1-2 in the rotation is set with the likes of Junior Guerra and Zach Davies, but things get iffy following those two. Smart money is on Jimmy Nelson, Wily Peralta, and Matt Garza to fill out the bottom 60 percent of the rotation, unless the Brewers decide to buy out Garza’s contract, try out a young prospect, or make an eleventh-hour trade. These three are not placeholders. They are trying to develop future rotation pieces in Nelson and Peralta, and potentially salvage a trade chip in the elder Garza.

Wily Peralta’s second half success, Spring Training and World Baseball Classic excellence, and relative youth and affordability leave the Brewers more than hopeful for a breakout 2017 season and solidification of a rotation spot for years to come for the 27-year-old.

About that second half: The long-time Brewers righty had a first half so disastrous it completely overshadowed Peralta’s sparkling 2.92 second half ERA. This ERA was no fluke, as it was backed by a 3.75 FIP. Both of these figures were significantly lower than any of his full season figures in the past. He posted a K/9 of 7.44 and a BB/9 OF 2.34, producing a 3.19 K/BB that would’ve been the best of his career in a full season. Furthermore, Peralta went at least five innings in every start from August onward.

Peralta’s first half HR/9 of 1.64 misconstrues the strides he made in the second half in the home run department. Aside from 2015 and the first half of 2016, Peralta has actually been successful in keeping the ball in the yard. That skill showed after the all-star break last year. His HR/9 was slighty above one in the second half. If Peralta can combine his home run suppressing skill with his second half control and strikeout ability, he will be a mainstay in the middle of the Brewers starting rotation.  

Granted, we’re analyzing 61.7 innings of work here, but Peralta changed as a pitcher after his mid-season stint in AAA. There is reason to believe he was dealing with some type of injury or perhaps fatigue. He came back in August averaging 96 MPH on his fastballs, something he struggled with in in the first half.

It would be easy to write the right-hander off if he showed up in late February as the Peralta of old. That has not been the case. Peralta struck out six and walked just one over four innings of work against Columbia on March 12^th. He has a 0.71 ERA in 12 2/3 innings in Brewers camp with seven strikeouts and five walks, along with a WHIP of 0.95.

Peralta has been a relatively healthy pitcher in his young career. He is still looking for that major break through season. There are several signs that point towards 2017 being that year. The Milwaukee Brewers are going to do everything in their power to make that happen, and establish Wily Peralta as a solid mid-rotation piece.

Fantasy Previews:
BP Bronx
BP Toronto
BP Wrigleyville

Note: All of the draft rounds below are based on a standard 5×5, 12-team rotisserie league with one catcher.

WORTH THEIR DRAFT SPOT

 Ryan Braun

2016 PECOTA Projection – .277 AVG, 82 R, 27 HR, 85 RBI, 17 SB
Expected Draft Round: mid-3rd

At this point in his career, Braun doesn’t have the massive MVP ceiling that he did in his late 20s. This will be his age-33 season, and he just isn’t as exciting as some other players around him in the third round. Francisco Lindor, Robinson Cano, and Nelson Cruz are much more fun to have on your team, and each is being drafted after Braun according to Yahoo!’s current ADP. Braun, though, is a pretty sure bet to meet his projections.

Braun’s .278 TAv in 2014 was the lowest of his career, and his .298 TAv in 2015 was the third-lowest of his career, and that would generally be a red flag. However, in each of those seasons he was battling a nerve problem in his thumb, and that appears to now be behind him. He was right back to his consistent excellent self last year, with a .305 batting average and 30 home runs. Even in 2015, which was a purported down year, he hit .285 with 25 home runs. He is as safe a bet as any to contribute in all five categories.

Jonathan Villar

2016 PECOTA Projection – .249 AVG, 92 R, 15 HR, 55 RBI, 48 SB
Expected Draft Round: mid-4th

Villar’s value comes down to essentially two things, but they are both valuable: positional flexibility and stolen bases. Regardless of your league rules, he will begin the season eligible at shortstop and third base. If the games requirement at a position is ten, he will also have second base eligibility; even if it is twenty, though, he will gain second base eligibility within the first two weeks of the season because Travis Shaw has been brought in to play third base.

His steals were his calling card last year, and there is no reason to expect any change this season. Craig Counsell’s Brewers were the most aggressive team on the bases last year; they stole 181 bases as a team in 2016, and the next closest team had just 139. Counsell clearly made running a priority, and there have been no quotes or personnel moves that would suggest any kind of change. This is particularly noteworthy for Villar because of his success rate. Even though he stole 62 bases last season, he was caught 18 times, and his stolen base rate was just 77.5 percent. While that is still above breaking even, it is not the most efficient use of Villar’s time on the bases. But lacking any reason to expect that Villar will have a more yellow light this season, he should continue to run wild on the bases. Oh, and the double-digit home runs won’t hurt either.

Neftali Feliz

2016 PECOTA Projection – 36 S, 62 K, 3.97 ERA, 1.26 WHIP
Expected Draft Round: 17

The Brewers traded nearly all the internal alternatives to Feliz at the back end of the bullpen, so he will be given every opportunity to hold on to the closer job. He is certainly risky, as he has never fully recovered from his 2012 Tommy John surgery. He missed some time at the end of last season with a bicep injury, and he also has performance questions: last year was the first DRA under 4.00 he posted since 2011 (3.45).

With all that being said, though, there is also clearly some potential upside. He will be given the first several chances to get saves, and DRA does think he improved last year. However, his save total will be tied to how well the team does, and this isn’t exactly a contending team. But if the Brewers finish around 75 wins, Feliz should be a solid closer option. This late in a draft, there aren’t many other more viable options.

SLEEPERS

Zach Davies

2016 PECOTA Projection – 9 W, 126 K, 4.12 ERA, 1.32 WHIP
Expected Draft Round: 20+

Davies could present some ratio upside this late in a draft. He and Junior Guerra are the only two Brewers who have rotation spots locked up, and the young right-hander will have every opportunity to stick in the rotation. He relies on his 90 mph sinker, so he won’t ever rack up the strikeouts. However, his DRA last year was 3.91, and he should provide solid, consistent performance. If he takes a step or two forward, he could improve on PECOTA’s projections for his wins and his ratios.

Junior Guerra

2016 PECOTA Projection – 10 W, 155 K, 4.08 ERA, 1.28 WHIP
Expected Draft Round: 20+

Almost literally everything that I wrote above for Davies could be applied to Guerra as well except for the age. Guerra will be starting on Opening Day, and he, like Davies, will have a long leash in the rotation given the suboptimal alternatives. Guerra’s splitter was one of the best in baseball at inducing whiffs, so he does have some strikeout potential. Overall, he was about as good as Davies last year, but his unique backstory (he pitched in Italy for a couple years before making his big league debut in 2015 at the age of 30) means that PECOTA is skeptical and there is a bit more uncertainty.

It is worth noting that Guerra’s ERA drastically outstripped his DRA last year (2.81 ERA, 3.87 DRA), so if he is drafted based on that then he isn’t worth the risk. However, if he slips because of concerns about how legitimate his breakout was, then he could be a worthy gamble late in drafts.

Eric Thames

2016 PECOTA Projection – .238 AVG, 62 R, 17 HR, 67 RBI, 7 SB
Expected Draft Round: 20+

PECOTA projects Thames for a .244 TAv, which is below the MLB average of .260. ZiPS projects him for a 109 wRC+. Steamer projects him for a 124 wRC+. All of this is a fancy way of saying that no one really knows what to expect from Thames. He previously played in MLB in 2011 and 2012 for the Blue Jays and Mariners, and he posted a career TAv of .257. But he spent the last few years crushing home runs in Korea, and he won the KBO MVP in 2015. If he resembles the player he was in Korea, then he is a steal at this point in a draft. If his improvements don’t carry over in his return to North America, then he isn’t worth a roster spot. But as a low-risk flier, Thames is a worthy gamble.

BUSTS

Domingo Santana

2016 PECOTA Projection – .246 AVG, 59 R, 19 HR, 63 RBI, 4 SB
Expected Draft Round: 20+

It’s hard to really find busts on a team that doesn’t have very high expectations, and “bust” is relative given Santana’s current ADP. However, I do believe there are better flier options late in the draft. Santana has a couple points working against him. First, playing time isn’t guaranteed. Braun will play left field, and Keon Broxton will presumably get most of the time in center field when lefties pitch. Only right field is available to Santana, and he will still have to compete with some of the other utility options on the team. Kirk Nieuwenhuis got a significant amount of playing time last year, and Hernan Perez and Scooter Gennett have also made themselves options in the corner.

Second, Santana has some real swing-and-miss problems. Last year, he had a contact rate of 69 percent. It was the highest mark of his career, and it still placed him in the bottom 20% of hitters who faced at least 300 pitches (66th of 463). He made excellent contact when he did hit the ball (13th in MLB in average exit velocity), but that wasn’t enough to make him a hitter worth rostering. He will be given every chance to play and so might be able to provide some cheap power, but he isn’t a great candidate to break out.

DEEPER/KEEPER LEAGUE OPTIONS

Keon Broxton

2016 PECOTA Projection – .230 AVG, 49 R, 12 HR, 38 RBI, 22 SB
Expected Draft Round: 18

At this point, most readers are probably familiar with the exit velocity phenom that is Keon Broxton. On that same leaderboard referenced above for Santana, Broxton placed fourth. He made harder average contact than Miguel Cabrera, David Ortiz, and Gary Sanchez. It didn’t all come together in terms of overall results, as his .278 TAv demonstrates. He was good but not great, but this coming season presents a great opportunity to see if the exit velocity does actually manifest itself as power. And at least if that doesn’t work out, he should be able to steal a bunch of bases on this run-happy team.

Orlando Arcia

2016 PECOTA Projection – .248 AVG, 72 R, 15 HR, 57 RBI, 16 SB
Expected Draft Round: 20+

It’s hard to know exactly what to make of Arcia offensively, but he will get a lot of at bats this year. His defense is his calling card and should keep him in the lineup even if he struggles to hit, but there is some upside at the plate. He struggled in 2016 (.217 TAv in 216 PAs), but the scouting report prior to the year was glowing and he is worth a flier in case his bat does click. Before the 2016 season, BP’s prospect team gave him future grades of 60 speed and 55 hit, and he was deemed to be a high-floor type of player because of his contact skills. He obviously didn’t reach that potential in his cup of coffee last season, but he should be more settled this season and will have every opportunity to hit and steal bases.

Lewis Brinson

2016 PECOTA Projection – .247 AVG, 19 R, 6 HR, 19 RBI, 4 SB
Expected Draft Round: N/A

As a consensus top prospect, Brinson must be owned in most keeper leagues where he could make a difference. However, the Brewers outfield situation is far from settled, and Brinson does have an opportunity to make an impact in 2017. Keon Broxton is exciting but unproven, and Domingo Santana is no sure bet to lock down playing time in right field. If Brinson hits in Triple-A and Broxton or Santana struggle in the big leagues, the Brewers could call on their top prospect by July or August. He is worth keeping on your radar just for that chance.

Wily Peralta

2016 PECOTA Projection – 6 W, 85 K, 4.33 ERA, 1.43 WHIP
Expected Draft Round: N/A

You shouldn’t actually draft Peralta, but he is worth keeping an eye on throughout the season in case he gets moved to the bullpen. The Brewers have a lot of mediocre rotation options and Peralta throws the hardest, so he seems to be one of the most likely to move to the bullpen.

Putting Peralta on this list is purely speculative; if he gets moved to the bullpen, his mid-90s fastball could play up and allow him to increase his strikeout numbers. And if Feliz gets hurt or struggles, Peralta could be in play for some late-season innings at the back of the bullpen.

All that said, it’s difficult not to be excited about this year’s club. The Keon Broxton and Domingo Santana fan clubs have ordered their catering for the end-of-season celebration banquets. Eric Thames looks like the best Brewers first baseman since Prince Fielder, and has a ridiculous translated projection from Korea.  Lewis Brinson is awfully exciting, and has tools that fans can dream on as they shovel out their driveways after a mid-March snowstorm.

PECOTA shares some of that optimism, projecting the Brewers for a record of 78-84, a five-win increase over last year’s total and a sign that the rebuild is likely continuing in a positive direction. But, what the heck, it’s March, the weather is getting warmer, and opening day is just around the corner. Let’s abandon our tempered expectations and accelerate the team’s progress. What would it take to get the Brewers to .500 this season?

Given the 78 wins PECOTA has found for the Crew this year, we’ll look for 3 more wins on the current roster. In other words, where might PECOTA be a bit conservative and where can we squint and find a reasonable extra 3 wins? We’ll assume that PECOTA has the win total just about right, but if these three things break just right for the Brewers, they could return to their first non-losing season since 2014.

Scenario One: Ryan Braun repeats his 2016 season
PECOTA reasonably accounts for Braun’s aging curve, projecting him for 2.7 WARP in 2017. Last year, he achieved 4.1 WARP in just 135 games played. It’s not too much of a stretch to think he could produce that much value if he could stay healthy for a full season. Of course, it’s also not too much of a stretch to think that I’ll finally get back to running once the weather gets better, but age catches up with us all, is the point.

But even while accounting for his 2.0 and 2.3 WARP seasons in 2014 and 2015, respectively, there are plenty of reasons to think those seasons were outliers and aren’t reflective of the adjustments he’s made as he ages. For one, another season in left field should help him. Defensive metrics have been mixed on Braun almost throughout his career, but in the two injury-plagued seasons he spent in right field, he produced a whopping -11.5 FRAA. Last year didn’t see too much of an improvement with -5.7 FRAA in left, but his left field defense has typically been a couple of runs above or below average each year.

So, a healthy Ryan Braun season that looks like last year’s gets Milwaukee 1.4 more wins.

Scenario Two: Jimmy Nelson, Wily Peralta, or Junior Guerra pitch like an average starting pitcher
Last year, among starters who threw at least 140 innings, the average pitcher was worth 2.7 PWARP. PECOTA projects Nelson, Peralta, and Guerra each for at least 140 innings pitched and under 1.0 PWARP each.

An extra win would put any of those guys between 1.7 and 1.9 PWARP. For reference, here are the pitchers that produced similarly last season while throwing at least 140 innings:

If just one of those guys makes a pretty reasonable step forward over that projection, that could be worth at least another win to the Brewers total. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but for just one to pitch between 1.5 or 2 PWARP seems like a reasonable possibility for younger pitchers (and, uh, Junior Guerra).  That puts the Brewers’ revised total up 2.4 wins.

Scenario Three: Domingo Santana repeats last year, but over a full season
In an injury-shortened season hampered by an elbow problem last year, Domingo produced 0.9 WARP while slashing .256/.345/.447 in 77 games. PECOTA has a 1.0 projected WARP over 487 plate appearances for 2017, including 19 home runs.

Again, there’s reason to be optimistic about Santana’s power production, given that he produced the second-highest exit velocity in the game in 2016. It’s not difficult to see how he could keep the gains he made last season and get to a full season’s worth of plate appearances.

Domingo Santana moving up to a 2-win player in 2017 adds yet another win on the PECOTA projections, and adds a total of 3.4 wins with just these three adjustments we’ve made.

Even if you want to be extremely optimistic and say that each of our scenarios has a 75 percent chance of working out, it’d still be less than even odds that all three would work out in the same season.

Of course, that’s not how a full baseball season plays out- there will be injuries, performance surprises in both directions, and trades (that add or subtract to the Brewers’ short-term win total).

The important takeaway here, though, is that the Brewers aren’t that far off from being competitive based on PECOTA’s projections for 2017. A lot could go right or wrong to get the Brewers above or below its projected 78 wins, but a winning season is well within one standard deviation of a season.

In other words, we can imagine what player and team performances to look out for, and what might go right in what ends up ultimately being a winning season for Milwaukee. But even just with the randomness of a baseball season, the Brewers might already be there, and this spring there’s more reason for optimism than in the past few years.

Each candidate deserves thoughtful consideration and analysis – and I’m sure their respective strengths and weaknesses will be duly scrutinized by my colleagues on this site in the weeks to come. I’ll kick things off with a closer look Wily Peralta.

Since his dazzling 29-inning debut in 2012, Peralta has teeter-tottered his way through four maddeningly inconsistent seasons. At times, he’s looked the part of an above-average starter, particularly in a solid 2014 campaign that saw him post a 3.62 DRA and 3.0 WARP across 32 starts. Other stretches have seen him mired in deep funks. His injury-shortened 2015 was particularly grim, as he limped his way to a 5.99 DRA and -1.2 WARP. Nonetheless, he possesses elite velocity and has posted consistently above-average groundball rates throughout his career (though his even 50% in 2016 was a career-low). There’s plenty there for a fan – or a front office – to dream on.

To wit, Peralta was given the ball on Opening Day last season. Here was an opportunity to put 2015 behind him and once again endear himself to the Brewers faithful. He responded by coughing up four earned runs in four innings on his way to a 6.68 ERA in the season’s first half. In mid-June, he was demoted to the moonshot launching pad that is Triple-A Colorado Springs, where he worked to an abysmal 6.31 ERA. Just when it appeared all hope was lost, he was recalled to Milwaukee to sub in for an injured Junior Guerra on August 8. He rebounded to a 2.92 ERA and a glittering 3.19 K:BB ratio in 10 second-half starts.

All of which is to say that Wily Peralta comes into the 2017 season with an enormous question mark hanging over his head. Can he recapture his mid-rotation form and rebound from an ugly two seasons? Or will another year of mediocrity cement his status as a marginal back-of-the-rotation arm that might be better suited to long relief?

My advice? Curb whatever moderate enthusiasm you’ve managed to muster. Peralta simply doesn’t have the tools to sustain his second-half success in the starting rotation.

Last week, Nathan DeSutter examined the peculiar extent to which Anthony Rizzo has antagonized Peralta throughout his career. DeSutter singles out Peralta’s sinker as a particular problem. Rizzo destroys sinking fastballs, and Peralta’s tendency to pound his sinker down and away to lefties plays right into the hands of the Chicago star. DeSutter was too polite to point that there’s another problem with Wily’s sinker: It’s simply an awful pitch in general.

This is not a controversial statement. Peralta’s sinker – classified by Fangraphs as a two-seamer – has never produced positive value outside of his brief run at the end of 2012. It bottomed out last year at -8.3 runs. Nonetheless, Wily reached for his sinker 859 times per Brooks Baseball, accounting for 40.40 percent of all pitches thrown. Hitters around the league rejoiced to a .345 batting average and .511 slugging percentage against, while only whiffing 7.10 percent of the time. Despite eye-popping 95.31 mph heat, the pitch simply doesn’t fool anyone.

Batters hit the pitch for a .260 average or better every month of the season, aside from one 85-pitch start in October in which Peralta held the Colorado Rockies hitless while offering the sinker ten times. A month prior, the Cubs and Reds lit it up for a .308 batting average against.

When Peralta’s not throwing his sinker, he frequently turns to his four-seam fastball – he threw it 473 times (22.25 percent) in 2016. This pitch, too, has great velocity – its average of 95.29 mph is nearly identical to that of the sinker. But that may actually be part of the problem. Neither pitch boasts much movement, and they tend to bend in similar ways. As a result, Peralta’s four-seamer was worth -5.2 runs in 2016, and was consistently hit for high averages. Opposing batters can sit on 95 mph heat, knowing that’s just what they’ll get over 60 percent of the time.

What of the other 40 percent? Peralta’s slider provides a slim amount of hope. Long thought of as a plus pitch, Peralta’s 85.1 mph breaking ball produced negative value for the second year in a row in 2016 – but only just. In all, the pitch was worth -0.2 runs, and he threw it 689 times (32.41% of all pitches). “Plus” may be charitable at this point, but that’s certainly passable – and there’s hope that it can produce more value going forward. Peralta’s slider yielded positive value from 2012-2014, and it may still be effective enough to neutralize opposing batters. After struggling with the pitch early on in the season, Peralta never let the opposition bat higher than .170 on the slider after he returned form his banishment to Colorado Springs.

Rounding out Peralta’s mix is his changeup, an afterthought if ever there was one. Wily threw just 102 changeups last season, and they were worth -4.7 runs all on their own. Never a great pitch, the change did produce positive value as recently as 2015. But the point is moot ­– Peralta doesn’t trust it, evidenced by the fact that it only accounted for 4.80 percent of his 2016 pitches. Problematically, he’s never been able to throw his change below 84 mph, a velocity eerily similar to that of his slider.

So preparing for an at-bat against Peralta is actually fairly easy. You can count on seeing some straight heat at 95 mph. If that doesn’t appeal, you know you won’t see anything slower than 84 or 85 mph. The slider has the potential to fool you. But the changeup? 2016 hitters loved that changeup, outside of a 23-pitch sample in June and August.

Velocity can only carry a pitcher so far, and Wily Peralta is living proof. With just one pitch that has the chance to be above average, his days as a mainstay of the starting rotation could well be numbered.

That’s not to say he can’t still be a useful pitcher. The Brewers may be wisest to limit Peralta to two pitches – say the four-seam fastball and the slider – and deploy him out of the bullpen, where the 10-mph differential between the two pitches could play up. But I expect this to be a measure of last resort. Peralta showed just enough in the second half of 2016 to warrant a final look in the starting five. And because hope springs eternal in baseball – especially in February – I’ll wrap up with a small dose of mild optimism. The righty may finally be learning to play to his strengths. Consider his 2016 pitch usage by month.

From August on, Peralta leaned on his woeful sinker less and less, mixing in more of his four-seam fastball to offset the loss. He threw his slider more, too, knowing that it was producing the best results. And he was even convinced to dabble a bit more with his changeup, perhaps in the hope that it could recapture its 2015 form.

I’m not sure that these trends will continue into 2017, and even if they do I wouldn’t expect a notably above-average season. But I’d love for Peralta to prove me wrong.

It’s easy to argue that Peralta’s most insurmountable enemy has been himself. His WHIP hasn’t been lower than 1.52 since 2014 and his FIP has never been lower than 4.10 in any of his full seasons. But there is one opposing individual that enters the conversation to challenge Peralta’s internal conflict as the greatest detriment to his stat line: Cubs slugger Anthony Rizzo.

During his six year career, Rizzo has clubbed 134 home runs off 101 different pitchers. Of those 134, seven have been off of Brewers starter Wily Peralta. In an effort to make that statistic even more jarring, 5.2 percent of Rizzo’s total home runs have come off Peralta.

At this point, Peralta has to be exasperated by Rizzo, who in 40 plate appearances is 17-34 with four doubles, 14 RBI’s, five BB’s, only three K’s, and a .500/.575/1.235 line.

This success hasn’t exactly been a secret. When asked by the Chicago Tribune about his dominance of Peralta following a two home run game last September, Rizzo couldn’t quite put his finger on the source.

“I don’t know what it is,” Rizzo said. “He has really good stuff—throws really hard— I just put good swings on the balls.”

Whether Rizzo’s vague answer is an effort to hide his strategy against Peralta, dodge the question as to not offend him, dodge the media due to apathy or prior post-game plans, or simply blame luck and the oddity of baseball, I’m not sure. Regardless, since the answer seems to be a mystery, I sought to identify exactly why Rizzo feasts on Peralta. First, I had to find out Rizzo’s home run success wasn’t any kind of historical outlier.

I sampled first basemen from the last twenty years and looked up who they had the most home run success against. It turns out Rizzo and Peralta’s relationship isn’t as special as I’d hoped, with Paul Goldschmidt, Jim Thome, and Mark Teixera all having more home run success in fewer at-bats. However, Rizzo still holds the title for highest percentage of total home runs against a singular pitcher, so there’s something.

Some other interesting notes from the chart: Jim Thome hit 7 homers off Rick Reed in 2002 alone, Mark Teixera hit 4 homers during 4 at-bats in a row off of Bruce Chen, and, of the 8 pitchers to give up 3 home runs to Joey Votto, only one, Zach Grienke, has faced him more than 21 times. Three of those pitchers have faced Votto less than 10 times.

So, since it’s not historically significant dumb luck, there has to be concrete reasoning for Rizzo’s Peralta power surge. On the surface, it seems to be sinkers.

Rizzo’s dominance of specifically sinking fastballs is incredible. This is real bad news for Peralta, who, 63.6 percent of the time against lefties, throws either a sinker or sinking four-seam fastball.

However, similar to most baseball problems, it isn’t that simple. None of this explains why Jimmy Nelson, a pitcher with a similar repertoire to Peralta, has shown consistent dominance against Rizzo.

Against Nelson, Rizzo is a pedestrian 5-26, with one double, one home run, three RBI, a walk, seven strikeouts, and a .192/.214/.423 slash line. So, simply blaming the frequency of the sinker and four seam fastball with sinking tendencies— which Nelson throws 68.9 percent of the time— as the reason for Rizzo’s success is incorrect.

The main differences between the two pitchers, and their levels of success against Rizzo, are pitch variance and inward movement.

Looking at Rizzo’s numbers and heat maps, his main areas of success are hard thrown balls in the upper-inside corner, middle of the plate, and low-outside corner, as well as, breaking pitches that hang out over the middle and outside half of the zone.His main weaknesses are change of speed, fastballs up and away, and breaking pitches crashing down and in on him.

To further prove his strengths and weaknesses, I catalogued every home run and strikeout Rizzo had against Peralta. Time and again, Rizzo flourishes against tailing pitches on the outside half, breaking balls over the middle, and fastballs on the inside half. He struggles against low breaking balls cutting towards his inner half.

Peralta, due to his infrequent, non-deceptive, and overly speedy change-up, well below average slider in terms of horizontal movement, and sparse usage of high fastballs, doesn’t have a weapon that properly counters Rizzo.

Further, Peralta features minimal differentiation between his fastball and sinker as a result of velocity. His sinker, which registered at an average of 95.82 in 2016–third highest in the MLB—appears to be another variant of his fastball rather than a different pitch altogether.

Normally, this late break and ground ball forcing deception would be considered a positive aspect. However, Rizzo, who famously crowds the plate to avoid getting jammed, extends his arms for increased power potential on the outside of the zone, and has a 26 percent fly ball percentage. That is the 44th highest rate in the league and telling of a clear uppercut swing. It positively feeds his approach.

Peralta’s plan when dealing with lefties, which includes pounding the zone with sinking pitches down and away, coming across his body with an almost purely vertical breaking slider, and borderline refusing to utilize any locational creativity plays right into Rizzo’s hand, and more unfortunately for Peralta, the hands of the fans in the bleachers.

Rizzo, in turn, is able to reach out over the plate, extend his arms, get under the obviously located pitches without threat of a hard, inward slider, and consistently launch the ball into the seats.

In contrast to Peralta, Nelson has three distinct weapons that aid in the demolition of Rizzo: a nasty slider, a sweeping curve, and definitively different sinker that establishes his fastball.

In 2016, Nelson featured the 17th most devastating slider in terms of horizontal movement, the 10th best sinker in terms of vertical movement, 4.16, and produced a unique brand of curveball that broke 5.03 in the horizontal direction and -5.33 vertically. He was one of only 35 starting pitchers, with a minimum 200 curveballs thrown, to have that type of action.

Looking at Nelson’s location tendencies versus lefties compared to Peralta’s, Nelson prefers to aggressively attack the high-outside and low-inside corners. Also, he varies location and eye level more frequently. In terms of Rizzo, Nelson’s pitch tendencies, especially the up and away sinker/fastball combination and hard breaking balls, attack his weakest points.

Nelson is to Rizzo what Rizzo is to Peralta, pure kryptonite. In fact, among the top 20 in PA against Rizzo, Nelson boats the third lowest BA, .192, and third highest strikeout total, seven.

However, Nelson’s success should be good news for Peralta because he has a pitcher on the same staff with the formula to get Rizzo out. Now, hopefully, Peralta can figure out how to do it himself.

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?

Jonathan Villar’s Power

Most middle infielders won’t accomplish much with the bat. The Troy Tulowitzkis and Daniel Murphys of the world are the exception, not the rule. That’s why Villar’s 2016 breakout caught so many people by surprise — not many shortstops (or, in his case, shortstops-turned-third basemen) will club their way to a .285/.369/.458 triple-slash and .292 TAv. That level of play, perhaps unsustainable, combines with average defense to make Villar a marquee young player.

And in the last month of 2016, Villar has taken a step forward in another regard. From April to August, he hit 11 home runs and tallied a .144 ISO. In September, he’s swatted eight long balls already, upping his ISO for the month to an astounding .345. Over a 25-game span, he’s never before pulled that off:

This graph doesn’t reflect just how much Villar’s current hot streak stands out. During the peak at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, he accrued a mere 56 plate appearances; his 2014 hot streak occurred over 91 plate appearances. By contrast, he’s stepped to the dish 100 times this month, making this a duration of high power he hasn’t come close to equaling.

So what changed for Villar when August ended? He’s hit the ball pretty well in September, but not to an unprecedented extent. While his ground ball rate for the month is lower than normal, that hasn’t dropped to a new low either. The difference has come when he’s put the ball in the air. Villar has hit a lot fewer line drives this month, which means a lot more fly balls:

Over the first five months of 2016, Villar piled up 34 doubles and two triples. Those totals have come down to three and one, respectively, in month six, as more of Villar’s air balls have gone over the fence instead of to the gaps.

This leads to the principal problem with swapping out fly balls for line drives: Your batting average plummets, because those flies don’t go for hits when they stay in the yard. Indeed, Villar has a .192 BABIP this month — one of the lowest 25-game levels of his career — which has reduced his September OPS to .883. Selling out for power can sometimes pay off, but if Villar doesn’t pump up his average with some singles, he won’t take his production to the next level.

Still, a power-hitting middle infielder has some value, especially if he can take a free pass, as Villar can. And hey, Craig Counsell believes that Villar could hit 30 long balls in a single season — or so Villar says, at least. With an 25.7 percent strikeout rate and 11.6 percent walk rate, he already has two of the three true outcomes down. It would certainly be a sight to see if he could master the third one. Although a single 25-game hot streak does not a slugger make, it does put Villar in the right direction.

Wily Peralta’s Whiff Rate

Peralta’s trend is distinct from Villar’s in two distinct ways. For one, the hurler kicked off his hot streak before September began. In his final start of August, Peralta mowed down the Cardinals, allowing a lone run and racking up 10 strikeouts in a 2-1 extra-inning loss. That set him on a five-game hot streak in which he’s posted a 3.03 ERA, with a 23.9 percent strikeout rate and 5.1 percent walk rate.

What’s given him that success? A boatload of swings-and-misses. He’s put up a 13.2 percent whiff rate over those five games, the highest level of his career:

This leads to the second area where Peralta sets himself apart. A high ISO can have some drawbacks for a hitter, especially if it brings with it a dip in BABIP, but more whiffs for a pitcher are always welcome. And Peralta’s never fooled batters to this level before — his previous five-start high for swinging-strike rate was 11.9 percent toward the end of 2014. Something has made Peralta more deceptive. What could it be?

Well, his out pitch — the slider — has started working again. Over at Brew Crew Ball, my BP Milwaukee colleague Kyle Lesniewski observed that Peralta’s improved his slider since coming back up. Across this five-start span, the slider has induced a whiff 22.5 percent of the time, and perhaps recognizing that, Peralta’s relied on it much more often:

Like Villar, Peralta may not keep this up heading into 2017. The slider can, in theory, put a lot of stress on a hurler’s arm, so Peralta might not want to risk this heavy usage. These results are hard to turn away from, though. Peralta always had the potential for stardom as a prospect, and over these five contests, he’s lived up to that billing. If the slider can take his play to another echelon, who is he to turn it down?

Peralta takes the hill tonight for his final start of the year, facing a mediocre Rockies club that the Brewers haven’t lost to this year. Ending his 2016 campaign on a high note would raise his chances of sticking around for 2017. The Brewers will re-evaluate their rotation as we head into the winter, and the newly deceptive iteration of Peralta might stick in it for the long term.

In fact, the bottom of the first was the only half inning that saw any scoring. Wily Peralta was pitching for the Brewers, and after striking out the leadoff hitter, he walked Eugenio Suarez. Joey Votto then flew out to center field.

Peralta was, therefore, in a good position to get out of the inning without giving up any damage. But, it was not to be. Brandon Phillips and Adam Duvall were the next two batters, and they both singled to load the bases.

Scott Schebler was the next batter, and on a 3-1 count, he singled on a ground ball scoring two runs. This was the biggest moment of the game, as it gave the Reds the lead, one they would not relinquish. The Reds would go on to add one more run in the inning, which gave them a 3-0 lead.

That score ended up being the final score of the game.

Worst Play (WPA):
In the fifth inning, the Brewers were still losing 3-0. Maldonado started off the frame by striking out on three pitches. Peralta, though, helped his own cause by hitting a single with one man out.

The next batter was Jonathan Villar, who worked a walk. Villar’s walk was followed by a Scooter Gennett strike out. Then came the red-hot Ryan Braun, who also worked a walk, loading the bases for, Hernan Perez.

You, in some ways, already know the end result. The Brewers didn’t score a run in the inning, because, on the second pitch of the at-bat, Perez flew out to left field to end the Brewers best chance of scoring in the game.

Trend to Watch:
Brent Suter was called up on August 19th. Since being in the majors, he has mostly pitched out of the bullpen, as he has only had one start.

Suter performed fairly well in the minors, consistently managing ERAs in the three’s. Suter has been able to do that thus far in the majors since being called up. His ERA is at 3.27. But, his peripheral numbers are very concerning. His FIP is at 5.23, his xFIP is at 4.86 and his DRA is at 4.57. Those aren’t very good numbers.

If you’ve seen Suter pitch, you know that he doesn’t throw very hard. In fact, the left-hander throws in the low 80s, which in today’s game is almost unheard of.

With that initial description, I assumed that Suter wasn’t striking a lot of batters out. While he doesn’t put out the strike out numbers of the Jose Fernandez of the world, he still strikes out 7.4 batters per nine innings, which is respectable. His walk rate is a little high at 3.3, but nothing unheard of. No, Suter’s real problem is with the home run ball. He’s giving up 1.6 home runs per nine innings, which is quite high, and his HR/FB ratio is at 15.4 percent. The average for HR/FB ratio is generally around 9.5 percent. 15.4 percent is generally seen as awful.

The problem with pitchers that throw as slowly as Suter does is that they can’t make that many mistakes. As I’ve written before, Zach Davies struggles with the same problem, and so does Dallas Keuchel. Soft throwers such as these pitchers need to live on the edges of the strike zone, because if they make that one mistake, it could end up in the seats.

Now, obviously, more sample needs to be gathered for Suter. But, if Suter wants to have any success at this level, he’s going to have to try and limit the home run ball as best he can.

Coming up Next:
The Brewers will be back in action again today against the Reds. Unfortunately, it won’t be a match up to write home about. Matt Garza will get the nod for the Brewers, and Anthony DeSclafani will be pitching for the Reds. DeSclafani has actually pitched pretty well this year, better than Garza at least, as he stands with a 4.03 DRA. The Brewers will, therefore, have to come up with a better offensive performance if they want to have success in this game.

Top Play (WPA)
What a night for Jonathan VIllar: He missed the cycle by a double, and was the catalyst for the Brewers huge first inning with his bomb to left center field to tie the game at 1 (.102). Villar’s home run started a barrage where the first seven hitters reached base against Cubs starter Jason Hammel. The first out of the inning was recorded when Martin Maldonaldo hit a sacrifice fly to score the Brewers’ fifth and final run of the inning.

Bottom Play (WPA)
In the loss, Anthony Rizzo had a great night. He continued to terrorize Wily Peralta, hitting two home runs off him, including a two run shot in the eighth inning that ended Peralta’s night. However, Rizzo also was responsible for the bottom play of the game.

After the first inning, Hammel settled down while Peralta had yet to settle in. Peralta allowed a solo home run to Miguel Montero in the second inning to cut Milwaukee’s lead to 5-2. Then after striking out Hammel to start the third inning, Dexter Fowler and Ben Zobrist reached base via a walk and single. Up came mighty Rizzo, but he popped up to Orlando Arcia at short for the second out of the inning (-.044). Next up was Jorge Soler and his fielder’s choice ended the inning. Peralta didn’t allow another baserunner until the seventh inning.

Jason Hammel Gets Bombed
If you’ve made it this far, you know that Jason Hammel had a terrible night. A quick calculation shows a game score of 17, his third worst score of the season. He allowed thirteen hits, a season high.

Hammel hammered the Brewers with breaking pitches, throwing sliders and curveballs on 56 of his 97 pitches, a huge jump from his past three months where his breaking ball usage rate hovered around 35-45 percent. Those pitches induced sixteen whiffs, not only a season high for breaking balls, but a number that ties his season high for a start. Of course, those numbers mean his 41 fastballs and changeups got hammered. Those pitches stayed in the zone, allowing the Brewers to take strong hacks and continue to reach base. The Brewers only swung and missed at two of those pitches, which meant a lot of contact was made in the strike zone.

Wily Peralta a 2017 Rotation Lock?
Peralta has made it into the seventh inning in consecutive starts for the first time since August 8 and 14, 2015. In his 7.7 innings he only allowed seven baserunners, and all four runs came via home runs. His six strikeouts also tied his season high. After he settled in, Peralta retired eleven straight batters.

Peralta made a tweak to his pitch selection. While he threw his slider 33 percent of the time, keeping with his recent trend, he swapped out many sinkers in favor of his four seam fastball. He used that pitch 29 percent last night, up from sub-18 percent usage in his last two starts. While the three home runs are concerning, it’s good to see that he can change his plan and throw two strong outings in a row against top flight offenses.

Up Next:
The Brewers and Cubs close out their three game series tonight in Miller Park. Matt Garza starts for Milwaukee and looks to build on his last start, which was his strongest of the season. He faced the Cardinals and pitched seven innings, allowing one run and striking out eight. As mentioned here by Nicholas Zettel, Garza is potentially a release candidate this offseason, so his roster spot for 2017 depends on him pitching like he has something to offer in 2017. It also wouldn’t hurt to make him a potential trade chip this offseason. Mike Montgomery makes his sixth start of the season for the Cubs. Montgomery has primarily been a bullpen piece this season, and since he started taking regular rotation turns on August 20^th, he’s made three starts and pitched 13.3 innings, allowing eight runs on ten hits and nine walks with eleven strikeouts. First pitch is 7:10.