Now the 2018 Brewers are on pace to challenge the 1988 Brewers for the best pitching staff in franchise history. As it stands, the Brewers could basically pitch average baseball for the remainder of the season and finish with the third best staff in franchise history; as the table above shows, Milwaukee has already surpassed their 2017 Runs Prevented total this season.

The purpose of this post is not to present a normative argument about whether or not the Brewers should be expected to produce the best pitching season in franchise history. Evidence abounds in all directions. First and foremost, at the time of this writing, the trade deadline has yet to pass, which means that the Brewers could further improve their pitching; second, the latest average Runs Prevented table demonstrates that the Milwaukee hurlers are already approximately 12 runs from their May 31 pace, meaning that the club has slowed slightly in their elite Runs Prevention; additionally, key injuries and subsequent ineffectiveness (ranging from Brent Suter and Zach Davies to Matt Albers and, of course, Jimmy Nelson) also impact projections of runs prevention. Alternately, Chase Anderson has prevented approximately seven runs since the beginning of June, and is beginning to look like a rotation leader at the same time the club traded for Joakim Soria and recalled Corbin Burnes to bolster the bullpen. If anything, this swirling set of evidence might allow one to believe that the pitching staff will at least remain steady.

Rather, I am going to investigate the pitching staff structure for a few of the best franchise pitching staffs listed in the table above. The purpose here will be fun, first and foremost, as almost everyone can name the key Brewers batters and supporting casts of the club’s great offensive performances (ten of the top 13 runs production seasons come from the 1978-1983 and 2009-2012 roster cores), but the great pitching staffs beyond Teddy Higuera, Ben Sheets, and CC Sabathia remain underappreciated or perhaps even unknown. Furthermore, by comparing the structures of these great staffs, one can get an idea of how pitching roster construction has evolved over time. For example, the 2018 Brewers may very well end up producing the greatest bullpen in franchise history, but how does their rotation compare? On the other hand, one might expect the classic 1980s clubs to be rotation-first, in terms of value.

Defensive Efficiency
Prior to investigating Baseball Prospectus pitching profiles of these classic Brewers pitching clubs, it is worth emphasizing that most of the top Brewers pitching teams were also typically very good fielding teams relative to their respective leagues.

Indeed, the table above demonstrates that the 2018 Brewers shares the top of these fielding profiles with the 1992 club, which were the most efficient fielding unit on the Junior Circuit. Here, I am using defensive efficiency to assess fielding because it is a basic number that calculates the extent to which a fielding unit converts outs. The outliers here are the 2005, 2011, and 2017 Brewers clubs, which prevented runs despite mediocre fielding performances (they prevented approximately 26, 47, and 47 runs, respectively, despite their middle of the road fielding).

Roster Construction
Teddy Higuera had quite a career for the Milwaukee Brewers, posting single season WARP totals above 4.0 in three of nine seasons. Higuera’s best year in Milwaukee occurred during the 1988 season, in which the southpaw worked nearly 230 innings while striking out 192 batters to only 59 walks. Using Deserved Run Average (DRA), a statistic that scales pitching performance to numerous contextual components, Higuera was better in 1988 than in any other season in Milwaukee, and those results total nearly 7.0 WARP.

Yet the 1988 club was also a crossing of two eras in Milwaukee, where the fading glory of Harvey’s Wallbangers (who never got the consistent ace they deserved in Higuera) would congeal into a roster core that could never quite get Robin Yount and Paul Molitor into the playoffs with a second generation of talent. Behind Higuera, the 1988 squad featured four prominent contributors age-25 or younger in Juan Nieves (23), Don August (24), Chris Bosio (25), and Bill Wegman (25), ostensibly giving the Brewers a stable pitching rotation around which their next contending seasons could follow. Yet injuries, ineffectiveness, and inconsistencies derailed this group, leaving 1988 their best performance. Of these youngsters, Bosio was en route to beginning a stretch of several quality pitching seasons, and in fact the righty was more valuable each of 1989, 1991, and 1992 (compared to 1988).

Chuck Crim deserves mention, of course, because the 26-year old rubber arm worked more than 100 innings over 70 appearances. Not only did the righty work 42 multiple inning appearances according to Baseball Reference, but he also inherited 68 runners. In terms of percentage points, Crim’s strand rate was eight points better than the league average, meaning that aside from his own exceptional runs allowed total, Crim added several Runs Prevented simply by stranding runners that occupied bases when he entered ballgames; this performance foreshadowed Brian Shouse’s efforts for the excellent 2008 pitching staff (60 IR / 20 scored), as well as Jeremy Jeffress and Dan Jennings (62 IR / 14 scored (!!!) entering Sunday) in 2018. This excellent performance is reflected in Crim’s leads converted statistics, as the righty successfully produced nine saves and 13 holds, against only two blown save or hold opportunities.

The Crim mention is a perfect transition to the 2017 pitching staff, which featured a few excellent starting pitching performances boosted by an even better bullpen. Thus appears Jacob Barnes in the club’s top performers for 2017, as the hard near-cutter / slider reliever is not only a throwback to the bread-and-butter 1980s reliever (enter Crim, a favorite media comp for Barnes, too), but also one of the only 2017 Brewers pitchers to accumulate more than 1.0 WARP. What is interesting about the 2017 pitching staff also foreshadowing the strengths of the 2018 staff, and that is the sheer depth of the pitching operations. Eventually, the pitching-by-depth gamble unraveled as the club faced injuries and a rotating cast of fifth starter ineffectiveness down the stretch. But along with the more popular impact relievers of Corey Knebel and Josh Hader, Barnes was one of the key reasons for the club’s success in 2017 and, like Crim and Hader, another deep round MLB draft success story.

By the way, let it be said that for any other critiques of the Brewers current GM, David Stearns sure can build a runs prevention unit. Despite being in his third season as GM, and ostensibly leading the club through a rebuilding phase, Stearns already boasts two of the 17 average or better pitching staffs in franchise history. Interestingly enough, for all the grief President Doug Melvin gets about his apparent inability to assemble a pitching staff, the highly regarded Harry Dalton also had the same issue. While Sal Bando is not highly regarded by most Brewers fans, the GM sure could build a pitching staff, and Bando (more than Melvin or Dalton) is Stearns’s target for building quality pitching; Dalton and Melvin are obviously the targets for beating postseason appearances.

Comparing Jimmy Nelson, Chase Anderson, and Zach Davies, who was an excellent Runs Prevented starter in 2017 even if his WARP did not look great, to the 1988 squad should underscore the difficulty of building a consistent rotation. Producing a great starting rotation certainly does not come close to guaranteeing pitching success in the following season, when injuries, mechanical adjustments, and inconsistencies that were absent in the “great year” can creep up in the following campaign. Once again, though, the Brewers have a group of truly controllable, quality starting pitching arms (as they did in the late-1980s), but it is worth raising questions about the scouting profiles and future prospects of these arms following the mechanical adjustments and injuries that have plagued 2018. The book is not closed, however, as Chase Anderson has shown over his last ten starts (59.7 IP, 3.02 ERA, four quality starts); if all goes well, Anderson’s contract extension would be well-justified if he comes anywhere near Chris Bosio’s best four years in Milwaukee.

2008 needs no introduction, as the Brewers media and Twitter recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of the CC Sabathia trade. Of course, as Sabathia rightfully carries the reputation as the arm that saved that season, it is always worth emphasizing that Ben Sheets was phenomenal in 2008 as well. Sheets managed a 3.13 DRA and 5.3 WARP across 31 starts, including an electrifying 1-0 complete game effort over the Padres while pitching through a torn elbow ligament. In terms of pitchers putting their careers on the line for Milwaukee, it’s tough to top Sabathia and Sheets, as both pitchers risked millions of dollars on the 2008-2009 free agency market to will the Brewers to their first playoff appearance in a generation; Sheets lost the bet for future millions, while Sabathia cashed on an uncanny performance.

But oh, ode to Manny Parra, Dave Bush, and Carlos Villanueva, the sometimes frustrating but often dependable low rotation and swingman crew for the mid-00s Milwaukee teams. Bush was worth approximately 10 WARP to the Brewers over his 2006-2008 seasons, with 2006 being the high mark; Villanueva and Parra each had their best Milwaukee years in 2008, which is not a bad thing to occur during a playoff race. This trio of pitchers seems quite comparable to many of the 2018 Brewers group, for this trio either had unassuming stuff, or serious profile questions or command concerns when the stuff was there. While one will be quick to point out that the 2018 Brewers do not (yet) have their Sabathia, nor do they have their Sheets, one can find semblances of the Bush, Parra, and Villanueva trio in profiles such as Junior Guerra, Jhoulys Chacin, Wade Miley, and/or Freddy Peralta. This is not an insult: the 2008 trio have never truly received enough credit for their respective roles in carrying the rotation early in the season, nor for their overall value.

Finally, if 1988 was the best franchise pitching season, 1992 exemplified the turn of generations once more, as Jamie Navarro and Cal Eldred were set to join Bosio and Wegman atop the pitching staff. This time, Wegman bested Bosio in terms of value, but both pitchers were quite strong, producing nearly 10 WARP for those 1992 Brewers. Eldred and Navarro also acquitted themselves well, although they would reprise the injuries, inconsistencies, and ineffectiveness that has served as a theme throughout these pitching profiles.

In 1992, one can suddenly see the eras shift, as baseball’s strategic tides moved toward relief pitching prominence, and these Brewers had a deep and fantastic bullpen. Fetters, Holmes, and Orosco were not even the most prominent relievers on the staff (see Plesac, Dan; Henry, Doug; and Austin, Jim). What is stunning about this group is that despite their excellent and deep composition, the Brewers were near the bottom in the American League in both Saves and Holds, and their relievers mostly faced low leverage innings according to Baseball Reference. In 1992, 42 percent of Brewers relief appearances qualified as low leverage; to get a sense of what that might look like, consider than the 2018 Brewers are nearly the exact opposite, with 36 percent of relief appearances qualified as high leverage. It is interesting to think about this strategic snafu of 1992 during a current season in which managers are reaching for their bullpens early and often in order to gain every advantage possible.

Yet is a bullpen ever a vehicle for anything other than strategic failure? Is there a proper way to manage the pen over an extended period of time? If the 2018 Brewers are going to catch the 1988 squad to produce the best pitching season in franchise history, hopefully manager Craig Counsell effectively dispatches those Runs Prevented in the most strategic manner possible.

Baseball Prospectus. Milwaukee Brewers Individual Statistics by Team [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Milwaukee Brewers Franchise [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Baseball Reference. Park Factors and League Encyclopedia [CSV]. Retrieved July 29, 2018.

Runs Prevented were calculated using the average of park factors between Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Reference sources, with the addition of a basic league environment runs prevented stat as well. Each Brewers team was assessed by average runs prevented and standard deviation.

For the first two season of his deal, Lohse faired quite well. He accumulated a 2.1 WARP in 2013 and a 1.8 WARP in 2014. Lohse is also a well-established FIP-beater. While FIP is generally a useful stat when trying to isolate a pitcher’s true skill set, there are some hurlers who consistently out produce their FIP numbers. Chris Young and Johnny Cueto, two current free agents, come to mind in this department. Matt Cain was another until his arm functionally fell off. These types of pitchers will typically compile consistently low BABIPs. The idea is that they are able to consistently produce weak contact. Chris Young is able to do this by creating a lot of infield pop flies from pitching high in the zone and using his extreme length to his advantage on the mound.

For Lohse, though, all that changed this year. He couldn’t keep his on-field run prevention below his FIP, creating one of the worst seasons of his career, if not the worst. It was also his worst season with Milwaukee. In fact, it was one of the worst pitching performances in Brewers history. Lohse, who represented consistent solid performance for much of his Brewers career, suddenly became an albatross.

So now, let’s put Lohse’s 2015 performance into Brewers historical context. For some refreshing, Colin Anderle also did this to a certain extent. He asked the question as to whether Lohse was the worst opening day starter in Brewers history. In short, the answer was no. While Lohse’s 2015 performance was bad for Brewers opening day starters, it was not historically terrible. Instead, that title was given to Mark Knudson, who finished the 1991 campaign with an 8.64 DRA in 35 innings pitched. This to say, for the following study don’t expect Lohse to have the worst pitching season in Brewers history, but adding some historical perspective will give us a chance to appreciate just how bad it was.

The visual bellow will incorporate three parts. The main being the PWARP of the pitcher, which is on the Y-axis. Therefore, the lower down the circle the worse the pitcher performed that year, and the higher up the circle the better the pitcher performed that year. The color is dependent of the DRA-. In DRA- lower is better, or, in this case, green is better. The greener the color, the better the DRA- the redder the color the worse the DRA-. Finally, innings pitched is determined by the size of the circle, minimum of 50 innings pitched.

Since the Brewers became a franchise in 1969, with the inception of the Seattle Pilots, a total of 453 pitchers have pitched at least 50 innings in a single season for the organization. A total of 103 pitchers have posted a negative PWARP during that time, and as one can tell from the graph, Kyle Lohse’s 2015 performance was one of them. This isn’t surprising as Lohse’s struggles in 2015 have been well-documented. What you perhaps did not know is that Lohse had the 15th worst PWARP season in Brewers history at -1.07. Lohse’s DRA- only ranked 42nd worse in Brewers history, but since Lohse pitched a healthy amount of innings (as can be seen with the size of his circle), he ended up raking up the 15th worst PWARP in Brewers history.

Kyle Lohse, though, evidently wasn’t the worst — thankfully for him. That undesirable award goes to Jose Cabrera in 2002 (he’s the small red dot at the bottom middle of the graph). Cabrera was acquired by the Brew Crew before the 2002 season from Atlanta. The Brewers were mired in a prolonged rebuilding phase — they were coming off ten-straight losing seasons — but the trade and the use of Cabrera still signaled flaws in their analysis. Cabrera was coming off a year where he achieved an ERA of 2.88 but throughout his career Cabrera always posted sub-par FIP numbers. Let’s not even get into his DRA numbers. He displayed a poor ability to strikeout hitters while giving away too many walks. In some ways, if Cabrera was a pitcher in today’s age, he probably wouldn’t have gotten the same opportunity. The biggest bugaboo for the Brewers was that they let him start 11 games when he had never started a single game prior to the 2002 season. They also let him pitch a career high in innings with 103.3. All these elements ended with him accumulating a -1.9 PWARP, the worst in any single Brewers season. It also was part of a culmination of factors which contributed to the worst Brewers season in their history, as they lost 106 games in 2002 — their only season with more than 100 losses.

On the brighter side, this visual also shows us the best single-season pitching performance in Brewers history. You see that big green circle at the middle top of the graph? That’s the 1988 season pitched by Ted Higuera. Higuera was purchased in 1983 from the Indios de Ciudad Juárez of the Mexican League. He made his Major League debut in 1985 at the age of 27 and proceeded to play his entire career for the Brewers.

Higuera was an instant success when joining the Brewers. The lefty always pitched more than 200 innings, limited home runs, and had low walk rates. In 1988, he put it all together, pitching his usual 200 innings (227.3 to be exact), producing a low walk rate, and compiling quality strikeout numbers. Mainly, though, it was his ability to limit hard contact that made him so successful. In 1988, he only allowed opponents to have a .214 TAv against him. This all culminated in his 7.53 PWARP, which is the best in Brewers history. Unfortunately, the vanguard for sabermetrics hadn’t arrived yet and Higuera. Even though he posted the second best PWARP of any pitcher in the Major Leagues that year, didn’t get any Cy Young considerations. He didn’t even make the All-Star team.

The biggest crime for that season though was that Roger Clemens finished 6th in Cy Young voting, losing out to Frank Viola. Clemens in 1988 finished with a 10.02 PWARP, which was by far the best in all of baseball and one of the greatest single-season pitching performances in Major League history. It was 2.49 PWARP better than Higuera who again finished in second in that department. Viola who won the Cy Young had a 6.35 PWARP, which isn’t even close to Clemens and is more than a full win under Higuera.

Unfortunately for Higuera, he would never again reach the heights of 1988. His career was then hampered by a slew of injuries, the main one being a torn rotator cuff in 1991. He missed all of the 1992 seasons, and only saw limited time in 1993 and 1994 where his performance declined significantly. The 1994 season proved to be his final season in the big leagues.

In the midst of my research, I noticed something interesting. Here are the 10 best single season DRA- in Brewers history (min 50 IP):

I’m sure by now you’ve noticed a few familiar names. Yes, Higuera’s 1988 season ranks third, which is amazing considering the number of innings he pitched. But, I’m talking about the Francisco Rodriguez’s 2015 DRA- at second place and Michael Blazek in seventh place. Rodriguez who was just traded to the Tigers for Javier Betancourt and a player to be named later, posted one of the best relief pitching years in Brewers history. Considering Rodriguez posted a couple of solid but not great seasons for the Brewers, it’s easy to overlook just how good Rodriguez was in 2015. He has lost a lot of velocity on his fastball, but his changeup is now as good as ever and he’s using it a ton. We don’t exactly think about Rodriguez with the likes of Kimbrel and Chapman, but in 2015 he posted a better DRA- than both pitchers and had a very similar PWARP to Chapman’s, which was notably better than Kimbrel.

As for Michael Blazek, I’ve already discussed how great his rookie season was. His 58 DRA- represents the greatest rookie relief pitching performance in Brewers history. It’s also just as good as Chapman’s DRA- and significantly better than Kimbrel’s 71 DRA-. Blazek also finished with a better PWARP than Kimbrel. cFIP does like Chapman and Kimbrel better going forward, with good reason. They’ve both been great for a while and they both throw a lot harder than Rodriguez and Blazek. That being said, for just 2015, both Blazek and Rodriguez were better than Kimbrel, and when it comes to Rodriguez, he produced an equivalent performance to Chapman’s. The biggest difference is that both Chapman and Kimbrel get all of the attention while Rodriguez and Blazek get pegged as solid relievers who had a good year. They are both solid reliever but, no, they didn’t have good years, they had great years.