Jared Koenig Just Keeps Getting Outs, Stopping Runners, and Helping Brewers Win Games

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images

Even when a scrap-heap reliever pickup is a success, you try not to expect too much. It's a win if you get 15 good innings (or 40 merely average ones) from a pitcher signed as a minor-league free agent or scooped up in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft. If you can get about 50 out of them, you've really turned a neat trick. That's what the Brewers did with Bryan Hudson, for instance. The only downside is that, somewhere between inning 15 and inning 50, it gets hard to let a guy go, and you might end up swallowing some ugly innings that leave a bitter taste in your mouth. 

The really brilliant outcomes are the times when a pitcher can go right past inning 50 without losing steam—but even then, guard your heart. These are relievers, after all, and when a guy is available for free, there's always a reason that runs even deeper than the fact that he's a reliever. Very, very few scrap-heap relievers get to inning 100 in good standing. Just ask Hudson.

Jared Koenig has pitched 95 2/3 innings for the Brewers, if you count the two outs he recorded for them in last year's Wild Card Series. He's closing in fast on that century mark, and showing no signs of slowing down. He's also showing no signs of speeding up. He's simply worked his way into a high-leverage setup role, throwing 97-mph sinkers and 91-mph cutters and some sweepers or curveballs (your choice, what you call that breaking ball, but it's a doozy), and settled in to stay this way a while.

Though his ERA is up from 2.47 last year to a less thrilling 3.82, Koenig's strikeout and walk rates are virtually identical to what they were last year. He still keeps the ball in the park pretty well; he still induces plenty of ground balls. He's actually filling up the strike zone more this year, though it's not showing up in that walks column, and he's locating everything a bit more consistently, though it's not showing up in his ability to miss bats.

"Everything’s moving how I want it to—a little less errant on some glove-side balls," Koenig said Sunday. "To be honest, I think I filled up the zone better last year than I have this year."

He's been cognizant of throwing more strikes, but feels he isn't being rewarded for them—not in a frustrated way, but objectively. He's fine with it. It's part of his game.

"For me, it’s typically missed calls," he said. "I’m usually on the higher end of the not getting calls spectrum—which is fine, that’s just how it’s always been. I think it’s the uniqueness [of his combination of delivery and movement], for sure."

Koenig does believe he's executing his sinker a bit better, with the result being heavier action even when he hits the top end of his velocity range (where, in the past, he's tended to see the ball take off and carry more than he would prefer). In general, though, he's doing things the way he did them last year, and getting similarly valuable results. Whatever the ERA might imply, he had a 1.6 WPA last year (win probability added, which estimates the change in a team's chances of winning the game that took place while the pitcher was on the mound), and is at 0.6 in about half as much time this year. In other words, he's again en route to being a very valuable secondary relief option.

Part of the reason he's been so able to stifle opponents, despite good-not-great strikeout and walk rates, is that he chokes off the running game. Of the 456 pitchers with any significant number of pitches thrown with runners on base this year, Koenig ranks 17th in terms of distance from the base runners have achieved by the time he releases the ball—and 12th in the amount they've gained between his first move and that release. He's exceptionally hard to run on, something in which he takes immense pride.

"I like being able to hold runners. Being a starter, that was my job," Koenig said. "Being left-handed, I’ve never had the best move to first, but I was very good at looks, timing, things like that—reading mannerisms. My goal is to keep runners at bay, if I can."

Reading a runner and holding the ball are helpful, to be sure, but in the pitch timer era, that's harder to do. A hurler has to get into their set early enough to enjoy the luxury of varying the length of their hold, without giving up a free ball to the batter. The whole process is a bit rushed, and the runner has an edge.

"The pitch clock definitely makes it harder. The limited disengagements definitely hurts, as well," Koenig acknowledged. "It takes away a lot of the cat-and-mouse part of the game, which, that’s frustrating, but you just learn to adapt with it and utilize the clock if you can."

Learning to adapt and utilizing what he can has become Koenig's specialty. As he nears 100 innings in a Brewers uniform, he's still doing it exceptionally well. As the Brewers dig in for a hard second-half fight to win their third straight NL Central crown, Koenig is a vital piece. In all aspects of his game, he's working hard to make sure he can hold up his end of the bargain.

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[Brian]

Koenig needs to pitch with a corn cob pipe in his mouth and get an anchor tattoo. 

[Brian]

"I love a good nap. That's the only thing getting me out of bed in the morning." 

[MattK]

I still have fear that Hudson won't have been bargain basement. We need 5 years to see if Chambers develops. 

[izzi]

Koenig is wash