2022 Brewers Offense

[sveumrules]

Now that the schedule has toughened up is one way to frame it.

Another contributing factor could be Adames missing the last 11 games and Renfroe missing the last four.

[BruisedCrew]

15 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Now that the schedule has toughened up is one way to frame it.

Another contributing factor could be Adames missing the last 11 games and Renfroe missing the last four.

If you’re going to compare the Brewers scoring to other teams you can’t just consider injuries for the Brewers and not for other teams. 
 

The difference between the Brewers runs per game against the other playoff contenders as compared to the non contenders is pretty significant and isn’t explained simply by a few players being out of the lineup. 

[sveumrules]

I agree. All factors should be taken into consideration for all teams.

That’s why I thought attributing any slippage solely to the schedule was somewhat misleading.

It’s certainly been a factor in the current ebb, but not the only one.

[BruisedCrew]

Let me offer some numbers and everyone can decide for themselves what to make of them.

There was a lot of talk when the Brewers went on their hitting spree a few weeks ago that they were taking advantage of bad teams that made up a disproportionate share of their early schedule. Now that they have played more "good" teams I wanted to see what kind of disparity there might be.

To separate the contenders from the non contenders I used the Fan Graphs projections which, in both leagues, have a pretty clear cut between the top 8 and the bottom 7.

In the NL, the top 8 of Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Brewers, Cardinals, Mets, Phillies, and Braves all had playoff percentages of over 40% when I looked the other day, and the next highest was the Marlins at just under 10%. I call the 8 contenders the "Good" teams and the other 7 the "Bad" teams.

In the AL it is similar with the contenders being: Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, Red Sox, White Sox, Twins, Astros, and Angels. The AL isn't too important for this exercise because they will account for a small percentage of all games for NL teams.

Using this classification (and not counting today's game that isn't going to help the Brewers profile) the Brewers record of 29-17 consists of a 19-8 record against Bad teams and a 10-9 record against good teams. One notable thing there is that, even after this week against the Padres and Cardinals, the Brewers have played 59% of their games against Bad teams. For the season as a whole that percentage will be about 54%, highlighting how "Bad Heavy" the early schedule was. It's not surprising that their schedule was rated as the weakest in the league by some of the projection sites.

Looking now at the runs scored and allowed, in the 27 games against Bad teams, the Brewers scored 152 runs and allowed 108 for an average score of 5.63-4.00.

In the 19 games against Good teams the Brewers have scored 55 runs and allowed 65 for an average score of 2.89-3.42. It speaks well for the Brewers ability to win close, low scoring games that they are 10-9 in those games.

Focusing just on the runs scored, the difference between the average runs scored against Good vs Bad teams is a striking -2.74 runs per game. Anyone can draw whatever conclusions they want from that, or declare it to be a small sample size or cherry picking results, but I think it's significant and that injuries to Adames and Renfroe can't explain all or most of it.

Because I put together a simple spreadsheet so I can quickly enter the numbers of records and runs scored and allowed from Baseball Reference ,I can run this exercise for any team in just a couple of minutes and I intend to do that on occasion as the season progresses to see how this develops.

One obvious reaction is that it should be expected that any team would score more against Bad teams and their generally inferior pitching. But the other 3 teams I checked (Cardinals, Dodgers, and Giants) do not have differences anywhere near this great. The Cardinals are -0.48, the Dodgers -0.06, and the Giants are +0.27.

Make of it what you will, but the statement "The Brewers have had trouble scoring runs against Good teams" is factually accurate so far this season. Maybe this will just prove to be an aberration and not a season long issue.

 

[BruisedCrew]

To add to this point, this level of run scoring has been consistent in every series against a Good team so far this season, not just the last 2. Specifically:

Cardinals- 13 runs in 4 games

@Phillies- 8 runs in 3 games

Giants- 2 runs in 1 game

@ Braves- 10 runs in 3 games

Braves- 8 runs in 3 games (2 in extra innings aided by ghost runners)

@ Padres- 8 runs in 3 games

@Cardinals- 9 runs in 3 games so far  

 

 

[brewers888]

3 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

Let me offer some numbers and everyone can decide for themselves what to make of them.

There was a lot of talk when the Brewers went on their hitting spree a few weeks ago that they were taking advantage of bad teams that made up a disproportionate share of their early schedule. Now that they have played more "good" teams I wanted to see what kind of disparity there might be.

To separate the contenders from the non contenders I used the Fan Graphs projections which, in both leagues, have a pretty clear cut between the top 8 and the bottom 7.

In the NL, the top 8 of Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Brewers, Cardinals, Mets, Phillies, and Braves all had playoff percentages of over 40% when I looked the other day, and the next highest was the Marlins at just under 10%. I call the 8 contenders the "Good" teams and the other 7 the "Bad" teams.

In the AL it is similar with the contenders being: Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, Red Sox, White Sox, Twins, Astros, and Angels. The AL isn't too important for this exercise because they will account for a small percentage of all games for NL teams.

Using this classification (and not counting today's game that isn't going to help the Brewers profile) the Brewers record of 29-17 consists of a 19-8 record against Bad teams and a 10-9 record against good teams. One notable thing there is that, even after this week against the Padres and Cardinals, the Brewers have played 59% of their games against Bad teams. For the season as a whole that percentage will be about 54%, highlighting how "Bad Heavy" the early schedule was. It's not surprising that their schedule was rated as the weakest in the league by some of the projection sites.

Looking now at the runs scored and allowed, in the 27 games against Bad teams, the Brewers scored 152 runs and allowed 108 for an average score of 5.63-4.00.

In the 19 games against Good teams the Brewers have scored 55 runs and allowed 65 for an average score of 2.89-3.42. It speaks well for the Brewers ability to win close, low scoring games that they are 10-9 in those games.

Focusing just on the runs scored, the difference between the average runs scored against Good vs Bad teams is a striking -2.74 runs per game. Anyone can draw whatever conclusions they want from that, or declare it to be a small sample size or cherry picking results, but I think it's significant and that injuries to Adames and Renfroe can't explain all or most of it.

Because I put together a simple spreadsheet so I can quickly enter the numbers of records and runs scored and allowed from Baseball Reference ,I can run this exercise for any team in just a couple of minutes and I intend to do that on occasion as the season progresses to see how this develops.

One obvious reaction is that it should be expected that any team would score more against Bad teams and their generally inferior pitching. But the other 3 teams I checked (Cardinals, Dodgers, and Giants) do not have differences anywhere near this great. The Cardinals are -0.48, the Dodgers -0.06, and the Giants are +0.27.

Make of it what you will, but the statement "The Brewers have had trouble scoring runs against Good teams" is factually accurate so far this season. Maybe this will just prove to be an aberration and not a season long issue.

 

Fantastic post and its exactly why I think this team needs to add a difference making bat like JD Martinez if available.

[SRB]

The Brewers offense is fine. They are a pitching forward team and could easily win the World Series without making a single addition to roster if they get hot during the playoffs. No need to over analyze things, unless the point is to say "it would be nice if Stearns adds a big bat or two before the trade deadline," in which case obviously yes that would be cool.

[BruisedCrew]

9 hours ago, SRB said:

The Brewers offense is fine. They are a pitching forward team and could easily win the World Series without making a single addition to roster if they get hot during the playoffs. No need to over analyze things, unless the point is to say "it would be nice if Stearns adds a big bat or two before the trade deadline," in which case obviously yes that would be cool.

I don’t disagree with your comment, but would add that the chances of “getting hot in the playoffs” are improved significantly if (1) there are more hitters who are capable of getting hot, and (2) the team can win enough games in the regular season to not just win the division but have one of the top 2 division winning records and avoid the new “wild card round”. 
 

I think adding a big bat or two has to be a high priority. IMHO, the Brewers pitching gives them a fighting chance against the best pitchers on the best teams in the league, but the offense leaves them at a distinct disadvantage against the teams that have both a couple of top end starters and a stronger lineup. 

[Frisbee Slider]

From what I see, our DH spot is the only glaring hole. Sure, it’d be great to have more from LF but what can you do?

Narvaez OPS is .801. This seems fine.

Tellez OPS is .827. This seems fine.

Wong OPS in May is .728, which is aligned with his career OPS of .723. I doubt we should upgrade 2B.

Urias OPS is .762 which seems light for everyday 3B when Adames returns. But I doubt we improve upon Urias.

Adames OPS is .766 and will certainly remain our everyday SS. Adames is fine.

Yelich OPS is .710. I guess we hope for the best and a return to .800 OPS.

Taylor OPS is .809 in May. Maybe will be fine as starting CF? This side of Mike Trout and George Springer, where are the offensive stud CF?

Renfroe OPS is .806. How much would we give up to have a RF with a .900 OPS instead of Renfroe? Renfroe seems fine. Only four ‘qualified’ RF with higher OPS.

McCutchen OPS of .622 is the biggest opportunity. Hiura OPS is .862 and should probably be our primary DH until we get that ‘big bat’

 

[Frisbee Slider]

I suppose we could pursue a stud 3B and turn Urias back into a super utility. I feel like Urias is an everyday player for us, though.

Edit: There are only five 3B with meaningfully higher OPS than Urias. (J. Ramirez, Machado, Devers, Arenado and A. Riley)

[MVP2110]

DH definitely feels like the spot we could upgrade now that Taylor seems to be am everyday guy. I'd love for CC to start Hiura there on a regular basis to see if he can step up like Tyrone has

[sveumrules]

Just about one third of the way through the season & here’s how the Brewers rank in select offensive splits so far…

vsRHP: 745 OPS (5th)

Home: 786 OPS (2nd)

2 Strikes: 533 OPS (8th)

2 Outs: 766 OPS (2nd)

RISP: 825 OPS (4th)

Trailing; 773 OPS (3rd)

High Leverage: 807 OPS (3rd)

Innings 7-9: 747 OPS (2nd)

[Robocaller]

Looked at how we rank on OPS by position.

 C  6

1B 11

2B 14

3B 19

SS 9

LF 26

CF 25

RF 8

DH 20

I didn't think Yelich was doing THAT badly, but you expect your LF to hit. Badly need Renfroe, Adames, Urias, Narvaez to be playing. Plus someone who can play OF (and DH, perhaps) would be a great addition.

[Brewcrew82]

10 minutes ago, Robocaller said:

Looked at how we rank on OPS by position.

 C  6

1B 11

2B 14

3B 19

SS 9

LF 26

CF 25

RF 8

DH 20

I didn't think Yelich was doing THAT badly, but you expect your LF to hit. Badly need Renfroe, Adames, Urias, Narvaez to be playing. Plus someone who can play OF (and DH, perhaps) would be a great addition.

Andrew Benintendi would be a tremendous addition to this team. And he would cost very little as an impending free agent.

[Robocaller]

3 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Andrew Benintendi would be a tremendous addition to this team. And he would cost very little as an impending free agent.

Do the Brewers have enough guts to sit Yelich?

[Brewcrew82]

Just now, Robocaller said:

Do the Brewers have enough guts to sit Yelich?

I don’t think so. But at least we would have another capable bat.

[titletownking]

The last 3 years Yelich’s slugging, OBP, wRC+ have all declined. Going forward in his career, his role should be primarily DH. An offensive upgrade at the corner outfield spot would be a terrific addition to this team but realistically the team will have to live by Yelich and hopefully not die by Yelich. 

[monty57]

The Brewers went into this season about $10M above their previous all-time high opening day payroll. With the limited budget they had, they looked to address their problems vs LHP by adding McCutchen and Brousseau. So far, McCutchen has been a miss, but Brousseau has done okay. 

Payroll is pretty much maxed out, so anyone expecting them to "go out and get a big bat" is probably going to be disappointed. We're getting Adames, Renfroe, and Urias back which should help out a lot. Hopefully Taylor will get the majority of starts at CF, limiting the offensive black hole that is Cain, and hopefully they will give Hiura more DH starts vs RHP, limiting McCutchen's appearances against RHP.

Other than that, our best hope is that Stearns will pull off some more moves like he did last year in acquiring young guys like Adames and Tellez from teams trying to get rid of them. The thought that we can pick up the salary on a big name "rental" player just doesn't seem realistic. Stearns will do something, I just think some people will be disappointed by the return.

[BruisedCrew]

On 5/30/2022 at 6:32 AM, Frisbee Slider said:

I suppose we could pursue a stud 3B and turn Urias back into a super utility. I feel like Urias is an everyday player for us, though.

Edit: There are only five 3B with meaningfully higher OPS than Urias. (J. Ramirez, Machado, Devers, Arenado and A. Riley)

I could go through something like this for several Brewers, but Urias might be a perfect example of the questions I have about the Brewers offense.

Urias in only his second year as a regular doesn't have the kind of track record that a veteran has, and that makes it harder to know what to expect from him. I know that I never expected him to hit 23 HR like he did last year en route to an OPS of .789. Was that a breakout year or would he be susceptible to a "sophomore slump" as teams get more of a book on him?

His current OPS of .740 is in line with what he did last year, though it is a little on the light side for 3B. But, when you look more closely at his performance this year you see that when he first started playing in early May, his first 3 games were in the Reds series in which the Brewers scored 34 runs. Urias left that series with an OPS of 1.393, obviously not very significant for 3 games. In the 25 games he's played since then, his OPS is .670. So, what do we expect from him the rest of the season? Your guess is as good as mine, but if his OPS for the rest of the year is around .700, that's not very good for 3B, especially compared to other contenders who have players like Machado, Arenado, and Riley stationed there.

 

[brewers888]

To get through the NL the Brewers most likely will have to get through both the mets and dodgers. Compare the lineups of the Brewers vs those two teams and it’s flat out not even close in talent. A big reason of course is that they both have payrolls twice as high as the Brewers but this is the terrible system we are forced to compete in and we just don’t come even close to matching their offenses.

The Brewers are going to have to out pitch these teams and without potentially Peralta and a rather thin bullpen it’s going to be a hard task. Without much in the way of financial flexibility I don’t expect much to help the lineup by the deadline which makes this team likely to have a quick playoff exit if they even make it there.

[brewers888]

Every other potential playoff team has star offensive talent and we have none despite Yelich being paid like a franchise player.

[Brewcrew82]

2 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

I could go through something like this for several Brewers, but Urias might be a perfect example of the questions I have about the Brewers offense.

Urias in only his second year as a regular doesn't have the kind of track record that a veteran has, and that makes it harder to know what to expect from him. I know that I never expected him to hit 23 HR like he did last year en route to an OPS of .789. Was that a breakout year or would he be susceptible to a "sophomore slump" as teams get more of a book on him?

His current OPS of .740 is in line with what he did last year, though it is a little on the light side for 3B. But, when you look more closely at his performance this year you see that when he first started playing in early May, his first 3 games were in the Reds series in which the Brewers scored 34 runs. Urias left that series with an OPS of 1.393, obviously not very significant for 3 games. In the 25 games he's played since then, his OPS is .670. So, what do we expect from him the rest of the season? Your guess is as good as mine, but if his OPS for the rest of the year is around .700, that's not very good for 3B, especially compared to other contenders who have players like Machado, Arenado, and Riley stationed there.

 

As far as Urias goes, it's worth mentioning that, like Adames, he was once a consensus top 20/30 prospect in all of baseball, and that his hitting was his carrying tool throughout his minor league career at a 65+ grade. 

Also, I'm pretty sure that his recent slump has a lot to do with the fact that he has a bad thumb and can barely grip the bat. He was OPSing above .800 before that, and should only benefit from the rest he's gotten over the last few days. And despite his slump, his WAR is at 0.9 in 28 games, which stretches out to 5.2 over the course of a 162 game season. That's all-star territory right there. 

As a result, if you placed the over/under on his OPS for the end of the season at his current .740 line, I would probably choose the over. Our 3B situation is more than fine in my opinion. Not better than the Cardinals, who have Arenado. But certainly better than the Dodgers, who are currently trotting out the corpse of Justin Turner. Imagine if we'd signed him to a multi-year deal like many wanted us to do. 

 

[Brewcrew82]

3 hours ago, brewers888 said:

To get through the NL the Brewers most likely will have to get through both the mets and dodgers. Compare the lineups of the Brewers vs those two teams and it’s flat out not even close in talent. A big reason of course is that they both have payrolls twice as high as the Brewers but this is the terrible system we are forced to compete in and we just don’t come even close to matching their offenses.

The Brewers are going to have to out pitch these teams and without potentially Peralta and a rather thin bullpen it’s going to be a hard task. Without much in the way of financial flexibility I don’t expect much to help the lineup by the deadline which makes this team likely to have a quick playoff exit if they even make it there.

Not many of our competitors can say they have the best (healthy) starter AND reliever in baseball. That's our advantage over our competitors. And pitching still does win championships. The question is whether our hitting will go stone-cold in the postseason like it did last year. You would like to think it won't, but some deadline reinforcements like Bell, Benintendi, Mancini, etc. would certainly make me feel more confident. Anything can happen once you get to the postseason. And the Brewers currently have over an 80% probability of doing so. 

[BruisedCrew]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

As far as Urias goes, it's worth mentioning that, like Adames, he was once a consensus top 20/30 prospect in all of baseball, and that his hitting was his carrying tool throughout his minor league career at a 65+ grade. 

Also, I'm pretty sure that his recent slump has a lot to do with the fact that he has a bad thumb and can barely grip the bat. He was OPSing above .800 before that, and should only benefit from the rest he's gotten over the last few days. And despite his slump, his WAR is at 0.9 in 28 games, which stretches out to 5.2 over the course of a 162 game season. That's all-star territory right there. 

As a result, if you placed the over/under on his OPS for the end of the season at his current .740 line, I would probably choose the over. Our 3B situation is more than fine in my opinion. Not better than the Cardinals, who have Arenado. But certainly better than the Dodgers, who are currently trotting out the corpse of Justin Turner. Imagine if we'd signed him to a multi-year deal like many wanted us to do. 

 

Prospect credentials aren’t of much interest to me. I’ve seen too many examples of guys who come with the label “he’s hit everywhere he’s played” who end up not hitting in MLB. For every Ryan Braun who comes to the Brewers there have been many Randy Readys, Joey Meyers, Matt LaPortas, and Louis Brinsons. Hiura might be headed for that category too.

On the thumb injury, how long has he had it? They just mentioned it when he left the game Friday and made it sound like it was something that happened when he got jammed on a pitch shortly before that. They also said it didn’t affect his hitting. 
 

His current run of OPS around .650 goes back to the Miami series over 3 weeks ago. His season OPS is propped up largely by the 6 games against the Reds. If his thumb has been bothering him that long,  3 or 4 days of rest isn’t likely to cure it. 
 

 

[Brewcrew82]

2 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

Prospect credentials aren’t of much interest to me. I’ve seen too many examples of guys who come with the label “he’s hit everywhere he’s played” who end up not hitting in MLB. For every Ryan Braun who comes to the Brewers there have been many Randy Readys, Joey Meyers, Matt LaPortas, and Louis Brinsons. Hiura might be headed for that category too.

On the thumb injury, how long has he had it? They just mentioned it when he left the game Friday and made it sound like it was something that happened when he got jammed on a pitch shortly before that. They also said it didn’t affect his hitting. 
 

His current run of OPS around .650 goes back to the Miami series over 3 weeks ago. His season OPS is propped up largely by the 6 games against the Reds. If his thumb has been bothering him that long,  3 or 4 days of rest isn’t likely to cure it. 
 

 

Prospect rankings may not matter to you personally, but they certainly matter when trying to establish a young player like Urias' potential and ability. Sure prospect evaluation is an inexact science and many top prospects have flamed out over the years, but they have proven predictive ability. Just look at the list of best players in the game, such as Mike Trout, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Vlad Jr, Acuna, etc. Top 20 prospects all of them. So, the fact that Urias was once a top 20/30 prospect and is still only in his second season as a regular starter matters a great deal when trying to predict what kind of production he will put forward over the remainder of this season. Particularly when he's already OPS'd almost .800 over the course of a full season. 

From what I've read, Urias did not injure his thumb during Friday's game, but has been dealing with it for a little while after getting jammed a couple times in quick succession. Though he continued to try to play through it, it got to the point on Friday where it was negatively impacting his ability to make accurate throws to first, as demonstrated by his error on the Mazara grounder in the 3rd inning. 

And, as I stated above, his current WAR of .9 over 28 games extends out to 5.2 over the course of 162 games. That's all-star level production. Maybe less than what the Cardinals are getting from Arenado, but still significantly more than the Dodgers are getting from Turner right now.