Inside The Milwaukee Brewers Players Project: Unsung Brewers Heroes of 2015

[Michael Trzinski]

The 2015 version of the Milwaukee Brewers was not a good club, limping to a 68-94 mark, 32 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central. Manager Ron Roenicke was canned after a 7-18 start and was replaced by Craig Counsell. The trio of players featured in this piece were among the best players on that team. 

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

Adam Lind 
Adam Lind joined the Brewers in November 2014 in exchange for pitcher Marco Estrada. The team was looking for a power bat, and the 31-year-old provided that in 2015. Lind ranked third on the team with 20 home runs, 32 doubles, 87 RBIs, 66 walks, and 11 intentional passes. He also ranked in the top three in five other categories.

In October, David Stearns took over as the Brewers GM and went to work wheeling and dealing, doing his best to re-stock the Brewers somewhat empty cupboard. One trade saw Lind and his $8 million millstone traded to the Seattle Mariners for three minor league pitchers: Daniel Missaki, Carlos Herrera, and a guy named Freddy Peralta.

 

Gerardo Parra
Gerardo Parra was traded to Milwaukee before the 2014 trading deadline in exchange for pitcher Anthony Banda and outfielder Mitch Haniger. Parra--a two-time Gold Glove winner--split time at all three garden spots the last two months of the season, slashing .268/.318/.390 over 123 at-bats.

The following season, Parra once again played outfielder utilityman and had 75 starts among 89 games in 'the corn.' After a red-hot July in which Parra had a 14-game hitting streak and was batting .435/.495/.718, he was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in exchange for minor league pitcher Zach Davies. In 100 games for Milwaukee, Parra slashed .328/.369/.517 over 323 at-bats.

 

Michael Blazek
Michael Blazek spent two full seasons and parts of two others with the Brewers as a right-handed reliever, but the 2015 was his best. He came to the Brewers from the St. Louis Cardinals in a PTBNL trade for pitcher John Axford. After a September sip of Starbucks, Blazek spent the entire 2014 season at Triple-A Nashville, where he worked out of the pen and in the rotation.

His 2015 season saw him post career highs with 45 games, 55.2 innings, 47 strikeouts, 164 ERA+, 3.17 FIP, and 2.42 ERA. Blazek's 1.2 bWAR ranked fifth on the team for pitchers. After a disappointing 2016 (76 ERA+, 5.71 FIP), he only appeared in five games with Milwaukee in July 2017 before getting released. He did set a major league record, though: he allowed five home runs in one inning against the Washington Nationals on July 27.

 

Lind, Parra, and Blazek had solid seasons for the Brewers in 2015. Although they weren't the brightest stars in the Brewers universe, they had some of the best years of their careers during that otherwise dismal 2015 campaign.

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[Frisbee Slider]

Looking back on 2015, I thought surely we had more unsung heroes than this but actually no, not really. 

The bullpen was good with K-Rod, Jeffress, Will Smith, Knebel and Cotts (also Blazek). 

Rotation had Taylor Jungmann’s bright rookie season 3.77 ERA over 117 IP and Mike Fiers with 3.89 ERA over 118 IP. Jimmy Nelson was solid enough, too.

Offset by Lohse and Garza’s worst years in their careers. 

[Michael Trzinski]

2 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Looking back on 2015, I thought surely we had more unsung heroes than this but actually no, not really. 

The bullpen was good with K-Rod, Jeffress, Will Smith, Knebel and Cotts (also Blazek). 

Rotation had Taylor Jungmann’s bright rookie season 3.77 ERA over 117 IP and Mike Fiers with 3.89 ERA over 118 IP. Jimmy Nelson was solid enough, too.

Offset by Lohse and Garza’s worst years in their careers. 

Yeah, there were more for sure, but these three just stuck out to me. Lind had been a pretty solid power bat with Toronto but was coming off a 2014 season which was limited due to a broken foot. He had the highest bWAR on the team with 3.6 in 2015.

Parra only played four months with the Brewers until he got traded to Baltimore. To show what a monster July he had? He raised his batting average 30 points before he was traded!

'Blazer' had the best year of his career and was a dependable component of the 'pen.