What Do The Brewers Need To Do In September To Score A Playoff Bye Round?

[Jim Goulart]

 

[Jason Wang]

Because of their success this year, Milwaukee could get a few extra days of rest in October.

Image courtesy of © Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

It has been a great regular season for the Brewers so far. They have vastly exceeded expectations, and since they’re comfortably winning the NL Central, the next goal should be to skip straight to the division series, if possible. 

As things currently stand, the Dodgers have the most wins in the National League with 81, while the Phillies and Brewers are just two games back with identical records of 79-56. This gives the Dodgers a clear bye, but we’ll have to head to a tiebreaker for the other two teams. 

The first factor is the head-to-head record. Unfortunately for Milwaukee, the only series they played against Philadelphia was a three-game sweep back at the start of June. On the other hand, they have an upcoming three-game series at home to settle the score. If the Brewers manage to sweep the Phillies right back, then the head-to-head record will be 3-3, so we’ll have to defer to the second tiebreaker, their record against division opponents.

Some might say the Phillies and Brewers are not in the same division. While I personally deny such outlandish claims and believe them to be a part of a larger conspiracy, I must admit that it’s technically true. However, MLB still uses intradivision record as the tiebreaker in this case. Against NL Central teams, the Brewers are 28-16, giving them a winning percentage of 63.6%. Against NL East teams, the Phillies are 21-15, giving them a winning percentage of 58.3% so that the Brewers would take the #2 National League seed and the attached bye.

But hold on, the season isn’t exactly over yet. There are under 30 games to play, and a lot can change over that span, especially if teams are currently caught in a deadlock. If we instead try to imagine the playoff bracket after a full 162 games have been completed, things look slightly different. Per FanGraphs, the Dodgers are still projected to end up on top with 97 projected wins. The Phillies come in second with 94 projected wins, and the Brewers get relegated to the Wild Card Round with 93. Still, there’s a meager spread of just four games between first and third here, so what can the Crew do to sway the odds back in their favor?

Based on FanGraphs, they have the strongest strength of schedule of the three current division leaders down the stretch. A couple of upcoming series that could prove to be somewhat challenging are the Diamondbacks (twice) and Phillies. Furthermore, the Mets and Cardinals aren’t exactly pushovers, even though the Brewers have played well against them this year. Finally, there’s a three-game set against the Giants on the schedule, and they’ve had a decent second half, going 21-18 with a +10 run differential.

The Phillies have to wrap up their series against the heated rival Braves, but after that, their schedule doesn’t contain any playoff locks other than the Brewers. Instead, it’s filled with four games against the Marlins, three games against the Cubs, three games against the Nationals, and seven games against the Mets. 

Mathematically, the Brewers just need to win one more game than the Phillies to get ahead, but because of the difference in opponent quality, they have a slightly uphill battle to fight if they want to seize the #2 seed. On the bright side, the Phillies seem to have hit a bumpy stretch after the All-Star break, while the Brewers are riding high on upward momentum, which could shift the sands in a meaningful way.  

But is getting a bye even beneficial? The 2023 postseason called this into question after every team that received a bye other than the Astros was bounced out in their first series, leading to the #5 seeded Texas Rangers and #6 Arizona Diamondbacks playing for the grand prize. In my opinion, this concern can be attributed more to recency bias as well as the inherent uncertainty of baseball. The biggest advantage of the bye is being able to orient your pitching staff the way you want while keeping them fresh. Milwaukee’s rotation has been a sore spot since the offseason, but with the top of their rotation seeming to hit a stride, this could give the team the upper hand.

Who knows, maybe we’ll get to see more than one round of playoff Brewers baseball for the first time since 2018.

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[Brian]

I will be pulling for the Braves sweep since they won the first game of their 3 game series over the Phillies.

Go Braves Go!