In 2017, Jonathan Villar performed so badly that the club had to bring in Neil Walker to play second base while they pushed for the playoffs.  Although they fell short and missed the wild card game, Walker performed admirably.  In 38 games with Milwaukee, Walker posted a .305 True Average (TAv) and was worth 0.9 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP).  One win from Walker in a quarter of the season is a good output, as it represented an upgrade over Villar’s season-long .242 TAv and 0.8 WARP.

As we are all aware, though, the Brewers have not yet re-signed Walker.  The only infield transactions they’ve made have been re-signing Eric Sogard and adding Mauricio Dubon to the 40-man roster.  Both Sogard and Dubon profile as more utility types than everyday second basemen, though, so their presence should not preclude an actual upgrade.  Both are capable of playing the position, but neither is good enough that the Brewers—a team with playoff aspirations—should be satisfied.

Walker is the most obvious solution.  He is not a superstar, but he is a solid player, and he may be available on a shorter, one- or two-year deal because the free agent market has collapsed.  From 2013 through 2016, Walker had been worth between 2.9 and 3.5 WARP.  That is a valuable player, and that level of consistency would be useful for a team that will be relying on some high-variability players (Lewis Brinson, Orlando Arcia) for their playoff push in 2018.  Even during last season, which was a down year by Walker’s standards, was not actually that bad, as his cumulative 1.7 WARP still made him worthy of a roster spot.

But as I mentioned above, the offseason is coming to a close, and the Brewers are running out of time.  This doesn’t matter so much if Walker is the solution, because the free agent market as a whole is moving slowly.  But if Walker signs elsewhere, the late date in the calendar makes working on a contingency plan more difficult.  Free agents are likely to sign quickly once the dominoes start falling simply because of the lack of time left in the winter, and the second base free agent market is not that deep.  There just aren’t that many exciting options; Danny Espinosa is the only one who appears slightly intriguing.

This late stature in the offseason also matters because it decreases the amount of time for a potential trade.  I don’t know what the Brewers front office is working on, and I imagine they are working on upgrades at basically every position.  But they cannot be pursuing every angle at once, so if Walker is the first choice, then pivoting to finding trade partners will still take some time.

Spring training is quite long, so one could argue that there is no need to make a move in the next month anyway.  A spring training trade, or even an April trade, would bring in a player early enough that the Brewers’ overall season would not be impacted.  The front office does not stop working once spring training starts or Opening Day arrives, so whether reinforcements arrive on January 30 or March 30 may not matter all that much.  The timing of these moves do matter, though, because the Brewers are at a bit of a crossroads in terms of how willing they are to push for the playoffs this year.  If they are waiting until March or April to address this kind of need, then they are unlikely to also be investing resources in a starting pitcher.  Thus, while the timing of when exactly a new second baseman arrives is mostly irrelevant, it would be indicative of the club’s broader strategy.

This article works on the assumption that an upgrade is needed, and I think the club believes that as well.  David Stearns has proven himself too smart to think that Eric Sogard is a long-term option; despite his 1.257 OPS in May, he finished the year with an OPS of just .770.  Even this was over one hundred points higher than his career mark of .638.  Mauricio Dubon is unproven, and questions remain about his bat.  The Brewers seem to love Hernan Perez, but he has a career .244 TAv, and he backslid from his seeming improvement in 2016.  That leaves Villar, who had a disappointing year and appears to have lost the club’s trust.  Even though he ended the season well (.888 OPS following the Walker trade), he could not regain his playing time, as he got only 63 plate appearances in the last 42 games of the season.  Villar was given a long rope, as no move was made to replace him until mid-August, but the rope did look as if it ran out.

Craig Counsell’s use of Villar in August and September suggests to me that the club does not view him as a solution at second base.  If that is the case, then an external option must be in the cards.  Because of the glacial pace of the free agent market, though, if Neil Walker is not that player, the Brewers are running out of time to find a backup.

Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire, USAToday Sports Images

Those narratives will undoubtedly carry into 2018 guided by the very same contradictions: Milwaukee will indeed be developing many young players at the MLB level (including Lewis Brinson, Josh Hader, Brett Phillips, and Brandon Woodruff), while the team also has several opportunities to improve with established players (either through trades involving their prospects, through free agency signings, or both).

To put it another way: GM David Stearns can take the roster in several directions, and certainly has the resources available to contend while continuing to develop some players.

One way to assess player value, and therefore roster needs, is to estimate the surplus value that each player (and their contractual situation) provides the team. Value is assumed to be production and scarcity, recognizing that a player is not simply valuable to a club based on production, but also based on cost and the general availability of that skill set within the MLB. Surplus is the difference provided between a player’s production and their contract, recognizing that these aspects can be double-counted (a team simultaneously receives a player’s production on the field and their production gauged against their contract). Based on these assumptions, I tracked the surplus value of the Brewers 40-man roster (as of October 20, 2017) by using harsh depreciation to reduce each player’s maximum value (recognizing that a player’s performance typically declines over time save for rare cases).

The following chart tracks changes in surplus entering 2017 to entering 2018, while also assigning an Overall Future Potential (OFP) role for each Brewers roster member:

What these surplus numbers can suggest, in the abstract, is the difference between “the number of the wins above replacement” a player will produce during their contract and the OFP a team might receive if they traded the player at this point in time (alternately, they might suggest a contract range; for example, if the Brewers offered Neil Walker a $30 million contract, they would likely retain some surplus value during that contract).

Using the extremely interesting and difficult case of Jonathan Villar to interpret this table, his 2016 campaign and contract control years still loom large enough to suggest that the Brewers should not move the infielder for cheap; but the shortstop-turned-bench/utility option does mean that Villar’s ultimate role is trending downward, meaning that if Milwaukee believes that role decline is real and will continue to materialize, moving Villar for less than his top value could offset the issues of rostering a declining role. This should outline the difficulty of making roster decisions: in the case of Villar, there is not necessarily a right answer.

I should add that surplus value is abstract in the sense that there is a point at which additional surplus does not provide a team transaction value. Scooter Gennett and Chris Carter should be the most specific examples of this phenomenon in recent Brewers memory, as both players retained solidly positive surplus value entering 2017, but were essentially unwanted on the trade market and therefore expendable for nothing. Following this example, a rule of thumb might be to expect any type of roster move once a player’s surplus value dips below $20 million (or, less than three wins above replacement). Looking at the table of the Brewers roster above, this fact should seem intuitive with many of the names on the list (for example, it is highly unlikely that the Brewers would be able to move a player like Andrew Susac or even Eric Thames for their maximal surplus value).

By averaging each player’s 2017, 2018, and OFP surplus value, and comparing that to their change in value over time, a rather intuitive 2018 roster emerges. In this case, I excluded each player with a Negative-50 percent change in value (ex., a 50 percent decline), which produced need at Catcher, Second Base, and Right-Handed Pitcher, with additional question marks about the Utility roles. This is a rather succinct picture of the actual needs for the 2018 Brewers, and it also shows that if a few key free agents are retained, or similar free agents from outside the organizational signed, the Brewers can assemble quite a good roster:

These tables need not force an analyst to rely on numbers alone in order to validate roster decisions. Compare the following descriptions of potential role upgrades for the 2018 Brewers with those players’ statistical trends, and find nearly 20 roster spots (on the 40-Man) that can be upgraded for 2018:

The benefit of this exercise is that additional roster functions can be analyzed, either through descriptive or analytical means. For example, one could compare some of the best Rule 5 Draft Roster Protection candidates with the players above in order to find the most salient moves for the future value of the organization. Via Brewerfan.net:

Once again, this should exhibit a rather intuitive process of evaluation. If the future value of a catcher such as Jacob Nottingham is better than either Stephen Vogt, Andrew Susac, or Jett Bandy (or all three players), it should not hurt to lose one of those players in order to roster Nottingham. Each of these catchers are good candidates for contractual non-tenders for this reason (and, indeed, catcher is a position that the Brewers can upgrade in terms of depth behind/alongside Manny Pina). Similarly, allowing Matt Garza to walk via free agency and rostering Marcos Diplan, Freddy Peralta, or Devin Williams in that place should improve the pitching surplus of the roster. Where it gets more interesting is considering a player like Mauricio Dubon, and whether he simply takes the spot of free agent Eric Sogard, or overtakes Villar or Hernan Perez.

Using these analytical approaches should validate the fact that the Brewers are in a unique position entering 2018. They are a good team, indeed, that also features many up-and-coming players to develop at the MLB level and many declining roles that can be replaced. Where surplus value becomes useful is targeting particular trades, or simply determining when a player should be released or non-tendered.

A player like Keon Broxton, Perez, Susac, or Vogt should demonstrate this difficult decision-making process, and perhaps cause fans to realign their expectations that these types of players can receive impactful trade returns to Milwaukee. Given the packed outfield for 2018, the Brewers could conceivably release a player like Broxton should trade partners refuse to bite with a 45-to-50 OFP / quality depth trade (matching Broxton’s $11.5M-to-$19.8M surplus), for the trouble is that Broxton’s expected role is indeed declining (and any particular trade partner will also know that). This should not simply be viewed as picking on Broxton, as the point exists for Vogt and several other players on the roster.

“Slingin’ Stearns” earned his nickname for wheeling-and-dealing on the trade market during his first offseason in Milwaukee, but that reputation has calmed over time (not surprisingly, as the club completed their rebuilding process). Stearns did not show any hesitation in aggressively using waiver claims and releases to define his 2016-2017 offseason, and now the GM’s reputation may be defined by how effectively he clears roster space for what’s next: refined future development and improved MLB roles to contend in 2018.

The 2017 season proved that these goals can align and coexist within the same roster, so there are no excuses for failing to improve this strategy by learning from the 2017 progression.

Photo Credit: Jim Young, USAToday Sports Images.

The Brewers vastly outperformed their pre-season expectations. They competed with the defending World Series Champion Chicago Cubs for the National League Central title through mid-to-late September. They finished three games better than the St. Louis Cardinals and eleven games better than the Pittsburg Pirates. This coming after most expected the Brewers to finish no better than fourth place in the division. They were a few late-season heart-breaking losses away from making the playoffs.

Unfortunately, the offseason for the Brewers is here, which means it’s time to start talking about potential free agent targets.

The Brewers are in a unique place. The team arrived as a contender a year or two before their expected window. They have an opportunity to build on a young core before they have fully developed.

GM David Stearns will certainly be looking to bolster an already solid bullpen, add some depth to the position player side of the roster, and (hopefully) an impact starting pitcher to place alongside Chase Anderson, Zach Davies, the injured Jimmy Nelson, and the various young prospects expected to eventually join the Brewers rotation.

Alex Cobb
The Brewers likely won’t be in on big-money starting pitchers such as Jake Arrieta or Yu Darvish. They are much more likely to go after a more cost-efficient impact arm such as Alex Cobb. Cobb has yet to turn thirty-years-old. The oft-injured right-hander is coming off the healthiest year of his career, throwing a career-high 179.3 innings. He was worth 3 WARP and posted a 3.66 earned run average. Cobb was worth over 4 WARP in back-to-back years in 2013-2014 before injuries limited him to just twenty-two innings over 2015 and 2016 combined. A long-term contract for Cobb would be taking on some risk that Brewers front office may not want at this point in their rebuild. If they opt for the gamble, they might strike gold and acquire an ace at a discounted price who is still at a relatively young age.

Jhoulys Chacin
Jhoulys Chacin offers a cheaper alternative without the upside that Cobb offers. The San Diego Padres gave Chacin his first full-time starting pitching role since 2013 and he took full advantage of it. He was worth 2.9 WARP, the best of his career, posting a 3.89 earned run average. Chacin featured a ground ball percentage over 50 percent, a home run per nine under 1.0, and a deserved run average at 4.13. He has also yet to turn thirty, he’s a few months younger than Cobb. Chacin is probably a more realistic option for the Brewers. He is unlikely to get a deal longer than two years due to his lack of a track record. Chacin would give the Brewers flexibility in filling out the rest of the roster.

Addison Reed
The Brewers already have their closer in Corey Knebel. The fact that they are already set at the top of their bullpen, and potentially have another dominant arm in Josh Hader, the Brewers have an opportunity to build a super-bullpen of their own. There are plenty of middle-of-the-road options to fill the Brewers bullpen. Addison Reed is one of the few true difference makers the Brewers have the opportunity of acquiring. Reed has been one of the most dominant relief pitchers in the league over the last three seasons. Reed would not be cheap. If the Brewers are keen on turning the back-end of their bullpen into a three-headed monster, Reed is the answer. The Brewers might be better off acquiring not one, but two lesser options in order to build some depth in their bullpen, such as Pat Neshek, Luke Gregerson, Juan Nicasio, or Mike Minor.

Neil Walker:
With the unreliability of Jonathan Villar, the Brewers are in need of some kind of stability at the second base position. They need look no further than the player who manned the position for most of the last month-and-a-half of the season, Neil Walker. Walker just finished up 149 plate appearances with the Brewers in which he posted a .409 on-base percentage. Up until this season, Walker had been worth over 3.0 WARP in three straight seasons. The Brewers are not in need of a difference maker on the offensive side of the ball. Walker is a perfect complement to the already formidable Brewers offense.

It is unrealistic to assume David Stearns and company will be able to fill every hole. It would be impractical to operate as if their window is closing. It is just now opening. At the same time, there are moves to be made for this team. It would be foolish for the Brewers front office to decide against building on an incredibly successful 2017 campaign.

All we can say right now is that it’s going to be an interesting offseason in Milwaukee.

Photo Credit: Orlando Ramirez, USAToday Sports Images

The Brewers entered the 8^th inning on Friday tied at two. Eric Thames opened the scoring with a solo home run, then five batters later Neil Walker hit a grand slam to start the avalanche. Walker looked at the first three pitches, then knocked a 99 mph fastball for the grand slam. That the home run came on a high velocity fourseam fastball would have been surprising to anyone who only looked at Walker’s season before the trade to Milwaukee.

As I noted at the time of the trade (shameless plug!), while Walker had shown some power against righties on pitches on outer part of the plate, his performance against fourseam fastballs had not been ideal. While it wasn’t a surprise that the grand slam was off an away pitch delivered by a righty, catching up to that kind of velocity certainly was.

Walker has seen a shift in his performance since coming to Milwaukee, and it’s been for the better. Specifically, it’s his performance against fourseam fastballs:

Before the trade, Walker was showing nothing against fourseamers, which was a drag on his batting line and overall performance. Since arriving in Milwaukee, his numbers have taken off. Part of the uptick may be explained by his usage. With the Mets, Walker was in the lineup every day, which has changed since the trade. Using pitches seen as a measuring tool, we can see the following numbers:

By effectively making Walker a platoon player, he’s turned in more value than he would if forced to face left handed pitchers. He’s also been helped by pitchers still thinking he’s the old Walker. Looking back to that at bat on Friday, Brian Ellington threw fourseam fastballs on three of the four pitches Walker saw. Pitchers as a whole are now throwing Walker more four seam fastballs now, as compared to before the trade. Normally, this would have been a good adjustment. Walker handled sinkers and more off speed stuff while flailing against velocity. Now Walker is catching up to those pitches, and until pitchers realize, he has the advantage.

Eric Thames homered in three straight games last week. Somehow it was only his third longest streak of games with a home run this season. Lingering injuries aside, one of the biggest red flags as Thames struggled was his increasing swing percentage. When he struggled in his initial go around MLB, Thames was swinging at about half the pitches he faced, a figure he started to approach over the summer. Interestingly, even though Thames swings and whiffs the most against offspeed pitches, he’s still seeing a lot of fastballs.

Thames’s numbers show some success in cutting down on his swings this month, and by rate stats, September has been his most productive month since April. As the playoff push continues, a productive Thames adds a powerful element to the Brewers lineup, and a potential ceiling that no one else can match.

Up Next: It feels like the Brewers have played Pittsburgh every week this season, but I checked the schedule, and only nineteen were scheduled, twelve of which have come in the second half. The season series concludes this week with three games at PNC Park. Milwaukee’s last trip to Pittsburgh was right after the All Star break when the Pirates swept the Brewers. After the trip to Pittsburgh, the Brewers return home for a four game series with the Cubs, which will could decide the division for the Cubs, or set up an exciting final week.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USAToday Sports Images

That narrative started to change on March 28, when the Cincinnati Reds claimed Gennett off waivers. The loss barely registered on most fans’ radars. A blip of nostalgia, perhaps, but these were the rebuilding Milwaukee Brewers. We’re used to players coming and going. In actuality, Gennett’s sudden departure was the first in a series of unexpected events that engulfed second basemen throughout the Brewers’ system. (Perhaps the most unexpected? Scooter’s .308 Total Average (TAv) and 24 dingers in 435 plate appearances for the division-rival Reds.)

As 2017 winds down, it’s safe to say that the second base picture has grown considerably more murky. Here’s a brief overview of the state of the position up and down the organization.

Major Leagues
Jonathan Villar got off to a miserable start this season, hitting only .221 before the All-Star break and battling a lower back injury in June. Even before the injury, ineffectiveness cost Villar significant playing time. The Brewers summoned utility infielder Eric Sogard from Class-AAA in mid-May, and the diminutive veteran’s hot start in Milwaukee left Villar the odd man out. It was scarcely the follow-up the club had hoped for from Villar, who led the majors with 62 stolen bases and recorded a .826 OPS last year. Villar earned his long leash, but he deserved his reduced role this summer. He’s provided fans a glimmer of hope since the break, batting .288/.306/.415 while working at second and dabbling in center field.

Sogard, meanwhile, won hearts across Brewers nation with a monstrous first half, in which he batted .331/.438/.485. He, too, was bit by the injury bug this season, landing on the 10-day disabled list with a left ankle strain in early July. He hasn’t been the same player since making his way back to the active roster, as evidenced by a paltry .171/.276/.224 triple-slash in the second half. The 31-year-old is a free agent at the end of the season, meaning his days in Milwaukee blue may be numbered.

The versatile Hernan Perez has occasionally spelled Sogard and Villar this year, and he’s done so with aplomb. Brewers brass prefers Perez in a super-utility role, though, so he shouldn’t be considered a long-term solution at the keystone. The same goes for Yadiel Rivera, who made only one brief trip to the majors in his final option year, going hitless in a pair of plate appearances.

Dissatisfied with a slumping Sogard and inconsistent Villar, the Brewers acquired Neil Walker from the New York Mets on August 12 for a player to be named. Walker has been a steady contributor this year, amassing 1.3 WARP in just 380 plate appearances. He’s turned it up a notch since coming to Milwaukee, batting .279/.395/.485 in 22 games. But the 31-year-old is likely to command more in free agency this offseason than the Brewers will want to pay. With younger options already on the big league roster, Walker is likely a pure rental, to be enjoyed while he lasts.

Minor Leagues
Eric Sogard’s May promotion to the major leagues allowed Nate Orf to lock down the second base job in Class-AAA Colorado Springs. He hasn’t disappointed. Orf hit .320/.397/.507 in the thin air of the Pacific Coast League, flashing hitherto unseen power (his 9 home runs this year surpassed his previous career total). At 27 years old, Orf is an unconventional prospect. But he’s also an intriguing one. Orf draws plenty of walks (10.7 percent), and his solid hit tool allows him to avoid strikeouts (14.8 percent). He’s managed to keep the ball off the ground this year, too, and could be a sneaky-good major leaguer if ever given the chance. His .288 TAv in Colorado Springs indicates that he’s ready for that opportunity. Orf could crack the Opening Day roster as a utility man next year if he’s protected from the Rule 5 Draft this offseason.

Mauricio Dubon split time between second base and shortstop this year, reaching Colorado Springs for the first time on June 26. Dubon possesses a solid hit tool, but he failed to replicate the power he flashed last season with the Portland Sea Dogs. If he grows into some pop, he could be a nifty starter. Otherwise, he’s destined for a role as a utility player.

Isan Diaz came to Milwaukee in the Jean Segura trade, and won the organizational Minor League Player of the Year award in 2016 by way of a first impression. He socked 20 home runs and 34 doubles in the Midwest League last season, but took a step back in Class-Advanced A Carolina this year. Diaz struck out in 26.6 percent of his plate appearances en route to a .222/.334/.376 line for the Mudcats. A fractured hamate ended his season in late August.

With the ninth selection of the Rule 4 Draft, the Brewers nabbed California-Irvine standout Keston Hiura. Hiura’s a second baseman by trade, but acted as a strict DH throughout his final collegiate season amidst concerns over an injured elbow. Any worries about whether he could field were mitigated by the fact that Hiura can really, really hit. He walloped Arizona League pitching with a .425 TAv before moving up to Class-A Wisconsin and posting a .326 TAv in just over 100 plate appearances. Hiura returned to the dirt towards the end of the season and held his own at second base. He will push Diaz for superiority in the top prospect pecking order when he gets his first taste of the Carolina League next season.

2018 Outlook
Barring any significant off-season moves, Jonathan Villar is again the odds-on favorite to start at second on Opening Day. Should he stumble out of the gate, he could cede some playing time to Nate Orf, or to a random free agent signing. Mauricio Dubon could likely benefit from another year of AAA pitching, while the high-upside duo of Diaz and Hiura are set to slug it out for a promotion to Biloxi. Keep an eye on Dubon’s ISO, Diaz’s strikeout percentage, and Hiura’s work with the glove. Villar will reach free agency after the 2020 campaign. By this time next year, we should have a pretty good idea of his heir apparent.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

The deadline came and went for the Brewers without much action after rumors of Quintana and Gray fizzled, and the offense continued to slump. Post-deadline moves tend not to be that excited, but David Stears pulled off a pretty nifty move by landing Neil Walker for a song from the struggling Mets.

Jonathan Villar, his .246 TAV, and constant bobbling of easy double play balls is easily the most frustrating Brewer of the season, and while his 0.5 WARP doesn’t sound THAT bad, his FRAA strikes me as just a tad on the high side for how he’s actually played. In any case, the Brewers’ problem isn’t defense, it’s offense, and Villar has been the Yuniesky Betancourt-sized hole in the offense all year. Villar is still a promising player and I’m not ready to punt on him completely, but I am perfectly willing to punt on him for the balance of this season.

Walker’s .326 TAV is a huge upgrade, and while a lackluster FRAA has his WARP as barely above Villar, sometimes the way you create value is just as important as the value itself. Walker is a remarkably consistent player, and the entire NL Central has been tortured by him at some point. He’s taken a small step back this year, but more than anything else, he’s destroying right-handed pitching, posting a Scooter Gennett-esque .293/.366/.498 slash line, and adding some much-needed pop to the lineup.

With so few games left in a tight race, small moves like this one can have exceptionally large impacts, and Walker has been instrumental in righting the Brewers’ ship. He’s not only recorded at least one hit in every game as a Brewer, he’s posted a positive Win Probability Added in four of six games, with a swing greater than a tenth of a win on two occasions. Walker was particularly instrumental in a late 7-6 win over the Pirates last week, and it is very likely they lose at least that game with a lesser hitter. He obviously will not continue to slash .435/.519/.565 for Milwaukee, but getting a week-long stretch of such production is exactly what you’re looking for with a move like this.

Walker is also only 31, still good with the bat, and potentially sign-able on a short term contract in the offseason. I suspect the Brewers believe in Villar (and their farm system) enough to avoid becoming desperate, but a switch hitting bat who can slide over to third in a pinch, and provide Villar insurance could be quite valuable on a short term deal. I always remember Walker as a Brewers killer, but in checking the stats that really isn’t the case, as he’s beaten up the Reds far more than anyone else in the National League Central, posting an .849 OPS against a .770 OPS versus the Brewers. In fact, in his career he has played better against everyone else in the division (including the Pirates), than he has against Milwaukee. Such statistics are fraught with small sample size problems, and this year’s Cubs are obviously not the Cubs of five years ago. Like everything else about Walker so far, it’s a fun tidbit that he’s a non-Brewers killer, and is in fact an “everyone else killer”. If the Brewers are going to rally back and make the postseason, he will likely be one of the big reasons. In some ways he already has been.

Photo Credit: Jeff Hanisch, USAToday Sports Images

On Saturday, the Brewers traded for Neil Walker. On Sunday, they batted him fourth. Walker rewarded that faith with two singles in the game and he drove in the second run of the game for Milwaukee. The two singles provide a good introduction to what Walker can do at this point in his career. While Walker has had two seasons of 20+ home runs (twenty three in each of those seasons), he’s generally been a singles and doubles guy with decent plate discipline.

Last season, Walker generated most of his home runs batting left handed, by owning the outer portion of the strike zone Looking at his isolated power, his red zones expanded as a lefty, but he really only handled low and inside pitches from the right side. This year, Walker has seen his power numbers go down. He’s not controlling as much of the zone against right handed pitchers and he’s shown no power against lefties.

Though he’s showing less power, Walker still has his batting eye. His swing rate is down from 46.75% in 2016 to 43.16 percent this year, but he’s more effective on those swings, reducing his swinging strike percentage from 20 percent to 18.94 percent, a trend that’s showing across all types of pitches. His contact rate uptick has mostly come on pitches out of the zone, even though he’s also swinging at those pitches less.

Based on his outcomes in 2016 compared with 2017 on four seam fastballs, Walker probably can’t catch up with too much heat at this point in his career, but he doesn’t need to be a power source in this lineup. If he can get himself on base and provide some competent defense, he’ll fulfill his function on this team.

Jimmy Nelson allowed ten runs in less than four innings in his Friday starts. One of his issues this season has been batters squaring up on his four seam fastball. Including Friday’s start, opposing hitters slugging .484 against the pitch. Eight of the fifteen homers he’s allowed in 2017 have come off the pitch. The good news is that Nelson has continued to de-emphasize the pitch:

On Friday, he threw the pitch fourteen times, in line with his recent usage, and only got two whiffs while allowing a single double and home run.

As Nelson has moved away from the four seamer, he’s increased his sinker usage from  30.78 percent in April to 37.54 percent in August. This has generally been a good strategy, because while opponents have .299 batting average the pitch, the highest in his arsenal, they only slug .081. Nelson is fine with those singles and superior ground ball rate because those hits don’t generally change the game. Unless it’s Friday, where Nelson allowed four singles on the pitch, allowing the lead to balloon to 10-2. Most of the Reds’ hits didn’t seem to be extremely hard contact. Unfortunately, they had enough bloops and perfectly placed grounders to do their most of their damage. It doesn’t make Friday’s outing any easier to handle, but sometimes games like that are going to happen. Nelson’s plan has been effective throughout the season, and there’s no reason to panic after one disaster.

Up Next: The Pirates will come to Milwaukee for a two game series, starting on Tuesday. The last time these two teams played, Pittsburgh swept the Brewers in four games, starting the tailspin which culminated with the Brewers losing their division lead. These are also the last two games in Milwaukee until the end of the month, so coming away with at least a spilt is critical.

Photo Credit: Benny Sieu, USAToday Sports Images

Last year, the PTBNL bug also bit Brewers fans in the Jonathan Lucroy – Jeremy Jeffress deal, as fans allowed their imagination to run wild with apparently leaked scouting assignments of Texas Rangers prospects and dreams of landing another top prospect (the club landed useful outfield / utility depth in Ryan Cordell, who was shipped to the White Sox to acquire Anthony Swarzak). Obviously this time around Brewers fans are not dreaming of the top ten prospect that might head to the Mets, as almost everyone expects GM David Stearns to have landed the veteran Walker for next to nothing. This is a faulty expectation.

What complicates the deal is the fact that the Mets are sending an undisclosed amount of cash to the Brewers, which could sweeten the prospect return from Milwaukee. This is a logical assumption, as MLB teams frequently demonstrate that cash and prospects are transferable, and one can deduce that there is an exchange rate for prospects and cash within each front office. However, the haziness does not end here for two reasons: (1) Walker demonstrates wild discrepancies between past and present value, and (2) there is a perception that the trade market for position players is currently depressed.

First, consider point (1) with the assumption that the Mets covered approximately half of Walker’s contract in the trade. In the abstract, assessing Walker by considering WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player), cash, and Prospect Overall Future Potential (OFP) as interchangeable by monetizing each value yields several potential categories of value:

Already one should see that there is plenty of wiggle room for assessing Stearns in this trade. While fans know a name like Mauricio Dubon and would feel upset to see the young infielder leave the Brewers system, such a trade would match the high end of Walker’s value (plus cash). A more interesting idea is seeing an injured prospect head out of Milwaukee’s system, which could perhaps explain the time lag necessary to call the return a “Player To Be Named Later,” as scouting the progress of an injury return prospect could make all the difference in determining the deal. A hurler such as Nathan Kirby could fulfill the top end of this deal, and would be an interesting case of transferring extreme injury risk out of the system in a gamble for immediate wins. Should Milwaukee reach the League Divisional Series in the playoffs, this deal would be immediately paid off. Obviously, fans dream of sending nobody important to New York, but that’s not how trades work.

To this last point, (2) is worth further investigating. While front offices do not use WARP to calculate trades, I use a WARP / OFP / cash model to easily allow various areas of the game to speak to one another in order to determine value for an organization. This can also be a useful scale to view trades en masse; for example, let’s look at a few key trades from the 2017 deadline and August waiver trade period. In this table, I also added a Playoff Assessment to the trade, where potential advances in playoff revenue are considered as trade motivation as well (see additional table below, and linked article).

Once one gets past the initial fact that the biggest trade returns indeed occurred when pitchers were grouped with position players, there are some solid deals in this group of position player transactions. While fans might find easy excuses to write off a prospect like Boog Powell, given Yonder Alonso’s track record that’s quite a solid return for a rental. Sean Rodriguez and Jonathan Lucroy deals represent the Hail Mary attempts by the Pirates and Rockies, respectively, and neither team will be expected to face playoff pressure for either deal (rather, both deals are clearly supplemental). The Tim Beckham and Jay Bruce deals might be the most interesting, as the Rays and Mets respectively gambled on extremely inexperienced arms with unknown potential. Yet, draft day assessments and initial prospect reports could allow both those prospect packages to be viewed as intriguing projection gambles, and the Bruce deal especially could look like a brilliant move by the Mets in five years.

This prospect return landscape does not provide much help to determining the gray areas of which type of prospect might leave the Brewers system. The Bruce deal hints that someone like Carlos Herrera or Trey Supak could be the one to leave; the Alonso deal could support sending anyone from Dubon to an Advanced Minors outfield depth option. Walker’s value is most comparable to both Bruce and Alonso, and both of those deals showcase scenarios in which the trading club received solid or intriguing prospect returms. What this chart should hopefully show is that position players have not necessarily been undervalued; rather, the position players reflected here represent relatively spotty production records, which impacts that type of prospect one should expect to be involved in those deals. But, even with that caveat in mind, the prospects involved in these deals were solidly priced overall.

With this in mind, Brewers fans should be ready for Stearns to continue to deal from prospect depth, as this is the true benefit of having this type of system in Milwaukee. There will be prospects who, as much as we love to follow them as fans, will be used to attempt to maximize immediate MLB wins for the franchise. Should a prospect that seems rich for your blood end up in the Neil Walker deal, remember that not only does this price probably suit the current trade environment, but it also helps attain the goal of winning MLB games. Even better, the Brewers are winning MLB games and expending prospect resources sooner than expected, which are both facts that should be celebrated.

Appendix: Playoff and Prospect Conversion Chart:

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