Off-day chat 6/6: has your impression of this team changed after the Phillies series?

[Brock Beauchamp]

I don't know if my opinion has changed drastically but the most concerning aspect was the lack of offense. Considering the Phillies lineup, both the starters and relievers acquitted themselves very well against what might be the best team in the NL.

Allowing seven runs in three games to Philadelphia is a feat. But when you're swept while doing it...

[Brian]

Not at all, I knew we were one of the weakest 1st place teams in baseball. My thoughts have always been win the division 1st and make a couple or 3 trades before the Oct. playoffs.  Hopefully we will be a lot healthier by Oct also. 

[BlightyBrew]

Think we need to add a SP and a LHB with pop in the outfield, that might be Mitchell when and if he gets back.

Dunn Bauers Monosterio  just doesn't work in my opinion and Murphy can't use them like I think he wants with PH for matchups so I think we need to upgrade the bench.  More power with more XB potential.

I would also like another player who can also catch.    So when you have Sanchez and William in the line-up at the same time you have an option if you wanted to PR for either without losing the DH late in the game.

 

 

[BruisedCrew]

No, my impression hasn’t changed. 
 

I have been skeptical about the offense continuing to be one of the best in MLB and this series highlighted its weakness. Sure, the Phillies have good pitchers but 2 runs in a 3 game series is sad against anyone.

Even while they score a lot of runs on average, they continue to be more feast or famine than a good offense should be. In their last 7 road series they are 8-14, and in 10 of those losses they scored 2 runs or fewer (2 three times, 1 three times, and 4 shutouts.). That’s a lot of games giving the team little to no chance of winning.

[Outlander]

Not really, they will have doubters until they can prove themselves in the playoffs. Still concerned about starting pitching but that wasn't really a problem during the series and Ashby's performance gives me a little hope  there. Will likely need a RH hitting OF upgrade at some point unless Chourio figures it out by the end of July. Getting Williams back makes the bullpen better and they win game 2 with a better pitcher in that spot.

[KeithStone53151]

Every team in baseball has had a bad 3 game stretch by now. We also faced the Phillies top 3 pitchers that are all in great form right now, and lost 3 games by 5 runs. We had our chances and with one or two more key hits could have won all 3 games considering how close they all were. Moving forward, the young offensive players need to continue to improve(STOP PLATOONING TURANG!!!). Would be massive if things started clicking for Chourio down the stretch and he started to become an offensive force. And maintain the lead heading into the deadline so Arnold can hopefully make a prudent move to add an arm to the rotation. We also will in theory get Devin Williams back in a month or so, which would improve the bullpen even further if all goes well.

[Brock Beauchamp]

29 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

Even while they score a lot of runs on average, they continue to be more feast or famine than a good offense should be.

As a person who watches a lot of different teams, most of baseball feels feast or famine by design. Given how players achieve success today and the velocity of pitchers, it's harder than ever to scratch runs out. The Brewers do all the things "right" that should lead to consistency - stolen bases, on-base percentage, batting average, decent power - but this is just how baseball is now (to my chagrin).

[LouisEly]

Coming into the series with PHI there were two teams in the NL who had yet to be swept in a series this season - MIL and PHI..  Now it's only PHI.  Every team goes through a rough stretch where they lose 3-4 in a row at some point in the season.

PHI has only had one starting pitcher miss time this season.  They've only had to use six starters.  Helps when your SP rotation is healthy.

There have been many comments about the Brewers "signing injury-prone pitchers", and in the PHI series I saw comments about how the Brewers could have had Zack Wheeler.  Wasn't Wheeler injury-prone?  Didn't he miss two full seasons with injury?  Didn't the Phillies give a big contract to an injury-prone pitcher?  Didn't he miss another year and a half, plus another half-season in 2017, after that trade to MKE was nixed?  The Phillies signed Spencer Turnbull as rotation depth this offseason.  Wasn't he injury-prone?  Didn't he miss most of 2021, all of 2022, and most of 2023?  The Phillies signed injury-prone starters too.

No, the Brewers are not the best team in the NL right now.  Yes, they are going through a tough stretch.  No, they don't have to have everything solved right now.  They have prospect cache to make trades in July, then just get in the playoffs and see if they can get hot (or if other team's starters get injured).

And if they don't get to the World Series, I don't care - I just enjoy watching baseball.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1.  Get Devin Williams into the closer role

2. Get at least one of Hall or Gasser healthy and back in the rotation. Sprinkle in a healthy Junis, too.

3.upgrade the offensive output from the bench

4. Sign or trade for a quality starter in the next 6 weeks.

 

The Phillies have been doing this to all of mlb so far this season - bummed the Brewers got swept on the road, but don't let this lead to an extended losing stretch that drags them back towards the rest of the NL Central 

[sveumrules]

30 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

(STOP PLATOONING TURANG!!!)

Turang has started 6 of 14 games vs LHP this year. He also appeared in 5 of the 8 games he didn’t start vs LHP.

He isn’t being platooned, just getting occasional rest in less favorable match ups.

Turang’s 30 PAs vs LHP are 8th on the team. His “platoon” partner Monasterio has 23 PA vs LHP.

[wiguy94]

Not really changed. That Phillies team is by far the best team in the NL at this point. Just insane pitching both in the rotation and pen. Their offense is really good. Their defense hasn’t been a total liability like previous seasons. 
 

Brewers bats have slumped a bit and are going through a bit of a power outage, but offenses go through stretches like this. I don’t see any reason to be hugely concerned.

[Kripes - Brewers]

Nope

[brewerfan82]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

As a person who watches a lot of different teams, most of baseball feels feast or famine by design. Given how players achieve success today and the velocity of pitchers, it's harder than ever to scratch runs out. The Brewers do all the things "right" that should lead to consistency - stolen bases, on-base percentage, batting average, decent power - but this is just how baseball is now (to my chagrin).

To add to this, I just compiled some of the Brewers' MLB rankings when it comes to scoring different amounts of runs:

• At least 1 run (94% of teams' games): 14th most in MLB
• At least 2 runs (85%): 8th
• At least 3 runs (77%): 5th
• At least 4 runs (60%): 8th
• At least 5 runs (47%): 6th
• At least 6 runs (40%): 3rd
• At least 7 runs (31%): 2nd

While it is true that they are barely above average in not getting shutout, they are solidly top 73rd-97th percentile across the board otherwise, which seems to indicate they're relatively consistent in comparison to the rest of the league (10th smallest standard deviation in their rankings in MLB).

For fun, the most consistent team across their rankings in MLB (according to smallest ranking standard deviation) are the White Sox (30th, 30th, 30th, 30th, 29th, 30th, 30th) and the second most consistent team are the Orioles (7th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 2nd, 4th).

[RightFieldCoder]

No. It was three tight games. Baseball luck went with the Phillies that series. It could have easily gone the Brewers way and the sweep could have gone the other way. I just hope that luck comes the Brewers way come October.

[Thurston Fluff]

If going 5-5 in the last 10 games is our struggling time we're doing fine. The Phillies are 27-9 at home, are playing well, have good health and one of the best pitching staffs in baseball right now. It's hard to think the Phillies will be any better than they are now in the playoffs. We know we can be better.

[Underachiever]

Three frustrating games that gave me nightmares from last year. Frelick's HBP may have lost a game for them, when have you seen that before? I know, don't count on a wild pitch to win a game. Philly's defense was great as well, and the number of plays that were thisclose was maddening for a series that was tight the whole way.

People keep posting that the pitching can't keep it up, but maybe they can! Can't argue with how the opener strategy worked this week. I hope they keep using openers. 

It really felt like a playoff-type of series to me. Fans at the game sure treated it that way.

The season is over one-third done. I don't think it's homerism to think the team is who they are, and barring any more bad injury luck, they will be in it until the end. I look forward to playoff baseball again this year.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

We are who I think we are. A top 6-10 team, not a top 5 team. Baseball being what it is, you can sometimes win it being #8 though.

[BruisedCrew]

1 hour ago, brewerfan82 said:

To add to this, I just compiled some of the Brewers' MLB rankings when it comes to scoring different amounts of runs:

• At least 1 run (94% of teams' games): 14th most in MLB
• At least 2 runs (85%): 8th
• At least 3 runs (77%): 5th
• At least 4 runs (60%): 8th
• At least 5 runs (47%): 6th
• At least 6 runs (40%): 3rd
• At least 7 runs (31%): 2nd

While it is true that they are barely above average in not getting shutout, they are solidly top 73rd-97th percentile across the board otherwise, which seems to indicate they're relatively consistent in comparison to the rest of the league (10th smallest standard deviation in their rankings in MLB).

For fun, the most consistent team across their rankings in MLB (according to smallest ranking standard deviation) are the White Sox (30th, 30th, 30th, 30th, 29th, 30th, 30th) and the second most consistent team are the Orioles (7th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 2nd, 4th).

This comes at it in a different way, but confirms what I found a few weeks ago when I looked at how many low scoring games the highest scoring teams had. While the Brewers were 2nd in runs scored per game at that time (they are now 5th), they had more high scoring games and significantly more low scoring games (which I had defined as 3 runs or less).

I would point out that Fangraphs projects the Brewers to average 4.40 runs per game for the rest of the season, a drop from their current 4.94 runs per game. They also project the Brewers to go 50-50 in their last 100 games. 
 

I don’t think a perception or opinion that the Brewers are going to have trouble maintaining the scoring pace they’ve had so far is  some wildly pessimistic viewpoint

[igor67]

I'm also in the nothing really changed camp. All 3 games were close, and any one of those plays at the plate turning out differently could have turned a loss into a win. Same obvious potential places to upgrade as before, same reasons for some optimism when it comes to pitching reinforcements. 

[Underachiever]

38 minutes ago, brewerfan82 said:

To add to this, I just compiled some of the Brewers' MLB rankings when it comes to scoring different amounts of runs:

• At least 1 run (94% of teams' games): 14th most in MLB
• At least 2 runs (85%): 8th
• At least 3 runs (77%): 5th
• At least 4 runs (60%): 8th
• At least 5 runs (47%): 6th
• At least 6 runs (40%): 3rd
• At least 7 runs (31%): 2nd

While it is true that they are barely above average in not getting shutout, they are solidly top 73rd-97th percentile across the board otherwise, which seems to indicate they're relatively consistent in comparison to the rest of the league (10th smallest standard deviation in their rankings in MLB).

For fun, the most consistent team across their rankings in MLB (according to smallest ranking standard deviation) are the White Sox (30th, 30th, 30th, 30th, 29th, 30th, 30th) and the second most consistent team are the Orioles (7th, 3rd, 3rd, 3rd, 5th, 2nd, 4th).

This is fantastic information. There's a lot of feast or famine, always has been. '27 Yankees scored 976 runs in 154 games. 337 of them (34.5%) came in 26 games (16.9%). They scored three or fewer 40 times (26% of games) and went 12-28 in those games.

[homer]

I happen to think getting Mitchell back will help the offense. 

[treego14]

Yes, sadly it has shown we are no better than we have been under Counsell.

It's not the Brewers fault, though.

They fight uphill against MLB's financial structure that is wholly unfair.

[KeithStone53151]

3 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Turang has started 6 of 14 games vs LHP this year. He also appeared in 5 of the 8 games he didn’t start vs LHP.

He isn’t being platooned, just getting occasional rest in less favorable match ups.

Turang’s 30 PAs vs LHP are 8th on the team. His “platoon” partner Monasterio has 23 PA vs LHP.

He sat 3 days in a row against LHP after being 6 for his last 13 prior to the rest. 

[brewerfan82]

27 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

He sat 3 days in a row against LHP after being 6 for his last 13 prior to the rest. 

And then he started 12 of 13 games after that including 3 of 4 against lefty starters.

[homer]

This board has been clamoring for  "consistent offense" as long as I've been on here. It used to be the brewers hit too many home runs and didn't hit for contact. Now they are hitting for contact and hitting a good amount of home runs but apparently the offense is not consistent. So how does one build a lineup that is consistent? Also, what is "consistent"? They are middle of the road in terms of K% (12th) they walk a good bit (5th)  they are 9th in home runs, 3rd in OBP, 6th in SLG...what else do they have to learn how to do? Their team offensive numbers are nearly identical to Philly. Does Philly have a consistent offense?