The Right Way to Project Milwaukee Brewers' Opening Day Roster is to Stop Trying

[Matthew Trueblood]

The more you study the Milwaukee Brewers at the midway point of spring training, the more irresistible the conclusion becomes: this team is still comfortable being uncomfortable, even if you're not.

Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports

We've already run a couple of Opening Day roster projections for the Brewers on this site. I like doing those. I have scribbled down about 100 lineups for the 2024 Brewers, over the long time desert of this winter--killing time while on hold to pay a bill, or during halftime of a Packers game, or as I tried to shake a half-formed story idea into something more organized and wrinkle-free. Since I was a kid, I've been writing lineups and depth charts in the margins of pages of notes on Central American history, and on bank envelopes, and on takeout menus for places I had long ago tried and decided not to order from again.

I think, though, that the roster projection and the scribbled-down dream lineup have become as antiquated as the idea of a bank envelope. The amount of uncertainty around the Brewers this spring is nearly overwhelming, but they're not treating that like an opportunity that desperately needs to be solved. On the contrary, they're leaning into it pretty hard. Fluidity is salubrious for a roster architect, and while the Brewers lack the stability and reliability of a deep lineup full of familiar, established names, they have tons of fluidity. It's become the plan for them, and for many teams throughout MLB, and we fans are going to have to get more accustomed to that.

Roster rules still constrain roster moves. Eric Haase and Jake Bauers can't be sent to the minor leagues without being subjected to waivers (and thus, without the risk of another team claiming them for their own), which will inform the team's choices at the fringe of the roster on the positional side. The team won't want to lose either player if they can avoid it, so they might try to squeeze them each onto the roster to begin the season, but beyond that, it doesn't matter that much which players go north with the team.

If Joey Ortiz begins the season in Nashville, he could easily be in Milwaukee by mid-April. Ditto for Joey Wiemer and Garrett Mitchell. There are endless ways for the team to recombine the pieces of the supporting cast to their stars. It's the same way on the pitching staff. Of their bullpen guys, only Bryse Wilson, Joel Payamps, and Thyago Vieira are out of options. The Crew's depth means Elvis Peguero will almost surely spend some time in Triple-A this year, but the nature of pitching and the inescapable attrition involved in it mean Peguero will almost surely get some high-leverage bullpen work in, too.

This is a hard thing to quantify. I tried going through and counting the out-of-options players on each team's 40-man roster to see whether the Crew has an unusually small number of them, but quickly gave that up. They don't, but that's partially because their entire projected starting rotation (minus DL Hall) is ineligible to be optioned. So are Christian Yelich, Rhys Hoskins, Willy Adames, and Gary Sánchez. With the possible exception of backend starter Joe Ross, the Crew would never want the option of not rostering any of those players when they're healthy, so their option status really doesn't matter.

The team also doesn't project to use an extreme number of platoons. Rather, there's just a large number of alternatives and a shocking absence of clear-cut answers at a handful of positions. It's nebulous, but very real. This team is going to need to play the hot hand, mixing and matching until someone asserts themselves in an especially forceful way, but they just don't seem to mind that, at all.

I still expect Pat Murphy to use a relatively static top half of the lineup card, because Yelich, Hoskins, Adames, and William Contreras are everyday players with obvious roles. Beyond that, though, everything projects to be fluid. Murphy has already stated his intention to be extremely flexible in the way he deploys starting pitchers, and he's been studiously noncommittal with regard to his bevy of options in the non-Yelich outfield spots, and at second and third base.

I count 55 players I expect to see play for the Brewers in 2024. That's more than 16 MLB teams used in 2023, and there are always, always players you don't expect to see who make their way to the roster. Only three of the 14 clubs who used more than 55 players last season made the playoffs: the Rays, the Dodgers... and the Brewers. This is the new normal, for teams run along the lines of these three, and though it makes it harder to sketch a reassuring roster on the empty half-page at the end of the Brewers chapter in the Baseball Prospectus Annual, it's fun, in a different and sometimes richer way.

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[Outlander]

 

[eddiemathews]

I could see them going with this to start, given health:

• Contreras, Sanchez, Haase
• Hoskins, Bauers, Adames, Monosterio, Turang
• Yelich, Courio, Wiemer, Mitchell, Frelick

If Sanchez isn't ready (and it seems he's starting today, so maybe he will be), then there's lots of options to replace him. Frelick gives another infield option. Six lefthanded batters to start, and yeah...lots of moveable parts. But I dunno...for all the talk about how improved Turang is at the plate, it doesn't seem all that evident. Maybe he needs to start at AAA to get regular at bats. But he's the best defensive replacement. Tis a puzzle.

[Stealofhome]

I'm not sure if there has been any discussion about this, but I wonder if the Brewers have intentionally created their system in this manner to throw off other teams' projections of them. If you have many interchangeable pieces it can be quite difficult to create a firm game plan, almost like hitting a moving target.

[Brock Beauchamp]

3 hours ago, Stealofhome said:

I'm not sure if there has been any discussion about this, but I wonder if the Brewers have intentionally created their system in this manner to throw off other teams' projections of them. If you have many interchangeable pieces it can be quite difficult to create a firm game plan, almost like hitting a moving target.

Welcome to Brewer Fanatic!

[Brewcrew82]

4 hours ago, eddiemathews said:

I could see them going with this to start, given health:

• Contreras, Sanchez, Haase
• Hoskins, Bauers, Adames, Monosterio, Turang
• Yelich, Courio, Wiemer, Mitchell, Frelick

If Sanchez isn't ready (and it seems he's starting today, so maybe he will be), then there's lots of options to replace him. Frelick gives another infield option. Six lefthanded batters to start, and yeah...lots of moveable parts. But I dunno...for all the talk about how improved Turang is at the plate, it doesn't seem all that evident. Maybe he needs to start at AAA to get regular at bats. But he's the best defensive replacement. Tis a puzzle.

Ortiz?

[eddiemathews]

2 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Ortiz?

I don't think he starts with the team unless the Dodgers go insane and give up a good starting pitcher along with something else (not Lux) for Willy. He'll be up, though.