Ron Roenicke came to Milwaukee after the 2010 season with a distinct philosophy in mind. As Christina Kahrl wrote in 2011:

Roenicke came into the job saying he was going to import the Angels way of taking extra bases and pushing opposing defenses, not to change the Brewers’ winning-slugly ways but to augment them. What had been a station-to-station offense under his predecessor, Ken Macha, would have to do more than that to win on his watch. “I want us to be aggressive running the bases, and we will emphasize this with the Brewers,” Roenicke said. “I think being aggressive gives the players more confidence, and it also wears on the opposition.”

This sort of mindset began to manifest itself in the team’s stolen base numbers. After a 2011 season that saw the Brewers rank 21st in baseball with 94 stolen bases, they would lead the majors with 158 in 2012 and place third with 142 in 2013. But that approach came with a cost: more outs made. Across those respective three years, Milwaukee went from 26th to 15th to second in caught stealings, accruing a respective 31, 39, and 50. Thus, while the Brew Crew’s 9.4 stolen base runs topped the world during the middle season, they accumulated a more modest 1.4 and 4.3 runs in the years sandwiching it.

As if those campaigns didn’t demonstrate the volatility to this model, the 2014 campaign showed how it could severely backfire. In that year, the Brewers paired the eleventh-most stolen bases in the majors (102) with the sixth-most failed attempts (43); that combination caused them to drop to 17th in stolen-base runs, with -0.9. Some of that came from the personnel — an injured Braun and an awful Gerardo Parra, to name a few contributors — but it ultimately fell on the team’s strategy. Even as the club plummeted from contention, Roenicke stuck by his guns.

In the offseason, it appeared that things could change. Roenicke told Tom Haudricourt that, although the team would still play aggressively, they were “running into too many outs” and would have to exercise more discretion going forward. The Brewers’ skipper, of course, only received 25 more games to put that plan into action, and those contests didn’t show much improvement: Milwaukee swiped eight bags in 14 tries, losing 1.1 runs in the process. Those deficiencies helped drag the team to a 7-18 record, which cost Roenicke his job.

But enough about the old guy. Counsell manages this team now, and his squad had some base-stealing success in his debut. Across the final 137 games of the season, the Brewers stole 76 bases while coming up short just 23 times; that earned them 3.9 runs. Extrapolating that over the full 162 games of a season, you get 4.6 runs, a mark that would have tied the Royals for fourth-most in baseball.

Of course, one season of prosperity doesn’t mean a whole lot — after all, Roenicke’s team fared well in 2012, and that didn’t last. The difference lies in their policy. As you may have guessed, Counsell doesn’t share the brash tendencies of his predecessor:

[Stolen base chances defined as H + uBB + HBP, in accordance with wSB.] 

Not only did the Brewers take off less often under Counsell, they did so given more opportunities. Whereas Roenicke would give them one green light per game, Counsell held up more often, and it seemed to work in his favor.

It is worth noting that, as he had promised, Roenicke became more passive in his final month-plus. The team’s 14 tries over 25 games and 172 chances represented a significant decrease from the levels of prior years. Nevertheless, Roenicke viewed the art of base stealing very differently than Counsell does, which — for the latter — is likely a good thing. As more players with fleet feet join the Brewers in 2016 and the years beyond it, perhaps a more cautious approach will allow them to excel in this regard. And as a small-market club with long-term aspirations that are rather lofty, every little advantage will be crucial.

Reviewing the Brew || Milwaukee Brewers Should Take Flier on Domonic Brown (Oct. 20, 2015)
Brew Crew Ball || Phillies outright former top prospect Domonic Brown (Oct. 20, 2015)

Here’s a couple of takes on the Brewers potentially being suitors for the servicers of former top prospect Domonic Brown, whom the Phillies outrighted off their 40-man roster this week. One is from myself at Brew Crew Ball, and the other from Pete Schwichtenberg  (@schwick26_pete) at Reviewing the Brew. The issue with Brown, of course, is that while the Brewers do need an outfielder, that outfielder needs to play center field. Brown cannot. The Brewers gave young Domingo Santana the reins in center over the final month or so of a lost season, but he’s not a viable long term solution and will eventually need a spot in one of the corners, where the Brewers already have entrenched starters in Khris Davis and Ryan Braun. Trying to find starts and at-bats for a fourth corner outfielder – barring a trade – would be difficult.  If the costs are low (minor-league contract with an invite low), then the Brewers should take a look to see if they can help Brown find his power stroke again. However, he’s posted an identical .634 OPS in each of the last two seasons, and there’s not a lot of positive indicators to point toward a revival. Note: there have been absolutely no rumblings from the Brewers organization that they’re interested in Brown, and any discussion of them being matched with him is entirely speculation.

MLB.com || Callis examines Lopez, Houser and Weaver (Oct. 20, 2015)

Here’s a quick scouting report from Jim Callis (@jimcallisMLB) breaking down the early returns on a few of the Arizona Fall League’s pitching prospects, including the Brewers’ Adrian Houser. The 22-year-old has been stellar so far for the Surprise Saguaros, striking out three with just a pair of hits and a pair of walks through 6.1 innings  (two starts). Houser has fallen as a prospect — he’s ranked No. 27 in the Brewers’ system — but he still has the raw tools that made him the second-round pick of the Astros in 2011.

Disciples of Uecker || Replacement by Design (Oct. 21, 2015)

Over at Disciples of Uecker, the Brewers arm of ESPN’s blog network, Nicholas Zettel (@SpectiveWax) takes an interesting, numbers-heave look at how the Brewers might want to model their pitching staff after the Cubs and Dodgers. Both of those teams got a lot of mileage out of what he terms “replacement starters,” those who had less than 100 innings pitched and/or pitched more than 50 percent of their innings as relievers. Of course, the Dodgers and Cubs had Zack Greinke/Clayton Kershaw and Jake Arietta/Jon Lester respectively to anchor their rotation, and there’s no one on the Brewers roster who is at the level now nor is there anyone at the major-league level who necessarily projects to get there. For 2016, Zettel advocates for a revolving door in the starting rotation, boldly stating that “if the Brewers don’t have 15 starting pitchers in 2016, and they don’t make the playoffs, one should question their rotational approach.”

MLB Daily Dish || Who will replace Don Mattingly? (Oct. 22, 2015)

Matt Goldman (@TheOriginalBull) speculates on who might take over the reins of the Los Angeles Dodgers and their $300 million payroll in the wake of Don Mattingly’s somewhat-but-not-really-all-that surprising departure that was announced on Thursday morning. One man Goldman mentions as a potential replacement is former Brewers’ manager Ron Roenicke, who was fired by the Brewers in May and caught on with the Dodgers’ as their third base coach in August. Rumors circulated in the wake of his hiring that he was being brought in to inevitably replace Mattingly, who has gotten into some public blowups with his players recently and has obviously fallen out of favor with the Dodgers’ new front office regime, who did not hire him. I don’t necessarily think that’s likely – Gabe Kapler appears to be the front-runner at this time – but Roenicke probably took more heat than he deserved for being unable to compete with a thin, poorly constructed Brewers roster that didn’t have a first baseman or a legitimate ace pitcher (among other issues).