Article: Is the Middle of the Order Killing the Brewers? PART TWO

[Jake McKibbin]

As the Brewers continue to seek more consistent production from their lineup, it's hard not to view the guys who were most responsible for their success in 2021 and 2022 as the biggest culprits in their struggles. Today, we turn our attention to the not-so-slugging first baseman.

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

After taking a look into Willy Adames’s contact profile in the early part of this season (and how it’s contributed to a middle of the order that can’t seem to generate runs), let’s have a look at the other black hole: Rowdy Tellez.

Tellez started the season off swinging at far fewer pitches than usual, being more patient at the plate, which led to an increase in strikeout rates and a struggle to access power once the league attacked him more in the zone. Coming into the year, it was expected he could be an .800+ OPS bat, given (as mentioned before) his dreadful, career-low BABIP in 2022 and how that affected his overall line.

This hasn’t been the case, however. Tellez has just a .390 OPS in the month of June so far, and he’s been struggling to access his power since the middle of May. He is striking out at a 25-percent clip, another high since the start of 2020, and his expected slugging numbers have dropped by over 100 points. So what’s going on?

He still has the ability to hit the ball hard, and he’s pulling the ball less than he used to while increasing the number of line drives. This all sounds good, but he has been less consistent in his quality of contact, with average exit velocities notably dropping to 88.4 mph this season, compared with 91.1 mph in 2022 and 92.2 mph in 2021.
 

 

He is still hitting fastballs quite well, although with a significantly higher launch angle (13 degrees last year up to 19 this season), but his biggest weakness so far has been breaking pitches. One of Tellez’s big damage areas was around his knees, either inside or over the heart of the plate. Particularly inside this season, he has really struggled to make quality contact, with his average exit velocity on pitches down and in dropping from 94 mph to 83 mph. He has an xBA of .140 and xSlg of .268 against breaking pitches this year, and that needs to improve for him to become that middle-of-the-order force he has the potential to be. He’s getting under these far too often, and it’s causing a lot of weak fly balls to the outfield.

On top of that, he’s whiffing more often at the breaking balls that drop below the zone–significantly more, in fact, going from a 34% whiff rate to a 53% whiff rate in 2023. He was quite adept at fouling off these pitches last season, but can’t seem to hang in the at-bat for long at all so far this year.

The other issue Tellez is having is that when he does hit the ball hard, he used to get prime launch angles, turning those hard-hit balls into big home runs. As of late, a lot of those have been line drives that have hit the outfield when he does make prime contact, resulting in a lower barrel rate (12.9% down to 9.3%) than we are used to seeing.

Interesting, too, is how he has struggled against the sinker, with a line of .135/.135 against it so far this year (against 190 pitches). He has a 50-percent hard-hit rate against it, but he’s pounding it into the ground–almost a guaranteed out with his complete lack of speed.

In short, the middle of the order needs to perform better for the Brewers to regularly put up runs, particularly with Christian Yelich performing as he has in recent months. He deserves to be driven in a lot more, and Counsell is already tweaking the lineup to try and help, moving Contreras behind Yelich on Tuesday night. You can’t rely on a hot streak from Wiemer or Anderson to be your only hopes of offense. The big names need to start playing better, and they need to do it now.

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[JohnBriggs12]

Rowdy needs to commit himself to getting in better shape.  He's listed at 270, but I bet he's closer to 300.  He's eating his way out of the game.  He needs to get back to the 250-260 range.

[Jake McKibbin]

56 minutes ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

Rowdy needs to commit himself to getting in better shape.  He's listed at 270, but I bet he's closer to 300.  He's eating his way out of the game.  He needs to get back to the 250-260 range.

I think this is a very easy solution to point to, that to be fair he could work at to get gains defensively and on the basepaths, as well as some added muscle mass with it. I'm surprised as a pro he hasn't, especially given he's known for being a total couch potato

He's had one hot streak so far this year, but him and Adames, in short, need more of these hot streaks to justify their positions, and I'm not sure that's so much to do with his weight and mobility as a change in approach. He's actually whiffing less on high fastballs, so maybe made adjustments to cover more of the zone, but it's been detrimental to him overall

[yourout]

3 hours ago, JohnBriggs12 said:

Rowdy needs to commit himself to getting in better shape.  He's listed at 270, but I bet he's closer to 300.  He's eating his way out of the game.  He needs to get back to the 250-260 range.

With the amount of money these guys get paid nowadays and the training and medical advice at their disposal there's really no excuse for being grossly overweight.

Hell even pro golfers with a few exceptions are pretty fit these days.

[FanOutWest]

Let's not forget that he predominately plays against RHP (84% pa) thus even these numbers are "skewed".  If he was an everyday player (regardless of pitchers) his numbers will be considerably lower. 

[homer]

52 minutes ago, FanOutWest said:

Let's not forget that he predominately plays against RHP (84% pa) thus even these numbers are "skewed".  If he was an everyday player (regardless of pitchers) his numbers will be considerably lower. 

Welcome to the board!

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, FanOutWest said:

Let's not forget that he predominately plays against RHP (84% pa) thus even these numbers are "skewed".  If he was an everyday player (regardless of pitchers) his numbers will be considerably lower. 

A fair point, though Tellez doesn't have huge splits by LHB standards so the impact would be noticeable but not enormous.