Why Andrew Vaughn is the Odd Man Out in Wednesday Night's Brewers Lineup

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

When Pat Murphy and the Brewers staff sits down to fill out the lineup card each day, they have a wealth of good options. Frustrating though it might be for fans to watch some of the weak hitters at the bottom of the order bat, Joey Ortiz, David Hamilton, Cooper Pratt and Blake Perkins each have considerable defensive and baserunning value. Ditto for Sal Frelick, when he's right. And even among their more offense-focused personnel, they have several good guys from whom to choose. Murphy has loved having such flexibility all season. Even during spring training, he was effusive about the improved depth of his team.

It does make the choices on which they settle more interesting, though. For instance, against a starter without stark platoon splits—and with different approaches based on the handedness of the opposing batter—how do you choose between Jake Bauers and Andrew Vaughn at first base?

Earlier this week, our Jack Stern wrote about the team's tendency to default to Bauers, even since Vaughn returned from the injured list at the beginning of May. Jack couched that daily dilemma largely in terms of the platoon advantage, and indeed, with right-handed starter Gavin Williams taking the ball for Cleveland on Wednesday night, it's Bauers starting over Vaughn. But there's a bit more to that decision, too.

Firstly, Williams is one of an increasingly common breed of pitcher who essentiually workessentially from two distinct arsenals. Against righties, he leans heavily on a sinker and sweeper, moving east and west to find outs. Against lefties, he switches gears, going mostly with a four-seamer and a curveball and mixing in a cutter. Thus, when evaluating which hitters match up best against him, the Brewers almost have to ask which hitter they trust against the type of pitcher Williams is in those specific matchups—while baking in the demonstrated value of having at least a couple of same-handed batters in a lineup to force a pitcher to switch back and forth between approaches or pitch mixes.

Because of the way the team's lineup works right now, this means assessing Vaughn, Bauers, Jackson Chourio, William Contreras and Frelick. In theory, the Brewers could sit any of them, or start all five, but mostly, Contreras's days at catcher and the imperative to use Christian Yelich when he's available will set up a short series of real dilemmas:

1. Is Bauers or Vaughn better-suited to hit the opponent?
2. If it's Bauers, should he go play the outfield for the night, at the expense of either Chourio or Frelick, making way for Vaughn?

The Brewers gave us their answer when they issued the night's lineup card. Bauers is in there. So are Frelick, Garrett Mitchell and David Hamilton, over possible right-handed alternatives like Gary Sánchez and Joey Ortiz. Contreras and Chourio made the cut from the right side, but Vaughn didn't. The interesting question is: Why those guys? And now, we can furnish some answers to ourselves, using new Statcast data.

Simply put, Vaughn struggles with the sinker-sweeper righty. That might be his toughest matchup. Looking at the distributions of his swing timing in all three dimensions against sinkers and sweepers from right-handed hurlers, you can see that Vaughn is often off the center of the barrel, often early or late, and unable to line up the barrel with the ball vertically as much as the average batter.

This data is quite new, so I'm not expecting you to have contextualized the above already. Hopefully, though, you can see the difference between those distributions and these, for Chourio:

Chourio can cover both pitches from a righty much better than Vaughn can. Even some of the times on which he's slightly off—early on the sweeper, for instance—result in hard contact in the air, because of his bat path and the way he adapts based on what he sees. Vaughn's best swing takes him through the ball on the inner third, and he struggles to connect cleanly if a pitch appears to be headed there and then ends up on the outer edge, instead. Chourio is much better at it.

Starting Chourio over Vaughn, then, would be an easy choice, but that's not really the choice the Brewers faced. They first had to decide whether to give the nod to Vaughn or Bauers at first base, and that meant evaluating Bauers's ability to handle a righty who throws a four-seamer, a curveball and a cutter.

The curve is awfully tough on Bauers, truth be told, but he's unexpectedly excellent at covering the four-seamer from a righty—especially up, His ability to line up the barrel with the ball vertically is far superior to that of the average batter, and with his elite bat speed, he's able to punish mistakes on either the cutter or the curve. In the past, we could have shrugged and said that a lefty is likely to hit a righty better than a righty is. Now, we can see clearly that Bauers is better able to stay on time and make solid contact against a pitcher like Williams than Vaughn is.

The final option for the team would be to bench Frelick at Vaughn's expense, by moving Bauers out to right field. That's a decision they need to weigh a bit more seriously, unless and until Frelick shows more than he has of late either at bat or in the field. When it comes to hitting a righty like Williams, though, Frelick is much better equipped to make solid contact than is Vaughn.

Frelick is superb at staying on time and finding the barrel against this suite of pitches, in this kind of matchup. His very low bat speed and tendency to let the ball get too deep on him are real concerns, but he's still much better against this type of pitcher than Vaughn is against the type of pitcher Williams is against righties. That's not to mention that a defensive configuration with Frelick in right field and Bauers at first is more robust than one with Vaughn at first and Bauers in right.

Not all starting pitchers pose such interesting problems. Not all teams have such an array of possibilities when building a lineup. Thankfully, though, we now have some insight into how the Brewers can choose between those options on a fascinating night like Wednesday. Vaughn doesn't belong in the lineup initially, but that doesn't mean there won't be a pitcher later in the game against whom he's the right bat. And the Brewers are armed with terrific data to tell when and whether that moment comes.

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[ChapelHeel66]

Can’t sit Chourio, ever, really.  I love Frelick but if he needs to sit to get Vaughn’s bat, you’ve got to do it.  Sal has managed -0.3 WAR in more than 200 PAs.  Vaughn is +0.9 in less than 100 PA.  He is 147 OPS+ as a Brewer.  No amount of corner outfielder defense makes up for that delta, and Sal’s not a great defender anyway., at least not this year.

It’s working, but it seems like something that’s going to catch up to us eventually.  Vaughn won’t be able to get into a rhythm.. And maybe worse, the adherence to Frelick, who was really good last year but ONLY last year, might keep the team from acquiring a bat at the deadline. 

[Brian]

9 hours ago, ChapelHeel66 said:

Can’t sit Chourio, ever, really.  I love Frelick but if he needs to sit to get Vaughn’s bat, you’ve got to do it.  Sal has managed -0.3 WAR in more than 200 PAs.  Vaughn is +0.9 in less than 100 PA.  He is 147 OPS+ as a Brewer.  No amount of corner outfielder defense makes up for that delta, and Sal’s not a great defender anyway., at least not this year.

It’s working, but it seems like something that’s going to catch up to us eventually.  Vaughn won’t be able to get into a rhythm.. And maybe worse, the adherence to Frelick, who was really good last year but ONLY last year, might keep the team from acquiring a bat at the deadline. 

Brandon Lockridge could be coming back in a few weeks so Sal better get it together quickly.  Wonder if it will be right after the All Star break? 

[sveumrules]

13 hours ago, ChapelHeel66 said:

Can’t sit Chourio, ever, really.  I love Frelick but if he needs to sit to get Vaughn’s bat, you’ve got to do it.  Sal has managed -0.3 WAR in more than 200 PAs.  Vaughn is +0.9 in less than 100 PA.  He is 147 OPS+ as a Brewer.  No amount of corner outfielder defense makes up for that delta, and Sal’s not a great defender anyway., at least not this year.

It’s working, but it seems like something that’s going to catch up to us eventually.  Vaughn won’t be able to get into a rhythm.. And maybe worse, the adherence to Frelick, who was really good last year but ONLY last year, might keep the team from acquiring a bat at the deadline. 

Since coming back from his hamate injury Vaughn has hit 258/324/339 (89 wRC+) over 68 PA vs RHP and 545/625/939 (325 wRC+) over 40 PA vs LHP.

Sal has hit 259/339/348 (95 wRC+) over his 185 PA vs RHP so far this year compared to 158/210/228 (21 wRC+) over his 62 PA vs LHP.

Expanding it out to the last two years vs RHP its 238 PA of 263/319/423 (106 wRC+) for Vaughn compared to 605 PA of 275/346/408 (112 wRC+) for Sal. 

Vaughn's edge in the seasonal numbers you quoted are coming entirely from his massive advantage vs LHP. Sal has performed better against RHP, especially when considering he has an advantage in speed/defense over Vaughn too.

Frelick has also been improving overall after a rough start at 199 PA of 214/284/295 (62 wRC+) through May but 48 PA of 310/396/405 (130 wRC+) since the calendar flipped to June. Small sample, sure, but guessing the Brewers are going to want to give him some opportunities to see if maybe he's starting to figure something out.

[Turning2]

It's a slavish submission to speculative measurements versus playing the best ball players based on actual statistics and production. Thank you moneyball for turning managerial expertise into little more than paint by numbers.... duh.... this is what the numbers tell me to do, so that's what I do..... Might as well have AI managers, save on payroll. 

[mudbutt]

I don't think it's speculative anymore when he's been mediocre against Righties for a few years now.

[liveforoctober]

At this point I kind of want us to give Vaughn 10 starts against RHP pitching so his overall numbers can go below .300, etc and we don't have to have this convo every single game.

.. and if he proves against his norms and plays well then I'll take the crow and the Crew will have probably won a bunch in the process.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, Turning2 said:

It's a slavish submission to speculative measurements versus playing the best ball players based on actual statistics and production.

In both the recent term, and in the entirety of their time together on the Brewers, Sal has better actual statistics and production than Vaughn does against RHP.

 

[Turning2]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

In both the recent term, and in the entirety of their time together on the Brewers, Sal has better actual statistics and production than Vaughn does against RHP.

 

But managing day to day isn't that simplistic and binary. Ballplayers aren't robots. Actuarial tables (which is all metrics are essentially) may provide insight, but they are still simply predictive models and nothing else. There is heart and soul, flesh and blood, emotions, passions, pride, revenge motivations that fuel a player. That must be accounted for and simply cannot be by just punching numbers into formulas, spitting it out in a spreadsheet.  

Maybe instead Murphy comes to Vaughn and says... "all the metrics and its devotees say you're a bum against RHP. I want to know what YOU say to that? You want to prove them wrong? Want to tell them to jam it where the sun don't shine???...  Yes? ... Then go do it, give me a reason not to PH you in these situations." 

Managers need to challenge their players. Metrics lets them off the hook. It also lets players off the hook from pushing themselves more often than not. I loved it when Mis defied Murphy on the mound last week and made it known for all to see that he was "good, don't take me out, I GOT THIS, #*@&-it!" That was a giant middle finger to this data as god mentality.

I'll admit - there is a usefulness in data analysis, be it real stats or speculative metrics. Batting orders, lineups have always been constructed based off that type of information obviously. But managers need to know the psyche, the mental makeup of their players and base decisions at least partially off that as well. Too much of today's game is paint by numbers. We're a predictions market, gambling mindset culture. Just play the numbers, cut out the human element. Like I alluded to earlier, why not just have AI run the management of a game day roster? It will analyze the numbers, assess the best metrics driven move for each at bat, each scenario and situation far better than any human manager can do.

Is that what we want? That's where its headed. Count me out if it comes to that. That isn't baseball anymore.

 

[liveforoctober]

2 hours ago, Turning2 said:

But managing day to day isn't that simplistic and binary. Ballplayers aren't robots. Actuarial tables (which is all metrics are essentially) may provide insight, but they are still simply predictive models and nothing else. There is heart and soul, flesh and blood, emotions, passions, pride, revenge motivations that fuel a player. That must be accounted for and simply cannot be by just punching numbers into formulas, spitting it out in a spreadsheet.  

Maybe instead Murphy comes to Vaughn and says... "all the metrics and its devotees say you're a bum against RHP. I want to know what YOU say to that? You want to prove them wrong? Want to tell them to jam it where the sun don't shine???...  Yes? ... Then go do it, give me a reason not to PH you in these situations." 

Managers need to challenge their players. Metrics lets them off the hook. It also lets players off the hook from pushing themselves more often than not. I loved it when Mis defied Murphy on the mound last week and made it known for all to see that he was "good, don't take me out, I GOT THIS, #*@&-it!" That was a giant middle finger to this data as god mentality.

I'll admit - there is a usefulness in data analysis, be it real stats or speculative metrics. Batting orders, lineups have always been constructed based off that type of information obviously. But managers need to know the psyche, the mental makeup of their players and base decisions at least partially off that as well. Too much of today's game is paint by numbers. We're a predictions market, gambling mindset culture. Just play the numbers, cut out the human element. Like I alluded to earlier, why not just have AI run the management of a game day roster? It will analyze the numbers, assess the best metrics driven move for each at bat, each scenario and situation far better than any human manager can do.

Is that what we want? That's where its headed. Count me out if it comes to that. That isn't baseball anymore.

 

I do agree with you.. It is definitely ironic that we are talking about players not being robotic and having guts/soul and the two players in question are Vaughn and Sal. I'm not sure anyone on the team is more robotic than Vaughn.. perhaps Drohan. I'm also not sure there's anyone that sacrifices his body more for the squad than Sal.. perhaps Contreras. 

Your overall point though is a good one and one I agree with. Just funny that these are the two players in question.