Article: The Early Optimism Stat Crunch: Part One

[Jake McKibbin]

With the Brewers going well over the first ten days, why don’t we look at where they’re surpassing pre-season expectations and giving us hope that this early-season momentum isn’t just a flash in the pan?

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

Willy Adames Strikeout to Walk Ratio
So far this season, in 33 plate appearances, Adames has registered a 13.2% walk rate to a 21% strikeout rate. He’s historically been around a 25% strikeout rate in his career with the Milwaukee Brewers, but his walk rate has been an element of concern amongst the Brewers fans. With a .391 BABIP, his batting average will likely come down, but if he can maintain a double-digit walk rate, as he has in multiple prior seasons, the Brewers will be all the better for it. He’s also maintained previous seasons' trends of hitting considerably better with men on base and better again when they’re in scoring position.

Christian Yelich’s Nine-Game On-Base Streak
Yelich’s first nine games have seen him get on base at least once per game, a feat he last produced in the 2019 season. He’s reaching base at a .381 clip, outstanding from a leadoff hitter, and has been much more proficient at laying off pitches down and out of the zone his last few games, something he struggled mightily with last season. He has also shown more regular hard-hit contact, hitting four seamers hard with a 71.4% hard-hit rate. He has a high expected batting average against the four-seamer and cutter and an xBA of .463 against the curveball, something he hasn’t hit well since 2019. Overall he currently has an xBA of .290 and xSLG of .489. If he can time his swing on the change-up, the National League should watch out.

Joey Wiemer’s Defense
Our new right fielder does look a little funky at the plate, and his batting line is bolstered by a lot of infield hits in his early career. However, his biggest value so far this season is his defense; he’s the league leader in outs above average, as well as being in the 96th percentile for outfield jump and 93rd percentile for sprint speed. His success rate of 100% vastly surpasses his estimated catch percentage of 87%. He’s made every remotely possible catch so far this season. The Cardinals on Sunday had some very makeable plays in the outfield that turned into big runs for Milwaukee, and I can’t see that happening anywhere near as much with this rangy outfield crew.

Brice Turang’s Plate Discipline
Often when players hit the big leagues, they take a period to adapt to the higher quality of pitching. Not so Brice Turang, who has come in and shown remarkable discipline at the plate with solid bat-to-ball skills. He’s struck out just 13% of his plate appearances and walked in a vast 17.4%. If he can maintain the strikeout rate around this level, the Brewers will have a solid bottom-of-the-line-up, something they’ve missed in previous seasons, and allow pitchers to settle into their groove. Turang is also 95th percentile sprint speed, and his 86th percentile OAA contributed to one of the best middle infields in baseball, a marked improvement again on last season.

Rowdy Tellez Underlying Stats
Tellez is the one Brewer who hasn’t caught fire, but his underlying stats of a 52.6% hard-hit rate, 91.2mph average exit velocity, and 15.8% barrel rate suggest an outburst is on its way. He’s squaring up four-seamers and sliders in particular, and it won’t be long until he becomes the dominant middle-of-the-line-up hitter we know he can be. Tellez got off to a scorching start last season, but he had a poor BABIP throughout the year, almost .070 points below his usual marks, and the Brewers will think if he can get a bit of luck, the line-up will take on a whole new, fearsome visage.

Freddy Peralta’s Dominance
Fastball Freddy has conceded just one run across 12 innings of work this season. He’s been in the top 10% of expected batting average in four of his five seasons, a trend that’s continued with an xBA of .191 and an xSLG of .330 in his first two starts. He locates around the edges of the zone a lot with his fastball and has kept the slider just off the outside edge to right-handed hitters across both starts, though there is a cause for concern with his 43.3% in-zone percentage. He’s been getting ahead off the first pitch (60% first-pitch strikes) and then trying to induce chases, but he does need to be a little more trusting in his stuff to pitch deeper into the game. Against the Cardinals, he had more 95 mph+ pitches than any other outing in his career (32), maxing out at 97.8mph, the hardest of his career as a starter. More importantly, health-wise, his last five pitches were all 95 mph and above.

Bullpen Proficiency
Aided by a somewhat unsustainable 82% left-on-base percentage to start the season, the bullpen leads the majors in ERA. Peter Strzelecki, Hoby Milner, Devin Williams, and Gus Varland have been lights out in high-leverage situations with some nasty pitches. Strzelecki’s slider to strike out Arenado on Sunday was a thing of beauty, and it won’t be long before the strikeout numbers escalate for this relief corps. Gus Varland has an xSlg of just .368, Peter Strzelecki has an XBA of .217, and Hoby Milner has a 70% ground ball rate this season.

Some optimism there, Brewer Fanatics; what do you guys think? Does anything surprise you?

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[igor67]

Varland as a rule 5 pick-up has been one great move so far.

[wiguy94]

The lack of strikeouts and whiffs by the bullpen has surprised me. They have for the most part done a very good job creating weak contact but the lack of whiffs and strikeouts is somewhat concerning. Their 17.8% K-rate is 26th among MLB bullpens. Their 10.9% BB-rate is 24th. The 7% K-BB rate is 28th. They are 1st in average EV at 84.5. They are 2nd in barrel rate at 2.2%. They are 1st in hard-hit rate at 28.9%. 

Just difficult to get a read on them up to this point. Hopefully we start seeing some more whiffs and strikeouts going forward without a huge sacrifice to the quality of contact against.

[Playing Catch]

Highlighted above, and evident with the eye-test, has been the improvement of the defense. The Brewers might be better at every position sans the holdover starters. Turang and Wiemer look like gold glovers. That kind of defensive impact wins games.

[Ro Mueller]

Hats off to Arnold (Anderson, Winker, Contreras, Miley, Varland, Junk, Tyson Miller, Perkins, Peguero) and Counsell (he clearly wanted Turang and Wiemer up). Keep it up!!!

[Jake McKibbin]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

The lack of strikeouts and whiffs by the bullpen has surprised me. They have for the most part done a very good job creating weak contact but the lack of whiffs and strikeouts is somewhat concerning. Their 17.8% K-rate is 26th among MLB bullpens. Their 10.9% BB-rate is 24th. The 7% K-BB rate is 28th. They are 1st in average EV at 84.5. They are 2nd in barrel rate at 2.2%. They are 1st in hard-hit rate at 28.9%. 

Just difficult to get a read on them up to this point. Hopefully we start seeing some more whiffs and strikeouts going forward without a huge sacrifice to the quality of contact against.

The difference in hard hit rate Vs barrel rate is likely due to the launch angle

The strikeouts and walks are fascinating and hopefully we'll see more, there the stuff to miss bats here for sure and I don't expect them to be lower than average by end of season