2022 Brewers Offense

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, MVP2110 said:

We get it, you think the Brewers should have signed Castellanos. But let's talk about the offense we have right now. Yelich hasn't been great, but he also isn't the reason they are struggling. He's tied for our 4th best hitter but everyone only wants to talk about him. He should probably get moved to leadoff but guys like Renfroe, Wong, Taylor, the 3b platoon, and especially Cain are much bigger reasons why our offense is struggling so far

It doesn't take much to be our 4th best hitter, in fact, saying he is OUR 4th best hitter doesn't do much for your case.

Yelich should and does shoulder a lot of blame when it comes to our offense because he is paid to be our best hitter, not the 4th best hitter on a crappy hitting team.  

He is the sole reason (well, Cain as well) that we can't afford to go out and buy another hitter.  He is taking up a huge % of our payroll, so the reason he is being talked about is completely warranted imo.

[TURBO]

On 4/16/2022 at 3:27 PM, jerichoholicninja said:

3. This offense isn't that bad because some teams are worse.

This argument makes zero sense, none, yet it seems to be accepted here.

As we saw last year, an average offense will not get you far.  We have almost the same offense as last year, we saw what happens with that offense in the playoffs, yet some are just willing to accept it.

 

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

6 minutes ago, TURBO said:

This argument makes zero sense, none, yet it seems to be accepted here.

As we saw last year, an average offense will not get you far.  We have almost the same offense as last year, we saw what happens with that offense in the playoffs, yet some are just willing to accept it.

 

I don't know about accepting it, but what is the whining and complaining getting those who are choosing that path?

[TURBO]

1 minute ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

I don't know about accepting it, but what is the whining and complaining getting those who are choosing that path?

Nothing, but admitting there is a problem when we all know it makes a lot more sense than falling back on things like that just to prove a nonexistent point.

I understand that there are people who will argue just to argue, that has always been the case here, but really, we have enough experience with average and below average offenses to know they don't get you far in the playoffs.

[MVP2110]

15 minutes ago, TURBO said:

It doesn't take much to be our 4th best hitter, in fact, saying he is OUR 4th best hitter doesn't do much for your case.

Yelich should and does shoulder a lot of blame when it comes to our offense because he is paid to be our best hitter, not the 4th best hitter on a crappy hitting team.  

He is the sole reason (well, Cain as well) that we can't afford to go out and buy another hitter.  He is taking up a huge % of our payroll, so the reason he is being talked about is completely warranted imo.

Yelich deserves just as much blame as McCutchen. Stop looking at who gets paid what or what the "expectations" were before the season. Once the season starts we have 9 spots in the lineup to fill and Yelich takes up one of those 9. Yelich hasn't been great but he also hasn't been the main problem. The problem is so far we've gotten almost nothing out of 4 spots in our order(RF, CF, 3b, & 2b). You blame Yelich for not carrying everyone whose struggling but I tend to blame the actual guys who are struggling.

[Eye Black]

3 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

The lack of HRs has maybe been the biggest problem the Brewers have had so far. 

They don’t have a lineup that is likely to produce strings of hits so, like many teams these days, they are going to score a lot of their runs on HRs.

With all 30 teams adopting humidors (previously I think it was just five?) this year I've been curious whether that might impact home runs. While a humidor helps control the environment that ball is stored in, it can both improve or decrease how the ball performs relative to a ball not stored in a humidor (based on alternate storage methods and atmospheric conditions at each individual site). My sense is that in Milwaukee a humidor may deaden the ball a bit, but I don't know that to be fact. 

Historically Miller Park/AmFam Field has been considered an "offensive friendly" ballpark, but that's really been boosted by the home run outputs there (above league average every year since 2009). For the past several years it has actually played below average in terms of all other types of hits (singles, doubles, triples). There have only been three parks that have suppressed doubles more than AmFam Field since 2019 (White Sox, Mariners, Yankees). 

It seems as though if you significantly reduce the home runs at AmFam Field you'll likely end up with a pitcher friendly ballpark. 

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

3 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Nothing, but admitting there is a problem when we all know it makes a lot more sense than falling back on things like that just to prove a nonexistent point.

I understand that there are people who will argue just to argue, that has always been the case here, but really, we have enough experience with average and below average offenses to know they don't get you far in the playoffs.

I guess my way of looking at it is that I certainly acknowledge that the offense hasn't been up to par so far, but the raw material is certainly there to make it work. And at the end of the day, there is enough talent in this lineup for it to be better than it has shown. Sure, I would have loved to see another big offensive performer brought in, but players such as Renfroe and McCutchen are proven MLB bats, and being able to acquire guys like that to replace Garcia and JBJ should, in theory, be a net positive. 

Michael Conforto isn't the cure for what's ailing this offense. No, the cure is guys like Yelich earning their money, Huira living up to the early career success he showed, Adames continuing to improve, Urias getting healthy, and role players like Tellez, Wong, Narvaez, Renfroe, Cain and Taylor not being black holes in the lineup. This isn't a matter of going out and getting something new. It's a matter of the guys they have performing the way they are expected to.

[brewerfan82]

For reference, here are the active (plus Urias) roster's splits during the Yelich "bad years":

2020-22 vs. RHP:

2020-22 vs. LHP:

There's definitely something left to be desired on the offensive end, but with the current team makeup, Yelich still should be hitting in the top 3 spots of the lineup (esp with his OBP) and the hitting versus lefthanded pitching should look better as the season goes on.

It'd be nice to have some other "superstar" options on offense, but we came into the offseason with little room left on the payroll, not a lot of depth in the minors to trade from, and knowing the talent on the major league team was heavily in favor of the pitching. It kind of is what it is. As-is, this is a team that's projected as arguably the favorite in the division and has a pretty darn good chance to get into the playoffs for the 5th straight year. In order for them to take the next step you just have to hope a few hitters step up to help make this offense a little better than expected.

A lot of guys, both pitching and hitting, are off to slow starts, but 10 games is a very small sample size and I fully expect things to improve as we continue through the season and hopefully DS can make a couple of nice moves along the way that shore up any lingering shortcomings. This is a good time to be a Brewer fan and I'm legitimately soaking it all in!

[Eye Black]

While I agree the offense is underwhelming, as evidenced by the past year of regular season games, I've always thought using a lone playoff series as a referendum toward any type of wholesale change is a bad idea. 

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, MVP2110 said:

 Stop looking at who gets paid what or what the "expectations" were before the season. 

When it comes to Yelich, you have to look at what he is paid.  He is strapping the entire payroll from going out and getting an impact bat.  Because he is getting paid that kind of money, there are high expectations, it's the nature of the beast.  Get paid the most, production should be the most.  He is not living up to his end of the deal, and the entire offense is suffering because of it.

[MVP2110]

10 minutes ago, TURBO said:

When it comes to Yelich, you have to look at what he is paid.  He is strapping the entire payroll from going out and getting an impact bat.  Because he is getting paid that kind of money, there are high expectations, it's the nature of the beast.  Get paid the most, production should be the most.  He is not living up to his end of the deal, and the entire offense is suffering because of it.

Debating whether he is leaving up to his contract and whether he's the problem with the offense are 2 totally different things and can be mutually exclusive. He has absolutely not lived up to his contract, that I agree on but he's also not the reason the offense is 23rd in runs scored. That falls to the guys who so far have laid an egg

[KeithStone53151]

Regarding fantasy metrics, it is significantly flawed to look at fantasy rankings to determine the value. Fantasy valuations generally overvalue speed/stolen bases, don't factor in defense at all, don't factor in strike outs, over value power/HR, etc. Things like stolen bases and HR certainly have value, but a guy like Trea Turner(yes he's better than Adames) is wildly more valuable than Adames in a fantasy format because he hits the stolen base category hard every year. A guy like Wong is one of the best 2b in the league from a WAR perspective, but in a fantasy format i would never even consider holding him on my extremely deep 40 man roster because he doesn't have much of any SB/HR potential. At this stage a good year would be 10 of each with a 750 ops...and that's the upside.

And from a general standpoint, It's better to look at the value of the position player group vs specifically the offense, as we're pretty heavily built on run prevention. When you look at the value of our position player group, we have a guy in the top 10 at most positions. When you look strictly at offensive stats, I'd still argue Adames and Narvaez are firmly in that group with Yelich, Tellez, and maybe Urias could land in that group. Cain probably can't, Wong, probably can't, Renfroe is a longshot...but all 3 of those guys supply so much value on defense with 2 at very key defensive spots.

At the end of the day, I think we're better served to nitpick this team when we're 40 games in than 10 games in. 40 is still not a lot but the trends certainly matter more. For example, the Pirates are 5-4 currently. Does anyone want to bet they'll continue that trend through 162 games? If so, I will gladly take it for literally any amount you would like.

[TURBO]

21 minutes ago, MVP2110 said:

Debating whether he is leaving up to his contract and whether he's the problem with the offense are 2 totally different things and can be mutually exclusive. He has absolutely not lived up to his contract, that I agree on but he's also not the reason the offense is 23rd in runs scored. That falls to the guys who so far have laid an egg

Of course it is a collective effort of suckiness.  That we can agree on, but saying that Yelich is only responsible for 1/9 of our offense is a bit naïve.  This guy was an MVP 3 seasons ago.  He is the reason we can't sign any other big bats.  It isn't a stretch to expect better from him, especially better than the 4th best hitter on a poor hitting team.  Am I blaming him and him alone for our offensive problems?  No, but he is a big part of the problem for sure.

[MVP2110]

41 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Of course it is a collective effort of suckiness.  That we can agree on, but saying that Yelich is only responsible for 1/9 of our offense is a bit naïve.  This guy was an MVP 3 seasons ago.  He is the reason we can't sign any other big bats.  It isn't a stretch to expect better from him, especially better than the 4th best hitter on a poor hitting team.  Am I blaming him and him alone for our offensive problems?  No, but he is a big part of the problem for sure.

But he is the only one people bring up. You say you aren't blaming him alone but where is the complaining in this thread about Wong or Cain or Taylor? Once the games start it doesn't matter who makes how much.

[NBBrewFan]

3 hours ago, MVP2110 said:

where is the complaining in this thread about Wong or Cain or Taylor? Once the games start it doesn't matter who makes how much.

Please, no. We really don't need to expand the complaining. If there's ever a shortage, just realize you've died and gone to heaven.  

[BruisedCrew]

NM

[BruisedCrew]

4 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

 At the end of the day, I think we're better served to nitpick this team when we're 40 games in than 10 games in. 40 is still not a lot but the trends certainly matter more. For example, the Pirates are 5-4 currently. Does anyone want to bet they'll continue that trend through 162 games? If so, I will gladly take it for literally any amount you would like.

I don't understand why anyone assumes that any criticism or concern about the Brewers offense is based on these first 10 games, or just the Braves series, as opposed to career performance of players and reasonable expectations for what they might do this year.

I think looking at April, May, and September of last year is just as relevant as citing "after the Adames trade".

I expected the Brewers to trade a quality pitcher (maybe Hauser, Ashby, or Small?) in the offseason to try to add a more proven major league hitter to the lineup. But, the lockout made that impossible and, once you get to spring training, many teams are more inclined to see what they have before making a deal.

I am hoping that Stearns might still be able to pull something off early in the season to prop up the batting order.

[Eye Black]

One small ray of sunshine, Statcast data through the first ten games appears to think the Brewers have significantly underperformed as compared to their expected stats based on batted ball data thus far…

[KeithStone53151]

15 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don't understand why anyone assumes that any criticism or concern about the Brewers offense is based on these first 10 games, or just the Braves series, as opposed to career performance of players and reasonable expectations for what they might do this year.

I think looking at April, May, and September of last year is just as relevant as citing "after the Adames trade".

I expected the Brewers to trade a quality pitcher (maybe Hauser, Ashby, or Small?) in the offseason to try to add a more proven major league hitter to the lineup. But, the lockout made that impossible and, once you get to spring training, many teams are more inclined to see what they have before making a deal.

I am hoping that Stearns might still be able to pull something off early in the season to prop up the batting order.

What else would it be based on? April and May rosters were so significantly different from what we have currently that it's honestly just not relevant at all. I pulled up a couple lineups from April last year, both had JBJ leading off and Travis Shaw hitting 3rd. The only guys starting in April that are currently on the team are Yelich, Cain, Narvaez, and Hiura to a degree(Urias, Wong, and Yelich all dealt with injuries in April). 4+ new faces and a lot of new role players. If you really want to get focused on April, if 3 starting position players on about 25 teams in the league get hurt, the offense will suffer. And in September, we had a huge division lead so maybe the players focused a bit more on rest and didn't finish strong. I know we rested starters pretty regularly to get people healed up for the postseason.

And for this season, it's been 10 games. I think you and the others criticizing the offense need to relax a bit until we've played more than 10 games...

 

[Brock Beauchamp]

While I understand the concern about the Brewers offense, team offense is a mess early this season. Here are a few things to keep in mind before deciding where this team will end up in October:

1. The Brewers have the 23rd OPS in baseball, the friggin' White Sox are 21st

2. The Twins are actually behind the Brewers at 25th in baseball

3. The New York Yankees have a .677 OPS

It's fine to have some concern about where the Brewers end up - IMO, primarily centered around Adames and Yelich - but using statistics this early in the season is just chasing your own tail. The numbers we have on April 19th after a shortened spring will end up having very little correlation to the numbers we'll be looking at in August.

[Samurai Bucky]

Instead of the last 10 games, let's take a look at the last few seasons.  I'll go simple and use AVG, OPS and strikeouts and compare the ranks in MLB:

2016:  OPS .729(Ranked 18); AVG .244 (Ranked 27); Strikeouts 1543 (Ranked Last)  (No playoffs)

2017:  OPS .751 (Ranked 15); AVG .249 (Ranked 21) Strikeouts 1571 (Ranked Last) (No playoffs)

2018:  OPS .747(9); AVG .252 (12); Strikeouts:  1458 (24th)  (Lost NLCS)

2019:  OPS .767(12); AVG .246 (20); Strikeouts:  1563 (26th) (Lost NLWC)

2020:  OPS .702(24); AVG .223(26); Strikeouts: 582 (29th) -- only 60 games (Lost NLWC)

2021:  OPS .713(20); AVG .233(27); Strikeouts:  1465 (23rd) (Lost NLDS)

2022 through 11 games:  OPS .633(23); AVG .213(24); strikeouts: 92 (20th -- but it is apples and oranges due to the number of games) -- for reference, the Diamondbacks are at .548 and .152 as a team

My point of bringing this up?  Offense has not been the focal point of the organization.  Pitching is where the bread gets buttered.  However, that coupled with good hitting produced the best run the team has had in a long time.  Is it a lack of talent?  Is it an approach to hitting?

I remember reading an article about Kolten Wong where he said he enjoyed "swinging hard" on two strikes instead of working towards making contact.  I have always been an advocate for trying to get the ball in play with two strikes.  From history, that is not the philosophy of the Brewers.  I believe that if they cut down on the K's, and I think things will be better.  Again, either they don't make contact with two strikes a focal point, or we don't have good talent.

 

[BruisedCrew]

3 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

What else would it be based on? April and May rosters were so significantly different from what we have currently that it's honestly just not relevant at all. I pulled up a couple lineups from April last year, both had JBJ leading off and Travis Shaw hitting 3rd. The only guys starting in April that are currently on the team are Yelich, Cain, Narvaez, and Hiura to a degree(Urias, Wong, and Yelich all dealt with injuries in April). 4+ new faces and a lot of new role players. If you really want to get focused on April, if 3 starting position players on about 25 teams in the league get hurt, the offense will suffer. And in September, we had a huge division lead so maybe the players focused a bit more on rest and didn't finish strong. I know we rested starters pretty regularly to get people healed up for the postseason.

And for this season, it's been 10 games. I think you and the others criticizing the offense need to relax a bit until we've played more than 10 games...

 

You seem to be ignoring my reference to career performances of players and what they might be reasonably expected to do this year. 
 

Using your logic there would be no point in discussing a team’s prospects in the offseason because no games have been played yet. Haven’t you ever heard of the hot stove league?
 

The opinions and expectations I have for the offense now are the same as they were over the winter and when spring training started. 
 

If you want to wait until at least 40 games have been played before you make any comments or express any opinions about the team, that’s up to you. But, for as long as I’ve been around, which might be a lot longer than you, baseball fans have discussed their teams and their prospects all year round. 
 

[KeithStone53151]

5 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

You seem to be ignoring my reference to career performances of players and what they might be reasonably expected to do this year. 
 

I think that's what the majority of posters have been saying actually, and career performance/projections fit the narrative that the Brewers position player group is good. We have 7 position players projecting in the 2-3 WAR range. The only position we don't have that is 1b, but there's certainly upside in both hiura and tellez. Only a few teams have 7 guys projecting for 2 or more WAR. We also have upside in guys like Urias, Adames and Yelich that can easily be 5-6+ WAR guys if things go right.

[BruisedCrew]

55 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

I think that's what the majority of posters have been saying actually, and career performance/projections fit the narrative that the Brewers position player group is good. We have 7 position players projecting in the 2-3 WAR range. The only position we don't have that is 1b, but there's certainly upside in both hiura and tellez. Only a few teams have 7 guys projecting for 2 or more WAR. We also have upside in guys like Urias, Adames and Yelich that can easily be 5-6+ WAR guys if things go right.

On 4/18/2022 at 11:39 AM, Eye Black said:

 

I don't think the majority of posters on this thread have been talking about the Brewers having a good position player group as a whole and using projections to make that point. There was one comment talking about WAR, which is slightly off point because this thread is focusing on offense, not on defense and pitching.

I'm not sure about your source for the comment about few teams having 7 players with projected WAR in the 2-3 range. But, when I look for projections like this I go to Fan Graphs because it doesn't require a paid subscription.

In this case, the Fan Graphs projections do a pretty good job of supporting the point I have been trying to make about the Brewers offense.

In their latest projections, the Brewers are projected to end the season with 4.52 runs per game, which would place them 20th among the 30 MLB teams. The other teams that I (and probably most everyone else) considers the top contenders in the NL project as follows:

Dodgers 5.19

Braves 5.02

Phillies 4.80

Mets 4.73

Cardinals 4.68

Giants 4.52

They are all higher than the Brewers, except for the Giants who are also at 4.52.

The Brewers can make up that some of that difference with better pitching and defense, but the projections still place the Brewers run differential of 48 lower than the Dodgers (152), Mets (118), Braves (108), and Giants (66).

I think these projections illustrate and support the point I have been trying to make. That is, that the Brewers offense does not measure up to the best teams in the league, and may struggle to be in the top half of MLB. That doesn't mean that they won't or can't beat these other teams if they meet them in a playoff series. But, if they could add a bat or two to the lineup to narrow some of that gap, I think they would stand a better chance.

If you disagree with my opinion, I really don't care. But don't try to tell me that my opinion is based on the first 10 games of this season. There has been a lot of analysis in this thread of stats from the first few games, along with some sarcastic comments about the season being over after 4 games. But those discussions of the early stats and the sarcastic comments did not come from me.

 

[KeithStone53151]

12 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don't think the majority of posters on this thread have been talking about the Brewers having a good position player group as a whole and using projections to make that point. There was one comment talking about WAR, which is slightly off point because this thread is focusing on offense, not on defense and pitching.

Talking about strictly offense when discussing how the position player group measures up to the rest of the league makes no sense. It's like saying our pitching isn't good enough because they are below league average at throwing curveballs. 

It's also kinda tough to complain about projecting to be the 5th best run differential in baseball considering we are one of the very smallest markets in the league. It almost seems like you expected the brewers to add freddie freeman or something and the offseason was a failure because of it.