• The Marlins ownership group’s refusal to capitalize payroll indeed resulted in a bargain bottom deal for Giancarlo Stanton, who will now call the Yankees his team.
• The….Angels won the Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes, prompting a range of reactions calling non-existent (see NEIFI Analytics) to positive impacts.

A non-contender won Ohtani’s services, and the Marlins are indeed officially in…well, they’re not rebuilding, so let’s call it “firesale mode,” and these two clubs fittingly define a mediocre MLB. The Marlins join the announcements from the Royals front office that they expect to rebuild, along with the Tigers who are rebuilding alongside the already-rebuilding (and maybe on the upswing) Chicago White Sox, who join San Diego, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati as rebuilds-in-progress. Other clubs in bizarre territory include the Athletics (what are they doing?) and the Blue Jays (some fans now clamoring for their share of #ThatProcess). The Mariners and Giants (losers of Ohtani sweepstakes) at least seem like they’re trying to win, as do the Pirates and Mets.

That’s half the MLB, right there. Wouldn’t it be nice to be playing 2018 in the American League Central, where the upstart Twins will battle Cleveland for the title, alongside three stated rebuilding efforts?

Anyway, with roughly half the MLB hilariously trying to rebuild, or maybe not in an earnest position to win, the Brewers have their own principles to consider: Milwaukee is on the upswing after completing their quick-and-easy rebuild, but now it’s time to watch some young (or, if not young, inexperienced) players cut their teeth at the MLB level. This is not the best scenario to be in entering the Winter Meeting, as there’s a very good argument to be made in favor of the Brewers simply sitting tight; no, they don’t need to trade Domingo Santana for prospects, and similarly, no, they don’t need to trade Lewis Brinson to win now. In fact, the Brewers are one of the few clubs in the MLB that can justifiably stand pat for the offseason and simply rerun the algorithms that powered 2017 (after all, the spreadsheets looked so good the first time around that it’d be great to give it another shot).

Of course, with so many clubs purposefully trying to shed MLB contracts and competitiveness in order to play for the future, the Brewers do have two key assets in their favor of the offseason:

• Tons of free cash, both in the form of revenue savings from 2016-2017 (probably close to $120 million), and payroll space for 2018 (and onward).
• Tons of interesting prospects behind the top tier of the system.

Thankfully, many of the aforementioned rebuilding or limbo clubs also have something that the Brewers need for 2018: starting pitching under arbitration or guaranteed contractual reserve. Where this group of arms gets interesting is their sheer boredom as a group. To demonstrate this, imagine a winter meetings in which the Brewers emerge with…Dan Straily, Kendall Graveman, and BPMilwaukee chat fan-favorite Danny Duffy; or even Jeff Samardzija and Marco Estrada; or Jake Odorizzi and Mike Foltynewicz; or any combination of these arms!

The question one could ask is, how much would these arms cost? What is difficult to assess about this group is their general trajectory, as most of these arms feature one genuinely good season over the year few years while offering stable depth in the majority of other seasons. Yet, there are clear improvements by someone like Danny Duffy, or Jeff Samardzija’s phenomenal peripheral development in 2017, that raise questions about whether spending on the heftier side of these arms’ prospect prices would be beneficial. An additional issue is that these arms feature well-priced contracts or arbitration control, which leads to a difficult market position in assessing a prospect package. What types of prospects within the current Brewers system are worth surrendering for cost-controlled starting pitching?

I did not consider popular Brewers Twitter trade discussions like Chris Archer or Jacob deGrom, simply because both of those arms are indisputably elite pitchers who will not be in any type of “bargain” position for the Brewers. Even someone like Michael Fulmer is more of a potential bargain for a club like the Brewers, given his relative lack of track record compared to deGrom and Archer (and, no, even five years of contract reserve do not erase the risk of unknown MLB performance trajactories compared to Fulmer’s previous scouting pedigree). Coupling Fulmer and Jordan Zimmermann could also be a unique strategy for the Brewers to lower the Fulmer prospect package out of “elite” territory.

What Brewers fans will undoubtedly complain about is that many of these pitchers seemingly offer nothing more than middle-, and often low-, rotation, innings-eater profiles. In some cases, recent injury questions (as in Graveman’s case) may not even lead to solidly dependable innings eating in Milwaukee. But, there are two easy responses to this:

• Outside of someone like Jake Arrieta or Yu Darvish, the current pitching free agency class is full of these types of gambles anyway.
• Some combination of Junior Guerra, Brent Suter, Brandon Woodruff, and even current fan rotation favorite Josh Hader do not profile as anything better than the immediate value provided by the arms noted above. Yes, if Hader continues his 2017 profile, he’s not a #3 starter (or better).

Of course, the Brewers also entered 2017 with a mostly innings-eating or uninspiring middle rotation set of pitchers, and their pitching staff was one of the club strengths. One also needs to assess each potential trade target’s arsenal, approach, and persona for compatibility with the new Derek Johnson coaching regime (if Johnson can help to turn around arms like Jimmy Nelson and Chase Anderson, what can he do with other middle rotation arms? What is the Brewers’ systematic pitching?). Additionally, acquiring more proven rotational options via prospect packages for arbitration controlled or guaranteed contract starters could prove to be a cheaper strategy than pursuing the current free agency market. The benefit here is that each of these arms would push options like Woodruff, Suter, and Guerra into more palatable depth roles within the rotation. It should not be detrimental to suggest that Suter is a fantastic swingman option; penciling Suter into the rotation to start the season raises some alarms about the potential of the southpaw delivering a full season rotational role.

One way or the other, the Brewers will need to win in 2018 with a motley and unsuspecting rotation. But that’s okay, because the team has the front office and coaching staff to make this type of profile work. The alternative path is parting with significant prospects (such as Brinson) to acquire an ace like Archer, or chasing the huge contract top-tier free agents. It should be noted that the beauty of this middle path will be the Brewers’ ability to trade from a position of strength (their depth) while developing key elite prospects at the MLB level (like Brinson) and giving the new pitching system another group of unassuming talent to churn into MLB winners.

Photo Credit: Lance Iverson, USAToday Sports Images

In the cases of both Woodruff and Burnes, the answer is quick and easy, “no” and “no.” Neither pitcher has the combination of raw stuff, command of that stuff, and mechanical execution that renders those 70 or 80 Overall Future Potential (OFP) grades (since OFP operates on a scale of 20 to 80, the top grade is obvious ace territory, and the 70 grade usually runs a “1/2 pitcher” description that makes that grade worth including in “ace” territory). Of course, in the case of Woodruff and Burnes, both pitchers were not even listed as Top 5 arms within the Brewers system by Baseball Prospectus entering 2017. The duo fell behind Top 10 rankers…

• LHP Josh Hader (55-60 OFP, #3 SP or #4 SP / high leverage relief)
• RHP Luis Ortiz (50-60 OFP, #3/#4 SP)
• RHP Cody Ponce (45-50 OFP, average starter / late inning relief or #4/#5 SP or solid relief)

…as well as “Others of Note” RHP Devin Williams (“classic projectable righty”) and RHP Marcos Diplan (“probably future relief” but has “polish and command”). In fact, it is arguable that even with the top five arms in the system, the Brewers do not have an ace.

There is certainly an argument to be made that scouting is an imperfect science, and that perhaps the BP scouting team did not properly price Woodruff’s secondary stuff progression in Class-AA Biloxi, or that they underrated Burnes’s draft day pedigree and almost immediate professional ball impact. Yet, since the BP team bases their scouting approach upon an on-the-ground team that values actual looks, and arguably has more aggressively realistic future prospect grades than other outlets, it is difficult to see the exclusion of either Woodruff or Burnes from the 2017 Top 10 (and “Others of Note”) lists as mistakes. Similarly, accurate “useful middle to back rotation” scouting profiles might indeed “rank” lower than 15th in this Brewers system, but (more importantly) that ranking is not an insult to either player because useful MLB player should never be viewed as a slight on a prospect report.

To complicate matters, even the “accurate” ace grades do not always work out. Perhaps the best current case for this is RHP Lucas Giolito, who ranked atop the White Sox system in 2015 and landed the coveted 70 / 80 OFP (elite starting pitcher or #1/#2 starting pitcher). Giolito was a projected “ace” for many reasons:

“fastball easily works 93-97; can reach back for more; big arm-side run in lower band (93-95); explosive offering; can already throw to all four quadrants; curve shows deep two-plane break; power pitch; adept at replicating arm slot and disguise to fastball; high confidence in offering; will use at any point in the count; commands to both sides of the plate; already plus to better; elite potential; flashes feel for change; turns over with a loose wrist; displays fade with late drop; early makings of strong pitchability.”

Obviously, fans are inclined to take the good without the bad, and running with that Giolito grade also required the downsides: “Lot of body to control; can drift during landing and open early; diminishes fastball command at times; still in the early stages of building stamina; some effort in delivery wears him down; stuff can get loose and sloppy deeper into outings; velocity trails off third time through; will wrap wrist when delivering curve from time to time; change has gap to close to reach on-paper potential; loses action when throws too hard; doesn’t presently command pitch well; leaves up in zone due to early release.” Giolito was the ace in 2015, but even though he’s since dropped in rankings, the new Giolito remains a rarity in a farm system (a 60 OFP, #3 starter).

This exercise could go on and on. As far as 70 OFP aces go, recently there’s Zack Wheeler, Dylan Bundy, Taijuan Walker, Jonathan Gray, and Alex Reyes to consider. These pitchers have had their ups and for the most part remain coveted arms for nearly an organization insofar as few rotations would reject these contributors. But even with great performers like Michael Fulmer, the equation is tough; Fulmer was a 55 OFP with questions about injury and consistency that could potentially impede a #2 type starter. There is no exact science to aces, and picking one is hardly even an artform.

Even Yovani Gallardo, “an outstanding pitching prospect,” missed the ace label and was hit with “#2 and occasional All-Star” as OFP. Should 20.3 WARP signify a #2 arm, that designation would probably serve Burnes, Hader, and Woodruff quite well (and I gather Gallardo’s career earnings justify that, as well).

My standby comment to respond to Burnes / Hader / Woodruff ace talk, or the Brewers system in general, is to comment “aces do not exist.” This is not a throwaway comment, either. Aces do not exist, in the sense that from a scouting profile the grade is so rare as to basically be obsolete within the minor leagues; in the sense of performance, it is categorically true that few pitchers can be great, especially consistently so. The fun with Brew Crew Ball leader and BPMilwaukee Prospect Editor Kyle Lesniewski’s #2016BrewersAce coverage of RHP Junior Guerra is that it hit on something quite central to baseball: even in the most unorthodox historical package, Guerra emerged to dominate batters in 2016. Guerra prevented 22 runs in 2016, a feat hardly matched by a dozen arms in the NL; his splitter was one of the most effective of all time in terms of Brooks Baseball tracking, meaning that Guerra had the stuff to back up the moniker. It was both immensely fun and funny for Guerra to serve as ace, funny in the sense that the Brewers missed front rotation potential in several drafts, but landed it in the form of an age-31 rookie claimed off waivers.

In the sense that Guerra was an ace, I suspect many Brewers fans believe Burnes or Woodruff or Hader could be an ace. This is an interesting problem to discuss because it runs deep beyond semantics. It is not merely semantics to say that a “scouting ace” and a “statistical ace” are different; the difference could land the Brewers a pennant. The trouble with this determination is that it is no easier to define the dominance of a statistical ace. For example, can an ace be one-off? Could an ace have a one-and-hopefully-not-done season, perhaps like Guerra’s 2016 campaign, or does an ace require multiple (consecutive, even!) years of success in order to be termed “an ace”? But in this sense, someone like Kyle Lohse becomes an ace, which is certainly not how many fans (especially not Brewers fans) use the term; but Lohse was a fantastic pitcher from 2011-2014, posting four consecutive better than average runs prevented campaigns.

One might call this the classic, “Is Yovani Gallardo an ace?” question. Obviously this stuff is more than semantics, because we still are inclined to talk about it in 2017. It matters to fans to say, while discussing Burnes or Hader or Woodruff, someone like Gallardo might not be an ace but was a very, very good pitcher, perhaps the next level immediately behind ace (a true #2 starter, perhaps). The table above is obviously just one captured moment in time, as it excludes 2009 and 2010 campaigns in which Gallardo was phenomenal (2.98 and 3.49 Deserved Runs Average (DRA) respectively, with 185+ IP both years) and Lohse was in transition and recovering from injuries. In either case, perhaps neither Lohse nor Gallardo are “aces” in the aspirational sense of the term, but both pitchers were among the top Senior Circuit starters for an extended period of time.

Data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FeW8mCqDqzf6e6OGlq4SwP0tmIYlT2cpcG288mLQCDw/edit?usp=sharing

But, it’s worth chasing “aces,” and certainly a definition as such. I dove into my runs prevented data, kept annually from 2009-2011 at Sportsbubbler and Bernie’s Crew (unfortunately 2009-2010 are lost), 2012-2015 at Disciples of Uecker, and 2016 personally (officially unpublished). Analyzing a set of 845 individual pitching seasons reveals quite stunning variance that underscores the difficulty of defining acehood.

The big data are not thrilling; a 16 runs prevented season does not strike the “acehood” sense quite like Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke when they reach 50 runs prevented in a season. Yet, isolating those 85 pitching seasons above the 16 runs prevented threshold is quite interesting. Indeed, Junior Guerra was an ace in 2016, and by quite a bit (22 runs prevented being significantly better than 16); Gallardo and Lohse are definitely aces; so was Ian Kennedy, Jair Jurrjens, Dan Straily, Doug Fister, Kris Medlen, Wade Miley, Jhoulys Chacin, Henderson Alvarez, and of course Bronson Arroyo. What is striking about this list is the lack of regulars; only 20 pitchers in the 2011-2016 National League reached 16 runs prevented in two (or more) seasons:

This, if anything, should underscore the rarity and strangeness of acehood. Madison Bumgarner has reached 16 runs prevented exactly twice, and in this definition would be exactly as much an ace as Tanner Roark. What’s intriguing about this argument is that by constructing the counterpoint that there is more to being an ace than preventing runs, such as pitching consistently throughout multiple seasons, or consistently serving as a workhorse, acehood once again becomes something that is quite murky and ill-defined. In order to argue that Tanner Roark is not an ace but Madison Bumgarner is, one is required to shift slightly away from peak performance, and search for criteria that will ultimately dissolve the definition of an ace.

Incidentially, only 20 starters in the 2011-2016 NL worked at least 200 innings more than once, although the list diverges quite a bit from the 20 runs prevented aces above. Here, again, Yovani Gallardo answers that ace question with years of consistency:

Combining innings pitched and runs prevented, one can truly see the amount of variance that is inherent in pitching performance, which should be the last nail in the coffin of “acehood” and thus (hopefully) relieve the pressure on the Brewers to develop “aces.”

For this aspect of analysis, I constructed a times series involving every 2011-2016 NL pitcher who appeared during consecutive seasons in the rotational rankings (excluding “emergency starters,” who by definition only worked one start). If you’ve ever imagined that pitching performance varies a bunch on a seasonal basis…indeed it does! When faced with the criterion of working in at least two consecutive seasons from 2011-2016, 216 NL starting pitchers produced 724 pitching seasons, and their performances varied wildly on an annual basis. On a yearly basis, each pitcher might be expected to add or subtract 57 innings and add or subtract 12 runs prevented. To put this in perspective, given that 10 runs is typically understood to be worth “One Win” to an MLB club, each of these pitchers might be expected to either add or substract at least one win on average when they worked in consecutive years. 57 innings is a season’s work by a replacement starter, further demonstrating the importance of understanding variance inherent in starting pitching.

One might expect some outliers to exist, but once again, searching for “consistent” pitchers (pitchers who varied less than the average starter during consecutive seasons) piles doubt on a clear definition of “acehood.” Searching for pitchers with variance reasonably close to the +/- 12 Runs Prevented and +/- 57.0 IP marks reveals fourteen pitchers that started during consecutive years from 2011-2016 while doing so with consistent performance:

[Really, it’s even worth arguing whether Bumgarner, Gio Gonzalez, Mike Leake, or even Tom Koehler and Jon Niese should appear on this list, because 14-to-16 runs prevented is notably higher than 12 runs prevented.]

Once again, the usual suspects are near some quite unusual arms in terms of “ace” discussions. Few would classify Jon Niese or Tom Koehler an ace; when Marco Estrada was traded to the Blue Jays, Brewers fans did not readily call him an ace when they waved goodbye (would one be happy if Burnes or Woodruff or Hader produced Estrada’s career?). However, this list should show the value of the “middle rotation” or #4/#5 scouting designation, as certainly there is room in MLB for arms like Niese, Koehler, and Estrada. Perhaps this list even casts some light on the Arizona Diamondbacks trade for Shelby Miller; maybe a pitching strapped club was not entirely shortsighted when they traded for a 15 runs prevented starter with extremely low variance between seasons (alternately, perhaps they should have looked into the other shoe dropping). Each of these points demonstrates why one should not be concerned with the ranking of the Brewers’ young prospect pitchers, and instead simply await the variance they will produce and hope for the best convergence of variance-cycles during contending seasons.

Aces do not exist. Aces do not exist in terms of scouting, where pitchers can receive ace designation as prospect and “back up” in terms of stuff, face injuries, or even hit banal developmental hurdles. Aces do not exist in terms of runs prevented, where very few arms are able to prevent runs or even work high innings pitched totals in multiple years. Finally, aces do not exist in terms of consistency, for very few National League starters demonstrated the ability to work consecutive seasons with better than average variance between 2011-2016, and many of the arms that are consistent are not “elite” performers that invoke the ideal ace. None of this should be surprising, for pitching is truly difficult, perhaps the most difficult mechanical exercise in all professional sports. This is the logical and empirical conclusion, which should drive a moral conclusion opposed to hanging “ace” tags on pitchers like Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, or Josh Hader. Each of these arms might meet one of the markers used in this article to draw ace-like comparisons at the MLB level, but the overwhelming odds are they don’t; but that alone should not be construed as a bad outcome, for there are bountiful career options without the designation of “ace.”

Data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FeW8mCqDqzf6e6OGlq4SwP0tmIYlT2cpcG288mLQCDw/edit?usp=sharing

Photo Credit: Caylor Arnold, USAToday Sports Images

It’s unclear where Perez will play next season — with Orlando Arcia likely up for good and Jonathan Villar locked into one of the remaining infield slots and Scooter Gennett still hanging around, Perez may have to float around the infield or even play some outfield as he did last season. But either way, the Brewers will have to find somewhere to play him — there was too much life in his bat in the late season to keep him on the bench. Perez has managed to play his way into the Brewers future after the Tigers cast him off, and if he can keep up this improvement in 2017, he’ll become the latest in what has become a tradition of Brewers waiver claims (or otherwise freely available talent) making good on a last chance in Milwaukee.

To me, that was the defining aspect of Doug Melvin’s tenure as Milwaukee Brewers general manager. Sure, there was the club’s great record of drafting talented hitters, as the wave of prospects that Melvin, Jack Zduriencik and company hit on in the mid-2000s — Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy — comprised the core of Milwaukee’s recent playoff teams. But that wasn’t enough to push the Brewers to victory, as we saw in the years between postseason appearances when there just wasn’t sufficient talent surrounding them. What pushed the 2011 club in particular above the rest was Melvin’s ability to grab players off the scrap heap who fit perfectly around the stars who powered those teams.

That list includes the likes of Casey McGehee, a waiver claim from the Cubs in 2009 who gave the Brewers four years as the starting third baseman; John Axford, who went from minor league free agent to nearly infallible closer in 2011; Chris Narveson, another minor league free agent who held down critical innings in the rotation; Nyjer Morgan, who was given a last chance in Milwaukee after the Nationals were all but ready to cut him before the 2011 season; Marco Estrada, who only needed a chance to prove the power of his changeup after the Nationals discarded him over supposed attitude problems; and Gabe Kapler, who was managing in the low minors before he became Milwaukee’s spark plug off the bench in 2008.

Hopefully this is an area in which the Brewers front office can learn from the continued presence of Doug Melvin as an adviser. Milwaukee will always be limited by market size. While they should have no problem getting the payroll over $100 million when the club is ready to go all in, the Brewers can’t match the spending power the Cubs displayed this past offseason in adding Ben Zobrist, Jason Heyward and Jon Lester to their rebuilt core. And that’s why they’ll need to be able to acquire difference makers off the scrap heap much like Melvin did in the latter half of the past decade.

Even with his slow start last season, Perez finished with a solid 2.4 BWARP thanks to his pop and defensive versatility. He won’t even be arbitration eligible until 2018 and free agent eligible until 2021, meaning if he can prove 2016’s second half wasn’t a fluke, he will almost certainly be a part of the next contending Brewers squad. Now as the Brewers turn their attention from scorching the earth to building a new core, they’ll need to keep their eyes trained on the waiver wire and the minor league free agent list. There are more Perezes out there, and if the Brewers are going to compete sooner rather than later, David Stearns will need to keep finding them like his predecessor Doug Melvin did so well during his time at the helm.

He was always walking a tightrope with the Brewers. When he avoided unnecessary baserunners via the walk, the right-hander could withstand the one-to-two homers per game without too much damage. In 2014, though, his command wavered during prolonged stretches — with a walk rate above the league’s average in three of the six months — which made his expected home-run binge even more harmful. That’s a rather simplistic analysis of what occurred during the year that saw him compile a 4.36 ERA and lose his spot in the starting rotation, but for our purposes, it suffices to say that Estrada couldn’t be off his game much and remain effective.

A year later, Estrada anchored the Toronto Blue Jays’ rotation with a 3.13 ERA and was a key cog in their postseason berth. Many Brewers fans cringed, lamenting their poor luck and wondering why he wasn’t able to do the same for a Milwaukee club that collapsed over the last two months of the 2014 season. I wrote about the 32-year-old’s success with Toronto. Too many people pointed to his .216 BABIP and ignored how he was able to accomplish this. Namely, he made opposing hitters miss within the zone and make poor contact on pitches outside the strike zone. It’s a recipe for poor contact, low batting averages, and a low BABIP. Perhaps not that low, but that’s not exactly the point. With reasonable regression his 2015 numbers, Estrada is still a quality Major League starter with an ERA in the mid- to high-threes — exactly what he did with Milwaukee in 2012 and 2013.

But, again, it’s important to acknowledge that pitchers like Marco Estrada, guys with underwhelming fastballs and an inability to get away with mistakes, have immense downsides. When their command disappears, they’ll get hammered and they become unworkable at the big-league level. Mike Fiers is much the same kind of pitcher, as we saw in 2013.

The Brewers now have another six-foot pitcher with a fastball that struggles to break 90 mph and intriguing peripheral numbers: Zach Davies.

The analytics department reportedly had a strong role in picking up Davies in the Gerardo Parra deal last summer. They liked his strikeout-to-walk ratios over the past couple of years with the Baltimore Orioles. In 2014 he struck out 23.4 percent of the batters he faced in Double-A, while only walking 6.9 percent and posting a 3.35 ERA. The following season, prior to the trade, the right-hander had a 19.3 percent strikeout rate in Triple-A and only walked 7.9 percent, helping him earn an impressive 2.84 ERA and 3.08 FIP.

Detractors point to his fastball that only averaged 89.33 mph with the Brewers, as well as his slight frame. Neither of those are desirable for a starting pitcher. It means he walks a fine line. His command has to be above-average early in the count; otherwise, Davies cannot get to his trademark changeup that caused opposing hitters to swing-and-miss 28 percent of the time in 2015. It’s a profile that lulls people into complacency when it’s working, but it’s important to recognize that he’s always a step or two away from being blasted — which is something that happened in Triple-A Colorado Springs (even if the harsh environment alleviates some of the concern).

A lot of that sounds like Marco Estrada. Davies is someone who relies on a plus changeup to retire Major League hitters, and when he can do so, he’s able to compile respectable-enough numbers to be a back-end starter. For example, the 22-year-old had a 3.71 ERA and 3.81 FIP in his big-league cameo last year. The Brewers would pay good money on the free-agent market to acquire a pitcher like that, especially if it comes with 175-plus innings. That’s a bona fide number-four starter on a competitive club.

Zach Davies is much like Estrada in another important way, though. His most-important skill may be his ability to miss bats within the strike zone. It’s something that Estrada did in 2015, as shown by his 82.8 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone, which ranked seventh-best in Major League Baseball among qualified starters. It was better than Matt Harvey, Chris Archer, and Jake deGrom. In fact, as mentioned above, I argued in October that it was an integral reason for his success.

Through his six Major League starts, Davies posted an 82.4 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone. It’s a small-sample size, to be sure, but plate discipline rates are numbers that stabilize much more quickly than others. At the very least, it isolates one of the reasons why he was able to generate swings-and-misses 10 percent of the time despite a mere 26.9 percent whiff rate at pitches outside the strike zone. Missing bats within the strike zone is how Davies can work to avoid walks, while not nibbling at the zone. And all of this is a result of his excellent changeup.

I’m interested in how sustainable this type of approach can be for the former 26th-round draft pick. It may turn out that Major League hitters will figure him out during his second or third time through the league, proving that he’s walking too close to the proverbial volcano. He doesn’t have the raw stuff to consistently retire big leaguers without guile and keeping hitters off-balance. It’s all about pitch sequencing and command for Davies. If either of those falter in 2016, he’ll likely get demolished and return to Triple-A Colorado Springs for “further seasoning.”

What gives me pause is Davies’ 57.6 percent ground-ball rate in 2015. That’s obviously great, but it doesn’t really fit a fastball-changeup combination too well. For example, Marco Estrada has a career 34.9 percent ground-ball rate. The two pitchers with the highest changeup rates in the league last season, Jake Odorizzi and John Danks, have ground-ball rates of 33.4 percent and 41.8 percent, respectively. Because of this, they struggle with home runs. If Davies can somehow avoid this pitfall and keep the baseball on the dirt more often than not, it will dramatically improve his chances of sticking in a Major League rotation and being successful for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2016.

Zach Davies currently has his foot in the door for a back-end rotation spot next year. He profiles much in the same way Marco Estrada did for the Brew Crew a couple years ago. The latter proved that it can be a really tricky profile to make work in a consistent basis. But it clearly can work over 100-plus innings. That will be the goal for Davies in 2016 — to prove that he has the command and smarts necessary to get by without premium stuff. The underlying numbers illustrate that he uses his repertoire much like Estrada, aside from the extreme ground-ball rate that he displayed in a brief 34 innings.

At the league minimum, it’s a worthwhile gamble for the Brewers, though, as shown by Estrada’s five-year Major League career, some of those years being quite valuable. It’s a volatile pitching profile, one that will likely draw the ire of many fans if he suffers through a significant rough patch where the home runs flow freely. That’s an image that fans do not easily forget. Davies’ predecessor in Milwaukee is clear evidence of that fact.

The trade in which the Brewers sent Estrada to the Blue Jays for Adam Lind was a classic need-for-need trade between teams on entirely divergent path. Estrada didn’t project to be an important piece for the Brewers. But here he is, starring in a postseason series for the American League East champions.

Throughout his ups (3.64 ERA, 9.3 K/9, 1.9 BB/9 in 2012) and downs (4.36 ERA, 29 home runs allowed in 150.2 innings in 2014), Estrada’s changeup was his bread and butter. It was again in 2015, as only five pitchers — Chris Sale, Felix Hernandez, John Danks, Edinson Volquez and Cole Hamels — threw more changeups than Estrada’s 750. The right-hander’s changeup ranked a healthy 29th in whiffs per swing (34.5 percent), ninth in swing rate (59.2 percent), and second in pop-up rate (13 percent of balls in play). In short, that’s a lot of swings and a lot of good results on those swings.

When Estrada’s changeup is working, it’s like the ball goes through a phase shift. What looks like 90 MPH on the outside black from the hand becomes 80 MPH almost a foot out of the zone in an instant as the force of the changeup grip pulls the string on the hitter. And at its best, the fastball and changeup feed off each other. Hitters are left frozen staring at a fastball in the zone or weakly lofting a changeup into the outfield after losing all their momentum swinging for the heater.

So it was Sunday night. Estrada threw 17 changeups, 11 for strikes, and an absurd seven for swinging strikes — a 47 percent whiff rate overall and 63 percent on a per-swing basis. Estrada drew just five swinging strikes with his fastball, but three of those finished off strikeouts; the fear of the changeup in two-strike counts left Rangers hitters vulnerable. Estrada’s fastball was crushed in 2014, as 18 of his 29 home runs allowed came off the pitch and hitters recorded a .498 slugging percentage against it. Sunday night, though, he kept his fastball away from the heart of the plate and used the deception of his changeup to his advantage.

Estrada was representative of one of Doug Melvin’s great strengths as a talent identifier in Milwaukee. He had a knack for picking up players discarded for dead within their previous organizations. Players like Casey McGehee, Chris Narveson, John Axford, and Nyjer Morgan were picked up either in minor-league transactions or for nominal trade costs and all produced well for the Brewers. Estrada had failed to break into the Nationals organization at 26 and had an iffy repertoire and not much velocity. But he had that changeup. It was enough to earn him a chance to start with Milwaukee, and now it’s enough to turn him into a playoff hero, if only a year too late for Brewers fans.

I spent most of the winter in hibernation, buried within the cozy confines of my baseball-analysis den and wading through a sea of pitchers. I’m happy to say that the seeds of thought that were planted in the final weeks of 2013 are now bearing fruit, as the 2014 Starting Pitcher Guide that Paul Sporer and I produced was released last week and covers close to 400 pitchers throughout the professional ranks. This was my second year contributing mechanical reports to the Guide, and I thoroughly enjoyed the arduous-yet-rewarding process as well as the pitching discussions that were generated as a result (and which can be heard on the latest episode of TINSTAAPP).

I dove quite a bit deeper into the pitcher pool this year, with mechanical report cards for more than 200 players. The total was enough to cover just about every pitcher with a shot at starting for his club come Opening Day, nearly all of the pitching prospects who placed in the upper half of BP’s Top 101 prospect list, plus a batch of 30 relievers to ice the cake. Stacking these players side-by-side for each ball club revealed some stark organizational trends, and though some of these team-wide tendencies were apparent in the past, there were a few new patterns that emerged this time around.

Let’s get the recurring topics from “Trending 101” out of the way first.

To start, the Rays are particularly adept at training their pitchers to have excellent balance and outstanding posture, and this element becomes more apparent as Tampa Bay continues to churn out quality arms from their system. Consider the grades of the five starting pitchers who were covered in the Guide, in which each member of their starting rotation earned a plus grade of “60” or better in the departments of both balance and posture (note that these were finalized prior to the Jeremy Hellickson injury). The grades for the big five averaged out to a 63 for both subjects. On the downside, Rays pitchers tend to combine the awesome balance with a deliberate pace to the plate, with an average momentum grade of just 46 for the five starters. The only pitchers with above-average scores for momentum wereDavid Price and Matt Moore, each of whom scored a modest 55 in the category.

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I have spoken at great length of the Brewers’ preference toward over-the-top pitchers who sacrifice posture in the name of a high arm slot, and that dictum grows louder even as the faces change within their rotation. The three homegrown mainstays from the 2013 rotation each received a poor grade for posture, including Yovani Gallardo (20), Marco Estrada (30), and Wily Peralta (30). The one bright spot was Kyle Lohse, whose 50-grade posture was the best on the staff last season; significantly, he is not a product of the Brewers’ system. The same can be said for newcomer Matt Garza, but the fact that Garza incorporates heavy spine-tilt to the tune of 35-grade posture (at peak) may very well have been the lure that reeled him to “the good land.” Tyler Thornburg is a product of the Milwaukee farm, and his own propensity for glove-side tilt carries a common bond (i.e. 30-grade) with his future rotation-mates. All told, the six starting pitchers who were given report cards in the 2014 SP Guide received an average posture grade of just 32.5, the lowest such GPA of any club in any single subject.

[Read the remainder of the article by Doug Thorburn right here.]