And yet, the Brewers insist on running out a has-been in 2016. As the Journal-Sentinel‘s Tom Haudricourt reported on Tuesday:

#Brewers haven’t announced the alignment yet but five starters will be Garza, Peralta, Nelson, Jungmann, Anderson. https://t.co/IIdoWfUJjI

— Tom (@Haudricourt) March 7, 2016

(This set of five lines up with PECOTA’s projections.)

Jimmy Nelson and Taylor Jungmann have clear spots in the rotation, as talented pitchers with recent success and different degrees of upside. Despite his 2015 misery, Wily Peralta deserves one as well — if he can stay healthy, he could regain the luster he once possessed. And although Chase Anderson is probably near or at his ceiling, he can serve as the stabilizing veteran presence. Few would dispute the priority given to these four men.

Matt Garza, by contrast, has nothing working in his favor. He pitched awfully in 2015 — costing the team 0.6 WARP over his 148.2 starts — to such an extent that it’s hard to imagine a 2016 rebound. When a 32-year-old hurler’s velocity drops to a career low, as Garza’s did; when he combines his highest walk rate in six seasons with his lowest strikeout rate ever; when every other batter he faces (give or take) deposits the ball in the outfield seats, you don’t want him to take the mound every fifth day.

But maybe Garza has some hope. FOX6’s Brandon Cruz reports that he’ll bring a “new approach” into the season — perhaps he’ll even be in the Best Shape Of His Life! The optimism of Spring Training, addictive though it may be, shouldn’t actually impact roster decisions. PECOTA predicts Garza will post a 4.41 ERA across 151.0 innings, netting the Brewers just 0.7 WARP. The projections for Nelson (4.11), Jungmann (4.26), and Anderson (4.28) all beat that ERA; so does PECOTA’s prognostication for Zach Davies (4.10), Jorge Lopez (4.30), and Ariel Pena (4.33). While Peralta has a 4.43 projected ERA, his aforementioned ability beats out Garza. All in all, the rotation’s oldest member has no reason to remain.

Plus, projections don’t always come true for younger players. Maybe Davies rides his ground balls to a prosperous rookie campaign. Maybe Lopez gets his free passes under control sooner than expected. Maybe Pena proves that his fruitful September was no fluke. Maybe Adrian Houser or Josh Hader or another of the developing arms breaks out and shoots through the system. These players have the potential that Garza lacks, meaning they should take priority over him.

The one main argument in favor of starting Garza has to do with the t-word. As a rebuilding club, the Brewers’ highest priority is not to win games, so fielding an inferior player might help their cause. Not only does this position ignore the less-than-altruistic ulterior motives for tanking, it disregards this team’s rebuilding strategy. Players such as Aaron Hill and Chris Carter will help the team in 2016; they probably won’t accomplish as much thereafter. Guys such as Jonathan Villar and Chase Anderson could improve the club for a couple years. While Milwaukee won’t compile many victories this season, it also won’t pull a Houston. Rebuilding years can provide a great opportunity for young players to showcase their stuff, which the Brewers should take advantage of.

The Brewers have to employ Garza in some capacity for the next two years. If they attempt to remove him from the rotation, he may push back, as he did last season. But the needs of the team should ultimately win out. A move to the bullpen for this washed-up starter would open up a slot for a promising new one. David Stearns and Craig Counsell have done so many things right in their first years on the job; hopefully, they’ll nail this decision as well.

One can clearly see the reason why we’ve focused on this area: Milwaukee didn’t accomplish anything in terms of hitting, fielding, or starting pitching last season. Only the club’s relief pitching garnered positive recognition, and correctly so. With the fourth-lowest DRA in baseball, the bullpen alone prevented the Brewers from compiling 100 defeats (although it couldn’t help them avoid the 90-loss threshold).

Of course, what matters here is how well the bullpen will perform in the future. What chance does it have of a repeat performance? If the position players and rotation improve, will the relievers continue their elite play and make the club great? As we’ll see, the history of similar squads makes for a murky forecast.

The majors expanded to 30 teams in 1998, with the addition of the Rays and Diamondbacks. Since then, there have been 17 pairs of consecutive seasons (year n and year n+1), which we’ll make our sample. Of the 85 teams who placed in the top five for relief DRA in the first campaign, 19 made it back in the second. On average, those squads finished 12th in the following year — a much more mediocre level. By contrast, 40 of the 85 top-five clubs in starting DRA sustained their rank in season n+1, placing an average of ninth.

If we expand our threshold to the top ten bullpens in baseball, we see the same trend, albeit to a lesser extent. We notice that 77 of the bullpens in the top third of the league one year repeated the next year, while ranking 12th overall on average. A total of 88 of the best rotations, meanwhile, made it to the top ten in year n+1; they placed 11th on average. In simpler terms, great starting pitching tends to stick around, whereas superb relief pitching can come and go.

Could this fate befall the Brewers? Looking at their roster, we can certainly imagine it coming to pass. Francisco Rodriguez, who earned a 2.24 DRA in 2015, will pitch for the Tigers in 2016. Prior to last year, Michael Blazek owned a 6.12 DRA in 17.1 frames, casting some doubt on the 2.46 mark he posted in his full-season Milwaukee debut. The same applies to Will Smith and his pre-2015 DRA of 5.06. Beyond them, the relief options range from passable (Jeremy Jeffress, Corey Knebel) to shaky (Tyler Thornburg, David Goforth). If Blazek and Smith fall off their pace and Yhonathan Barrios doesn’t take the next step, the late innings could get ugly for the Brewers.

This shouldn’t detract from Milwaukee’s relief performance in 2015, nor should it cast unnecessary doubt on the bullpen’s 2016 prospects. Virtually every club has these potential holes in their pitching staff. Rather, this should serve as a reminder of the volatility of relief pitching, even on a team level. A decline to some degree is likely in 2016. As J.P. argued, building around a strong bullpen can pay off, but perhaps a formidable rotation would make for a wiser — and longer-lasting — investment.

In the modern era, relief pitching matters more than ever. The 2016 offseason has seen many clubs pay exorbitant prices for late-inning players, many of whom would have gone for much cheaper just a few years ago. This is likely because, as my colleague J.P. Breen observed back in August, teams with the best bullpens will often succeed, while those who lack in this area may struggle. When you consistently hold onto leads, you will generally net a lot of close wins, leading to more wins overall. In other words, you’ll outperform your run differential.

As we know by now, the 2015 Brewers didn’t collect many victories, despite possessing one of the best bullpens in baseball. The cause of this? Their atrocious starting rotation, which sapped any advantages that their relievers might have offered, helped to sink their record to 68-94. While top-notch players such as Will Smith, Michael Blazek, and Francisco Rodriguez ensured that most games ended well, the likes of Kyle Lohse and Matt Garza stunk up the beginnings of too many contests. The starters didn’t act alone, though; we’ll soon discover another factor that held them back.

In any given year, a fair amount of clubs will feature starting pitching that can’t live up to the relievers’ standards. The 2015 Brewers’ 4.79 rotation DRA and 3.87 bullpen DRA yield a run difference of 0.92 per nine innings. In the 30-team era (i.e. over the past 18 years), only 24 squads have surpassed that gap:

The Brewers begin to separate from the pack when we add some context. Take, for instance, the 2007 Cardinals, who narrowly top them in this regard. That team certainly had an awful rotation — placing 29th in the majors in starting DRA — but its relievers didn’t fare much better, with the 15th-best DRA among their competitors. By comparison, Milwaukee’s starting and relief pitching ranked 26th and 4th, respectively, meaning the former truly excelled and the latter truly stumbled.

When we look for teams with similar finishes — in the bottom five among rotations and in the top five among bullpens — we get a much smaller sample, of just 12 total:

You might notice something about this group, especially the most recent member before Milwaukee: As a whole, they didn’t play that poorly. The 11 non-Brewer clubs averaged 76 wins, eight more than the 12th club accumulated. Interestingly enough, they also pitched much better overall — whereas the Brew Crew ranked 25th in total DRA last season, these teams placed 19th on average. How did they make it to respectability without a decent rotation?

It’s simple: They gave their relievers more time to shine. Milwaukee’s bullpen accounted for 36.9 percent of its 2015 innings, whereas these teams allotted 38.0 percent of their frames to non-starters. This meant that those 11 clubs ranked an average of sixth in relief innings, compared to eighth for the Brewers. They didn’t make monumental changes, but by capitalizing on their strong relief corps and pulling starters earlier, they managed to comparatively succeed.

The bad-rotation-good-bullpen combo doesn’t necessarily spell doom. If a club adjusts its strategy accordingly, it can go far — perhaps even win a World Series. Obviously, the 2015 Brewers lacked the talent to accomplish that, or to even post a winning season; still, they could have notched a few more victories by turning their bullpen loose. Hopefully, as the rest of the league begins to value relief pitching, Milwaukee will follow suit.