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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus Aguilar went 0-6 with three walks in the weekend series against Colorado. That slide continues his post All-Star Game slump in which he has seven hits in fifty at bats,including ten walks and four extra base hits in that span, with thirteen strikeouts. I took a look at Aguilar’s hot start late in April and noted that he’d improved his contact rate to 78.7 percent and lowered his swinging strike rate down to 21.3 percent, another career best. As the season has progressed, those numbers have fallen more in line with his career numbers, as his contact rate is now 70.1 percent (career 69.9 percent) and swinging strike rate has risen to 29.3 percent (career rate of 31.2 percent).

It looks like pitchers have made an adjustment in their approach to Aguilar. Before the All-Star break, pitchers looked to keep the ball in the lower portion of the strike zone, but the only area they attacked with a particular emphasis was the low and away pitch. Since July 20 there has been a clear game plan against Aguilar, and it’s a steady diet of pitches at or below the bottom of the strike zone. His swing rate on pitches in the bottom two levels of his zone profile haven’t changed much. He swung at 40.3 percent of those pitches before the All-Star break and that rate has risen to 40.8 percent since then.

Here are Aguilar’s swing and miss numbers on those particular pitches:

We’re looking at a small sample size here (757 pitches pre-July 20 and only 142 pitches since), but there has been more swinging and missing in this area as pitchers have increasingly attacked this portion of the zone. In the first few months of the season, Aguilar did turn on some of these lower pitches which were on the inside half of the plate, but he’s done nothing on these pitches recently.

Even with this recent turn of fortunes, Aguilar still has a career high .325 True Average (TAv) and this slump consists of two weeks of games. It does seem like Aguilar could tighten up his approach and start laying off more of those low pitches, in particular the ones out of the strike zone. His numbers on those pitches weren’t pretty before the All-Star break, but that’s a matter of pitch recognition. It’d take another few weeks of struggles before fans should be worrying about Aguilar.

Mike Moustakas started Sunday’s 9^th inning rally with a home run off Adam Ottavino. It was his first home run since joining the team and 21^st of the season. Moustakas hit the homer off Ottavino’s slider. When Ottavino throws the slider, he’s looking to get it inside and low on a left handed hitter like Moustakas, which is an area where Moustakas struggles to drive the ball. However, this particular slider didn’t have enough break, and Moustakas drilled the pitch.

Moustakas was acquired to lengthen the lineup as his .271 TAv while in Kansas City this season would rank 7^th among Brewers position players on the roster. He’s not your stereotypical 2018 hitter: he’s consistently walked and struck out below the MLB average while making contact more than your average batsman. Looking at his Statcast numbers, Moustakas is hitting the ball on the barrel at a career high rate this season and his expected batting average (.282) and slugging percentage (.514) are well ahead of his actual numbers (.248 and .455), which indicates that Moustakas may produce more over the second half of the season if his underlying performance stays the same.

The most obvious areas where he’s struggled relative to his career numbers in 2018 are against changeups. He’s swinging and missing at those pitches more frequently than in past seasons.

Based on the larger sample of his pre-2018 matchups, this is another potential path to improved numbers for Moustakas.

With the deadline acquisitions, Craig Counsell has a plethora of options at his disposal when making out the lineup card. Moustakas has been a regular starter since he arrived in Milwaukee, and the team likely believes he can get himself back to last year’s power numbers. If he continues to struggle, then there is enough versatility on the roster to limit Moustakas’ starts and plate appearances to situations where he’s likely to succeed, which profiles as a fastball heavy right-handed pitcher.

Today is the Brewers’ first day off since the All-Star break ended. On Tuesday, they’ll begin a three game series with San Diego and then the team spends the weekend playing the Braves in Georgia. The Padres have the worst record in the National League and were 28^th in the last Prospectus Hit List. They’ve produced the lowest team TAv and are tied for 20^th in team DRA, yet they’ve actually outplayed their Pythagorean over/under by 2.7 games, which is 6^th in MLB. The Brewers took three of four games from Atlanta in early July, which was right before the team wide losing skid started. The Braves are a top five team in both TAv and DRA. Only Houston and Cleveland are also top five teams in both categories.

Jesus Aguilar signed his first professional contract with the Cleveland organization on November 13th, 2007 as a 17 year old kid out of Venezuela. He had some early success in the low minors and posted an On-Base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage (OPS) over 1.000 in 16 games in the Arizona Fall League in 2011, but was never really considered very highly as a prospect. He topped out as the Indians’ ninth-best prospect following the 2012 season according to Baseball America, and didn’t garner his first mention in the Baseball Prospectus Annual until 2013: “Jesus Aguilar made it through the Rule 5 draft, giving the Indians more time to see if this 23-year-old’s power is going to develop enough to fulfill the needs of first base.”

For three seasons from 2014-2016, Aguilar was an everyday player at the highest level of the minors and in each of those three seasons, he earned brief cups of coffee up in Cleveland. He mashed 68 homers and posted an .818 OPS against his competition in the International League but was generally overwhelmed by major league pitching, collecting only 10 hits (nine singles and a double) in 64 plate appearances spread across the three seasons. “Aguilar has the pop, but it’s all drawn from his natural strength; his bat looks slow and his hit tool is severely lacking,” was what BP published in their 2015 Annual, closing with “You’ve heard the Triple-A First Baseman’s Lament before: Aguilar’s bat will have to carry him, but it doesn’t look like he has enough in his skill set to turn his physical strength into baseball power.” The comments got harsher at Aguilar got older.

In 2016, it was “Hmmmm, how to remember generic dude Jesus Aguilar? Think of your typical Quad-A first baseman, remove any pedigree or top-tier power, and calibrate your expectations based on how many universities rejected you.” That was after hitting .267/.332/.439 with 19 long balls in 131 games. In 2017, prior to Aguilar’s first season with Milwaukee, BP wrote, “‘I’m 27 years old, I’ve no money and no prospects, I’m already a burden.’ That’s Charlotte in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but maybe also Jesus Aguilar, if you swap “money” for “money tool.” Being a Quad-A first baseman nearing your 27th birthday isn’t really so different from being an unmarried woman of the same age in nineteenth-century England.”

A funny thing happened, however. After Cleveland signed Edwin Encarnacion to a three-year pact, Aguilar requested and was granted a way out of the organization that had never offered him a fair shot at the big leagues. He was placed on waivers in February just before the start of Spring Training and piqued the interest of Milwaukee’s front office. The Brewers didn’t have a clear role for Aguilar after signing Eric Thames to play first base, but according to David Stearns and company you just don’t see bats like Aguilar’s available on the waiver wire very often, so they made and were awarded a claim to his contractual rights.

Aguilar didn’t play everyday in 2017, but he performed well and often enough to finally prove he was an MLB-caliber hitter. He was the team’s top pinch-hitter and platooned with Thames at first on his way to a .265/.331/.505 batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage slash and 16 homers in 311 plate appearances, good for a nifty little .284 True Average (TAv). That wasn’t enough to cement his roster spot for 2018, though, once the team added Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain with the idea of shifting Ryan Braun to first base on a part-time basis. But Aguilar didn’t let any of that get into his head, worrying only about what he could control: his production.

Some roster finagling allowed Milwaukee to enter the 2018 regular season with Aguilar still in the fold, but he spent the first several weeks on the bench with his spot looking like it was in jeopardy due simply to a numbers game. The front office found every excuse they could to delay having to make a definitive decision on Aguilar’s future, and as they often do in baseball, things worked themselves out. Thames missed an extended period of time after requiring surgery for a torn ligament in his thumb suffered in late April, opening up a window for Aguilar to get a shot as the regular first baseman.

The rest, as they say, is history. As I dove into for Brew Crew Ball a couple weeks ago, Aguilar has improved his approach against fastballs and enhanced his bat-to-ball skills within the strike zone, helping lead to an outstanding .307/.375/.644 slash through 296 plate appearances on the season. Among qualified hitters, only Mookie Betts (.374) and Mike Trout (.383) have a higher True Average than Aguilar’s .359. No National League players hit more balls over the fence than Aguilar’s 24, and his 1.019 OPS and 166 Adjusted OPS+ are both tops in the NL. Aguilar has been no slouch with the glove, either, having accrued +2.9 FRAA to help give him 3.6 WARP on the season. That makes him the 13th-most valuable position player in baseball this year and the #2 first baseman, behind only Freddy Freeman.

More than halfway through the 2018 regular season, Jesus Aguilar is comfortably exceeding his preseason 90th percentile PECOTA projections (.300 TAv, 14 HR in 287 PA). He’s got a stronghold on the everyday first baseman job for the Milwaukee Brewers and on Wednesday, it was announced that he was the winner of the Final Vote to join the National League roster for this year’s All-Star game. He’ll also be a Home Run Derby participant at the midsummer classic. After years of being looked down upon as a quad-A player, perhaps a different quote from Jane Austen now better applies to the career of Jesus Aguilar:

“It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.”

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USA Today Sports Images

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 power should come as no surprise to Brewers fans, who watched Aguilar turn into their most reliable power bat off the bench in 2017. He needed just 311 plate appearances to blast 32 extra-base hits, including 16 home runs, and his .240 ISO put him right in line with such sluggers as Kris Bryant (.242), George Springer (.239) and teammate Travis Shaw (.240). Unfortunately, all that power came with a Ryan Howard-esque 30.2 percent strikeout rate, which limited Aguilar to a .265/.331/.505 batting line despite his 30 home run pace when prorated to 600 plate appearances.

Aguilar’s power production this year is right in line with what he did last season, as he owns a .252 ISO and is on roughly a 33-homer pace per 600 plate appearances. The difference has been Aguilar’s ability to make contact. He has gone from one of the worst contact hitters in the league to owning a strikeout rate within decimal points of the league average. Aguilar owns a .367 BABIP that will almost certainly come back to earth, but good things will come to anybody who can make league average contact with the obvious raw power Aguilar has shown since coming to Milwaukee.

There’s often a perception with strikeout-happy sluggers like Aguilar that the issue is all about discipline. If only they would stop swinging for the fences every time and waving at pitches out of the zone, the conventional wisdom goes, these hitters could ascend and become universe brain hitting scientists on the level of Ted Williams. This, I think, is too reductive of an analysis of what makes hitters good at their jobs. In some cases, it’s not about the quantity of swings, but the quality of swings.

Aguilar certainly seems to be one of those cases. His swing rates, both in-zone and out-of-zone, have had negligible changes from 2017 to 2018; it seems counter-intuitive that in 2018, Aguilar’s out-of-zone swing rate has actually increased. Observe, Aguilar’s swing rates over the past two seasons, per Brooks Baseball, first viewing Aguilar’s whiffs per swing, and then Aguilar’s swing percentage:

One reason this is working for Aguilar is most of these extra out-of-zone swings are coming just off the outside corner. This is somewhere pitchers love to attack, but also somewhere that the hulking Aguilar can reach with power. But by far the most important difference for Aguilar in 2018 is the quality of his in-zone swings. According to FanGraphs’s plate discipline data, Aguilar’s contact rate has improved from 69.1 percent to 76.9 percent. His out-of-zone contact rate has jumped from 52.8 percent to 57.6 percent, but the real difference is the quality of his in-zone swings, on which his contact rate has skyrocketed from 79.3 percent to 89.4 percent. The whiff-per-swing visualizations from Brooks Baseball show this improvement vividly:

Even when Thames returns, and even if Braun manages to get consistently healthy as the season improves, Aguilar is looking like a key cog in Milwaukee’s lineup. His raw power is enough to earn him a roster spot as a useful pinch hitter, but with the contact ability he has shown so far, he deserves regular, if not everyday, at-bats for the Brewers. If he can keep this up and the Brewers are able to combine him with Thames, Travis Shaw, Christian Yelich and Lorenzo Cain in the same lineup, opposing pitchers should be very, very afraid.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey Becker, USA Today Sports Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo Credit: Denny Medley, USA Today Sports Images

What follows is a pitch-by-pitch appreciation of Aguilar’s big battle.

Pitch One
Tazawa leans heavily on his fourseam fastball, relying on the pitch for a little over half of his total offerings. He’ll mix in a splitter and a curveball in fairly equal measure after that, with an odd slider thrown in to keep hitters guessing.

So it’s reasonable that Aguilar may have figured, in the back of his mind, that a curveball might be coming. But little could have prepared him for this one.

That 71-mph curveball just caught enough of the zone to go for a called first strike. Tazawa was lucky, in a way, since it was a close pitch, and he missed his mark.

Pitch Two
The fourseamer is going to come, it’s what Tazawa is known for. But not quite yet.

Aguilar is caught a tiny bit off-balance by this 85-mph splitter, and dives down to no avail for a swinging second strike. Like many hero’s journeys, this one has something of an inauspicious beginning.

Pitch Three
Aguilar has shown himself to be a fairly patient hitter, albeit one prone to the strikeout. Last season, his walk percentage was a pleasing 8.0. Still, one can’t fault Tazawa for going low and away with another splitter.

Aguilar knew not to bite. One ball, two strikes.

Pitch Four
Finally a four-seam fastball, and, at 92 mph, one that must have looked pretty tasty to Aguilar. It rides inside, but he managed a lofty .462 average on pitches in a similar location last season. Low and away is where you go if you want to strike Aguilar out. Speaking of…

Pitch Five
This is easily my favorite pitch of the sequence. This is Tazawa’s slider, at 77 mph. It’s a beautiful two-strike pitch, and it did its job well: Aguilar was utterly flummoxed by this one. But he dives out, flicks his bat as far as it can go, and just manages to brush against the seam of the ball. Here’s a close look:

Beautiful desperation-hitting.

Pitch Six
A splitter again, and another great pitch for the situation. Less of a swing-and-miss offering, perhaps, but certainly a strong candidate for weak contact, which Aguilar made. Only he managed to poke it foul and keep himself alive.

This is about the point at which we start to enter a classic cat-and-mouse game, with neither player quite knowing which role they’re enacting just yet.

Pitch Seven
An attempt at an easy strikeout. The catcher sets up low and away, and asks for a fastball, hoping that the offspeed stuff will have sufficiently disrupted Aguilar’s timing.

But Tazawa misses his mark by a crucial few inches; it’s wide enough that Aguilar isn’t tempted to chase. He’s drawn even, at two balls and two strikes.

Pitch Eight
The Marlins are back to objective one at this point: Strike this dude out. They go for another splitter, something that wiggles a little bit.

But the pitch rides out over the middle of the plate, away from the catcher’s target. It’s just close enough for Aguilar to smack another foul ball into the dirt.

Pitch Nine
It’s time now, perhaps, to try something different. How about a 93-mph rocket in on Aguilar’s hands, just out of his hitting zone. He may go for that, right?

Nope. Again, Tazawa misses the mark. A few inches towards the plate and he may have coaxed a swing. The count is now 3-2.

Pitch Ten
Coming in, this probably looked like a juicy fastball over the plate. But it dives (another splitter), and Aguilar is just able to get some barrel on it and send it skipping back towards the net.

The at-bat at this point is already a success for the Brewers. Tazawa has shown everything he’s got, and the next batters now have some idea of what to expect, even if Aguilar makes an out. Aguilar, though, knows that those next hitters are Jett Bandy and Hernan Perez. So he’s not ready to give up just yet.

Pitch Eleven
Oof.

A splitter floating over the middle of the plate at 87 mph. Just missed this one. Tazawa, perhaps, didn’t like how close this was; he’d switch to four seamers the rest of the way.

Pitch Twelve
Marlins: “Hey, that was a weird, defensive swing on a low fastball (92 mph). Maybe we could just try it again…”

Pitch Thirteen
Marlins: “Crap.”

This fastball stayed up, and caught enough of the plate that Aguilar knew he could punish it. Tazawa knows it was hit well, but he turns around with an expression that starts out looking like hope, but dissolves pretty quickly into disbelief.

It was an incredible battle by both players, and one that must have been heartbreaking for Tazawa to lose.

For Aguilar, the prevailing emotion was a bit different. That’s a hero’s trot to home. It’s made all the sweeter by the fact that Aguilar is a bench player (and one who whiffs a lot and is on the short end of any would-be platoon, to boot). He racked up 1.4 WARP in limited action last year, but it wasn’t entirely clear if that was a breakout or a bubble.

Heading into the season, Aguilar’s very presence on the roster was called into question, as Eric Thames and his left-handed bat are made for Milwaukee, and Ryan Braun was finally set to transition towards first. But it was Aguilar who delivered another momentum-building win on Saturday night, and Aguilar who fought off the kitchen sink like a superstar. The baseball season is full of little moments like this: unlikely heroes and rare events. Aguilar is one of the least likely, and this moment is one of the rarest and most satisfying. It’ll stick with me for a long time, and it’ll stick with you, too, I hope.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

On Saturday, Jesus Aguilar put together one of the most memorable at-bats in recent Brewers history. Leading off the top of the 9^th inning a tie game against Junichi Tazawa, Aguilar had a thirteen pitch at-bat, which ended with a walk off home run.

Aguilar fell into an 0-2 count, but he managed to fight back and get himself into a situation where he got a great pitch to hit. Tazawa is a three pitch pitcher, using his four seam fastball a little more than 50 percent of the time and using a curveball and splitter to put batters off balance. However, there are patterns to his pitch selection. If Tazawa is going to throw a curveball, it’s likely to be the first pitch of the at-bat, which he did here. Afterwards, the threat of the curve diminishes. Tazawa did not return to the curveball in this at-bat, even though he placed it for a strike to start Aguilar off. The next twelve pitches of the at bat were fastballs and splitters, with one throwaway slider thrown for good measure.

While he hasn’t had as many starts as his performance would warrant, Aguilar’s plate discipline stats have moved in a positive direction this year. He’s making contact on 78.69 percent of his swings, which would be a career high and more than a 10 percentage point jump from 2017. In addition, his swinging strike rate has plunged to 21.31 percent from 33.06 percent in 2017. Those traits were on full display during this at-bat. After he looked at that first pitch strike, Aguilar had to swing nine times to keep himself alive, and he only whiffed once, on the second pitch to go down 0-2. Aguilar swung at a few pitches outside the zone, in particular that fifth pitch slider which he probably wasn’t expecting to see, but he fouled off so many pitches that he forced Tazawa back into the zone.

After ten pitches, Tazawa went to his fastball and decided to sink or swing with his best pitch. He threw two fastballs belt high, over the middle of the plate. Aguilar fouled the first one off. When he saw that pitch again, well. Aguilar knows how to handle a fastball in that location.

Before only registering a pinch-hit appearance on Sunday, Eric Thames had one hit in every game of the winning streak. Thames will never be a high average hitter, but he’s currently running a .344 TAv, and smashing the ball when he makes contact as evidenced by his 4^th place ranking in MLB in Barrels per plate appearance, as per Statcast.  This season Thames has increased his swing rate from last year, while staying below his rate in his previous unsuccessful MLB stint. He’s also decreased his whiff rate on breaking and offspeed pitches, which is important because pitchers have finally corrected themselves and started throwing those pitches more often.

However, right now Thames is hitting everything in the strike zone and isn’t showing any obvious weakness on pitches he can’t handle outside of curveballs. Last year, there was a clear plan of attack to throw away from Thames because he would chase. So far in 2018, Thames hasn’t shown an obvious hole on outside pitches, though he is whiffing more on pitches high in the zone. That’s an area where he wants the ball though, because it goes far when he connects there. This slightly more disciplined version of Thames is a better hitter than last year, even if he isn’t quite at his April 2017 destroyer of worlds apex.

The Brewers hit the road again this week. Their first stop will be Kansas City for a two-game series with the Royals. It’ll be the team’s first visit to Kauffman Stadium since 2015. The Royals just split a four-game series with the Tigers and currently have the third worst run differential in the American League. Afterwards, the Brewers will travel north to face the third place Cubs in Chicago.