The Milwaukee Brewers Rotation Is Shunning Fast Fastballs: Is There An Organizational Problem With This Approach?

[Jake McKibbin]

The Brewers have a habit of zigging while others zag, and are doing so again in how they target pitchers. It's been an admirable process that has surpassed expectations with lower payrolls, but have they begun to push their cause excessively? 

Image courtesy of © Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports

The Brewers are in an interesting position. They've managed to retain just enough top of the rotation upside since the Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff, Freddy Peralta three-headed monster to remain competitive, leaning into deception to capture what they perceive as a market inefficiency. With the age of public stuff+ models (of which the teams will have their own internal, high spec models) we can classify better than ever just how "filthy" each individual pitch truly is.

The Brewers have zigged while most others zag, prioritizing a pitchers entire arsenal and how their pitches play off each other over their raw "stuff". Nearly every acquisition in the last two years has been able to throw multiple fastball variations without any of these pitches grading out particularly highly on stuff+ models, with the reason being that these pitches can seem incredibly similar at the point of making a swing decision.

The Brewers believe that tunneling (how similar pitches look at the same point a hitter) is distinctly more valuable than the sheer amount said pitch moves after release. Both are valuable in avoiding barrels, but perhaps the Brewers are beginning to go too far in favor of the former.

The two biggest contributors to how a pitcher's stuff grades out are how far it moves, and how fast it's thrown. Sandy Alcantara is able to throw sinkers that break two feet horizontally at 99 mph, just one reason why he's so difficult to square up. The Brewers rank in the bottom 10 per FanGraphs for velocity on each of the three fastball variants from their starting pitchers (and consider that their four-seam fastballs average has been boosted by a second Freddy Peralta start), while also throwing significantly more of these pitches than any other team in baseball:

So the organization, contrary to the quintessential essence of speed in a fastball, are veering away from this while using them more heavily than any other franchise, throwing them almost 25% more than their closest competitor in second. The Brewers do have some good movement on their offerings, with Peralta and Elvin Rodriguez generating strong induced vertical break (or rising effect) on their four-seamers. Nestor Cortes and Aaron Civale create positive stuff+ grades for their cutters per TJ Stats, but not to the point where you would say a pitcher could lean on that offering (and similar velocity pitches) almost 75% of the time.

The plan from the Brewers is not to generate swings and misses, but to miss barrels by small deviations in pitch movement. With their defensive setup, it's almost as good as an out, and a side effect might be how it allows flamethrowers Abner Uribe and Trevor Megill to play up when they enter the game. That being said, staying crafty requires pinpoint execution, and the Brewers do not have the room to miss their spots with the same abandon that, say the Reds can. They already learned that the hard way on opening weekend.

I do wonder as well if the Brewers as an organization are leaning too heavily into this setup. While it is advantageous in controlling the overall cost of your starting rotation, one area it shouldn't filter into too heavily is in the products coming through the farm system. Shane Smith was not the stuff+ darling he is now when the 2024 season finished, but he was understandably fatigued by the time he reached Nashville. 2024 was his first season in a starting rotation, something he built up to mid-season — it's to be expected that there may have been more in the tank. If we compare his 2024 season in Nasvhille with how Smith started the year for the White Sox, the improvement is evident:

The fastball shape is still sub-par, but this is a pitcher who had shown results, year-on-year improvements and now possesses one of the best changeups in baseball (negative induced vertical break is crazy at 90 mph). They traded this for Connor Thomas, whose main pitch had a scouting grade (per the 20-80 grade for TJ Stats model) of 35.

Thomas' main calling card is deception and he uses his entire arsenal to keep hitters off balance while barely averaging 90 mph on his fastball. It's a fair argument to say that the Brewers made this move to reinforce their 2025 bullpen in long relief, and were concerned about the fastball metrics Shane Smith produced. There is validity to this argument. The question is whether their approach to major league free agents is beginning to shift down through their system.

I make this point not because I believe either player would have markedly affected the Brewers in 2025 (at least at the time of decision-making), but because the Brewers still need to prioritize swing and miss raw offerings in the farm system wherever possible. The high price of such arms is a deterrent on the free agent market, but they need to keep a steady stream of it flowing through their minor league system in order to retain/upgrade their rotation from the song and dance form it's currently in.

For any shape concerns, Smith has shown he can generate swings and misses and also has the fastball velocity to get by on occasion. If Thomas leaves either fastball over the heart of the plate, it's immediate trouble. Simply put, velocity matters. To be a top of the rotation arm, you need that stuff that blows past hitters. Naming the top arms in the sport and you have Garrett Crochet, Paul Skenes, Spencer Strider, Jacob DeGrom, Corbin Burnes, all of whom can reach at least the mid-90s. None of the above Brewers' arms have even a 91 mph fastball offering on average.

Jacob Misiorowski and Bishop Letson are two players with the types of fastball that you can build an arsenal around with strong extension off the mound, good rise and high velocity. The Brewers will need more in this mold coming through their system if they aspire to return to that truly dominant pitching staff of yesteryear.

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[Brian]

Is There An Organizational Problem With This Approach?

There has to be when we have about 10 pitchers injured and it seems to be getting worse every year. 

Instead of focusing on location, location, location the focus on spin rate with max velocity.  Max Velo + Max Spin Rate = Injured List. 

That is a no brainer. 

[Jason Wang]

10 hours ago, Brian said:

Is There An Organizational Problem With This Approach?

There has to be when we have about 10 pitchers injured and it seems to be getting worse every year. 

Instead of focusing on location, location, location the focus on spin rate with max velocity.  Max Velo + Max Spin Rate = Injured List. 

That is a no brainer. 

Arguably, focusing on guys with lower stuff grades and passing up on the shinier arms with max velo/spin rates should give the Brewers fewer injuries when compared to their peers. I will also say 2024 was kind of a freak year for injuries and the names on the 60-day IL (Woodruff, Gasser, Hall) are holdovers from then.

Ashby and Myers are dealing with oblique issues while Civale has a hamstring problem, injuries that don't really coincide with the typical elbow/shoulder stuff we see from forcing kids to throw 98 mph at the ripe age of 12 years old.

[Brian]

7 hours ago, Jason Wang said:

Ashby and Myers are dealing with oblique issues while Civale has a hamstring problem, injuries that don't really coincide with the typical elbow/shoulder stuff we see from forcing kids to throw 98 mph at the ripe age of 12 years old.

I'm not saying at all it is "trying to through harder at a young age or any age."  I think everyone does that, even position players. 

I'm saying it is all the unnatural arm angles at any age that is the culprit.  If it were just throwing harder Nolen Ryan and Randy Johnson wouldn't have lasted a combined 49 years in the MLB.