Brewers Pitchers Are Attacking Hitters With an Unintimidating But Diverse Mix of Fastballs

After losing co-aces Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff over the offseason, the Brewers entered the season prepared to deploy a mix-and-match approach to their pitching staff.

That mixing and matching quickly reached greater proportions than the Brewers were probably anticipating. They’ve had an entire rotation’s worth of pitchers on the injured list for much of the year, forcing them to deploy 16 different starters before the All-Star break.

The flexibility has extended beyond the number of pitchers Milwaukee has used. It also applies to the way many of those hurlers have attacked hitters.

Staffs led by Burnes and Woodruff could overpower hitters with velocity and plus breaking pitches. That’s not the case for a staff that has turned to Colin Rea and Bryse Wilson for many of its bulk innings behind Freddy Peralta.

“Our guys generally, if you just look at it, they’re average or below-average on their fastball,” pitching coach Chris Hook said.

Velocity alone would lead most observers to that conclusion, but so do more advanced pitch modeling numbers. Brewers pitchers registered an above-average 103 Stuff+ on their four-seam fastballs in 2023. This year, they’re near the bottom of the league, at 97. The staff’s sinker Stuff+ has dropped from 95 to 88, and its overall Stuff+ from 102 to 96.

Most of Milwaukee’s bulk pitchers can’t blow guys away with their fastballs, so the Brewers have adjusted their plans of attack accordingly. They’ve aimed to compensate for a lack of velocity and outstanding movement by mixing an array of fastball shapes to various locations.

“We’re not a ‘stuff’ club,” Hook said. “Obviously, there’s some guys that have elite fastballs on this club, but we have to balance it out, and we have to balance our attack plan, too.”

It’s not a new strategy. The Brewers applied it to a plethora of pitchers before this year, including Rea, Wilson, Julio Teherán, Hoby Milner, and Joel Payamps. They value pitchers who can throw multiple kinds of fastballs, and work with them to arrive at the best way to mix those pitches.

“I think that’s what we try to do and what you see as we acquire guys,” Hook said. “We try to spread out that spectrum, I guess is the best way to look at it. And I think that leads to good outcomes.”

Milwaukee’s pitching staff has leaned into that approach even more this year, setting itself apart from most teams.

The Brewers are bucking one of the most prominent trends of modern pitching. Fastball usage has steadily declined across baseball over the last decade, and breaking ball usage has increased. The Brewers, meanwhile, are throwing a fastball variation (four-seamers, sinkers, or cutters) 63% of the time, the highest rate in baseball.

How the Brewers distribute their usage of those three fastballs also stands out. The Red Sox have the most balanced fastball mix by far, due to their unusually high cutter usage, but the Brewers reside comfortably with the Rays in the second tier.

The Brewers feel that balance is the best way to maximize success for many of the pitchers on this year’s staff. They don’t have standout four-seamers, sinkers, or cutters, but the thought is that mixing all three is often the best way to make an unassuming arsenal more effective.

“It’s just trying to spread out outcomes,” Hook explained. “If we don’t have one huge strength, then we’ve got to spread it out. That’s just how we have to do it.”

Mixing four-seamers and two-seamers is a key component of that approach. Back in spring training, Milner voiced his belief that every pitcher should throw two variations of their fastball. Hook echoed that sentiment, citing what he dubs the “protection” one provides the other. A two-seamer down in the zone may be a pitcher’s best fastball, but an elevated four-seamer that grades out as a bad pitch on its own can still be valuable. It makes the two-seamer more effective by forcing the hitter to cover another fastball shape and location.

“I look at it as, the two pitches work together in tandem as one’s a protector of [the other]. This is my quality pitch that I get guys out with most of the time, but I’m going to use the four to protect that or vice versa. Hoby, he’s using the four to help the two. He’ll use the four up in the zone to right-handers to protect the two.

“Those are the things that we’re always balancing out. We’re like, ‘Hey, this is not his best pitch, but we need to use it in these particular situations.’”

The Brewers carry their mix-and-match approach into situations where most teams pare down their pitch mix. They have the fourth-highest sinker usage in two-strike counts and in plate appearances with the platoon disadvantage. These are times when most teams will avoid sinkers, if possible. It’s not a swing-and-miss pitch in a putaway count. Nor does its shape profile well against opposite-handed batters, who have an .828 OPS against sinkers this year.

Those factors don’t concern the Brewers nearly as much as spreading out their pitcher’s arsenal and letting him throw the pitches they believe he can execute best. If a sinker provides the necessary difference from what the hitter has already seen and is most likely to reach the intended location, they’ll call for a sinker.

“Two-strike pitches, to me, I’ve got to command that baseball,” Hook said. “I don’t want to go with the best pitch and then I leave it [over the plate]. That’s not going to do me any good. So it’s more based on the pitcher and what he commands best in those counts.”

With this understanding of how the Brewers think about pitch usage, some pitch calls that initially seem counterproductive start to make more sense. Rea is a great example.

Opponents have slugged .596 against Rea’s cutter over the last two years, yet he continues to throw it frequently, because the different look contributes to the effectiveness of his sinker. Hitters have slugged just .310 against his four-seamer, with a 25.3% whiff rate, but he avoids throwing it more because he knows its effectiveness stems from its separation from the sinker. If hitters see more four-seamers, the pitch’s usefulness will fade.

The Brewers have held opponents to the seventh-lowest OPS in baseball against four-seamers, sinkers, and cutters. Much of that is due to their excellent defense, but it’s also a product of the approach Hook and the rest of Milwaukee’s run-prevention staff have instructed: using variety to compensate for a lack of standout pitch qualities.

“Using several fastballs, using our fourth pitch, whatever it is, we have to use it all to get outs in this league.”