Brewers Batted Ball Profile Pointing to a Flawed Approach?

[sveumrules]

The Brewers offense has stunk so far this year, their current 85 wRC+ would be thee literal very worst position player mark in franchise history.

I thought looking at their batted ball profile might offer some insight into why they’ve been so bad. Let’s start with batted ball type…

The Brewers GroundBall%+ of 104 is 6th highest in MLB. League average on ground balls this year is 243/243/266 (36 wRC+).

The Brewers LineDrive%+ of 92 is 2nd lowest in MLB. League average on line drives this year is 705/700/918 (359 wRC+).

Their FlyBall%+ of 99 is essentially average, but too many ground balls and a severe lack of line drives is a bad foundation.

How about directionality? The Brewers have been about average going the other way with an Oppo%+ of 100.

Their Pull%+ of 95 is 4th lowest. League average on pulled balls is 345/344/651 (169 wRC+).

Up the middle, their Center%+ of 106 is 3rd highest. League average up the middle is 327/323/485 (118 wRC+).

Similar to ground balls vs line drives, we again see the Brewers at fairly extreme points on the wrong ends of the pull vs up the middle scales.

A large degree of the offenses WOAHs can be traced to underperformance from Adames, Winker, Tellez, etc, but could a flawed approach be putting Brewers batters behind the eight ball from the outset?

[rickh150]

When several, key, young hitters get noticeably worse over a two/three year stretch, one has to wonder about approach,….yes 1000%.

[Jake McKibbin]

5 hours ago, rickh150 said:

When several, key, young hitters get noticeably worse over a two/three year stretch, one has to wonder about approach,….yes 1000%.

I've been thinking the exact same thing

[nate82]

But I have been told this is a home run or bust approach team.  These stat’s actually contradict this.  If it were more HR or bust you would see a higher pull%.

I think the Brewers coaches are emphasizing more center and opposite field hitting.  The Anderson signing this offseason is a clear example of this.

The shift from being pull heavy to more center and opposite field is fine as long as your LD% also stays high.  The LD% is more concerning than where they are going with the hits.  Center left and center right are where you have more room in the OF to get a hit with a line drive.

Also the ground ball % is very concerning.  Need more lift but that goes back to the home run or bust offense that a lot on here complain about.  This approach also tends to have a higher K%.  Which more would complain about.  The Brewers have put in place the just put the ball in play line of thinking which is one of the dumbest things fans and coaches talk about.

[homer]

Interesting stuff to think about, @sveumrules. My question is: How do these numbers compare to a "good" offense? Which then begs the question....what approach leads to a "good" offense?

Tampa Bay leads everyone in offensive WAR. Here are their numbers for the same stats:

GB% 17th

LD% 29th

FB% 4th

Oppo% 25th

Pull % 19th

Center % 5th

----------------------------------------------

A few others I found where the difference between the two teams was large (league rank in parentheses):

BABIP:

TB - .310 (7th)

MIL - .281 (24th)

OBP:

TB - .339 (3rd)

MIL - .303 (25th)

(and the Brewers walk quite a bit)

K%

TB - 22.5% (18th)

MIL - 25.7% (3rd)

------------------------

And looking at Plate Discipline:

O-Swing% (swings outside the strike zone)

TB - 33.2% (10th)

MIL - 29.8% (23rd)

Z-Swing% (swings inside the strike zone)

TB - 69.7% (9th)

MIL - 65.9% (28th)

CStr% (called strike percent)

TB - 15.8% (24th)

MIL - 18.2% (2nd)

CSW% (called+swinging strike %)

TB - 27.7% (15th)

MIL - 29.6% (1st = worst)

 

So does this all mean that the Brewers are watching good pitches get called for strikes? Maybe they need to be more aggressive? I have no idea. It's just one comparison to one team that has a good offense. There are different ways to be good on offense so a team like Atlanta might have a totally different profile.

[nate82]

I think the watching pitches that should be swung at for extra base hits are the problem.  It is the working the count mentality.  The Brewers don’t have the hitters to be working with getting behind in the count.  They need to be more aggressive early in their PA’s to avoid being down 0-2.  Tellez, Wiemer, and others need to be more aggressive early in the count.  When they get a fastball that splits the middle of the plate they need to be swinging and not making the pitcher work or getting deep into a count.  They are just not good enough to be hitting behind in the count.  No matter what the count is they should be swinging at pitches that are in the zone and can be smashed for extra base hits.

[homer]

4 minutes ago, nate82 said:

I think the watching pitches that should be swung at for extra base hits are the problem.  It is the working the count mentality.  The Brewers don’t have the hitters to be working with getting behind in the count.  They need to be more aggressive early in their PA’s to avoid being down 0-2.  Tellez, Wiemer, and others need to be more aggressive early in the count.  When they get a fastball that splits the middle of the plate they need to be swinging and not making the pitcher work or getting deep into a count.  They are just not good enough to be hitting behind in the count.  No matter what the count is they should be swinging at pitches that are in the zone and can be smashed for extra base hits.

Pitches per Plate Appearance:

TB - 3.89 (18th)

MIL - 4.04 (2nd)

[wiguy94]

7 minutes ago, nate82 said:

I think the watching pitches that should be swung at for extra base hits are the problem.  It is the working the count mentality.  The Brewers don’t have the hitters to be working with getting behind in the count.  They need to be more aggressive early in their PA’s to avoid being down 0-2.  Tellez, Wiemer, and others need to be more aggressive early in the count.  When they get a fastball that splits the middle of the plate they need to be swinging and not making the pitcher work or getting deep into a count.  They are just not good enough to be hitting behind in the count.  No matter what the count is they should be swinging at pitches that are in the zone and can be smashed for extra base hits.

100% this. So many times this year Tellez has taken strike 1 and never seen a pitch that good the rest of the AB. I’ll gladly trade off Tellez having a lower OBP if it means he’s slugging more. His EV numbers have cratered this season. His approach has been a gigantic failure. 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, homer said:

Does this all mean that the Brewers are watching good pitches get called for strikes? Maybe they need to be more aggressive? I have no idea.

I too have no idea either, but I kind of think so.

Sticking with Tampa Bay here are their results on each batted ball type and on pulled balls compared to the Brewers...

Line Drives
TBR: 380 PA | 417 wRC+
MIL: 339 PA | 372 wRC+

Ground Balls
TBR: 863 PA | 70 wRC+
MIL: 819 PA | 11 wRC+

Fly Balls
TBR: 803 PA | 158 wRC+
MIL: 670 PA | 133 wRC+

Pulled
TBR: 831 PA | 203 wRC+
MIL: 710 PA | 129 wRC+ 

The Rays are outperforming league average results on all three batted ball types, which to me indicates the approach numbers you posted are leading them to swinging at better pitches to get those results.

Their 70 wRC+ on ground balls is waaay ahead of second best team, the Braves at 52 wRC+. They have a similar gap on line drives with second place 23% behind at a 394 wRC+. Their 203 wRC+ on pulled balls is 2nd and their 158 wRC+ on fly balls is 4th.

The Brewers conversely are below league average on both grounders and fly balls with their 11 wRC+ on grounders second to last. Their 129 wRC+ on pulled balls is dead last. The only batted ball type they are above average is line drives, but they have been hitting them with the second worst frequency in MLB. 

Obviously there are a lot of moving pieces, but an abundance of weakly hit ground balls and a paucity of line drives/pulled fly balls doesn't seem like the ideal way to go about generating offense.

[homer]

Yep TB just hits the ball harder. Some of their wRC+ is probably BABIP driven but if you hit a grounder hard it's less likely to be fielded. I'd be curious to see avg EV on ground balls. I'm sure it's a lot harder than Milwaukee.

[nate82]

If we have the team EV on ground balls I think at a low EV majority of those are going to be hits on pitches that benefit the pitcher.  These are going to be borderline strikes/balls that are causing the batter to roll over on them.  More hitter friendly pitches you should see a higher EV on average for those.

With the information we have we can see when the Brewers are getting pitches that are in the batters favor and the batter swings they have some really good results.  I think the Brewers need to be more aggressive at the plate and stop looking for a walk.

[sveumrules]

11 minutes ago, homer said:

Yep TB just hits the ball harder. Some of their wRC+ is probably BABIP driven but if you hit a grounder hard it's less likely to be fielded. I'd be curious to see avg EV on ground balls. I'm sure it's a lot harder than Milwaukee.

TBR average EV on GBs: 87.8 MPH (t-1st)
MIL average EV on GBs: 84.9 MPH (t-27th)
 

[nate82]

On my phone at work but I thought there was a team hitting zone.  If we see more contact in pitcher friendly areas then that would explain the weak EV on ground balls.

[homer]

8 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

TBR average EV on GBs: 87.8 MPH (t-1st)
MIL average EV on GBs: 84.9 MPH (t-27th)
 

Nice! Where did you get that? I couldn't find it on Fangraphs.

[sveumrules]

2 minutes ago, homer said:

Nice! Where did you get that? I couldn't find it on Fangraphs.

Took some clicking around but found it on Baseball Savant.

[wiguy94]

1 hour ago, nate82 said:

If we have the team EV on ground balls I think at a low EV majority of those are going to be hits on pitches that benefit the pitcher.  These are going to be borderline strikes/balls that are causing the batter to roll over on them.  More hitter friendly pitches you should see a higher EV on average for those.

With the information we have we can see when the Brewers are getting pitches that are in the batters favor and the batter swings they have some really good results.  I think the Brewers need to be more aggressive at the plate and stop looking for a walk.

LA as well. If Rays are hitting more grounders near 0 LA and we are more on the negative side that would lead to better results. 

0 LA balls have a .359 BA this season compared to -10 LA balls .188 BA. 

I remember @Matthew Trueblood did an article this year about the Brewers hitters hitting way too many grounders with very negative LA. 

[yourout]

I wish they tracked swing path angle.

Excessive swing path angle can result in excessive rollovers.

Getting balls in the air isn't just launch angle.

Part of it is pre launch hand position part is bat angle at launch and part is pitch selection.

[jerichoholicninja]

99% of this is just having crappy hitters - nothing about approach or coaching. As soon as the front office makes having even a few semi-competent hitters a priority numbers will look better.