Brewers (Drohan) vs Cardinals (May): 7/6/26, 6:45pm

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 minutes ago, owbc said:

For real. I watch about equal between the Brewers and the Mariners. The Mariners are 47-44, in first place, and are coming off of an ALCS appearance. 

The Brewers are 1000x more watchable. It's not even close. When I saw the Brewers are hitting like .150 with RISP over a few weeks, I was like, whatever, the Mariners batted .150 as a team in all situations back in April for like two weeks. Most of the Mariners' offense is to draw a couple walks and hope for a home run. 

A little over a month ago, I went to two Mariners in the span of about a week and they GOT ONE HIT BOTH TIMES! I'm not even joking. Then the third game I went to they got 4 hits and that felt like a lot. 

Rob Reysnyder has gotten 119 PAs for the Mariners in a favorable platoon situation. He is batting .133 with an OPS+ of 22. And he doesn't make up for it with his glove. 

I could go on and on. Remember, the Mariners are not bad, they are in first place with a +27 run differential and will likely win their division. Yes, they pitch well, but their pitching ability is about equal to Milwaukee and actually worse when you take away their favorable home ballpark. 

Brewers fans are going to be in for a rude awakening the next time we have a below-average offense. The average offense in MLB is terrible and half the teams are worse than that! 

There was a time when I thought Refsnyder would make a nice bench bat. Didn't know he's dropped so far off the face of the earth.

Good points. I think when the Brewers struggle to score offensively, don't get runs in from 3rd w/less than two outs, etc a lot of fans watch the highlight shows & see people hitting the ball out of the park, running around the bases, etc. Those are HIGHLIGHTS. The Vasgersians of the world are usually able to ignore the other 90-95%. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

52 minutes ago, Soupy said:

Pretty sure Yelich has a no trade clause. He isn’t going to approve a trade to the Mets. 

The Mets wouldn't approve, either.

[owbc]

37 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

There was a time when I thought Refsnyder would make a nice bench bat. Didn't know he's dropped so far off the face of the earth.

Good points. I think when the Brewers struggle to score offensively, don't get runs in from 3rd w/less than two outs, etc a lot of fans watch the highlight shows & see people hitting the ball out of the park, running around the bases, etc. Those are HIGHLIGHTS. The Vasgersians of the world are usually able to ignore the other 90-95%. 

Buyer beware for any player in their mid-30s, especially role players. You never know when they are going to fall off a cliff. 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

They are really winning on the back of talent this year. Haven't played the clean baseball we are used to seeing from them which I think is a testament to how much the talent on the team has improved.

I was looking at some of their W/L splits on BRef today and I think the year over year progression on margin of victory/defeat does a pretty good job illustrating how much they have been improving from a talent standpoint...

2023 (92 W - 70 L | +81 RDiff)
OneRun: 29 W - 18 L | +11 runs
TwotoFour: 44 W - 37 L | +33 runs
FivePlus: 19 W - 15 L | +37 runs
[47 OneRun games represented 29% of the season total, while 34 FivePlus were only 21%. The Brewers 4.49 R/G was only 17th in MLB for the season so they needed to do well in the games with closer margins because their offense wasn't capable of producing many blowouts or winning them at a top end clip]

2024 (93 W - 69 L | +136 RDiff)
OneRun: 28 W - 25 L | +3 runs
TwotoFour: 36 W - 34 L | +2 runs
FivePlus: 29 W - 10 L | +131 runs
[53 OneRun games represented 32.7% of the season total, while 39 FivePlus were 24.1%. The Brewers increased their offensive output to 4.80 R/G (6th) which helped them to a slightly higher percentage of blowout games with a much improved W% & margin of victory in those games as well]

2025 (97 W - 65 L | +172 RDIFF)
OneRun: 28 W - 20 L | +8 runs
TwotoFour: 32 W - 29 L | +10 runs
FivePlus: 37 W - 16 L | +154 runs
[48 OneRun games represented 29.6% of the season total, while 53 FivePlus represented 32.7%. The Brewers again increased their offensive output to 4.98 R/G (4th) which helped them to a much higher percentage of blowout games where they again dominated their opponents]

2026 (56 W - 33 L | +128 RDiff)
OneRun: 14 W - 12 L | +2 runs
TwotoFour: 21 W - 14 L | +22 runs
FivePlus: 21 W - 7 L | +104 runs
[26 OneRun games represent 29.2% of the season total so far, while 28 FivePlus represent 31.4%. The Brewers scoring is up yet again at 5.09 R/G (4th) while the pitchers have also shaved a quarter run per game from last year at 3.65 RA/G (2nd) which has again allowed them to have a high percentage of blowout games that they are winning at an improved clip by larger per game margins]

The percentage of OneRun games remaining relatively static year to year while the percentage of blowouts takes a big jump between 2024/2025 is a pretty good indicator of how much the talent level has been improving.

In 2023 they made more hay in the low margin games than they did in their blowouts because they weren't that much better than their opponents. In 2024 they made almost the entirety of their hay over their 39 blowout games. These last two years the magnitude and frequency of those blowouts has taken another couple two tree steps forward. 

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

I was looking at some of their W/L splits on BRef today and I think the year over year progression on margin of victory/defeat does a pretty good job illustrating how much they have been improving from a talent standpoint...

2023 (92 W - 70 L | +81 RDiff)
OneRun: 29 W - 18 L | +11 runs
TwotoFour: 44 W - 37 L | +33 runs
FivePlus: 19 W - 15 L | +37 runs
[47 OneRun games represented 29% of the season total, while 34 FivePlus were only 21%. The Brewers 4.49 R/G was only 17th in MLB for the season so they needed to do well in the games with closer margins because their offense wasn't capable of producing many blowouts or winning them at a top end clip]

2024 (93 W - 69 L | +136 RDiff)
OneRun: 28 W - 25 L | +3 runs
TwotoFour: 36 W - 34 L | +2 runs
FivePlus: 29 W - 10 L | +131 runs
[53 OneRun games represented 32.7% of the season total, while 39 FivePlus were 24.1%. The Brewers increased their offensive output to 4.80 R/G (6th) which helped them to a slightly higher percentage of blowout games with a much improved W% & margin of victory in those games as well]

2025 (97 W - 65 L | +172 RDIFF)
OneRun: 28 W - 20 L | +8 runs
TwotoFour: 32 W - 29 L | +10 runs
FivePlus: 37 W - 16 L | +154 runs
[48 OneRun games represented 29.6% of the season total, while 53 FivePlus represented 32.7%. The Brewers again increased their offensive output to 4.98 R/G (4th) which helped them to a much higher percentage of blowout games where they again dominated their opponents]

2026 (56 W - 33 L | +128 RDiff)
OneRun: 14 W - 12 L | +2 runs
TwotoFour: 21 W - 14 L | +22 runs
FivePlus: 21 W - 7 L | +104 runs
[26 OneRun games represent 29.2% of the season total so far, while 28 FivePlus represent 31.4%. The Brewers scoring is up yet again at 5.09 R/G (4th) while the pitchers have also shaved a quarter run per game from last year at 3.65 RA/G (2nd) which has again allowed them to have a high percentage of blowout games that they are winning at an improved clip by larger per game margins]

The percentage of OneRun games remaining relatively static year to year while the percentage of blowouts takes a big jump between 2024/2025 is a pretty good indicator of how much the talent level has been improving.

In 2023 they made more hay in the low margin games than they did in their blowouts because they weren't that much better than their opponents. In 2024 they made almost the entirety of their hay over their 39 blowout games. These last two years the magnitude and frequency of those blowouts has taken another couple two tree steps forward. 

Yeah I think talent wise we just haven’t had a team this good. Even with some of the soft skills deteriorating a bit namely baserunning and fielding range (OAA) the team is winning more than they ever have previously. Don’t think we have had this combo of pitching and offense before. The early 2020 teams were much more pitching heavy. The last two years were more hitting, speed, defense heavy. Now we have such a good combo of pitching and offense. 

[SF70]

5 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Yeah I think talent wise we just haven’t had a team this good. Even with some of the soft skills deteriorating a bit namely baserunning and fielding range (OAA) the team is winning more than they ever have previously. Don’t think we have had this combo of pitching and offense before. The early 2020 teams were much more pitching heavy. The last two years were more hitting, speed, defense heavy. Now we have such a good combo of pitching and offense. 

Offensive Development/Experience/Maturity.

Same on the pitching side with an assist from the FO and their incredible trade with the Boston Red Sox.

[Bernies Sponsor]

7 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

Yep, a full no trade clause and a no early opt out clause. 

Does the no-trade clause also require that he continue to hit leadoff? For how flexible Murph has been with the lineup this season, he’s so weirdly stubborn about this 

[SeaBass]

47 minutes ago, Bernies Sponsor said:

Does the no-trade clause also require that he continue to hit leadoff? For how flexible Murph has been with the lineup this season, he’s so weirdly stubborn about this 

After the first at bat of the game he becomes the 9 hitter. Feel better?

[Outlander]

Will be interesting to see what the Brewers do with a Hamilton IL stint, would make sense with the All Star Game coming up to give him an extended stay off and ready to go after the break. Jett Williams would appear to be the choice but also Leonard, but neither would provide a lefty platoon bat that Hamilton provided. Since Jett has to be added to the 40 man after the season anyway, would just go with him and 60 day IL Lockridge since he has already been out 60 days. Hopefully he can stay hot like he currently is in the minors.

[JoeyWiemerTruther]

32 minutes ago, Outlander said:

Will be interesting to see what the Brewers do with a Hamilton IL stint, would make sense with the All Star Game coming up to give him an extended stay off and ready to go after the break. Jett Williams would appear to be the choice but also Leonard, but neither would provide a lefty platoon bat that Hamilton provided. Since Jett has to be added to the 40 man after the season anyway, would just go with him and 60 day IL Lockridge since he has already been out 60 days. Hopefully he can stay hot like he currently is in the minors.

Very curious what they do and this is the first injury to a position player in over a month I believe. Black is already on the 40 man and fills the lefty batter spot but doesn’t play 3B. Could play Vaughn at 3B and Black at 1B some the next week but not super ideal I’m sure. Otherwise Jett Williams, Luke Adams, Eddys Leonard, Brock Wilken play 3B but all are righty batters and not on the 40 man. Although a 40 man spot isn’t a big concern as Lockridge to 60 day IL can create a spot as you said. Curious what they do. Likely don’t look outside the org for an option. Probably 95% chance it’s one of Black or Jett if I had to guess.

[CheezWizHed]

Drohan has been a bigger surprise this year than Harrison!  When the trade came in, I thought he was going to be the typical AAAA player/BP long man/emergency starter.  He has really proven himself worthy of a #3-4 starter and similar to last year's Priester. 

Boston must just hate us... (although Durbin has looked much better lately). 

[cragi]

IIRC they moved Leonard to OF and he’s not a good defender. Not likely to see him except as a bench bat late season. 

Adams also not a great defender and plays more 1b for the brewers. But man would I love to see some of his pop right now.

That makes Williams the likely choice. He’s been warming up his bat lately. Can provide defensive flexibility at SS and 3B, and the brewers put a high value on defense (limiting team’s overall pitches).

[owbc]

19 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

Drohan has been a bigger surprise this year than Harrison!  When the trade came in, I thought he was going to be the typical AAAA player/BP long man/emergency starter.  He has really proven himself worthy of a #3-4 starter and similar to last year's Priester. 

Boston must just hate us... (although Durbin has looked much better lately). 

I'm glad Durbin is doing better, we need teams to continue to want to trade with us 😅

[formerlybis]

1 hour ago, Outlander said:

Will be interesting to see what the Brewers do with a Hamilton IL stint, would make sense with the All Star Game coming up to give him an extended stay off and ready to go after the break. Jett Williams would appear to be the choice but also Leonard, but neither would provide a lefty platoon bat that Hamilton provided. Since Jett has to be added to the 40 man after the season anyway, would just go with him and 60 day IL Lockridge since he has already been out 60 days. Hopefully he can stay hot like he currently is in the minors.

Seeing Lara's getting the call, He's on the 40-man and he's listed as a switch hitter. We'll see if he's the replacement for Hamilton going on the IL or if there's another move to shore up the infield - send down Perkins? If there's two moves, send Lockridge to 60-day, too.

All of the infielders on the 40-man are currently on the big-league roster. If there's a defensive specialist left side infielder in Nashville, that'd be my pick - I'd rather have the up-and-coming prospects play every day and keep developing than bring'em up and play sparingly.

[BruisedCrew]

2 hours ago, SeaBass said:

After the first at bat of the game he becomes the 9 hitter. Feel better?

People obsess too much over the batting order. 

If Yelich was moved to 6th or 7th they’d complain about how often he comes up with men on base.

At least when Yelich gets on base he’s a good base runner who can be advanced by the better hitters who follow  

As I said the other day, I have to think that his back is really hurting and he could use a few weeks on the IL to see if that helps  Maybe they’ll do that after the break  

 

 

[Team Canada]

2 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

If Yelich was moved to 6th or 7th they’d complain about how often he comes up with men on base.

At least when Yelich gets on base he’s a good base runner who can be advanced by the better hitters who follow  

Yeah, Yelich at least historically provided a decent OBP even after his power dipped, and obviously is sublime at running the bases. That's a good description of a leadoff hitter. Now it's probably more out of habit than anything. If Mitchell stays on fire he should move up.

[formerlybis]

Waiting for today's game 1 IGT, but it looks like STL is going with an opener and then probably a AAA call-up against Miz. Should be a mismatch, but...baseball. It'd be nice chew up their bullpen - they may have made a few moves.

[wiguy94]

2 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

People obsess too much over the batting order. 

If Yelich was moved to 6th or 7th they’d complain about how often he comes up with men on base.

At least when Yelich gets on base he’s a good base runner who can be advanced by the better hitters who follow  

As I said the other day, I have to think that his back is really hurting and he could use a few weeks on the IL to see if that helps  Maybe they’ll do that after the break  

Yelich has graded out as an average baserunner this year likely because his sprint speed is down 1 ft/sec and he’s now below 50th percentile by sprint speed.

[BruisedCrew]

12 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I was looking at some of their W/L splits on BRef today and I think the year over year progression on margin of victory/defeat does a pretty good job illustrating how much they have been improving from a talent standpoint...

2023 (92 W - 70 L | +81 RDiff)
OneRun: 29 W - 18 L | +11 runs
TwotoFour: 44 W - 37 L | +33 runs
FivePlus: 19 W - 15 L | +37 runs
[47 OneRun games represented 29% of the season total, while 34 FivePlus were only 21%. The Brewers 4.49 R/G was only 17th in MLB for the season so they needed to do well in the games with closer margins because their offense wasn't capable of producing many blowouts or winning them at a top end clip]

2024 (93 W - 69 L | +136 RDiff)
OneRun: 28 W - 25 L | +3 runs
TwotoFour: 36 W - 34 L | +2 runs
FivePlus: 29 W - 10 L | +131 runs
[53 OneRun games represented 32.7% of the season total, while 39 FivePlus were 24.1%. The Brewers increased their offensive output to 4.80 R/G (6th) which helped them to a slightly higher percentage of blowout games with a much improved W% & margin of victory in those games as well]

2025 (97 W - 65 L | +172 RDIFF)
OneRun: 28 W - 20 L | +8 runs
TwotoFour: 32 W - 29 L | +10 runs
FivePlus: 37 W - 16 L | +154 runs
[48 OneRun games represented 29.6% of the season total, while 53 FivePlus represented 32.7%. The Brewers again increased their offensive output to 4.98 R/G (4th) which helped them to a much higher percentage of blowout games where they again dominated their opponents]

2026 (56 W - 33 L | +128 RDiff)
OneRun: 14 W - 12 L | +2 runs
TwotoFour: 21 W - 14 L | +22 runs
FivePlus: 21 W - 7 L | +104 runs
[26 OneRun games represent 29.2% of the season total so far, while 28 FivePlus represent 31.4%. The Brewers scoring is up yet again at 5.09 R/G (4th) while the pitchers have also shaved a quarter run per game from last year at 3.65 RA/G (2nd) which has again allowed them to have a high percentage of blowout games that they are winning at an improved clip by larger per game margins]

The percentage of OneRun games remaining relatively static year to year while the percentage of blowouts takes a big jump between 2024/2025 is a pretty good indicator of how much the talent level has been improving.

In 2023 they made more hay in the low margin games than they did in their blowouts because they weren't that much better than their opponents. In 2024 they made almost the entirety of their hay over their 39 blowout games. These last two years the magnitude and frequency of those blowouts has taken another couple two tree steps forward. 

I know a lot of people don’t like it when I do this, but I continue to think that the facts support the premise that the Brewers run prevention is playing a much bigger role in their success than the offense.

I pointed out at the end of May that the Brewers offense that month produced only 4.15 RPG, which was 10th in the NL and well below the league average of 4.54 RPG. But the RAPG was a sensational 2.77, a clear first in the NL and more than a run and a half better than the league average of 4.34.

The first 3 series in June (Giants, Rockies, A’s) produced explosions of runs by both the Brewers and their opponents that skew the season long numbers. But the Brewers went 6-4 so that goofy stretch didn’t affect the pattern of wins and losses. 

Since returning from Vegas, the May pattern has returned. The Brewers  have gone 15-8, 4th best in the NL, while scoring 4.39 RPG (9th best in the NL and well below the league average of 4.96). But, like in May, their RAPG of 3.30 is best in the NL and a run and a half below the league average of 4.80 and 0.7 better than the second best Marlins. 

It appears that as the weather has heated up scoring has increased but the Brewers haven’t kept up. I have heard some rumors or speculation that the baseballs have been tightened up and are now flying farther. Maybe that explains why the Brewers have been hitting more home runs even though their overall scoring hasn’t increased as much as the rest of the league.

 

[BruisedCrew]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

Yelich has graded out as an average baserunner this year likely because his sprint speed is down 1 ft/sec and he’s now below 50th percentile by sprint speed.

How do those grades take into account ability to run the bases efficiently? Going from first to third or second to home is not just a matter of sprint speed. 

[rickh150]

Guessing Yelich bunts too..

[rickh150]

Doubles i meant

[sveumrules]

4 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

I know a lot of people don’t like it when I do this, but I continue to think that the facts support the premise that the Brewers run prevention is playing a much bigger role in their success than the offense.

Run Prevention has always been the Boat Floater (including this year) but by virtue of starting from a better position than the offense it has had less room for improvement over the years.

2017-22 Full Stearns / Counsell
481 W - 390 L | .552 W% (7th)
4.24 RA/G (7th) | 4.55 RS/G (16th)
92 ERA- (6th) | 95 FIP- (7th) | 101 wRC+ (14th)

2023-24 Arnold / Murphy Transition
185 W - 139 L | .571 W% (4th)
3.98 RA/G (2nd) | 4.65 RS/G (12th)
88 ERA- (1st) | 99 FIP- (14th) | 99 wRC+ (18th)

2025-26 Full Arnold / Murphy
153 W - 98 L | .610 W% (1st)
3.82 RA/G (1st) | 5.02 RS/G (3rd)
83 ERA- (1st) | 90 FIP- (2nd) | 106 wRC+ (5th)

Year over year from 2023 to present their RS/G has increased by a total of +0.60 runs per game while their RA/G has also decreased year over year since 2023, but only by a total of -0.34 runs per game.

Both sides have upped their respective talent levels contributing to the increase and magnitude of Blowout games these last two seasons versus past iterations, but the offense going from middling to almost as good as the Run Prevention has contributed around 64% of the overall improvement in run differential since 2023 versus 36% for the Run Prevention side going from really good to even better & now with the peripherals to match.

 

[wiguy94]

4 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

How do those grades take into account ability to run the bases efficiently? Going from first to third or second to home is not just a matter of sprint speed. 

That's what BsR measures and it says Yelich has been average this year.