2025 Projections

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Brian Kenny of MLB Network predicts 8 WAR season for Chourio

Jackson played at a 1 WAR per 100 PAs pace over the last four months.

Brewers leadoff hitters got 755 PAs last year.

So essentially would just need to hit leadoff all year and see a slight uptick in his wRC+ or defense/base running numbers to get there.

[Jim Goulart]

Carrying some of 2024 into 2025 -

 

[sveumrules]

Since we know the Brewers cleared their projected win total easily (again) I thought it might be interesting to look back at some of the individual preseason inputs versus what actually ended up happening. I had posted some areas that might be ripe for extra wins before the season began so I will quote from those below...

On 2/8/2025 at 3:04 AM, sveumrules said:

the FG depth charts project the 2025 Brewers for 23.9 batting runs...On the other two components they are projecting the 2025 Brewers for +8.2 base running and +9.4 fielding.

Brewers position players ended up with 50.4 batting runs, +15.0 BsR, and +21.7 fielding on the end of season FanGraphs team leaderboards. That's an extra 45.6 runs or about four to five wins there.

On 2/8/2025 at 3:04 AM, sveumrules said:

On the pitching side the depth charts like the rotation for 891 IP of 3.98 ERA | 4.10 FIP good for 12.0 WAR...we know the Brewers rotation has posted a -0.42 ERA/FIP gap over the last two years, quite a bit larger than the projected -0.12 gap.

Brewers rotation came in at 807 IP of 3.56 ERA | 4.07 FIP. Their actual -0.51 ERA/FIP gap ended up much closer to the last two years than the projection. At 17.2 rWAR that is another five wins or so.

On 2/8/2025 at 3:04 AM, sveumrules said:

The 2025 bullpen is projected for 3.1 WAR. The last two years the Brewers bullpen has posted 10.6 fWAR (8th), 20.0 rWAR (1st), and +24.87 WPA (1st). Now of course Devin Williams accounted for 2.7 fWAR, 4.3 rWAR, and +6.18 WPA all by himself, and he gone. But even so, the Brewers could regress all the way down from 8.5 rWAR in 2023 and 11.5 rWAR in 2024 to around six rWAR in 2025 and still come in at three wins ahead of the projection.

Brewer bullpen ended up with (drum roll please) 6.8 rWAR, which is another three to four wins over the projections.

Obviously a lot of offseason left, but the way too early look at the FanGraphs Depth Charts has the Brewers batters regressing from 28.2 WAR last year down to 23.1 WAR projected for 2026. On the pitching side they have the Brewers projected for a 4.02 ERA | 4.14 FIP | 15.4 WAR next year compared to a 3.59 ERA | 3.91 FIP last year which shook out to 24.0 rWAR | 18.6 fWAR.

So quick and dirty (& again way too early) it looks like somewhere around a projected loss of eight to fourteen wins depending if they are showing rWAR or fWAR (more likely since its FanGraphs) on their pitching Depth Chart pages.