of man who I must imagine asks his partner to play a soundtrack of boos to set the mood when the time is right. Braun gets off on the challenge of perfectly shoving his own perfection in the faces of lustily booing opposing fans, a legacy that is easily three years in the making:

every time road fans boo Ryan Braun it takes me back to the Philly fan yelling “Booooooo! Cheater!” as he homers https://t.co/KqUILBZtK0

— Jack Moore (@jh_moore) April 28, 2016

This is the face of a villain with a .312 career TAv driving 44.4 WARP (photo source). Go ahead and boo away!

So the Brewers are off to quite a great start with playoff persona for 2017. I can imagine the amazement when Milwaukee, a team of absurdly audacious upstarts, makes the playoffs and National TV Broadcasters are welcomed with explaining the phenomenon of lustily booing fans during the Division Series. “This team just came out of nowhere, and yet there seems to be so much disdain for their core stars.” Witness Braun and Thames, the Brewers stars who will play the perfect heels to drive media coverage and fan hatred of these bizarro Brewers.

THEE OBP MAD SCIENTIST: Eric Sogard (15 percent walk rate)
Every heel needs a counterpart. Imagine this counterpart to be the understudy of an Evil Bureaucrat, but the type of counterpart who is so perfectly good at their job as to surpass any moral judgment whatsoever. This is the counterpart that has perfected the insertion of precise scientific knowledge into the organizational structure, so as to return Pareto efficient practices not because it’s the right thing to do but because it’s his certain destiny to allocate resources in the best manner possible. THIS is Eric Sogard, the age-31 middle infielder who paraded into Milwaukee in early May to a chorus of fan resentment only to prove himself the perfect assistant to the EVIL slugging villains; yes, Eric Sogard is the Mad Scientist, specifically the Mad Scientist of On Base Percentage (OBP).

Jeff Curry, USAToday Sports Images, captured our counterpart in his natural environment:

And Noah K. Murray, USAToday Sports Images, managed to find the Mad Scientist in action with one of the Slugging Villains:

The best part about Eric Sogard is that he’s the type of mad scientist who perhaps hides within plain sight. If the thin second baseman was not serving as a wicked double play pairing with Orlando Arcia or setting the table for Eric Thames, it’s difficult to tell whether he’d be more apt to grace the pages of GQ to model workplace ready knowledge chic, or sell you a copy of the newest Algiers or Grizzly Bear record (a good thing!). This is the sign of the mad scientist of the highest order, for his appearances do not betray any type of knowledge above another, and thus he’s perfectly suited to sustain his amazing lead-off skills for the playoff bound Brewers.

SMOOTH OPERATOR: Orlando Arcia (7.3 Fielding Runs Above Average)
I was going to write something here, but I believe recent video simply supports the ideal of Arcia as the Smooth Operator:

Arcia is the Smooth Operator for these Brewers, the joyful, mechanically perfect, gutsy, and perfectly timely shortstop who will perform unbelievable feats with such clarity that you will forget he’s one of the youngest shortstops currently playing in the MLB. The beauty is that the Brewers already have one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball on their roster, and no one knows about it. A recent poll presented by a major media outlet quizzed fans on the best young shortstop in the game, and Arcia was nowhere on the list despite his place atop the MLB in terms of his glove (at a glove-first position no less). So a Brewers playoff run would almost certainly serve as a national awakening for the smooth operator, who would probably welcome the chance to face the brightest lights and return a superstar from a larger market after popping off one of his patented spin-throws.

THE EMERGING SUPERSTAR: Domingo Santana, Travis Shaw, Corey Knebel, Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson
There are a number of Brewers on the roster that are materializing some of their scouting reports that made analysts and fans dream some years ago. These range from the thrilling power of Domingo Santana, who is slowly but surely answering questions about his strike zone contact, to the ace-via-middle-rotation Chase Anderson, who is giving a glimpse of why it is important to stockpile middle rotation depth that might have a certain what if? about it. Jimmy Nelson also falls in this category for the Brewers, as does third baseman Travis Shaw, who is answering questions about his abilities as a platoon third baseman for the Red Sox. Travis Shaw looks like a strong cost-controlled starter for the Brewers, at worst a second-division starter who will serve as contending depth and at best a stunning depth guy who will emerge as a star to lead the club.

Mind you, none of this needs to be sustainable for it to work in 2017, which is a great lesson about rebuilding, win-now, and roster building in general: life is what happens when you’re busy making plans. Which is to say that one can put into place the best baseball process known to humankind and still end up demoting Hall of Famer Kyle Schwarber midseason. Stars are never stars for long for the vast majority of baseball history: enjoy this while it lasts!

Corey Knebel is a bit more interesting in this group, as he perhaps had the most certain scouting profile of the bunch (unless one simply focuses on the middle rotation aspects of Nelson and Anderson). The Texas closer gained a job by happenstance for the Brewers, which is perhaps the birth of the vast majority of MLB closers. Knebel, however, had a high leverage relief pedigree since the scouting reports, and he just happens to be cashing in that ceiling to lead a bullpen for a stunning team of National League upstarts.

Anyway, there are multiple players on this Brewers club who could become team leaders for the next contender, and this group of five should not be viewed as exhaustive. This group will be, however, the most likely to gain notoriety should the Brewers push their contending effort deep into the season, and any playoff effort in 2017 seems impossible without this quintet.

THE WORKING CLASS STAR: Hernan Perez, Keon Broxton, Manny Pina, Jacob Barnes, Jesus Aguilar, Junior Guerra, Zach Davies, Jared Hughes.
I’ve already written about the wonders of “the Chump” recently, so I’ll spare the verbiage on this group of players. But, the overall point is still crucial: these Brewers are succeeding precisely because a gang of second-chancers or organizational depth guys are seizing MLB roles. Zach Davies was scouted as a back rotation guy, and his 2017 campaign is bearing that out moreso than his excellent 2016 effort, but as the righty progresses it appears he has a chance to seriously answer questions about his stamina and ability to become an innings eater. This is the difference between a career at the back of the rotation (complete with Mike Leake or Ian Kennedy money) and a trip to the bullpen. Manny Pina is the Player To Be Named Later who is becoming a team regular, both in terms of his solid catching defense and his bat at a premium position. Serviceable supreme is not bad for a PTBNL. Hernan Perez is probably the best “chump” (a good thing) on the club, a superutility player that has helped the club bridge injuries to Braun (2017) and Santana (2016), cover for Arcia when he’s slumping at the plate, or even start in place of Jonathan Villar, or give rest to a CF or 3B. Don’t forget Jacob Barnes, the mid-draft relief anchor, or Junior Guerra, the most incredible upstart you could ever know.

These players round out a roster that could provide national TV networks a complicated feeling during playoff coverage, should the club continue to contend. The Brewers feature a robust group of players, some already detested by opposing fans and therefore ready to provide amazing primetime spectacle (imagine Braun hitting a crucial playoff homer in the face of opposing fan boos), and some ready to remind the national media that they should never have been forgotten in the first place. Yet, on the other end of the spectrum, these Brewers are the anti-Cubs, proving that it’s perfectly fine if no one knows who you are, that you can win with Manny Pina and Hernan Perez and Junior Guerra and Zach Davies when the league is passing them up. And so the Brewers are primed to make their revenge, with a club that’s almost absurdly well-situated to seize headlines and become a loved-and-hated storyline should they continue to contend. Certainly should they fail to contend deep into September or October, it will not be for lack of character.

As I did last month, I will look at stabilization points based on Russell Carleton’s research from the plate appearances and innings pitched for Brewer hitters and pitchers, respectively. Of course, stats haven’t truly “stabilized” in the way we might usually think of it, but some statistics have begun to trend toward being predictive of rest-of-season performance and true talent level.

With regular position players in the 175-200 plate appearance range and starters with around 50 innings pitched, walk rate for both hitters and pitchers has started to become more predictive, and that might give us some ideas about the rest of the season performance for Milwaukee.

• Eric Thames is (plate discipline) God

Through the end of May, Eric Thames had a 17.1 percent walk rate in his 199 plate appearances. That puts him just behind Mike Trout, and two spots ahead of Joey Votto. Understandably, Brewers fans were all enthralled with Thames’ power output at the beginning of the season, and though injuries possibly took some of the air out of his 74-homer pace, the on-base skills haven’t gone anywhere.

After a 17.5 percent walk rate in April, Thames followed that with a still-outstanding 16.7 percent walk rate throughout the month of May as he struggled with only three home runs and a .221 batting average. Through the first two months of the season, Thames placed fifth in all of baseball with his walk rate.

If you’re a Brewers fan, or maybe just a dork, you might even be more excited by this development than Thames’ Wisconsin state fair-worthy freak show of round-trippers.  The walk rate is truly elite and bodes well for his current value to the team and beyond, regardless of what’s happening with his homer totals or batting average.

• Lefty hitters haven’t been abnormally hard on Brewer pitching

Without a consistent southpaw presence in the bullpen, some have questioned whether the Brewers would be more susceptible to left-hand heavy lineups or in high-leverage situations. So far, though, that hasn’t really been the case.

Against left-handed hitters, Brewer relievers have been pretty much league average through May, placing 20^th in baseball in walk rate against lefties and ninth in strikeout percentage. Somewhat surprisingly, the pen ranks fifth in xFIP against wrong siders. It doesn’t appear to quite be a small sample size issue leading to more variance for the Brewers, either, as the opposing teams have at least attempted to take advantage of the platoon, um, advantage. The Brewers bullpen has faced the second-most lefty batters, trailing only the also righty-heavy Marlins.

The team’s passable performance against lefties in due in large part to the dominance of Corey Knebel and Jacob Barnes, who have been fantastic compared to the rest of the pen. But for the much-discussed and anticipated moves that David Stearns and the front office may or may not make for a playoff push, a LOOGY isn’t the requirement that perhaps many of us thought it might be.

• The starters have limited walks

Through May, the Brewer starters were solidly in the bottom third in the majors in walk rate. Matt Garza, in particular, has been impressive in limiting walks so far, with a 5 percent walk rate over 40 innings pitched. In keeping with the spirit of this series, it’s prudent to note that he still falls below the 50 innings pitched where walks typically become more predictive. However, for a pitcher whose career walk rate is closer to 8 percent, this is a development worth monitoring as the season moves forward.

The starters ranked 19^th in baseball in strikeout rate through May, so there is some room for the pitching staff to grow there, but limiting the free passes have certainly kept the rotation competitive.

So, although it’s still early and there’s plenty of baseball left to be played, the Brewers have shown promise in some of the statistics that back up their performance so far as first-place club. Brewer fans are hoping they can end June the same way as more rates stabilize as predictors of future performance.

You see, a chump is a guy, certainly not a superstar, definitely not a long-term average player, maybe a one-time average player, but not really a replacement player in the forgettable sense, perhaps a good replacement player in the memorable sense, a guy sitting on the heap that just needs his chance; there is something memorable, poetic, and ultimately audacious about a chump. (Okay, after checking back, Craig Counsell was a 17.3 WARP player, definitely not a chump. Perhaps #1 in the Chump Hall of Fame?). A chump has no right! to do that, and there he went, making memorable baseball plays, contributing to a winner, or just generally going about the diamond with a spark that even some superstars cannot match. You see, a chump is playing for his chance, his job, his livelihood, and when he gets that chance and succeeds, it’s the best thing in baseball. Better than superstars. Better than hype prospects. A chump might have been a Player-To-Be-Named-Later (PTBNL) in not one but two trades during their respective career; a chump might have been passed up during a couple of waiver windows, only to return with a vengeance at a later date; a chump might have made their MLB debut at age-31 after having traveled across the globe in the singular quest to throw the best splitter in baseball for a time.

So Craig Counsell played 334 PA for the 2007 Brewers with a .222 Total Average (TAv) and 4.9 Fielding Runs Above Average, good for a sparkling 0.2 WARP during that campaign. Now, Counsell has inherited a team that’s even better than those McClungs and Rottinos, for this leader has his Hernans, Keons, Jetts, and Jacobs, among other notable guys. That does not even scratch the surface of other lovable replacement players, like Chase Anderson (who just keeps riding the negative WARP and is therefore not a chump) and Jimmy Nelson (who may be a chump for learning the split change), or system guys like Brent Suter. That does not even include the prospects learning their way, like Zach Davies and Orlando Arcia, both forging roles as serviceable MLB regulars. Like 2007, Ryan Braun is also around, and he’s still fantastic. Some things never change.

These Brewers are just an absurd gang of ragtaggers who just won’t quit. You like situational baseball? These Brewers advance runners at a solid rate, have one of the best productive out percentages in the 2017 NL, and also have one of the highest totals of pinch hits. Oh yeah they also strike out like it’s going out of style, draw some walks, and hit the ball over the fence. Their bullpen is driving the bulk of their pitching staff success despite the loud (and expensive) shortcomings of their closer. Like 2007, we’re playing 4.70+ R/G baseball again, but unlike 2007 these Brewers are not outplaying their run differential. Perhaps one could see the collapse of the 2007 Brewers coming as their early record outpaced their runs scored and runs allowed, but there’s no such luck for this 2017 crew….Pythagoras says they are a 25-18 club, a true top five team on the Senior Circuit.

How, you ask? How did the Brewers assemble this club?

First, they made a whole bunch of transactions that did not make sense on paper throughout the offseason. That’s right, by nearly any metric one could design, the Martin Maldonado trade did not look good. The Neftali Feliz signing was questionable even for a club that needed to spend money. Almost anyone could have picked apart their starting rotation, and hey the starting rotation is weak!, but here we are watching an above-average pitching staff thanks to a strong bullpen and Miller Park’s hitting paradise. I panned their offseason every chance I could because none of this made sense, and I couldn’t be happier to be wrong and enjoying this club…even though their moves did not look great on paper! Cognitive dissonance is the next market inefficiency.

Second, and I’ve selected a group of ten chumps to demonstrate this below, ten chumps worth approximately 6.3 of the Brewers’ 8.4 WARP entering Friday’s game, the Brewers are giving playing time to a group of extremely advanced minor league players that previously had relatively limited (or no) MLB pedigree. These are players that are almost all below 2.0 career WARP, and Eric Thames is the only one threatening 3.0 WARP thus far, and have lists of shortcomings and career detours that could fill the pages of articles galore (some have appeared on this very site!). Perhaps the most important aspect of the Brewers rebuild thus far is not the (boring) assemblage of prospects, but the continual answer to that question, “What if we let this guy play?” Incidentally, several of these players are appearing in peak-range seasons, which suggests that even if these players do not have long-term futures in Milwaukee, this might be the ideal spot on the normal curve where their skills overtake their weaknesses. These players have been adjusting and refining their respective games for years, and now have a chance to showcase their skills in regular MLB time. This is decidedly not the ideal “Next Championship Contending Core” idolized by the win-never cohort of Brewers rebuilding fans, but they are ironically the Next Contending Core if one follows the Runs Scored / Runs Allowed and strengths of this current cast.

An ode to chumps, ranked by Fantastic Chump Factor (FCF), a perfect companion to the 2017 Brewers Top 10 prospect list. The greatest FCF meets three Chump Factors:

An ode to chumps in 2017 is providing sensible win-now moves, at the right price, given the fact that this may be the best convergence of seasons for this uncanny group of grinders. This is the 2002 Angels for the Ivy League Analytics era, a perfect storm of nobodies ready to mash and dash any chance they get, a perfect collection of guys simultaneously having their best seasons. On a 162-game scale, the Brewers offense is on pace to score 95 runs more than an average NL/Miller Park club, and the pitching has swollen to a pace that would be 60 runs better than average (note: the current average run environment is scaled to a 79-win club in 2017 NL/Miller Park). Even if you are inclined to not believe in that park-inflated figure, the bats appear strong enough to turn an average team into a 90-win threshold club. This is all before any of the club’s next-wave prospects reach the MLB. It is impossible to ignore this start, even if it’s “not real,” even if it’s “not a part of the plan,” especially given the Brewers’ obscene stash of cash and prospects ready to maximize MLB wins.

I have previously written that the biggest mistake in the self-perpetuating myth of the rebuild is assuming that time is linear. Rebuilding time is not linear, and this 2017 club is delivering an entertaining exclamation point to that argument: this club could indeed have a chance to win more MLB games than the 2018, 2019, or 2020 Brewers, for this set of contingencies are perhaps more favorable and most pressure free. This instantiation of the Milwaukee Nine are your perfect club precisely through their imperfections, their agglomeration of “this shouldn’t be happening” at every molecular level. In economic development, a common teaching is that governments can’t pick winners, they can at best provide favorable circumstances to produce economic success. So too with MLB front offices: this is the winner that the Brewers are presented with, so now it is time to maximize the odds of winning. The beauty of the 2015-2016 rebuilding campaign is that the right moves during the 2017 season could further bolster this club’s competitive stature for the coming years; if time is not linear, the right moves could bend the probabilities slightly closer to Milwaukee’s favor.

Let’s start with the disappointment that was Friday night’s game, when the Brewers managed to blow two different four run leads. After the Braves tied the game again in the eighth inning, Neftali Feliz came into the pitch the ninth. He promptly gave up a double and a home run, and the Braves won 10-8. There’s no sugar coating those two at bats; both hits were off belt high pitches over the plate.

While Feliz’s blown save was certainly disappointing, Jacob Barnes’s implosion was surprising. Barnes had yet to allow a run all season, then he allowed three. His 1/3 of an inning appearance was his shortest of the season, yet he threw twenty five pitches, his most in a game in 2017. But when looking at the pitches ending each at bat, it seems he was more unlucky than shelled.

The yellow dot in the middle, which looks like the juiciest pitch, was only turned into a single. The worst pitch of the five, that orange dot, sustained the most damage. It was a high and outside fastball, which Ender Inciarte reached for and lofted into left center field.

It’s disappointing when the stuff doesn’t line up with the results, but sometimes teams have nights where the bounces don’t fall. Notwithstanding some high profile pratfalls, including five blown saves so far, the Brewers bullpen has been middle of the pack: their 3.97 DRA places them 15^th in MLB and 6^th in the National League. Even after Friday, Barnes still leads the team with a 0.99 DRA, and is eighth in MLB among all pitchers with at least ten innings pitched. Of course, that stellar work is offset by Carlos Torres, who is tied for the team lead in appearances and has the worst reliever DRA at 4.84. Torres is also the only reliever seeing regular time with a DRA below the team’s average.

Milwaukee hit five home runs over the weekend, and leads MLB with forty three, seven more dingers than the Yankees, Nationals and Rockies, who are all tied for second place. On Sunday, Domingo Santana contributed two of those homers. Santana came into Sunday’s game on a disappointing start to the season as he’s below his 10^th  Percentile PECOTA forecast with a .237 TAv and negative WARP.

Part of his slow month can be attributed to his .196 BABip, which is unsustainably low. He’s currently has the 16^th worst BABIP out of all hitters with at least 50 plate appearances, and it would have been the 3^rd worst in 2016 amongst all players with at least 100 plate appearances, and most of the guys in that neighborhood at the end of the year are your slow catcher and first baseman types. It’ll get better, so long as he can stop those infield pop ups. Other reasons for optimism include his plate discipline stats. Though April was frustrating, Santana has cut his strikeout rate below 25 percent while increasing his walk rate to 13.6 percent. Ending the month with three home runs over the weekend (including his pinch hit homer on Friday) may prove to be a launching pad for his skills to turn into results.

Looking Ahead: The Brewers face a week where they’ll be away from home and playing divisional games all week. They roll into St. Louis for four games, then are off to Pittsburgh for a weekend series. The Cardinals and Brewers are currently tied for 2^nd place in the division, with the Pirates on their heels one game back, so the Brewers can stay in the mix with a good week.

1.491
Holy Eric Thames. The ex-KBO slugger has not lost a single step in his transition back to the big leagues. The number above is his OPS through 53 plate appearances. He leads the league in WARP and fWAR for position players. He leads the league in home runs. He has been everything the Brewers have hoped him to be and more. Oh, and he’s only making four million dollars this year.

Now, there is no way Thames will keep up this pace. It is likely more realistic to expect him to halve his OPS than keep it over 1.000. But it’s encouraging nonetheless. If he were to suffer a season ending injury tomorrow he would have already deemed his four million dollar contract a bargain due to his 1.4 WARP. The Brewers will gladly take that.

26.9 Percent
The Brewers struck out more than any team in baseball history in 2016. Their 26.9 percent strikeout rate through 15 games would shatter the previous record of 25.5 percent, which was a tie between the 2013 Astros and last season’s Brewers. Yet, the Brewers are not even the league leader. That dubious title would go to the Tampa Bay Rays, who are sporting a 28.6 percent strikeout rate. The game is changing and strikeouts are becoming more accepted in exchange for more power, but it has to be a cause for some concern that the team is striking out so much. If and when the Brewers go through a dry spell in terms of scoring runs, look for the high strikeout rate to be the main culprit.

1.88
The number above was the combined ERA between Neftali Feliz, Jacob Barnes, Corey Knebel, Carlos Torres, Jared Hughes, and Jhan Marinez in 43 2/3 innings from the group (entering play Wednesday). This is an incredibly encouraging sign for a bullpen that was expected to be a weakness for the team according to PECOTA and many experts. If this group can keep up a similar pace, these relief arms make for easy trade deadline chips. Then again, if they continue as one of the most success full bullpens in baseball, it hard to believe the Brewers will be too far away from competing for a wild card spot.

9.74
Zach Davies’s DRA through three starts is 9.74. Once again, only three starts, but it isn’t what anyone would want from Davies, who was heralded as the next Kyle Hendricks all off-season. His FIP is 4.84, which is less than a run worse than his career average. One could jump to the conclusion that this bad stretch is entirely BABIP and strength of competition driven (Rockies and Cubs at home, and the up-start Reds on the road), but there are a few troubling trends in Davies’ line. First, he has walked five batters per nine innings. Davies’s groundball rate has fallen to 42 percent, continuing a career long trend of a transformation into a fly-ball pitcher, and his strikeout rate fallen back under 7 percent as it was in 2015. These three starts against stiff competition aren’t any reason to lose faith in Davies, fantasy players might look to buy stock in him at his low point. He is someone to keep an eye on in the Brewers rotation.

25
The Brewers hit 25 home runs as a team through their first 15 games, and they added two more on Wednesday thanks to Jett Bandy and Travis Shaw. Most of the thanks goes to Eric Thames and Ryan Braun, who have combined for 12 home runs, but ten different Brewers have already homered just 15 games into the season. Only seven teams have hit more than 40 home runs in the month of April, all of them coming since 2002. The Brewers are well on their way to approaching that 40 home run mark for the month. It’s pretty amazing the power this team is flashing even after trading Khris Davis and then getting rid of Chris Carter last offseason. It makes you wonder what kind of damage the Brewers could do with a DH spot.