And even when he did see the field, Nieuwenhuis was cataclysmically bad. He struck out in fully half of his plate appearances, and by FRAA he was already over half a run worse than average. Furthermore, Nieuwenhuis’s slash line of .080/.233/.240 suggests that Brent Suter might even be an improvement in Nieuwenhuis’s pinch-hitting role.

If Nieuwenhuis gets another shot at big-league action with Milwaukee, it will likely be due to injuries. If not, his 2017 will go down as a very humdrum year, statistically. His outcome stats tell the story of a player who didn’t get much of a chance, but did absolutely nothing to warrant further opportunities.

But thanks to Statcast data, we can dig deeper. In reality, Nieuwenhuis’s year wasn’t humdrum at all. Had the Baseball Gods perhaps smiled upon him, even a little bit, Nieuwenhuis might have been a legendary tale, rather than a cautionary one.

Ever since his 2010 breakout in AA as a Mets farmhand, Kirk Nieuwenhuis’s calling card has been his ability to hit for power. Since 2015, we’ve come to understand the concept of power hitting on a much deeper level, thanks to all of the new data that has come with Statcast.

Isolated power is useful, but it’s still an outcome-based stat, and thus subject to the variable luck that comes with batted balls in the field of play. Exit velocity, hard-hit rate, average batted-ball distance all identify the elite power hitters without punishing those whose flyballs fate has deigned to keep in the park at a frustrating rate.

Since MLB started tracking batted ball speed in 2015, Nieuwenhuis has consistently hit above average (87.60 being the MLB average for the 2017 season) in that department:

Before you inquire about that crater in October of 2016, the sample size for that month was one. And September of 2015 had just four points to work with. Other than those small-sample anomalies, Nieuwenhuis has consistently been a better-than-average power hitter for several years now, albeit, one with a highly problematic K-rate that has just as consistently flirted with the 35 percent mark.

In 2017, Nieuwenhuis took his whiff-heavy, hard-hitting profile to the absolute extreme. If he’d accumulated enough batted-ball events to qualify for the leaderboard, his 95.89mph average exit velocity this season would be fourth in all of baseball, trailing only Miguel Sano, Joey Gallo, and Khris Davis. His average batted ball distance of 260.95 feet would pace all of Major League Baseball. Looking at the Statcast data, Nieuwenhuis looks like a superior version of Ryan Braun at the plate:

It is still April, and Nieuwenhuis has hit in Milwaukee, Toronto, Cincinatti, and Chicago. That’s a lot of cold, damp air, and cold, damp air keeps long fly balls in the park. Had Nieuwenhuis gone on the same tear on a June or July road trip through southern stadiums, it’s not far-fetched to imagine the outcome looking far different. Those balls would be leaving the yard, and Nieuwenhuis would be the biggest story in baseball.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, Nieuwenhuis is ticketed for Colorado Springs. While there, if he wants to earn another crack at the big leagues, he’s got some work to do.

The 2015 BP Annual summed up Nieuwenhuis’ approach as “attack any fastball in the zone, take all breaking pitches, and occasionally look stupid on changeups he thought were fastballs.” This year, Nieuwenhuis made one big tweak: he changed “any fastball in the zone” to “any fastball over the plate, regardless of height. In fact, the most common way for pitchers to attack Nieuwenhuis is to put the ball on the outside corner, just below his knees. That’s among the least-hittable pitches for a hitter to see, but, inexplicably, Nieuwenhuis chases it nearly half the time. The letter-high fastball over the plate is another unhealthy offering that he just can’t seem to help but gorge himself on, too:

The result has been a jaw-dropping, eye-popping strikeout rate of 50 percent. That’s not a “check engine” light; that’s smoke billowing into the cockpit. The number of pitches Nieuwenhuis is seeing in his danger zone indicates that the rest of the league is well aware of his engine failure. But he’s shown the skill to be a better-than-replacement-level contributor before. Perhaps some time in the minors will be the best thing for him in the long run.

At any rate, playing at Colorado Springs should be a great thing for Nieuwenhuis in the short run. His rocket-launching, all-or-nothing bat is going to be a natural fit in the rarefied air of the Rockies. If he just keeps pounding the baseball with as much authority as we’ve seen so far, he’ll be turning heads with his numbers soon enough, even if he doesn’t make any adjustments.

But if Kirk Nieuwenhuis has grander plans for his life than being a really really good AAA outfielder, this assignment is not a chance to showboat. It is an opportunity to fix a critical flaw in his game, to prove that he’s capable of making the adjustments that fringe major leaguers must regularly make to keep themselves employable.

But whichever path he ends up taking from here on out, it’s still fun to fantasize about the Kirk Nieuwenhuis: Breakout Home Run Monster story that we just missed out on this April. And it’s even more fun to fantasize about him fixing his zone-recognition ability and turning into the bona fide major leaguer he’s capable of becoming.

I thought this was an interesting topic, and idea, so decided to tackle it myself, but look at it differently. Zettel is looking at trades, but there are many ways in which players can be acquired.

If we simply look at the 2016 Brewers twelve of the players on that team were acquired through a trade, thirteen were acquired through the draft. In fact, the Brewers got players from many different ways and sources.

I think the most striking part of this graph isn’t that the Brewers mostly constructed their team through the amateur draft, trades, and free agency. These are all common resources for acquiring players. No, the most surprising aspect of this chart is that nine players came from waivers.

Traditionally I don’t, and I think most people don’t, think of teams being constructed through waiver claims. Usually, general managers get touted or criticized for their great trades, their great drafts, or free agent signings.

I mean, just look at Dave Dombrowski. He’s basically made a name for himself through his trades. Other GMs, such as Theo Epstein, get a lot of praise for their draft picks and even their free agent signings. But, you don’t often hear of GMs making shrewd waiver claims. At least, you don’t often hear it in the main stream. But, as the Brewers proved this past offseason, a team can make shrewd moves in the waiver wire, such as claiming Junior Guerra, Hernan Perez, and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, all of whom had an impact on the 2016 roster. Obviously, a number of waiver claims didn’t pan out, and obviously the Brewers were in the perfect position to take chances on these type of players. Therefore, I was interested to see how the Brewers constructed their teams in the past. Did they always consist of these waiver claims, and if not, what were the most common acquisition types?

To do this, I scraped data from baseball reference. An important note to point out is that this is not players that are acquired yearly. This data is the yearly number of Brewers players on a roster and their transaction type. This is not the yearly transactions. For example, in the first chart, Ryan Braun was on the roster and he was acquired via the amateur draft. He is also counted in 2015, 2014, 2013, and so on as an amateur draft data point. Another example: Hernan Perez signed a minor league contract to remain in Milwaukee for 2016, but he is counted as a waiver claim because that is how the Brewers originally acquired him.

First, let’s look at the overall values since 1970.

Most Brewers teams are constructed through trades, draft picks, and free agency. That’s not a huge surprise. The biggest difference between this chart, and the last one, however, is the waiver claims. In fact, on average, a Brewers team will usually only have around 1.7 players who were acquired from waivers. That’s a stark difference from the nine players who played for the Brewers in 2016 who came from waiver claims.

Therefore, I decided to look at how this information was trending.

This explains a lot. In 1970 and 1971, the vast majority of the players on the Brewers roster came from trades. More so than any other transaction type. But, as the franchise grew and changed, so has its ways of creating a team.

In the late 80s, and mid-90s, the draft mostly dominated how the Brewers were created, and free agent signings were also on the rise. Waiver claims, however, barely happened, if at all during those times. Instead, they’ve been more frequent since the start of the 21st century, at least for the Brewers, and there’s been a drastic uptick over the past few years.

I think, in part, this is due to the rebuild, and the new approach of GM David Stearns. Stearns, over the 2015-2016 offseason, made a number of shrewd and calculated player acquisition moves. He focused on getting players that are of very low risk but that could end up being high-reward.

Some of these acquisitions were obviously made through trades and low-risk signings, but a number of them were also made through waiver claims.

But, Stearns has only been in office for one season, and the four categories have been converging on each other for a few years now. Mainly, it seems that the Brewers are becoming more diverse in how they are creating their teams. Not just relying on trades or the draft.

This is important because it means that they are becoming more open and creative in their team constructing.

Building a team, and a good one, is obviously a challenging endeavor. There are many ways to do it, but if a team is only looking at one way of acquiring players, then that can be problematic. It means that you can become too dependent on a specific strategy, and less open to ulterior ways of accumulating good assets. Waiver claims, and other lesser known forms of player acquisition, usually aren’t all that sexy. They are not very popular, and most of the time we don’t even know the players that are being picked. But, these are good low risks to take for teams.

Over the past year, the Milwaukee Brewers’ front office has been plenty good–but they’ve gotten awfully lucky, too.

The quickest way to jump-start a rebuilding process is finding value in players cast off by other teams. In taking something you got, essentially, for free and turning it into something useful. Over the past year, the Brewers have tried to do this repeatedly. Not all of their efforts have worked out–Ramon Flores, Keon Broxton, and Alex Presley have combined for negative one WARP, Will Middlebrooks is whiffing at a 40 percent clip since finally making the big club, and Garin Cecchini hasn’t even looked good by AAA ballplayer standards, and with the artificial stat inflation for hitters inherent in Colorado Springs. But for each of these failures, which cost nothing, the front office has made a number of great calls.

Honorable Mention: Sean Nolin, RP and Rymer Liriano, OF

Once one of Toronto’s top prospects, Nolin is probably best-known as one of the pieces who was sent to Oakland in the ill-fated Josh Donaldson trade. When the A’s traded for Khris Davis this winter, they waived Nolin from their 40-man roster to make room for him–and the Brewers pounced, effectively adding him to the return package.

In Spring Training, Nolin suffered a partially torn UCL, and seemed doomed to Tommy John surgery. But with a partial tear, sometimes the ligament can heal naturally. The Brewers had him reevaluated in May, and decided that things were progressing enough to where surgery wasn’t necessary. If things continue progressing, he could see a couple of September innings. But Nolin’s medical past is far from spotless–a groin injury in 2014 ended his season and caused him to miss part of 2015 as well–and the franchise doesn’t need his immediate contributions, so the prudent course of action might just be to wait for 2017.

Rymer Liriano was struck in the face with a pitch in Spring Training, fracturing several bones, and is expected to miss the entire season. If that hadn’t happened, there’s an outside shot that he’s close to the top of this list thanks to the opportunity created by Domingo Santana’s injury-riddled first half. But on the bright side, he’s working his way back from the traumatic injury.

Update on #Brewers OF Rymer Liriano, hit in face by pitch in spring training: Still working toward getting back on field for baseball work.

— Tom (@Haudricourt) June 25, 2016

For both Nolin and Liriano, the best way to describe this season is “to be continued.” They’ve both got the talent to contribute to the big-league club, and could do so as soon as 2017.

T-5. Jhan Marinez (.4 WARP)

“Jhan Marinez struggled through another Triple-A season plagued by injury, ineffectiveness, gopher balls and the same lack of command that keeps him from leveraging his upper-90s heat and wipeout slider into a major-league bullpen gig; if he ever learns how to pitch, look out.”

That’s the BP Annual, on Marinez, back in 2014. Since then, he has gone unmentioned twice. But a funny thing happened in those two years–Marinez learned how to pitch. During his prospect days, Marinez was known just as much for his live arm–his heat touches 98 on the radar gun–as his complete inability to control it. He regularly posted walk rates north of 6.0, culminating in a 10.3 walks per nine nightmare at AAA Toledo in 2014 that won him a demotion to AA. There, he cut his walks to 4.5 per nine, and that ratio has continued trickling downward ever since.

Still, the Tampa Bay Rays designated the out-of-options Marinez for assignment in May, and the Brewers acquired him for nothing more than cash as a result. And since then, Marinez has been an undeniably effective part of the bullpen. He’s walking just 3.9 batters per inning, striking out 10.08, and posting a 2.60 ERA. All in all, Marinez has been worth four-tenths of a win–and that’s despite the fact that opponents are hitting .380 off of him on balls in play.

As a prospect, Marinez featured two pitches–a high-octane fastball and an inconsistent slider. Today, both of those pitches are complementary to his sinker, which he throws over half the time:

Clearly, Jhan Marinez learned how to pitch–and the Brewers are the beneficiaries. Marinez also qualifies as a sneaky name to watch for fantasy baseball purposes, too–if Milwaukee goes sell-happy and unloads both Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith in the next few days, Marinez has classic closer stuff.

T-5. Carlos Torres (.4 WARP)

The Mets signed Torres to a minor-league contract in 2013, and turned the cutter into his primary pitch. That year, he was worth 1.2 wins. In 2014, that number fell to .5. Last year, he was .2 wins worse than replacement level, as his strikeout and hit rates each hit a career high. The Brewers gambled that last year was a fluke, and that he could be a cheap way to make the bullpen a touch better. They’ve been rewarded with .4 wins, Torres’s highest K-rate in the Majors, and a 2.90 ERA. Jeremy Jeffress and Will Smith get all the press, and Jhan Marinez has the electric stuff, but Torres has evolved into the steady, reliable piece who ensures that the former two can be traded and the bullpen will still be pretty good.

This year, Torres has taken his “cutter as the primary pitch” approach to a whole other level. It’s actually interesting to watch the evolution–as time progresses, Torres goes from throwing the cutter as a second pitch, to a first offering with a plurality in the high-40 percent range, to a first offering used just north of 50 percent of the time. This year, Torres’ arsenal has evolved even further, and he’s thrown the cutter over 75 percent of the time since May:

T-5. Chris Carter (.4 WARP)

On August 7, 2012, I made a simple transaction in one of my dynasty leagues. I don’t even remember who I dropped, to tell you the truth–but I called up Chris Carter from my protected minor leaguers. I tell you this because that was four years ago, and Carter is still on that team’s roster–which is quite remarkable in a high-activity 14-team league. Chris Carter threads the needle of a very specific kind of ballplayer: he’s valuable enough to employ, but not valuable enough to sell.

I can’t pretend that I don’t get it. At times, Carter can be a very, very frustrating player to root for. I’d say the most accurate way to summarize his game would be “extreme risk and reward.” When Carter is locked in, he can carry your team–this April, he put up an OPS of .922 to nicely acclimate himself to his new hometown fans. But when he can’t find his stroke, he turns into a black hole in the middle of your lineup–like this July, when he’s struck out 39 percent of the time and his OPS has cratered to .688. He’s a part-time superstar, but he’s not the type who has outrageous platoon splits so you can’t really tell which Carter is coming to the ballpark on any given night.

At ten million a year, or more, Carter would be a disappointment. But the Brewers are paying him between $2.5 and $3 million this year, depending on performance-based incentives. The value of one Win Above Replacement varies somewhere between $5 million and $8 million, depending on who you ask, and Carter put up .4 WARP in his worst season as a full-time regular, 2015. It was a no-lose proposition, especially since the team had jettisoned both ends of their first-base platoon in the prior month.

Having put up .4 WARP to this point in 2016, Carter has already provided value commensurate with his contract. But it’s worth noting that a year ago, Carter swooned hard in July with a slash line of .109/.176/.304–then neutralized that with a .333/.400/.822 September. More than any player on this list, Carter’s position is far from locked in.

Three years ago, John Sickels of MinorLeagueBall made an absurd prediction that Carter would make an All-Star Team and be an MVP candidate. In fairness, he admitted in the title of the piece that it was an absurd prediction and, like most insane predictions, it didn’t come true. But it speaks to the level of raw talent that Carter has, even if he’s incapable of harnessing it for more than a month or two at a time. In his mid-20s, it was easy to see him putting it all together for a whole year–now, I’d say that’s wishful thinking. But for the cost of less than half a win, he’s been a good value at first base for a team in transition. And if you’re going to take a long-shot gamble on someone, you always want to bet on someone with at least one elite skill.

4. Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.7 WARP)

The Brewers have gotten exactly what they expected from Nieuwenhuis: a smattering of home runs and steals, good plate patience, acceptable defense, and an average that flirts with the Mendoza line. Last year, Nieuwenhuis accumulated .6 wins in 117 plate appearances. This year, he’s been worth .7 in 266. He’s not a black hole, but he’s not all that helpful, either. On the bright side: it’s not like Keon Broxton, Ramon Flores, or Shane Peterson would have done anything more useful. By the time the Brewers are a contender, Brett Phillips will be roaming center field, and Nieuwenhuis will be pinch-hitting and making the occasional spot start, which seems like a good eventual role for him.

For the low-low cost of a waiver claim, the Brewers acquired a player who brings some things to the table, and whose biggest weaknesses can be mitigated in an eventual part-time role. He combines power and speed, and he’s posted better FRAA marks while playing the corner positions than in center–even though he’s capable of playing all three positions. And his struggles to make contact have a pretty easy explanation, too:

The 2015 BP Annual noted that “Nieuwenhuis’ approach is basically to attack any fastball in the zone, take all breaking pitches, and occasionally look stupid on changeups he thought were fastballs.” The pitch-type breakdown of his career supports this. Against overmatched rookies still refining their secondary and tertiary offerings, he can rake–and these are the players he should get his at-bats against in the long run. But pitchers who are pitchers, rather than just throwers, effortlessly turn Nieuwenhuis to pudding.

Still, it remains to be said that a player who can put fastballs over the fence, steal bases, and play three outfield positions is a valuable commodity in the big leagues. Nieuwenhuis might not be too impressive as an everyday centerfielder, but he’s still a worthwhile piece that cost nothing to acquire.

3. Aaron Hill

Aaron Wilkerson and Wendell Rijo are hardly a king’s ransom in prospects, but they’re both intriguing young players–and all the Brewers had to do was take on some salary for about three months to make it happen.

For what it matters, before the Red Sox traded for him, Hill was worth 1.8 wins to the 2016 Brewers. The Brewers’ $6.5 million of his salary is roughly what a single win would be worth in free agency. So for those keeping score at home, the deal was a win on four different fronts–Hill provided value beyond what the team paid him, the team got a better minor-league asset by taking on Hill, he provided value to the rebuilding effort beyond even what the WAR column can quantify, and then Hill was successfully flipped for something that will have value beyond this off-season. Making scrappy moves like that is how you turn a bottom-feeder into a dynasty.

2. Junior Guerra

Look, if you were skeptical of Guerra at first, I don’t blame you. But we’re fifteen games in, and Guerra has been worth 2.1 PWARP thus far. That’s half a season’s worth of starts–if you stretch it out to a full 30, the 4.2 PWARP would have been the 19th-best mark in all of baseball last season. Brewers fans calling him an “ace” might not be all that far off–the 19th-best pitcher in baseball would qualify as a “fringe ace,” the type of guy who could be the #1 on a middle-of-the-pack team, or the #2 on a championship contender, or the #3 on the best pitching staff in the league.

I wrote earlier this season about why pitchF/X data shows that Guerra is not a flash in the pan. But since then, two further developments have solidified my belief that Guerra will have a successful career in his thirties.

The first development happened in late June. Guerra took the mound against the Los Angeles Dodgers on the 16th and turned in his worst start of 2016: the Dodgers chased him in the sixth inning with five runs to his name and just four strikeouts under his belt. Since Scott Kazmir was similarly off point, the Brewers won an 8-6 slugfest, but that was owed more to the offensive fireworks of Chris Carter and Jonathan Villar than Guerra’s work. Less than two weeks later, Guerra drew the Dodgers as his assignment once again–and he altered his game plan in the gutsiest way imaginable. He all but cut his best pitch out of rotation. Guerra threw 109 pitches in shutting out the Dodgers over eight masterful innings, and only two of those pitches were splitters. It was a true pitching gem–Guerra’s 18-pitch first inning was the most laborious frame he suffered through, and he carved apart the Dodgers like a hot knife through butter. I have no idea what Guerra saw in the Dodgers during that first game, but I’m beyond impressed with the adjustment he made. Eliminating your “out” pitch against a team that just hit you hard is the kind of crazy tactic that you only use when you’re dead sure you spotted a weakness. That Guerra is capable of this kind of gamesmanship is encouraging, to say the least.

Guerra’s second adjustment came at the All-Star Break. In the first half, he threw a four-seam fastball and slider in addition to his signature splitter. But in the nine days between his last first-half start against St. Louis, and his first second-half start in Pittsburgh, Guerra had the time to add a secret weapon to his arsenal:

Ironically, it was adding a sinker to the mix that inevitably doomed the career of Wily Peralta, but we have to remember here–every ballplayer is different. And thus far, the sinker experiment has worked. Guerra fanned six in six innings against the Pirates in his first start of the half, then outdueled the far-more-expensive Jon Lester in his second try before the bullpen blew the game.

The sinker is an ideal pitch for Guerra to add to his arsenal, as it serves as a perfect blend of his best two incumbent options–the fastball and the splitter. Guerra’s sinker is indistinguishable from his fastball until it drops:

Guerra has a new weapon in his arsenal, but more importantly, he’s shown that he can adapt on the fly at the big-league level. That’s very big, and it’s very good if you’re a Brewers fan.

1. Jonathan Villar

Okay, maybe we’re cheating here by some people’s definitions. Villar wasn’t technically “free”–to pry him from the Astros cost Milwaukee a minor-league pitcher named Cy Sneed. But I would counter that Sneed was not, nor did he ever show any indication that he would turn into, an “asset.” He might not have been “nothing,” but he also held no tangible value.

The 25-year-old Villar hadn’t put up great numbers in three partial seasons with Houston, but his power/speed combination at a position of scarcity made him a valuable asset. Still, with names like Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa entrenched into the lineup, and even Luis Valbuena and Marwin Gonzalez winning favor over Villar, there was no real place for him in Houston. Last year, at this point in time, Villar was playing minor-league ball.

Two pieces of information from before the Villar trade are worth noting. First, he got back to the big leagues when rosters expanded in September and went 8-for-25 with three steals in limited action, while striking out just twice. Second, Brewers’ GM David Stearns was working in Houston’s front office while Villar was playing for Houston’s farm system last year. Publicly-available advanced analytics for minor-league players are still pretty spotty, but there’s no doubt that Houston’s modern-thinking front office is tracking everything on every player in that system. Stearns was one of the few people in baseball with the ability to accurately tell if Villar had made the kinds of structural changes that could turn him into an offensive weapon.

Villar wasted no time making his presence felt in Milwaukee. Though the Brewers pitched Wily Peralta on opening day, and therefore got beaten into a pulp, he took Madison Bumgarner deep in his second at-bat:

And since then, he hasn’t slowed down. Villar’s .297/.379/.437 slash line, paired with a league-leading 36 stolen bases, makes him the prototypical leadoff hitter, and the peripherals back it up, too. Villar’s 2015 and 2016 contact rates are significantly higher than the two years prior. The implication we can take from this is that, sometime during his minor-league exodus, he made some type of mechanical tweak that resulted in not just more contact:

but better quality contact, too:

Detractors will point to Villar’s .400 BABIP as an unsustainable mark. But just how unsustainable is it? Villar’s 57 percent groundball rate should, in theory, be killing his BABIP–only he’s also put up a silly 11.3 percent infield hit rate. Coming up through the minors, Billy Hamilton’s track-star speed was supposed to revolutionize the leadoff position–today, as it turns out, Villar is doing it instead. The Brewers gambled that, at just 25 years old, the rough edges of his game could be refined down, and it’s a gamble that has paid off with a genuine star–Villar’s 3.0 WARP places him snugly between Jonathan Lucroy (3.1) and Ryan Braun (2.9). It goes to show you that, even in the age of advanced analytics, one team’s trash can be another team’s cornerstone.

TOP PLAY (WPA):
The top play of the game, for the Mets, came very early on. In fact, it occurred in the first inning, with the first hitter of the game. Jimmy Nelson didn’t have the greatest outing of his life, and troubling signs were apparent early on when he fell behind 3-1 to Granderson who on the fifth pitch of the at-bat hit a leadoff home run.

The top play for the Brewers, however, and the game, came later. It occurred in the seventh inning when the Brewers were down 2-0. The Brewers were at-bat, down to their final out of the inning after the first two hitters of the inning got out. Kirk Nieuwenhuis doubled, showing one of the only glimpses of light against Colon. Nieuwenhuis actually almost homered, but he didn’t and that brought up Hernan Perez.

Since being called up, Perez has been hitting well with a .308 TAv. This time, Colon threw him a fastball which Perez lined on a hop to Neil Walker. Normally this ball is played routinely, but this ball wasn’t. This ball was crushed and it skipped off of Walker’s chest into the outfield. Nieuwenhuis was running on contact and went for it. He ran as fast as he could to home plate, praying that he would beat the throw, and bring the Brewers within one.

Well, he did, he barely got in, but he got in. He was safe, and he lost his helmet tumbling backwards propelled by his momentum.

The game was now 2-1.

WORST PLAY (WPA):
The worst play happened with none other than Perez himself, and it happened a little earlier in the game.

In the fifth inning, the Brewers were, you guessed it, down 2-0. Nieuwenhuis was at the plate and he singled to leadoff the inning.

You know what Perez did? He grounded into a double play, ending the rally.

Jimmy Nelson’s Jam:
Nelson, the aforementioned starting pitcher, was in and out of trouble all game. The trouble hit its apex in the fourth inning. The Brewers were down 2-0 and Asdrubal Cabrera led off the inning with a double. Wilmer Flores hit a hard single and just like that, there were men on first and third with nobody out.

With a 2-2 count on Kevin Plawecki, Nelson threw his slider and got Plawecki to swing and miss. This was a big out for a number of reasons, but perhaps most importantly because the next hitter was pitcher Bartolo Colon. While Colon has displayed supernatural ability with the bat, he’s still a pitcher. That said, Colon gave Nelson some trouble. He had a seven-pitch at-bat where he worked the count to 3-2. Colon had already fouled off one 3-2 pitch and Nelson wasn’t exactly throwing strikes with ease. But, Nelson luckily was able to strike out Colon on a fastball that seemed to of been high but that Colon swung through anyway.

As previously mentioned, Granderson led off the game with a home run, and he was now hitting with two outs. Nelson, however, hit him on the third pitch of the at-bat in the leg, which also seemed to do damage to Lucroy as it bounced off of his shoulder.

This loaded the bases for Conforto. Nelson was once again having a hard time commanding the strike zone as he fell behind 2-0. He then threw a fastball in the middle of the plate and got Conforto to hit a lazy fly ball to the shortstop.

The Brewers lost this game five to two but it could have been a lot worse. Nelson got lucky this inning. Typically, teams will make you pay for being this wild, and it’ll be something that he’ll need to improve upon in his next outing.

TOP PLAY (WPA)
After Aaron Hill’s clutch two-out double rescued the Brewers from another bad send by windmill third base coach Ed Sedar and gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead in the second, Phillies starter Jerad Eickhoff seemed to settle in a groove. He retired four of the next five batters and the only man to reach was Jonathan Villar, who was erased on a stolen base attempt. Chris Carter ended that and snapped a personal 2-for-24 cold streak with a long home run to left that doubled the Brewers lead (+.119 WPA). Carter’s 14th clout of the season came as part of a signature three true outcomes night for Carter: in four plate appearances, he homered, walked and struck out twice.

BOTTOM PLAY (WPA)
The Brewers have had a difficult time scoring baserunners all year, a fact I examined a week ago. The two-out hit in the second from Hill was a refreshing change of pace, but things returned to the status quo in the sixth. Clinging to a 2-1 lead, Jonathan Lucroy laced a two-out single up the middle to move Scooter Gennett to second. Loathe to be victimized again, the Phillies put Carter on to load the bases, giving Kirk Nieuwenhuis a chance to break the game open with the bases juiced. Instead, he skied a popup to left to leave the bases loaded for the Brewers once again (-.075).

KEY MOMENT
In the bottom of that same inning, the runners left on base very nearly cost the Brewers their lead. Anderson did his job, but an error by Villar allowed Odubel Herrera to reach to leave off the inning, and a passed ball by Lucroy allowed him to reach third with one out two batters later. Needing a strikeout to keep the Brewers in front, Anderson reached back and got it, getting Jimmy Paredes swinging for the second out. Craig Counsell went to Will Smith to get the final out, and the Fresh Prince kicked off his 2016 campaign by retiring Maikel Franco to preserve the Brewers lead. Smith remained in the game to complete the seventh, allowing a hit and striking out one for a successful debut.

TREND TO WATCH
Villar continues to make his presence felt, as his name seems to float up at key moments – mostly for good, but sometimes not – night in and night out for Milwaukee. He had another roller coaster night on Thursday: he was caught stealing in the third and his error allowed the Phillies to threaten in the sixth, but his two-run homer in the top of the ninth gave Jeremy Jeffress some breathing room that was certainly appreciated when Paredes led off the ninth with a double. Villar entered the game ranked fifth among shortstops with a .299 TAv, a number that most certainly has risen after his 2-for-5 game Thursday. He’s certainly making a case for the All-Star roster, if that’s the sort of thing you care about, though with the Cubs and Cardinals with young stars at the same position, there’s no chance he’ll earn a starting nod. So far, he seems to be well worth the mild price the Brewers paid to acquire him this winter.

COMING UP NEXT
The Brewers will look to extend the Phillies losing streak to eight, nine and ten games this weekend as they send Junior Guerra, Jimmy Nelson and Wily Peralta to the mound to finish out this four game set. The toughest pitching matchup for Milwaukee will be on Sunday, when they send Peralta, who ranks dead last among qualifiers in DRA (7.79) against 23-year-old Aaron Nola, who ranks ninth with a 2.88 DRA.

Top Play (WPA):
Chase Anderson has had a rough year so far; his 6.39 FIP is really bad, and it ranks ninth-worst among all pitchers with at least fifteen innings. But he had a pretty good start on Wednesday, and he had thrown four clean innings as the game headed scoreless into the fifth inning.

Anderson’s luck would fade in the fifth, though. A leadoff walk to Giancarlo Stanton set the table for Justin Bour’s tiebreaking home run (+.211). The next man up, Marcell Ozuna, hit a ground rule double, moved to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a sacrifice fly as the third—and ultimately game-deciding—run.

Bottom Play (WPA):
The Brewers managed to claw within a run after a two-run seventh inning, and Jonathan Lucroy’s leadoff single in the eighth put them in a good position to tie the game. Chris Carter then struck out, bringing Aaron Hill—one of the team’s hottest hitters over the past week—to the plate against David Phelps.

Hill put an excellent swing on a Phelps cutter, but he hit it straight at first baseman Miguel Rojas, who stepped on first for an inning-ending double play that killed a rally (-.124).

Key Moment:
Marlins’ closer AJ Ramos has had an excellent season, but he doesn’t have a long enough track record to be considered one of the game’s elite. Trying to mount a comeback against a pitcher like Ramos is difficult but not impossible. A key first step is getting the leadoff man on base. Pinch hitter Kirk Nieuwenhuis gave it a shot but took a called third strike on a pitch that was off the plate.

Bad strike calls happen frequently, and this was not hugely egregious in any special way. However, bad calls in this type of situation hurt, especially for a young club trying to rally. Good pitching performances have been few and far between for the Brewers, so it stings to waste Anderson’s solid outing.

Call hurts #Brewers
Strike 3 should be ball 2
Top 9 Ramos vs Nieuwenhuis
20% call same
1.9in from edge pic.twitter.com/xwQfOoVrno

— Brewers Strike Zone (@BrewersUmp) May 12, 2016

Trend to Watch:
Ryan Braun had three hits again on Wednesday, and he has continued his absolutely torrid pace. He has a .400/.455/.667 line over his last seven games and a .407/.462/.627 line over his last fifteen. It has been an incredible display of hitting, and his .353 TAv is in the top fifteen of all hitters with at least 100 plate appearances.

If he continues to hit like this, Braun may actually boost his value enough to make himself attractive in the trade market should the Brewers wish to move him. His contract may be too large to make him truly marketable, but he is at least demonstrating that he has enough in the tank to remain a productive a big league player.

Wily Peralta was pitching again, and in the second inning, J.T. Realmuto hit a two-run home run. Ozuna though was tagging at first base and Realmuto passed him while he was rounding the aforementioned base.

The umps, incredibly enough, missed it again, but the Brewers were all over it this time. They challenged the play, and Realmuto was called out on the base paths and awarded an RBI single instead of a two-run home run.

KEY MOMENT:
Jose Fernandez had a great outing strikeout out 11 batters without giving up a run. But, he got off to a shaky start. Jonathan Villar led off the game with an RBI double and the Alex Presley worked a six-pitch walk. That brought up Ryan Braun who’s having an amazing start to the season.

The left fielder has an on-base percentage over .400 and slugging over .600. Fernandez was also working through some early command issues, making this a very dangerous spot for the Marlins. Fernandez then threw two straight balls to Braun putting the count at 2-0 with two men on and nobody out. Braun then got a pitch he could drive and hit the ball at an exit velocity of 102 mph which went 383 feet. In most ballparks that’s a home run, but in Marlins Park, that ball was caught on the warning track.

WORST PLAY (WPA):
Villar did tag up and advance to third base, putting a runner at third and first with only one out. Chris Carter was the next batter, and as I’ve mentioned before, even though Carter is off to a great start, I always get nervous when he’s hitting with a man on third and there are less than two outs. The reason, being, even though Carter has 10 home runs and is slugging over 600, he’s still striking out 27% of the time, and with Jose Fernandez pitching. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that he wasn’t going to put the ball in play.

But, I was wrong, Carter did put the ball in play, in fact, he hit a ball at 102 mph. The only problem was the ball was hit on the ground and right to the third baseman for an easy double play, which ended the inning.

GETTING HEATED AT THE END:
In the ninth inning, the Brewers were down 4-0. The Marlins brought in their closer, A.J. Ramos. People in the stands were already starting to leave. The Marlins win expectancy was at 97% and I had already started writing my recap.

The game, as I quickly found out, was not over. Chris Carter led the ninth with a walk. Kirk Nieuwenhuis then also walked on five pitches. With runners on second and first with no one out, the Brewers showed some signs of life. But, Colin Walsh and Jonathan Lucroy both struck out looking dwindling the Brewers chances of making a comeback. The red-hot Aaron Hill, however, also worked a pinch-hit walk, loading the bases and chasing Ramos out of the game.

Jon Mattingly brought in reliever Bryan Morris to get the final out of the game and the save. The interesting part is that Morris had never gotten a save in his major league career. Domingo Santana was then brought in as a pinch hitter. It was his first bit of action since his shoulder started bothering him. Santana though didn’t have to swing the bat, in fact, he didn’t. He took the first strike looking and then took four straight balls, walking and driving in the Brewers first run of the game. At this point, six players came to the plate in the inning and none of them put the ball in play.

Jonathan Villar was the next batter. He took the first ball and strike and swung and missed at the second one. The count was 1-2, the Brewers were facing their final strike of the game and Villar couldn’t do anything with the last pitch but swing and miss, ending the game.

UP NEXT:
The Brewers are in action again tomorrow. Zach Davis who has gotten off to a very slow start, with a 6.98 ERA will look to turn things around tomorrow against the Marlins.

The Brewers will be facing Adam Conley, who lest we forget, only two starts ago carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning, and one controversially taken out of the game with only one out left in the frame. The Brewers will need to have more success this time if they want to have a chance to win.

Lucroy’s homer (+.250) increased the Brewers’ win probability by a clean 50 percent. Before he stepped in, each club had a 1-in-2 chance of coming out on top; after he rounded the bases, the Brewers had 3-in-4 odds. Thereafter, it was relatively smooth sailing to a series split for the Brew Crew.

In the offseason, virtually everyone thought Lucroy would hit the trade block. Despite coming off a down year, both at the plate and behind it, he looked to be one of the best catchers in baseball, with two years of team control before free agency. The Brewers hung on to him, perhaps hoping his stock would rise, and so far he’s rewarded their decision. Over his last 39 plate appearances, he’s ripped a .424/.513/.848 line, upping his production on the season to .327/.393/.505. If Lucroy does leave Milwaukee in a trade, his hot streak will fetch a considerable return.

Worst Play: While the Brewers didn’t inflict much damage off Lamb, the Reds got to Junior Guerra. In the third frame, a one-out walk and a sacrifice bunt put a runner on second for Tyler Holt. He lined a first-pitch fastball over the head of Alex Presley in right, bringing around Ramon Cabrera and knotting the score at one apiece. Two batters later, Cincinnati held a 3-1 advantage over Milwaukee.

As the catalyst for the three-run inning, Holt’s triple (+.130) took the Brewers’ win probability down from 58.7 to 45.8 percent. Over the course of six batters, the Reds cut the Brewers’ odds by more than half, from 59.5 to 26.5 percent. Once Lamb departed, however, Milwaukee feasted on the mutton that is the Cincinnati bullpen, eventually winning the Mother’s Day matchup.

For Guerra, the second verse was pretty much the same as the first: In each of his two starts this season, he’s worked six innings and allowed four runs. This outing featured more missed bats, as he rode his splitter — which he didn’t throw at all in his first game — to six strikeouts. Most of the time, a 31-year-old pitcher two years removed from independent ball will flame out at the major-league level, but Guerra has turned some heads with his repertoire. He probably won’t be worse than Matt Garza!

Trend to Watch: The Brewers offense got off to a shaky start in 2016. Across 23 April games, they scored just 89 runs, an average of 3.87 per contest. With a team batting line of .223/.307/.371, they helped to sink Milwaukee to an 8-15 record in the month. In May, though, the hitters have come back from the dead, and they’ve got a taste for baseballs. Their triple-slash has improved to .311/.378/.551, which has allowed them to score 6.75 runs per game — the most in the major leagues during that timeframe.

While Lucroy’s aforementioned surge has led the team, he hasn’t done it alone. Chris Carter has continued to spit in the face of the Astros (as an aside: lol Astros), hitting .333/.353/.818 in May. Braun’s .452/.485/.710 line in the month illustrates his rejuvenation. And largely on the strength of his three-homer game on Saturday, Aaron Hill has notched a .414/.452/.724 May triple-slash.

More important than the performance of the stars is the absence of scrubs. Of the eight players with at least 20 plate appearances this month, all have hit at an above-average level. Lucroy, Carter, Braun, and Hill will cool off at some point, but if Kirk Nieuwenhuis (.300/.391/.450 in May), Jonathan Villar (.310/.394/.448), and Ramon Flores (.250/.429/.313) can stave off significant regression, the offense will remain formidable. On a team whose pitching staff has vanished overnight, a few extra runs per game couldn’t hurt.

Up Next: The Brewers take on the Marlins in Miami tonight at 6:10 CST, with Wily Peralta and Jose Fernandez getting the nods for the respective clubs. Zach Davies will start against Adam Conley on Tuesday night, and Chase Anderson and Wei-Yin Chen will square off on Wednesday to wrap up the series. With nearly one-fifth of the season in the books, let’s hope that the remaining 80 percent gives us some more late-inning comebacks and offensive firepower. (A sightly starting pitcher would also be nice, but we can’t have everything.)

Early on, however, it didn’t appear as though this was going to be a high scoring game. In the bottom of the fifth, the game was still tied 1-1. Nelson was having another good start, and Weaver was able to keep the Brewers bats at bay even with his high school level fastball velocity.

The duel, however, changed in the bottom of the fifth. Aaron Hill was able to work a walk, which brought up Yadiel Rivera with no one out and a man on third. With the count at 1-1, Weaver threw Rivera a pitch right down the middle, which Rivera lined to left field. Rafael Ortega tried to make the catch which proved costly, as he missed judged the ball. He didn’t get to the line drive in time and the ball skipped past him. Rivera ended up at third base, Hill scored, and Ortega was charged with an error on the play. If he had just let the ball fall in for a single then there would have been a man on second and first with nobody out, but the game would have still been tied. Instead, this put a man on third with none out and gave the Brewers a 2-1 to boot.

The Brewers ended up scoring two more runs in the inning and taking a 4-1 lead into the sixth.

WORST PLAY:
It might be hard to believe, especially with the final score, but the Brewers were down 1-0 in the fourth inning.

Ryan Braun led off the inning with a single, but then got quickly picked off; that wasn’t the worst play of the game or the inning. Lucroy was the next batter, and he also singled in practically the same location as Braun. Carter then followed up with a single of his own, putting runners on first and second with one man out.

This brought up Kirk Nieuwenhuis. If Braun hadn’t been picked off the bases would either be loaded with nobody out or there would have already been a run on the board. But, alas Braun got picked off, the Brewers were still down 1-0 with still a good chance to score. Nieuwenhuis, however, proceeded to swing at the first pitch he saw from Weaver and ground the ball to the second baseman, who turned it into a double play ending the threat and the inning.

TREND TO WATCH:
The Brewers pitching has been a disaster this year, and that’s being kind. Wily Peralta currently has the worst ERA in all of baseball. But, what’s even more amazing is that the Brewers, as a team, have the worst ERA in the entire league. Yes, even worse than the Colorado Rockies, who play in a place where pitchers go to die.

With that said, Jimmy Nelson has been the lone bright spot in the Brewers rotation. In his six games pitched, Nelson has had three quality starts, and today was no exception. He pitched seven innings and only gave up two runs while striking out six.

Nelson once again has increased his groundball percentage. In 2014, Nelson’s groundball percentage was 48.4. Last year it went up to 50.6 percent, and this year it’s risen again to 52.8 percent. One of the main reasons this change is happening is Nelson’s increase in his sinker usage. Last year, Nelson threw his sinker 35.17 percent of the time. This year, it’s gone up to 51.66 percent. But, Nelson’s current usage rate on his sinker is actually similar to his 2014 usage, so one might ask why he is getting more groundballs. Well, the pitch seems to be more effective this season. While he isn’t getting a lot of swing and misses on the pitch, 65 percentof the balls in play against his sinker are groundballs. That’s currently second in all of baseball, only behind Marcus Stroman. In 2014, only 54 percent of balls off his sinker were grounders. That’s still good but nowhere near this year’s success.

Conversely, Nelson still has statistics which are concerning. For example, he’s walking more hitters than in years past, and his .206 BABIP is pretty low (especially for a groundball pitcher). This doesn’t mean Nelson will soon start to struggle, but rather there might be some slight regression ahead. Nelson is off to a good start, and at this point is having the best year of his career. Yet, there are some signs that he might fall back to his 2015 self. That Nelson is still a quality pitcher, but not the 3.05 ERA version we’ve seen thus far.

Up Next:
Tomorrow, 31-year-old, Junior Guerra will make his season’s debut for the Brewers. The minor league journeyman will replace Taylor Jungmann, who was optioned to AAA Colorado Springs, and only Kyle Lesniewski seems to be excited about this.

Nick Tropeano will get the nod for the Angels. He’s got a 2.11 ERA but hasn’t started a game this season. This could, therefore, be another high scoring game.

The club decided this past week that they had seen enough of Broxton in the early going after he had gone hitless in his first 16 at-bats while striking out 11 times. To replace him, Slingin’ David Stearns purchased the contract of spring non-roster invitee Alex Presley from AAA. Stearns is familiar with the left-handed swinging Presley from his days in Houston, and the outfielder was off to a fine start with the Sky Sox. Presley is already 30, though, and owns just a .260/.299/.394 batting line in 330 career big league games; not at all someone who provides much upside or is likely to be with the team for the long-term; not to mention the fact that now all three center field options bat left-handed.

In selecting Presley the Brewers passed over a much more obvious candidate to take reps in center field in Michael Reed. The club’s fifth round pick back in 2011 was already on the 40 man roster (where Presley needed to be added after Zack Jones was shifted to the 60-day DL), he bats right-handed, and the homegrown prospect appears ready for an extended big-league trial.

BP ranked the 23 year old was ranked as Milwaukee’s 19th-best prospect coming into this season. Reed’s most outstanding tool is his eye-popping on base ability, as evidenced by his career .377 OBP and 14% walk rate in six minor league seasons. He’s a threat on the basepaths as well, having swiped at least 25 bags in each of the last three seasons, and already with five steals to his credit through 10 games in Colorado Springs.

Reed’s not without his warts, of course. He’s had a bit of a problem with strikeouts coming up through the farm system, though he has been able to at least cut his K rate down to around the 19-20 percent range in recent seasons. This will likely result in middling batting averages for Reed at the big league level, though his high walk total helps mitigate that.

Reed doesn’t offer much power, either, with just 12 home runs to his career ledger. He’s got an ISO of just .027 so far in Colorado Springs this season, though his career mark of .114 is a bit more palatable. He made some strides in that area last season, slugging a career-best 45 extra base hits between AA and AAA last season while hitting .269/.371/.410.

There’s also the matter of defense. Reed has only appeared in center field 77 time over six seasons and just once so far in 2016. However this may have more to do with the fact that he was often a teammate of the defensively gifted Tyrone Taylor than anything else. Reed has above-average speed and a 60 grade arm that plays well in right, so he should certainly have the tools to play a capable center field at the big league level.

I've been arguing for reed for a while now. He's their best option for CF. https://t.co/OjleneotQa

— keithlaw (@keithlaw) April 19, 2016

Reed is off to an excellent .378/.452/.405 start with five steals in 10 games for the Sky Sox so far this season. While some think that his ceiling will ultimately be that of a fourth outfielder due to his lack of power, there’s no better time to see if fringy prospects can grab a bigger role than projected than in year one of a rebuild.

Of the current slate center field options, it’s arguable that Reed possesses the highest potential upside, minus perhaps the injured Rymer Liriano (who at this point remains without a timetable for his return from facial fractures). Reed should therefore get a legitimate audition to cement his role in The Show before the next crop of outfielder prospects, lead by Brett Phillips, starts pushing for big league playing time. We’ll most definitely be seeing Reed in Milwaukee this season, but the Brewers should give him a his chance sooner rather than later.