The Brewers selected Jungmann with the 12th overall pick back in 2011, the year they had two first-rounders after Dylan Covey had failed to sign the year before. A Texas native with a big fastball and curveball, Jungmann had just concluded a distinguished collegiate career as the Longhorns’ ace and had posted an 0.95 ERA in his final season in Austin. Baseball America called him “a potential #2 starter” that could rise quickly through the minor leagues and praised his ability to thrive in high-pressure situations and to win without his best stuff. Baseball Prospectus said that “his huge frame and collegiate track record suggest he’ll soon be a workhorse” and noted Jungmann’s polish and mid-rotation upside in their 2012 edition of the Annual. Though BP’s final 2011 mock draft said that Jungmann was a player with few anticipated signing issues, he put pen to paper just moments before the deadline to sign draftees, inking for a $2,525,000 mil bonus. As a result of waiting so long to sign, he didn’t make his professional debut until the following season in 2012 with Class-A Advanced Brevard County.

Once Jungmann got back on the mound, his development didn’t move quite as swiftly as hoped. He put up decent enough results while climbing during his first full season as a pro, logging a 3.53 ERA in 153.0 innings with the Manatees. He induced grounders at a 56 percent clip, but concerns arose about a demonstrated inability to miss bats in a pitcher-friendly league. Jungmann made the jump to AA next season and joined the Huntsville Stars’ rotation, and though his ERA of 4.33 looks palatable at first glance, the season was not a good one for Taylor. His walk rate nearly doubled and he issued 4.7 free passes per nine innings, walking 73 batters on the whole while striking out only 82. His DRA was an unsightly 7.22, and in the BP Annual the following spring it was written “he lacks the control to thread fine needles. The Brewers made a clear choice for polish over ceiling with Jungmann, and it backfired.”

Taylor bounced back in a big way in 2014, beginning with nine strong starts in AA that added up to a 2.77 ERA and 2.25 DRA in 52.0 innings. In summer he received his first bump up to AAA and joined the rotation for the Nashville Sounds, where he continued to build upon his success with the Stars. Jungmann logged another 101.7 innings for Nashville with a 3.98 ERA and a nifty 2.95 DRA. He continued to issue a few too many walks, but that season Jungmann saw a major uptick in his ability to generate swings-and-misses. He fanned 147 batters in 153.7 innings between the two levels, but even those gains didn’t impress the scouts at BP. His Annual comment the following spring stated that Jungmann was “struggling to adjust to his declined stuff” and that his best days were behind him, back in college at Texas.

Milwaukee’s realigned their AAA affiliation the following winter and paired up with Colorado Springs, and in 2015 Jungmann began the year as a member of the Sky Sox rotation. Pitching at altitude had a dastardly effect on his ERA, but he continued to miss a good amount of bats and issue a few too many walks en route to a 2.93 DRA in 59.3 innings. Then, on June 9th, Jungmann finally got the call he and Brewer fans had been for more than four years: he would join the Brewers and make his MLB debut against the Pirates. The club had staggered out of the gates, had fired their manager, and was mired in last place and on the verge of beginning to rebuild. None of that seemed to matter on that day, however, as Jungmann methodically dispatched the Pirates to earn a winning decision in his first big league start. He logged 7.0 innings, firing 61 strikes out of 92 pitches while allowing only one run on three hits, one walk, and five punchouts.

For much of the summer, Jungmann became a feel-good story and provided a shot in the arm to the starting rotation. He threw a complete game three-hitter against the Dodgers in Los Angeles on July 11th, and after his 16th MLB start on September 3rd, he had earned nine victories and was carrying a 2.42 ERA. Jungmann had done an excellent job of limiting the free passes during his first several starts with Milwaukee, but those newfound gains eroded as the summer went on. The righty came crashing back down to Earth during his final five starts of his rookie campaign, as he could muster only a 9.53 ERA over his final 22.7 innings with 21 strikeouts, 13 walks, and eight dingers served up on a silver platter. Ultimately, he concluded the 2015 season with a 3.77 ERA and 4.12 DRA over the course of 119.3 innings. He registered a DRA- of 96 and accrued 1.4 WARP along the way, giving hope that he could still be a controllable, back-end starter type to eat up innings while Milwaukee rebuilt their organization.

A new front office regime took over during the 2015-16 offseason, and even after his struggles down the stretch Jungmann reported to Maryvale the following spring penciled in as the #3 starter in Milwaukee’s rotation. However, it became quite clear very early that Taylor wouldn’t last long in that position. He struggled mightily out of the gates once the regular season began, as he fought with his mechanics and dealt with a fastball that was struggling to scrape 90 MPH after regularly working in the 92-94 MPH range the year prior. After posting an ERA over 9.00 through five starts, new GM David Stearns exiled the lanky right-hander back to Colorado Springs. Trying to get your mechanics on track while going to work at the country’s highest-altitude stadium is no easy task, and it proved to be too much for Jungmann to handle. He lasted only 31.0 innings with the Sky Sox, walking 35 batters while striking out just 24. After putting up a DRA of 19.38 (that’s not a typo), he was sent to extended spring training for a “mental health break” with his confidence more or less destroyed. After the season, he even refused to talk about his time in Colorado Springs with the media and wouldn’t even say the city’s name.

Jungmann was able to right the ship after getting assigned to AA Biloxi upon his return, though pitching to a 91 DRA- as a 26 year old in the Southern League isn’t exactly a notable accomplishment. It was enough for a September call-up back to Milwaukee, at least, and he ended the three nondescript appearances and a cumulative DRA- of 127 in his 26.7 big league innings in 2016. The front office asked him to prepare to enter 2017 as a reliever and he ultimately broke camp with the team, but was demoted after one appearance in which he recorded two outs and gave up a home run.

Besides that one game, Jungmann spent the entirety of the 2017 season in the minor leagues between Biloxi and Colorado Springs. He spent most of the year in the place that was a personal hell for him in 2016, and appeared to have conquered his demons; in 90.3 innings with the Sky Sox, Jungmann contributed a 2.59 ERA and a DRA that was 23 percent better than league average. Still, it became clear throughout the season that he had fallen out of favor with the new front office regime. Several times during the course of the summer he was passed over for spot starting opportunities at the big league level. When the Crew’s starting pitching situation became especially dire in September, the org chose elected to hand the ball in must-win games to reliever Jeremy Jeffress, a pair of rookies in Aaron Wilkerson and Brandon Woodruff, and starters who had previously pitched their way out of rotation roles in Matt Garza and Junior Guerra. Even with expanded rosters, Jungmann wasn’t considered deserving enough for a September call-up. The writing was on the wall for the 28 year old.

In the end, Jungmann wound up contributing 146.7 innings of 4.54 ERA baseball to the Brewers during his six-year tenure with the organization. He’ll ultimately be considered a disappointment by fans, though he does compare favorably with the 60 players drafted in the “first round” of the 2011 draft. Only 38 of those players have stepped foot on a big league field at this point, and according to Baseball-Reference’s calculations only 21 of the 60 players have generated more value in terms of Wins Above Replacement than Jungmann. That draft was a particularly rough one for the Brewers, as neither of their first rounders (Jed Bradley being the other) remain in MLB-affiliated ball. 14th-round pick Jacob Barnes looks like he’s become an important member of the bullpen, and Jorge Lopez remains on the 40 man roster (though his prospect stock has fallen off a cliff by this point). Meanwhile, stalwarts like the late Jose Fernandez, Sonny Gray, and Michael Fulmer were selected after in the first round. Just goes to show how much of a crap-shoot the draft can be.

This isn’t the end of the road for Taylor Jungmann, though, it’s only a new beginning. He’s reportedly close to joining the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s NPB and there’s reason to believe that he could become quite successful in Japan:

Taylor Jungmann projects as the 12th-best starting pitcher in NPB. Rare to see a pitcher this good make the move from MLB to Japan.

— NEIFI Analytics (@NEIFIco) January 10, 2018

Here’s hoping Taylor Jungmann can follow the trail that Miles Mikolas blazed this winter; after washing out with the Padres and Rangers, Mikolas went over and dominated in Japan for three seasons and turned that into a $15.5 mil guarantee from St. Louis as a free agent. Perhaps when the 2020-21 offseason rolls around, we’ll be talking about Taylor Jungmann in a similar manner. Regardless of what happens, here’s wishing the big Texan with the cross-fire delivery and knee-buckling bender the best of luck in his future endeavors.

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.

AAA Colorado Springs Sky Sox (80-57)

MVP: OF Brett Phillips

After a down year in AA last season, Phillips re-established himself as a promising outfield prospect this season with the Sky Sox. He finished fourth on the team in plate appearances despite a few stints in the big leagues, lead the club in home runs, and was second in RBI. He struck out more than one would like to see (29.9 percent) but posted a solid 10.4 percent walk rate and Phillips seems to have truly settled in as an above-average defender in center field.

432 PA || .305/.377/.567 || 19 HR || 9 SB || .295 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Taylor Jungmann

Not too long ago, it looked like Jungmann might become a fixture in Milwaukee’s rotation. He was awful last season in the majors and minors, but bounced back with a terrific performance in Colorado Springs in 2017. Jungmann spent some time with both the big league club and the AA Shuckers, but made 17 appearances and tossed 90.3 innings for the Sky Sox this season. In that time he posted a 2.59 ERA, the lowest earned run average a Sky Sox pitcher has authored in that many innings this century. A DRA- of 78 agrees that Jungmann was much better than the league-average pitcher, but that still wasn’t enough to merit a September call-up, casting some doubt on Taylor’s future with the organization.

90.3 IP || 2.59 ERA || 4.04 DRA || 82 K || 39 BB || 4 HR || 1.20 WHIP || 48% GB

AA Biloxi Shuckers (71-66)

MVP: C Jacob Nottingham

Biloxi is a tough venue for hitters, evidenced by the fact that only two Shuckers received more than 300 plate appearances and posted above a .700 OPS. Jacob Nottingham was not one of those players, compiling a .695 OPS with 9 homers and 48 RBI across 101 games. That was still good enough for a slightly above-average TAv, but most important for Nottingham’s value this season were the steps forward he took behind the plate. He graded out with +7.1 framing runs, caught 40% of would-be base thieves, and sliced his passed balls by more than 50% from last season. It’s looking more and more like Nottingham will be able to stay behind the plate, now the bat just has to start coming along a little bit more.

385 PA || .209/.326/.369 || 9 HR || 7 SB || .263 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Aaron Wilkerson

When you’re a 28 year old minor league veteran, it can get tough to convince and organization that you still deserve a shot at the big leagues. Aaron Wilkerson was able to do just that with an outstanding showing for the Shuckers this year. He started 24 games and tossed 142.3 innings, both tops on the club. He struck out more than a batter per inning while demonstrating his signature control, ultimately earning his first call-up to the MLB this September. Now that Wilkerson has broken through on to the 40 man and into The Show, he could compete for a starting rotation slot or spot in the bullpen as a swingman next spring.

142.3 IP || 3.16 ERA || 2.32 DRA || 143 K || 36 BB || 12 HR || 1.07 WHIP || 37% GB

High-A Carolina Mudcats (73-65)

MVP: OF Troy Stokes

In an organization crowded with outfield talent, Stokes finally managed to stay healthy and stand out this season. The 2014 4th-rounder played in 100 games for Carolina and lead the team in OPS, was 2nd in home runs and runs batted in, and fourth in stolen bases. A diminutive specimen, Stokes has demonstrated plus speed to go along with above-average power, and finished out the season with a strong 35 game run in AA Biloxi. He’s certainly put himself on the front office’s radar with his performance in 2017.

426 PA || .250/.344/.445 || 14 HR || 21 SB || .279 TAv

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Pitcher: RHP Jordan Yamamoto

Corbin Burnes (who was the org’s minor league pitcher of the year) and Freddy Peralta both had excellent partial seasons with Carolina, but we’ll give the nod here to Yamamoto for spending all year with the Mudcats. The 21 year old Hawaiian captured the league’s ERA title after finishing with 14.0 consecutive shutout innings, struck out better than a batter per inning and didn’t allow many walks. He throws four pitches and generally locates well, and there’s a possibility that the former 12th round pick can be a back-end starter at the big league level.

111.0 IP || 2.51 ERA || 2.80 DRA || 113 K || 30 BB || 8 HR || 1.09 WHIP || 40% GB

A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (59-79)

MVP: OF Monte Harrison

Wisconsin was the worst offensive team in the Midwest League this season, so there’s not a whole lot of strong performers to choose from. We’ll give the nod to Monte Harrison, who only spent a half season with the T-Rats but was an offensive dynamo for Wisconsin before getting a mid-season promotion. Finally healthy, Harrison flashed the power/speed potential that made him such a tantalizing draft prospect back in 2014. He looked good in center field, too. It’s tough not to buy in when he’s praised a 2018 Breakout Candidate with tools that rival that of Lewis Brinson’s.

261 PA || .265/.359/.475 || 11 HR || 11 SB || .307 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Thomas Jankins

Within the organization only Corbin Burnes and Aaron Wilkerson tossed more innings than Jankins’ 141.7 for Wisconsin this season, and he certainly made them quality ones. A 13th-round pick in 2016, Jankins was considered a “projectable” pick by Baseball America due to his lack of exposure to high-end coaching. It seems he’s now thriving in Milwaukee’s ranks, utilizing a three-pitch mix to attack batters and generate ground balls. He has a starter’s build and repertoire and is certainly someone to keep an eye on going forward.

141.7 IP || 3.62 ERA || 2.53 DRA || 121 K || 32 BB || 14 HR || 1.22 WHIP || 55% GB

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Rookie Helena Brewers (28-48)

MVP: 1B/3B/OF Gabriel Garcia

A 14th-round pick by the Brewers in the 2016 draft, Garcia has done nothing but hit since joining the professional ranks. The 19 year old lead the Brewers in plate appearances this season, had the most doubles, the third-most long balls, second-most RBI, and second-best OPS among batters with at least 200 PA. Drafted as a catcher, Garcia played mostly first base this year but also made over a dozen starts at third and a few appearances in the outfield. It will be interesting to see how well his offensive performances translate to full-season ball next year.

285 PA || 300/.420/.498 || 9 HR || 6 SB || .296 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Gabe Friese

Friese was an passed over in this summer’s draft and signed with Milwaukee as a free agent. After tossing 20.1 innings in Maryvale without allowing an earned run, Friese was bumped up to Helena to finish out the summer. In a league that is notoriously hitter-friendly, the results remained strong for Friese. In 33.0 innings for the Brewers, Friese yielded a 3.82 ERA and 4.24 DRA. For some context, that translates to a DRA- of 63, or 37 percent better than the average Pioneer League pitcher. As a 22 year old who was a bit old for the level, it’s tough to know what we should expect from Friese going forward. If his 0.8 BB/9 rate can continue, though, he’s likely to keep finding success as he climbs the minor league ladder.

33.0 IP || 3.82 ERA || 4.24 DRA || 26 K || 3 BB || 4 HR || 1.27 WHIP || 50% GB

Rookie Arizona Brewers (33-23)

MVP: 1B/OF Pat McInerney

Passed over after his senior season at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, McInerny signed with Milwaukee following the draft and was assigned to the AZL, where he was more than two years older than the average player. McInerney took advantage of the inferior competition. He finished second on the club with 230 PA, tied for the league lead in home runs, took the fourth-most walks, and had the league’s 8th-best OPS. He showed some versatility, too, playing both left and right field in addition to first base. He did strike out 65 times in 50 games, though. McInerney could be a guy that sticks around the org for awhile, but given his advanced age he’ll have to show an awful lot if he hopes to ever reach the big leagues.

230 PA || .243/.378/.487 || 9 HR || 8 SB || .288 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Joaquin De La Cruz

De La Cruz began the season in the Dominican Summer League, but after our starts got his first stateside promotion to Arizona. He wound up tossing the third-most innings on the club while posting the league’s fifth-lowest ERA and the eighth-best strikeout rate (minimum 40 IP). De La Cruz doesn’t throw especially hard, but does feature a splitter, which is the organization’s favorite pitch. He’s got a long ways to climb before reaching the big league level, but at the very least his statistics appear promising.

42.7 IP || 2.53 ERA || 3.10 DRA || 46 K || 20 BB || 0 HR || 1.20 WHIP || 56% GB

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Dominican Summer League (Brewers 28-43, Indians/Brewers 23-47)

MVP: 1B/3B Aaron Familia

18 year old Familia signed with Milwaukee last summer and completed his second season in the DSL in 2017. Only two players in the DSL hit more home runs than Familia this summer, and he had the 13th-best OPS among qualifiers. At 6’2″ and 170 lbs, Familia still has plenty of filling out to do and could add to his raw power potential. He could make the jump stateside next season, though hopefully his swing-and-miss tendencies (70 strikeouts) will improve as he climbs the minor league ladder.

237 PA || .289/.422/.455 || 5 HR || 3 SB || .318 TAv

Pitcher: RHP Freisis Adames

Adames got a bit of a late start to his career in comparison to others in the DSL, not signing until last year at 19. As such he was a bit old for the league this summer, and he was one of the top hurlers on the circuit. Adames worked the league’s fourth-most innings, finished second in strikeouts, and even tossed a complete game shutout. His ERA was about a half-run lower than league average, but a DRA- of 41 suggests that Adames’ performance was a whopping 59 percent better than the typical DSL arm in 2017. Hopefully he too will get the opportunity to make the jump stateside next season, where it will be easier for scouts to give us a clue about what sort of stuff Adames is working with.

74.7 IP || 3.13 ERA || 1.98 DRA || 80 K || 21 BB || 1 HR || 1.12 WHIP || 59% GB

Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire, USAToday Sports Images

The conventional wisdom for this transition working makes logical sense. Starting pitchers have to pace themselves to be able to work deep into games, and they don’t want to show hitters all of their pitches the first trip through the order. Because of the requirement of multiple trips through the order, starters also have to rely on more than two pitches. But when starters move to the bullpen, they do not have to combat any of these issues. Relievers instead can throw as hard as possible, and they can rely on just their one or two best pitches.

It’s impossible to tell how exactly Jungmann will adjust to the bullpen. He was a mediocre big league starter, as his DRA these last two seasons was 4.18. However, when Blanton successfully transitioned to the bullpen in 2015, he was coming off a 2013 season in which he posted a DRA of 5.75 and a 2014 season in which he did not pitch in the majors; Blanton returned to post 3.35 DRA and 3.40 DRA in relief. Poor performance in the rotation is no guarantee that Jungmann will be a bad reliever.

However, Jungmann doesn’t have the profile we would expect to see from a successful reliever. The righty does not throw particularly hard, and his curveball is not particularly effective either. Last season, among pitchers who threw at least 100 of the specific type of pitch, his fastball velocity ranked 450th out of 507, and his curveball whiff rate ranked 89th out of 226. Neither of these stats is indicative of someone who will suddenly be able to turn into a strikeout machine, and his ground ball rate is not elite either (300th of 651 pitchers who threw at least ten innings).

Jungmann also is not a pitcher who sees a big decline in pitch quality after his first time through the order, which might have indicated that he lacked the stamina to be an effective starter. Instead, although his offerings do get slightly worse, he is roughly the same pitcher each time through the order.

Top: Jungmann’s pitch usage, sorted by times through the order.
Bottom: Jungmann’s velocity, sorted by times through the order.

The graphs above clearly demonstrate that Jungmann will rely on his fastball and curveball in the bullpen, so the other potential area of interest is that curveball; if he can generate more movement by not having to pace himself, then his curveball might play up in shorter stints. However, at least through his first two seasons as a starter, there is no indication that will be the case. The vertical movement on his curveball stayed relatively even each time through the order.

Jungmann was a relatively boring starting pitcher; he did not throw very hard or strike out very many batters. Based solely on that solidly mediocre profile, I was expecting the results of this research to be similarly boring. Unfortunately, that was borne out. Jungmann’s starting pitcher profile does not indicate that he is particularly well suited to being a reliever.

However, that does not preclude the possibility that he becomes good. Because I have relied so heavily on the Joe Blanton analogy to this point, I will go back to that well one more time. Blanton was essentially a full-time starter through the 2013 season, but there was no indication that he was going to be a good reliever. His velocity was consistently not very good each time through the order, but once he became a reliever in 2015, it ticked up.

Top: Blanton’s velocity through 2013, sorted by times through the order.
Bottom: Blanton’s velocity by year.

What that means is that this article is essentially a long shrug. There’s no reason to think that Jungmann will be a particularly good relief pitcher, but he could very well become one. Presumably, he will have some opportunities this season to prove himself, and the Brewers will be hoping he becomes good enough to either provide on-field value or make himself trade bait.

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A Bullpen for 2017

One of the best parts about spring training is that many ballparks have PITCHf/x technology, which means that Brooks Baseball begins updating some player cards with data. This is a great chance to get an actual idea about what depth prospects throw, even taking the data with gigantic grains of salt (for example, there are relatively few pitches tracked during spring, which leaves open several debates about calibration and significance). Nevertheless, this is a tasty dish even with that giant grain of salt, so let’s take a chance to see what members of the Brewers bullpen camp are throwing.

Many of these arms are featured in previous BPMilwaukee spring stories, which only goes to show that we love our prospects here and hope they grab that big league cash. Among the most interesting minor leaguers are the aforementioned Kohlscheen and Espino, along with newly converted southpaw Nick Ramirez, and some surprises like Preston Gainey. Unfortunately, no 2017 data are yet available for Jon Olczak, Aaron Wilkerson, or even Tim Dillard.

The Brewers signed many minor league contracts during the 2016-2017 offseason, and in the wake of the Junior Guerra success story, it seemed as though GM David Stearns was looking to expand on the age-discrepancy-market. Several “non-prospects” thus joined camp, including Andrew Barbosa. The 6’8″ lefty does not have a fastball to match his size, which leads one to wonder if that 87-88 MPH riding fastball is surprising and deceptive coming from such a large frame. In the Eastern League in 2016, the southpaw struck out 36 of 154 batters faced during seven starts, leading a 3.50 Deserved Runs Average (DRA). Barbosa’s main question mark may be a flyball tendency.

Although it’s easy to focus on the new signings, Milwaukee also has a couple of aging “non-prospects” within their own system that have intriguing statistical performances. Stephen Kohlscheen is entering his second year in the Brewers organization, and will be working a level removed from the MLB during his age-28 season. The 6’6″ righty is currently working a fastball-slider combo of the bread-and-butter variety; the fastball is rising, and the slider’s vertical and horizontal movement is relatively short. Perhaps Kohlscheen will join Jacob Barnes as a true fastball-slider, meat-and-potatoes reliever. The 32.8 percent strike out rate, 3.94 K/BB, 2.26 DRA, and are worth another look.

Nick Ramirez’s story is by now well-known in spring camp, as the stalling first baseman shifted back to the mound to reclaim a previous college pitching role. Ramirez is now the best kind of longshot story as a player who will throw his first professional pitch at age-27. Thus far the PITCHf/x looks nice for the southpaw, who is flashing a lot of break on his fastball while also working on three off-speed offerings. Make no mistake about it, Ramirez has a long way to go to prove that he can retire professional batters, but as a left-handed pitcher he will undoubtedly receive as many chances as he needs to prove his strengths from the mound.

Among the competitors that saw time in the 2016 Brewers bullpen, the spring training stuff already looks like last year’s stuff. This is arguably a good thing, as it means that Jacob Barnes, Jhan Marinez, and Corey Knebel are ready to take the next step to preserve close ballgames in Milwaukee. Barnes has the most fascinating fastball/slider combination, so much so that I’d actually suggest describing his PITCHf/x mix as “cutter-screwball.” Looking at Barnes’s delivery and stuff, there does not appear to be a lot of room for deception, but yet the “fastball” nearly moves glove-side, which is very rare for right-handed pitchers (even rising fastballs usually have armside run). As a result of the unorthodox fastball, Barnes’s slider has more armside break compared to the fastball, which effectively makes it a screwball in practice. Barnes is so much fun to watch because he’s quite a throwback reliever, so Brewers fans must enjoy this hard, no-nonsense arsenal while it’s still around.

What’s striking about the Marinez, Knebel, and Barnes trio is that each reliever works in a completely different range. Marinez is a true sinker reliever, while Knebel throws a riding-running fastball, and Barnes has his little cutter. Meanwhile, Knebel changes it up with a huge curveball, while Barnes uses a much tighter arsenal in his cutter-screwball approach. Marinez also uses a slider, but his variation is quite different than Barnes’s; Marinez throws a much more traditional slider insofar as the pitch breaks approximately five inches gloveside (i.e., “away” from righty bats) from his fastball.

Finally, it’s interesting to see readings on Josh Hader’s fastball, as well as a much quieter delivery from the southpaw. Certainly, Hader is not rushing up that true-70 southpaw heat that he flashed during a short Arizona Fall League stint in 2015. Yet, if the lefty still works in the mid-90s, but a quieter delivery allows him to regain command and repeat his change up, that’s quiet a strong delivery if it allows Hader to stick as a starter. Less “exciting” and more “repetition” with a broader arsenal for Hader should be music to Brewers fans’ ears.

There’s a lot to watch in spring training, including PITCHf/x statistics, so enjoy March while you can: this is a great chance to get a look at depth prospects, and also associate some “stuff” measurements with minor league statistics later in the season.

The league leader in the MLB for CSAA was Zach Davies, with a 3.51 percent mark. As one can glean from the chart, several minor leaguers in Milwaukee’s system alone eclipsed that total last year. That likely has something to do with the quality of umpiring found at the minor league level versus in the big leagues, so the numbers should be taken with a bit of a grain of salt.

According to the numbers, several of the hurlers at Colorado Springs had difficulty commanding their pitches. Hard-throwing arms like Damien Magnifico and David Goforth have been in The Show before but failed to secure a role in spite of their plus fastballs. In both cases, the lack of a swing-and-miss pitch as well as poor command have held the two pitchers back from becoming big league contributors. Taylor Jungmann and Jorge Lopez were both demoted from Colorado Springs down to Biloxi after struggling mightily to keep hitters from reaching base and runs off the board, and both unsurprisingly graded out well-below average in CSAA while in AAA.

On the flip-side, both Brent Suter and Aaron Wilkerson enjoyed excellent seasons at the AAA level (though Wilkerson didn’t arrive in Colorado Springs until coming over in an early July trade with the Red Sox). Neither arm possesses outstanding “stuff”, especially the left-handed Suter, whose fastball tops out around 85 MPH. But both were able to post dominant Deserved Run Averages in a hitter-friendly ballpark at the highest level of the minors thanks in large part to their excellent command.

In the more pitcher-friendly environs of AA Biloxi, we find a bit more success for Milwaukee’s farmhands. Tristian Archer quietly put together an superlative performance for the Shuckers this past season on the strength of his excellent command, including an 82:9 K/BB ratio in 81.7 innings. Josh Hader also displayed above-average command during his dominant 57.0 inning run through the Southern League, though he backed up a bit upon reaching Colorado Springs while issuing 4.7 free passes per nine innings. Jorge Lopez and Taylor Jungmann both improved upon their dreadful CSAA numbers from Colorado Springs but were still a bit below-average command wise. Control of the strike zone has always been a question for those two and figures to be an issue that both will have to fight through if they want to see big league success. I was a bit suprised by Wei-Chung Wang’s numbers, as he only issued only a combined 2.4 BB/9 innings during his time at AA and AAA. He may have displayed decent control by keeping runners from reaching base via the walk, but his command graded out as below-average at both of his stops in 2016.

No pitcher in Milwaukee’s system improved their stock this year more than Brandon Woodruff. The former 11th-round pick had a middling collegiate career at Mississippi State and posted DRAs of 4.73 and 5.74 in the two years preceding 2016. His stuff ticked up this past season, including improved fastball velocity that was often 95+ MPH and a slider now graded as plus by some outlets. That, along with vastly improved command, helped Woodruff lead the minor leagues with 173 strikeouts in 158.0 combined innings between A+ and AA while allowing only 2.3 batters per nine innings to reach via base on balls. Woodruff posted sub-2.00 DRAs at both of the levels he pitched at this year on his way to winning the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He’s now considered a top-10 organization prospect by many of the ranking outlets (though he didn’t crack BP’s Brewers top 10) and should have a good chance to make an impact on the major league team in 2017.

This year’s Brewers, like every Major League team, will break camp with five starting pitchers holding down a spot in the rotation. Who those five will be however, is a topic that has yet to be settled. And even when it settles, its implications might take months to work themselves out. Last Spring, Zach Davies was not expected to earn a roster spot out of camp, and he did not. But he pitched well, impressed the Major League coaches and scouts, and it took less than a month for a spot to open up for him. Davies took the job, never looked back, and he comes into this Spring in a completely different role–as one of the front-line starters all but assured of job security.

Let’s break down all the potential starters.

1-Star Tier (The Dark Horses)

These pitchers are all likely to end up pitching for Biloxi, Colorado Springs, or a bullpen job at the most. But they’re candidates to start games at some point if they earn it, or things get desperate.

Taylor Jungmann

As Wily Peralta and Matt Garza proved down the stretch last year, you can always bounce back from pitching really, really terribly. But unfortunately for Jungmann, he might have lost too much ground to make up in the organizational pecking order. To put it bluntly and simply: the kind of blow-you-away spring that he would need to show to win a job, he’s just not good enough to pull off. I’m not saying he’s done as a Major League pitcher, I’m just saying the smart money is on that next big-league start of his coming in an Angels or Marlins uniform.

Andy Oliver

Oliver was a top-100 prospect in 2011. Back then, the common refrain on him was “electric, top-of-the-rotation stuff, if he can learn to control it.” That never happened. But Oliver is left-handed and he’s always been able to blow minor-league hitters away. In 2016, pitching for AAA Norfolk, his BB/9 rate plummeted to 3.7, the best mark he’s posted as a professional since 2010. He’d be a less improbable reclamation project than Junior Guerra, for what that’s worth. And he’s worked both as a starter and in relief throughout his career. Long relief is a more likely use for him unless the starting rotation is really victimized by injuries.

Tommy Milone

Milone spent the past two seasons shuttling back and forth between the Twins and their AAA squad in Rochester. Like Oliver, he throws left-handed. Unlike Oliver, he’s a soft-tosser who relies on inducing soft contact to get outs. Milone’s 2016 numbers weren’t great, and he doesn’t have a single “out” pitch, but he’s been a passable Major League swingman in the past. He’s another guy who might be more useful as a long man out of the bullpen.

Taylor Williams

The Brewers selected Williams’s contract this past November along with Ryan Cordell, Lewis Brinson, and Josh Hader, leaving several young pitchers exposed to the Rule 5 draft (including Miguel Diaz, who went first in that draft). Williams hasn’t pitched since 2014, when he popped up on prospect radars with a 2.36 ERA for the Timber Rattlers while hitting 98 on the radar gun, but he missed all of 2015 with elbow trouble, and all of 2016 rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Now Williams is 25 years old and hasn’t pitched above A-ball, but David Stearns saw fit to protect him over several highly-touted arms, which makes . He’ll likely be ticketed for AA, and if he can pick up where he left off three years ago the team likely won’t be shy about ushering him up the ladder. I put him here, after the other three one-stars, because I’d almost classify Williams as a 1.5-star on this list. He’s got more upside and youth than the rest of the dark horses, but he’s too much of an unknown quantity at this point to really be a 2-star guy.

2-Star Tier (The Zach Davies Memorial Tier)

This tier is also full of players unlikely to start the year with the big club. But these guys are already regarded as important parts of the team’s future, so if they pitch well in the spring they could catapult themselves into consideration for a job down the line. And if either one sets Arizona ablaze this March, well, it’s not like the Brewers front office wants to keep them out of the starting rotation. Both of these guys are in a position to force the team’s hand this spring, but it’s probably more realistic to expect that they set themselves up for an opportunity later on this season.

Luis Ortiz

Ortiz was #68 on last year’s BP 101, and he should be even higher this time around. He loves to mix speeds with his fastball, bringing it in as steady as 92 and as quick as 97, and he compliments this array of looks with a plus slider in addition to a changeup and a curveball that he’s got command over. It’s an impressively polished arsenal for such a young pitcher. But, on the other hand, his health has been a repeated concern throughout his minor-league career, from both a “he can’t log innings consistently” perspective and a “he’s got a bad case of Body By Bartolo” perspective. Ortiz has never thrown more than 91 innings in a pro season, which makes him an interesting case–it’d be easier to look at that and turn him into a reliever, but Ortiz’s four-pitch mix screams “starting rotation.”

I have nothing but questions when it comes to how he will be handled. How many innings will the team feel safe giving him this year? Where should those innings be? He pitched well at AA, well enough to earn a promotion… but do we really want to sail such a rickety ship through the Bermuda Triangle that is Colorado Springs? If he’s ready for the big leagues, when do you use his innings? If his stuff is ready but his stamina isn’t, and maybe at some point we need to replace ineffective/injured big-league starters, what do you do?

I’m thinking the Brewers play it conservative with Ortiz this year. They’ve got more than enough other options. Why bring him up, if you’re not sure he’s ready? The thing is, his stuff might be ready. If it is, it’ll be awfully hard to keep him shut out of the rotation.

Josh Hader

Hader ranks three spots ahead of Ortiz in this year’s BP Top Ten for the Brewers. He’s the number one left-handed pitching prospect in baseball according to MLB Pipeline. And he did this despite a 5.22 ERA in 14 starts at Colorado Springs. (This is an indictment of Colorado Springs, not of Hader.)

When I profiled Hader approximately a year and a half ago, the Chris Sale comparison was mostly a byproduct of similar deliveries. But Hader’s return to Biloxi early last year blew the cover off of expectations–a 0.95 ERA, 11.5 K/9, and just one home run allowed in 57 innings. Even walks, which have long been Hader’s bugaboo, didn’t pose much of an issue, although he did struggle with control more frequently in Colorado, enough that you can’t just blame it on the thin air. The base on balls might yet relegate Hader to a bullpen role.

But before that happens, the left-hander with the funky delivery will almost certainly get to show his stuff as a starter sometime in 2017.

3-Star Tier (The Hunger Games)

The mathematically astute among my readers will notice that there’s an asymmetry brewing: the Brewers have five starting rotation spots to play with, there are four pitchers in this coming tier, and we still have two tiers left to play with. Someone out of this group is not going to make the cut. These guys aren’t castoffs or still-ripening prospects; we’re dealing with a group of big-league veterans, plus one prospect who has no reason to go back down to the minor leagues. That means it’s put up or shut up time–each of these players could work their way into the rotation, but it’s likely that one or more will be sentenced to hard time at Colorado Springs–or, if they’re truly lucky, long relief duty.

Chase Anderson

Chase Anderson is 29 years old. He has been a Major League pitcher for three years. He’s thrown 418 and 2/3 innings, started 78 games, and over that stretch he’s performed exactly two noteworthy feats: he’s maintained both a perfectly level 24-24 career won/loss record and a perfectly level 0.0 career WARP mark. For this off-season, at least, Anderson stands as the benchmark against which average pitching is measured–and a rare point of perfect symmetry between the old-school and new-school baseball statistics.

To be bluntly honest, that just about sums up the book on Chase Anderson. He’s average; replacement level. He’s got an underwhelming fastball, but he survives with a superior changeup and stuff like “pitchability” and “guts,” whatever you want to call it that gives you the edge in the chess match between pitcher and hitter. Unfortunately, Miller Park is not a friendly home for replacement-level pitchers with flyball tendencies trying to get by with inferior stuff, and Colorado Springs is even worse.

I could easily see Anderson turning into the “cagey veteran innings-eater” trope, the type of guy who never excels but is good enough to earn a paycheck propping up the back end of rotations well into his 30s, but I don’t see it happening for the Brewers. Miller Park is a stadium that feels almost like it was made to squeeze out Anderson’s shortcomings as a pitcher.

Jimmy Nelson

Nelson has thrown exactly 17.3 innings more than Chase Anderson in his career, a number that drops to 7.3, a single start, if you take away Nelson’s four 2013 appearances and look at each of them over a three-year span. Nelson’s 21-38 won/loss record isn’t as perfectly balanced as Anderson, but he’s in the same club of 400+ inning-tossers to balance a perfect 0.0 WARP total.

Back in November, Ryan Romano sought to explore the dissonance in Nelson’s numbers: his ERA has been acceptable, if not great, the past couple of seasons, but by DRA, he has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball. Looking at his strikeout and walk rates, one is inclined to predict a coming implosion from Nelson. Considering he’s exactly replacement level now (and was almost a win below replacement level over 2016), this could look particularly ugly.

A month later, Seth Victor took a more in-depth look under the hood at Nelson. It seems that his release point this past season was off point from where he was throwing in prior seasons. This can affect a pitcher’s command, Victor argues, and the numbers back that argument up: Nelson walked 4.3 batters every nine innings in 2016, up from 3.3 in 2015 and 2.5 in 2014.

If the Brewers can fix Nelson’s release point problems and get his pinpoint command back, he could again become a valuable asset. If not, he’s probably coming to the end of his rope in Milwaukee. As we’ve established, there’s no shortage of hungry, young, talented hurlers gunning for his job.

Jorge Lopez

If everything breaks right for Jorge Lopez, he could be one of the most fascinating stories of the 2017 baseball season. A year ago, the right hander was 23 years old and one of Milwaukee’s few pitching prospects with any upside to speak of. But when Lopez failed to crack the starting rotation of the big club, things took a turn for the ugly as he went to AAA Colorado Springs and was basically used as a pinata by opposing hitters for 17 gruesome starts.

But Lopez made some mechanical adjustments with Milwaukee’s instructional league staff this past autumn, and proceeded to set the Puerto Rican Winter League ablaze: a 1.56 ERA and 0.87 WHIP in 34.7 innings. He’s got nothing to prove at AA anymore, and our AAA club’s home stadium is the place of his nightmares. Lopez doesn’t have a spot locked up at this point, but if the mechanical tweaks he made have really fixed the command issues that plagued him as a prospect, that will change in a hurry. His ceiling is significantly higher than that of Nelson or Anderson.

Matt Garza

Both Dylan Svoboda and Nicholas Zettel have taken contrasting looks at Garza for this site in recent weeks. Svoboda argued that Garza’s second-half momentum and potential as a midseason trade chip to a contending team should get him a rotation spot for the first half of the season or so. Zettel, on the other hand, argued that Garza’s perceived trade value is overinflated and that, by keeping him around, the Brewers are paying a tremendous opportunity cost in giving innings to Garza rather than one of their up-and-coming young pitchers.

In a perfect world for the Brewers, a team with no pitching depth loses a couple of their starters to injury early on in spring training, and they can get the best of both worlds–something of value back without having to waste innings on him this season. But that probably won’t happen, so the Brewers’ front office will have to make a judgment call at the end of the spring. Can this guy pull an Aaron Hill and find some trade value up his kiester, or are we better off cutting the sunk costs and giving those innings to someone else? A lot, like, this guy’s whole career, will depend on how frisky or how finished he looks this spring.

4-Star Tier (He’s a lock, well, unless that thing happens again…)

Wily Peralta

I’ve got to admit, I didn’t see this coming. Last June, after Peralta had been bad enough to go from “opening-day starter” to “minor leaguer,” I wrote a very detailed argument as to why the Brewers should consider moving him to the bullpen, where he could be more effective.

What happened since then is Peralta made some major changes, ended a year-and-a-half-long skid of mediocrity, got another shot with the Major League club, and looked like a whole new ballplayer. He might have made sense in the bullpen at the time, but things change.

Peralta got a shot at redemption in August, took back his job in the rotation, and never looked back. He posted a sub-3.00 ERA down the stretch, struck out batters at a higher clip than ever before in his career, and worked far deeper into games than he had earlier in the season. I’d like to think that maybe he read my case to move him to the bullpen, got angry, and vowed to become a better starter. But whatever happened, it’s been good.

Back in September, Ryan Romano took a look at Peralta’s surging whiff rate. The reason he was improved, Romano argued, is that he induced swings-and-misses at a rate previously untouched in his career, because he’d begun relying on his slider, his best pitch, statistically, but always a secondary offering to his fastball or sinker, far more than ever before. As such, the Peralta we saw in August and September should be closer to what we can expect going forward.

That being said, there are a couple of nitpicky, but still valid, reasons I’m not giving Peralta quite as much job security as the two guys in the next tier. The slider is a notoriously abusive pitch on the human elbow, and Peralta’s increased reliance on it also increases the chance that he’ll spend significant time on the DL. And if he runs into trouble again, and goes back to “throw more sliders” as the strategy to fix things once again, that elevates the risk further and further. But the version of Wily Peralta we watched get turned into a human pincushion on Opening Day is, for all intents and purposes, a relic of the past–and that is a good, good thing for the Brewers and their fans.

5-Star Tier (The Mortal Locks)

These two guys cemented their 2017 jobs in 2016. They were the two Brewer pitchers to be consistently good, they were responsible for the most value on the mound, and unless either one gets hurt or struggles even worse than Wily Peralta a year ago, they’re both fixtures in the starting rotation for the forseeable future. Which is just a little ironic, as both of them started last season in AAA.

Junior Guerra

I hope Guerra’s elbow is fine. I hope he was just a little sore from being used in a way he wasn’t used to, had to adjust to, and everything will be fine going forward. I really hope last season’s “elbow soreness” doesn’t become this season’s Tommy John surgery. He’s the best story in baseball, and at his age, if he makes it back from surgery, he’ll never be the same again. From May 3rd through the end of July, Guerra was a true rags to riches story: a former Italian Leaguer who had reinvented himself with the splitter and become one of the best pitchers in baseball. It would be a true shame if that short stretch was all we got of Guerra at his apex.

Because, as I broke down last May, Guerra at his apex is really good. You could argue he’s the best pitcher the Brewers have had since the days of Zack Greinke. His splitter looks every bit as sharp and big as the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka, and he’s shown a propensity to dial it up for big games. Guerra beat the Cubs, he beat the Dodgers, and he beat the Nationals with Max Freakin’ Scherzer dueling him on the mound. If the elbow pain is a thing of the past, the opening day start should be Guerra’s to lose coming into spring camp.

Zach Davies

When I was a kid, every single young athlete heard the famous story of Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team. If you were a bad young athlete, like I was, you heard it a lot. It was supposed to motivate you to pick yourself up and keep going, and the fact that Jordan was The Greatest Ever during our formative years further hammered home the point that, yeah, even the greatest ever used to suck, so don’t you give up!

At some point in its growth, the Internet destroyed the potency of that myth. And, as we’ve learned, Michael Jordan is the type of person who tends to lie to himself about the magnitude of minor slights in order to self-motivate. That story happened his sophomore year of high school, when he tried out for the varsity precociously. He wasn’t cut-cut, either; he was sent down to the junior varsity, like 98 percent of all basketball-playing sophomores in the country, where he led the team in scoring. In that light, it’s not a particularly noteworthy or inspiring anecdote, unless you’re using Michael Jordan’s psychotic competitiveness as your muse.

But Zach Davies, on the other hand, while lacking the prestige of Jordan, has his own version of this story, and it has the added benefit of being 100 percent true. Davies came into Spring Training 2016 with an outside shot at the rotation, but didn’t crack the first starting five. He started the season in Colorado Springs, and by fortune managed to survive his two starts there with a 2.00 ERA, earning him a call-up less than a month into the season.

Davies never looked back, establishing himself as Milwaukee’s most consistent starting pitcher throughout the season. His 3.92 ERA and 3.68 DRA suggest that, while he isn’t dominant, he’s a better-than-average MLB starter. Davies soft-tossing and baby-faced profile will never, ever intimidate a Major League hitter, but he doesn’t rely on intimidation. Davies instead relies on deception and keeping hitters off-balance, and he does it well as the numbers indicate.

Last Fall, Julien Assouline made the case that Davies, and not Junior Guerra, was the Brewers’ true “ace” of the 2016 season, and I have to second his reasoning. Going forward, it’s entirely likely that Davies is the Brewers’ number one starting pitcher. But I would still start Guerra on opening day since Wily Peralta emerged as the presumed third starter behind them. Guerra and Peralta throw at similar speeds and both rely on a hard breaking ball as their out pitch. By sandwiching Davies in between them, in the two slot, you break up that pattern with someone whose pitches look completely different. In certain series through the year, ideally, it will even break down with those three going back to back to back–your three best pitchers, in a pattern that prevents opposing hitters from ever getting comfortable. This maximizes the effectiveness of all three.

At the outset of this off-season, David Stearns told the Journal-Sentinel that it was going to be a quieter offseason. As we put January behind us on the calendar, it has indeed been quiet. But even with the low-profile additions and in-house options, competition for the starting rotation spots in Milwaukee is fierce enough to be worth watching. Last season, the Brewers allowed 4.52 runs per game last season, good for 20th in all of baseball. However, with Davies a year older, Peralta set to contribute for a full season, and players like Hader and Ortiz looking to break into the parent club’s rotation, there’s reason to hope that will improve in 2017.

• Production: A player can be considered valuable based on how well they perform on the field. Alternately, as advanced statistics and analytical tools emerge, a player can be considered valuable based on their underlying elements — stuff, mechanics, plate approach, command, etc. Both of these metrics, traditional or advanced, judge value according to production.
• Scarcity: A player can be considered valuable based on the rarity or singularity of their performance skillset. Furthermore, a player can be considered valuable based on their contract, which at the MLB level is ostensibly a reflection of service time achievement (ex., veteran free agents earn more than reserve-controlled rookies). Here, a player’s raw production is arguably prorated against their veteran status (or lack thereof) and cost.

Related Reading:
Historical Transactional Value for OFP
40-Man Roster Surplus Values

Yesterday I hosted a Twitter chat for BPMilwaukee, and Matt Garza’s rotation spot continued to be a hot topic among Brewers fans. The veteran is the second-most expensive player on the Milwaukee roster, and certainly the least valuable in terms of total surplus: a three-year depreciation window values Garza at 0.42 WARP ($2.9M value), and depending on how one calculates the $8 million in deferred payments owed to the veteran, the righty will cost anywhere between $10.5 million and $18.5 million to the Brewers. At best, that leaves the Brewers with a total surplus of -$10.5 million, which means that the Brewers would actually gain roster value simply by cutting Garza and paying the full extent of his contract.

@BPMilwaukee 4.33 FIP, 4.16 ERA after AS break, toughest competition in NL, 4.29 DRA, 1.4 WARP in ~1/2 season, could provide trade value.

— David (@dgo151) January 23, 2017

If Garza’s performance resembles his strong second half and the righty faces more justly distributed competition — which is the best argument offered in defense of keeping the veteran righty, and one presented by Dylan Svoboda at BPMilwaukee — Milwaukee will need to spend half a season in salary to reach that point and arguably send $8 million cash to cover the deferred salary in order to return a prospect resembling even 45-to-50 Overall Future Potential. Given that the historical surplus of such a player is around $10 million total, spending at least $13 million to acquire such a prospect is quite a stretch of the term “value play.” Adding $13 million spent against, say, 1.5 WARP ($10.5M) from a great Garza first half and the $10 million surplus from the prospect return nets the Brewers approximately $7.5 million in total value — that’s a lot of effort for an extra future win or so.

Gambling on Garza to become a valuable trade chip is problematic for historical reasons, contemporary reasons, and organizational opportunity cost.

(1) Historical Value
Historically, if a player posts a replacement-value season with more than 100 innings at age-32, that player is likely at the very end of their career path. Prior to 2016, 33 such pitchers worked seasons of 100 IP (or more) with WAR between -0.1 and -1.0 during their age-32 season (similar to Garza’s campaign). Along with Garza, Edinson Volquez also pitched such a season in 2016. Those 33 historical pitchers represent a wide range of career WAR values, but almost uniformly decline or complete their careers with that bad age-32 season.

Using Baseball Reference Play Index, here are the age-32 pitchers comparable to Garza (ex., within a one win range). It must be emphasized that Baseball Reference’s WAR statistic is at odds with DRA & WARP assessments of Garza. Still, this is some historical perspective:

Among this group of pitchers, the historical average after a 100+ IP / -1.0 WAR to -0.1 WAR age-32 season is 167.0 IP and 0.7 WAR. To correct for outliers (such as Tim Belcher, and the set of pitchers that did not work whatsoever after age-32), the median is 170.0 IP and -0.2 WAR from age-33 onward. Not an inspiring group in terms of value, and this type of performance shows one particular stop on the aging curve: if a pitcher is likely to be an elite or even valuable pitcher deep into their 30s, they did not pitch a 100+ IP negative WAR season at age-32.

So, analysts cannot look to history for age-based comparisons for Garza’s 2016 in order to determine some level of future value that renders that contract valuable.

(2) Contemporary Value
In contemporary value, MLB teams started 217 pitchers that were worse than Garza in 2016 (among pitchers that worked at least 10.0 innings, which helps to cut out one-start emergency pitchers). This produces an interesting tension between Baseball Reference WAR (which grades Garza as below-replacement in 2016) and WARP (which rates Garza at 1.25 on the strength of a 4.29 DRA). Among the 138 MLB pitchers that worked at least 100 innings in 2016, Garza’s 4.29 DRA rates slightly below the median mark of 4.15 DRA.

There is a sense that Garza’s skillset is valuable insofar as he is a veteran that generally works a lot of innings, and a veteran that can make adjustments to improve his performance during a given season (as is evident by his second-half surge in 2016). Still, it is worth pushing back on Garza’s value here: that $10.5 million 2016 salary and $8 million deferred payment still are not equivalent to 1.25 WARP, or even a 4.29 DRA. Thus far the offseason has proven that such a performance does not bring trade value, which does lend some credence to the position that the Brewers must pitch Garza for at least the first half of 2016 to make a deadline deal (or perhaps float him through waivers as an August waiver trade).

(3) Opportunity Cost
The remaining issue with Garza’s contractual surplus and lack of transactional value is that the Brewers have a 40-man roster stacked with pitchers that could potentially create more cost-controlled value with a solid 2016 campaign. Chase Anderson, Jimmy Nelson, Brent Suter, and Taylor Jungmann appear to be replacement level depth to some degree, but their extended control years and generally low cost contracts mean that a turn in the right direction yields significantly more value for the club. Tom Milone is an intriguing trade value candidate himself (cf. Scott Feldman…), for if the Brewers develop a strategy with the southpaw to recoup some value from his arm, that $3.0M+ maximum contract will look solid during the trade deadline season; approximately 1.0 WARP from Milone produces better trade value than 1.5 WARP from Garza, in terms of sheer transactional surplus.

Of course, then there remain the three rotation spots that probably should be locked down: Zach Davies was the best starter for the Brewers in 2016 in terms of DRA and WARP; Junior Guerra pitched ahead of a DRA and WARP, but was still quite valuable via WARP; and Wily Peralta rode a surging second half to a strong WARP himself, making him one of the most intriguing “comeback” candidates for the 2017 Brewers. Beyond these starters, of course, are notable 40-man roster prospects such as Josh Hader and Jorge Lopez, who combine for more than $20 million in organizational surplus even if one takes the 45 OFP-to-50 OFP route for these hurlers (instead of Lopez’s 2015 top OFP and Hader’s 2017 top OFP, which immensely increases the value of these pitchers).

In terms of surplus value, the opportunity cost for each Garza start (prorated to 33 starts) is $0.3M, prior to considering the value of Milone, Jungmann, Suter, and Nelson (another $0.3M per start excluded as a group) or Hader+Lopez (at least another $0.6M per start excluded as a group, and as much as $1.1M per start excluded as a group that keeps Hader & Lopez from realizing their Top OFP in 2017). The best case scenario holds that the Brewers basically eat one win in 2017, and hang on long enough to Garza to trade him for a 45-50 OFP prospect with cash headed out the door; a more likely scenario is that the Brewers eat at least one win in 2017 due to Garza’s lack of surplus value, and those starts truncate value for another group of potential starters (to the tune of another lost win). Once one reaches into the territory of Garza (or, to be fair, several other starters on the 40-man roster) starts blocking either Hader or Lopez, there is some chance that the Brewers could eat yet another win in surplus value in that scenario.

The question here must be to what extent eating one-to-three wins is a valuable outcome for a developing ballclub. This is especially salient given that the Brewers improved in 2016, and also that Milwaukee does not have a very good development environment one level removed from the MLB (meaning that there is a sense that Milwaukee should simply start Hader and Lopez at the MLB level, which would be an incredible attempt to materialize future value). To this end, the Brewers front office will show their truest interpretation of what an “analytical” front office means. Is David Stearns ready to use the club’s $80 million revenue cushion from 2016 and 2017 to eat $18.5 million dollars in a move to materialize future surplus value?

Instead, the Brewers have given all of their starts to young pitchers in 2016. Wily Peralta’s 566 career innings are the most of any of the seven starters that have had a chance this season, and even he only made his debut four seasons ago. In a best case scenario, this would have definitely been a positive; a rebuilding season is an excellent opportunity to give young players a chance to sink or swim without the stress of expectations.

Thus far, though, the experiment has been mostly disastrous. Junior Guerra’s 3.46 DRA is the only one of the seven below 4.00, and only Jimmy Nelson and Tyler Cravy (who has made only start and is basically a reliever) are even below 5.00. Wily Peralta has been terrible, Chase Anderson and Zach Davis have been bad, and Taylor Jungmann was demoted. This series of performances does not bode well for the future.

Relevantly, the Brewers are in a bit of a weird place with their rebuild. Their three best hitters right now are the 32-year-old Ryan Braun, 29-year-old Jonathan Lucroy, and 29-year-old Chris Carter—each of whom is, at the very least, on his way out of his prime years. Meanwhile, their young hitters are not going to be ready to fully contribute for the next couple years, meaning that even as Orlando Arcia and Brett Phillips develop into being able to fill the holes the team currently has, new ones will be created (particularly at catcher).

There was a best-case scenario where the Brewers actually took a monstrous step forward in 2017. It would have involved Arcia and Phillips having huge years, getting called up at some point in 2016, and demonstrating they were ready to contribute full-time in 2017—all to such an extent that both Lucroy and the Brewers were convinced that keeping him through the end of his contract was worth it. This is still possible, as both Arcia and Phillips are having good seasons in the high minors, despite being just 21 and 22 years old, respectively.

However, there was another step necessary for this scenario, and it involved a pitching staff that looks much different than the one that currently takes the mound for the Brewers. While good teams can win with a mediocre rotation and excellent offense, the Brewers’ offense is just good, not great, and the current crop of pitchers is about as far below “mediocre” as it can get.

For the ideal 2017 scenario to come off, the Brewers would have been counting on Nelson taking steps forward to become a solid number two starter, Peralta to halt the downward slide his career has been on, and one or two more solid performances that hinted at something positive to come. Instead, they have gotten a nice start from Guerra and occasional hints at optimism from Nelson.

The question here, then, is what this dumpster fire of a performance does to the rebuilding timeline, and the honest answer is probably not much. It does very likely kill any 2017 dreams, simply because there is no urgency to ensure Arcia (or even Phillips) is ready and because there is little justification for keeping Lucroy beyond this offseason, but—if we’re being honest—there wasn’t a ton of hope for immediate contention anyway, especially with the strength of the division.

However, this doesn’t irreparably set back the rebuild. First and most importantly, pitcher development doesn’t follow a specific aging curve the way hitters’ development does, so it is entirely possible that Peralta and/or Jungmann will turn themselves around and end up as serviceable big leaguers. Second, though, the Brewers still have options in the minor leagues; it wasn’t as if the four pitchers who broke spring training in the rotation were the only ones in the organization.

We have already seen Junior Guerra in 2016, and Jorge Lopez and Josh Hader (among others) are still in the high minors. The hope for the Brewers’ pitching staff will remain the same—if just three or four of the seven or eight options hit, then Milwaukee will have a quality major league starting rotation. And given that Nelson is already basically there, the Brewers remain in good shape.

Overall, this also allows the position players to catch up in terms of development. The first of the group of young pitchers reached the big leagues this year, and if they had succeeded, they would have been peaking a couple years before the position players. With this path, though, the younger position players—Trent Clark is 19, Monte Harrison is 20—may now have the opportunity to reach the big leagues with their pitching counterparts.

Of course, that isn’t to say that the Brewers are better off because now they can organize their timetable in a slightly neater fashion. The best way to win is just to develop good players, regardless of age, so any conscious effort to line up timelines is a fool’s errand. Additionally, there is clearly no guarantee that any of these younger players are any more likely to develop than the ones that came before, especially given the similar pedigrees.

However, this disastrous stretch isn’t likely to set the Brewers back significantly, except of course that Peralta and Jungmann appear to officially be lost causes. That is clearly a disappointment, but given that the huge age gap between the current offensive production (Braun, Lucroy, Carter) and the next generation was likely to create some struggles anyway, the fact that the pitching might take a couple extra years to develop could turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as it will allow the front office to identify and address lineup holes that will appear in the next year or two. Ultimately, then, this is not a huge setback, no matter how horrific the numbers appear today.

Big-league hitters, it seemed, had adjusted to Jungmann’s less-than-dominating stuff. This notion was solidified in April, as Jungmann posted a comically bad 9.15 ERA over five starts. On April 29th, one day after the Cubs hung five runs on him and chased him to the clubhouse in the fourth inning, Jungmann was designated for assignment.

Jungmann’s replacement in the rotation, at least for now, is Junior Guerra: a 31-year-old career minor leaguer (4 innings of Major League service time coming into the season) whose 3.97 FIP and 4.63 ERA at Colorado Springs are, well, not particularly impressive. Over the span of three months, Jungmann nailed down a starting job long-term. In the two months of action since, he has completely undone all that good–and then some. What happened? How did Taylor Jungmann’s young career disintegrate so quickly and so completely?

Jungmann’s struggles down the stretch last season are actually explained away pretty easily–his extremely good luck went extremely sour. Through August, he posted ridiculously low home run rates (below 10 percent)–including July, when Jungmann kept the ball in the yard for the whole month.

Back in the day, Jungmann would have built quite a reputation as a guy who “can make hitters make bad contact.” Today, we know that such a thing does not exist, at least not to such a level that would sufficiently describe Taylor Jungmann’s first three months in the big leagues. Yes, Jungmann was doing an admirable job to pitch above his weight class–but the undeniable truth is that you can’t turn okay stuff into 35 homerless innings without a generous dollop of good fortune in the recipe.

But depending on this good fortune is a recipe for disaster, and an approach that baseball has sought to distance itself from for a reason. In September and October, the winds changed–fortune was the dog and Jungmann was the fire hydrant. A full quarter–twenty-five percent–of the fly balls hit off of him left the yard. A guy who had gotten preposterously lucky for three months found himself getting just as unlucky for a month–and since this guy was, at best, an average specimen to begin with, the correction was bloody.

But in spite of the surface troubles, Jungmann was pitching about the same as he had all season. His fastball velocity wasn’t impressive, but it also wasn’t petering out from fatigue as the season wore on. He even slowed his changeup down just a touch, creating a sharper contrast.

Meanwhile, his sinker and curveball were every bit as effectively bitey as they had been the whole season.

In light of this, the logical projection for Jungmann’s 2016 season fell somewhere between the two extremes. He wasn’t sub-3-ERA good, but he wasn’t light-‘em-up bad, either.

But this year, Jungmann has been an absolute train wreck each and every time he takes the mound. It was surreal enough when he found himself relegated to Colorado Springs before the blooming of May flowers, but since the demotion Jungmann has hung up two more bad starts–against AAA hitting, no less! Last year’s stretch decline was a result of bad luck, but this year has been a less encouraging story. For the first time in Jungmann’s short Major League career, his peripherals line up with his surface numbers–he’s not just getting unlucky anymore, Jungmann is a noticeably worse pitcher than he was last season. Three major concerns have manifested themselves in harmony with one another, and combined to turn Jungmann from a guy you could call on every fifth day into a guy you don’t want to call on unless you’re shopping for insurance rates.

3. The Shrinking Menu

Last year’s Taylor Jungmann worked off of a four-pitch arsenal. His fastball and curve were the clear-cut #1 and #2 offerings, but he also sported a sinker and changeup. While he threw the third and fourth pitches far less often than the other two, they would still account for approximately 15-20 percent of his arsenal.

And it’s not like they were bad pitches–opposing hitters batted only .244 against the sinker, and .143 against the change! For whatever reason, though, Jungmann has dialed back his secondary offerings this year and relied on his four-seam fastball and curve almost exclusively. The one curious exception seems to be his April 21st start against Minnesota–but take that game out, and the sinker has been completely absent from Jungmann’s repetoire.

Traditionally, two-pitch pitchers are bullpen guys, and there’s a reason for that. On two or three trips through the batting order, the entire lineup will acclimate themselves to both pitches–unless your stuff is so overpowering that familiarity doesn’t matter. This is not the case for Taylor Jungmann, and it’s no coincidence that he has been chased before the fifth inning in more than half his starts this year.

Jungmann and the Brewers need to end this doomed experiment immediately. One of Jungmann’s primary areas of focus in Colorado Springs should be restoring that sinker and changeup to his weapons cache. Since none of his pitches, on their own, are good enough to carry him, he needs to be able to utilize all four effectively like he did last year if he ever wants to touch that level of success again.

2. Relieved of Command

Sometimes, the data paints a picture so clear that even the blind can see it.

That’s a pattern, and it’s not one that’s trending in the right direction. Last season, Jungmann established himself early on as a guy who wouldn’t make mistakes and walk hitters–as a result, he was able to get them to chase pitches outside the zone somewhat regularly:

And, while this season’s sample size is admittedly much smaller so far, it’s clear to see that, for whatever reason, the fish just aren’t biting this time around:

With only two pitches at his disposal, Jungmann is fighting an uphill battle with every at-bat. And clearly, they are relishing the non-challenge. They’re not biting on the chase pitches, and they’re spoiling the out pitches foul–following right in line with this narrative, Jungmann’s whiff rate dropped off alarmingly in April:

Add together all of these moving parts, and you have a walk rate that has basically doubled since Jungmann’s first month in the big leagues. That’s twice as many free baserunners–no wonder he’s struggling to keep his head above water.

1. Powerless

Last year, Jungmann’s fastball averaged 92.59 mph on release. That’s not impressive, but it’s fast enough to get big-league hitters out. So far this year, his heater is leaving the arm at 90.25 mph instead.

In today’s era of triple-digit burners, it’s easy to overlook the significance of this development. Slow, slower, what’s the difference, right? While it’s true that loss of velocity is a more significant issue in the upper registers of speed, it’s also worth noting that 92 to 90 is one of the biggest, most noticeable gaps we can observe in fastball effectiveness:

In summary, Jungmann’s subtle velocity backslide took him from “just fast enough to be effective” to “just slow enough to get creamed.”

A successful Major League pitcher does three things well, when you boil it down: he mixes his pitches well; he delivers offerings that are overpoweringly hard or late-breaking; and he hits the spot he’s aiming for. This year, Taylor Jungmann has been measurably worse at each of those things. The Brewers and their fans would certainly love to see him regain the form that made him one of 2015’s best feel-good stories, but in order for that to happen he will need to improve his power and command, and reintroduce his third and fourth offerings.