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    Is Bryse Wilson's 2023 Success Sustainable?

    Jason Wang

    By Jason Wang

    Bryse Wilson was one of the most underrated relievers in baseball last year. Will we see him repeat his success, or has he flown too close to the sun?

    Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

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    Bryse Wilson wasn’t supposed to be anything close to an elite bullpen arm. Originally being groomed as a starter, he pitched to a gruesome 5.52 ERA and 1.42 WHIP over 115 ⅔ innings with the Pirates in 2022. After he was designated for assignment and traded to the Brewers in exchange for cash considerations, the expectations around him were pretty low. There were those who doubted he would even make the team. Few, if any, could’ve foreseen what he would end up doing in 2023.

    The Brewers moved him to the bullpen and he served as a long reliever, pitching as many as four innings in a game (against the Padres on August 27) and frequently getting to two or three. He cut his ERA and WHIP down to 2.58 and 1.07, respectively--excellent numbers and big improvements over what he had been doing in Pittsburgh. So, what changed?

    Other than the obvious shift in responsibility from starter to reliever, Wilson drastically increased the usage of his cutter. He went from throwing 72 cutters in 2022 to throwing 401 of them in 2023, and it ended up being his best pitch. He also made some upgrades to his four-seam fastball, which went from a run value of -10 in 2022 to 5 in 2023. To make room for these arsenal adjustments, he essentially phased out his changeup and totally got rid of his slider. 

    Interestingly, his cumulative chase, whiff, and strikeout rates all remained in the bottom quartile of qualified pitchers, so he didn't suddenly start blowing guys away at the plate. In fact, his cutter had a measly strikeout rate of just 13.6%, despite accumulating a run value of 8 and being his best pitch. Instead, he was able to generate soft contact on his cutter consistently enough for it to be effective without insane velocity or spin. Here is the result of every Wilson cutter batters put into play last year:

    W65RVU6VOxBc4YT66pOEWzuAFEcRmjbggmCfaAWS

    While I’m no Driveline/Tread Athletics employee, I wanted to speculate about some of the intrinsic properties that made the pitch the way that it was. First, I took a look at the placement of his cutter within the strike zone. Here’s the heat map for all of the cutters he threw in 2023:

    Xv324inpozMEq_2g5_DmwdVY2V4EuI-gsJqlmSwz

    With this placement, he jams lefties and goes away from righties' barrels. It’s still in the zone, so he wasn’t giving up a ton of walks on the pitch ,but it was very rarely middle-middle. What Wilson lacks in velocity, he makes up for in command, allowing this approach to work. To justify this hypothesis and also to get out of spending time with my family, I separated the heat map between cutters that resulted in outs (left) vs those that resulted in hits (right).

    60RWunvKmQRuId9PBA41llZ-eFcUahHir3D6Q39E nDIs0Ck8fvjhh6O3RbHwcW-JGJIwz9qX4JLveBk-

    What these pictures illustrate is that when he hit his preferred spots, things usually went his way. Times in which he left the cutter a little too close to the heart of the zone often ended up biting him in the butt. The story is much the same with his four-seam fastball, with his strikeout rates holding steady year-over-year but his quality of contact improving drastically.

    But back to the original question: can we expect this to happen again next year? Alas, the answer seems to be “not likely.” Statcast had his 2023 xERA marked at 3.98, and FanGraphs is projecting his ERA to jump up to a whopping 4.45 in 2024. Both of these make sense, given that his FIP was a gnarly 4.13, indicating a lucky streak to his performance. While he doesn't give up many walks or home runs, his strikeout rate is simply too low to push his FIP any lower. Nor can we be sure the home-run prevention will stick around in 2024.

     

    Furthermore, Wilson's pitch-to-contact style undoubtedly benefited from one of the best defenses in baseball. If that aspect of the team sees regression this year--as great team defenses nearly always do--it could further ding him. Brewers fans should know better than anyone not to underestimate the Willy Wonka-like magic that happens within the team’s pitching development program, but I wouldn’t bet the house on Wilson repeating his spectacular 2023 just yet.

    Do you think Wilson will be back in the bullpen, come Opening Day? Can he have another season as valuable as last year? Let us know below.

    Follow Jason Wang on Twitter: jasonwang7517

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    sveumrules

    sveumrules 8,276

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    Anytime someone posts a 2.58 ERA vs a 4.13 FIP, they are likely due for some regression on their run prevention.

    The good news for Wilson is that the Brewers were the best team in MLB last year when it came to FIP beating with a 3.73 team ERA to go along with a 4.21 team FIP.

    It wasn’t a one year blip either, going all the way back to 2016 they have been the 3rd biggest FIP beaters in MLB at a 3.91 team ERA vs a 4.12 team FIP.

    I’d expect some regression, but not as much as the projections are anticipating, because they struggle with  consistent FIP beaters - a big reason the Brewers have consistently beat their projections. 

    Look at Wade Miley, going back to his first stint with the Brewers in 2018 he has a 3.43 ERA vs a 4.24 FIP making him the biggest FIP beater in MLB with at least 500 IP.

    Still, even with a sample that large of beating his FIP, the best projection he has is for a 4.24 ERA coming off of a 3.26 ERA and 4.24 FIP over the last three years and 300 IP.

    • Like 1
    Bashopolis

    Bashopolis 56

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    Every year, at least one relief pitcher suffers significant regression and isn't part of the MLB team by about July.  Last year it was Stryzelecki.   

    Hopefully, it is only one this year, but considering how the Brewers bullpen performed so well last year, with a number of unheralded players, there may be more than one this year. 

    If it is only one, having that one be Bryse Wilson wouldn't be a worse thing.  The Brewers have a lot of coverage in the long relief/spot starter position on the roster.  

    The Brewers would likely rather have Wilson regress rather than Payamps or Peguero.  

    • Like 2
    Jake McKibbin

    Jake McKibbin 1,683

  • Brewer Fanatic Contributor

    • Posted

    3 hours ago, eddiemathews said:

    The moral of the story: if you don't strike guys out, any pitching success is a mirage.

    I present to you Wade Miley

    I think there are ways to get consistent success without it, though it takes a very different skill and you have to have solid movement profiles and excellent command to pull it off. If either of those slip, you're toast. But Kyle Hendricks has lived off a changeup and solid location the last few years to just get GB after GB, so I think it can succeed again this season. One big factor will be the defense they put out, if it's anything like as strong as last season's, or potentially even better, then there's every possibility the likes of Peguero and Wilson can repeat their success.

    • Like 1
    sveumrules

    sveumrules 8,276

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    7 hours ago, eddiemathews said:

    The moral of the story: if you don't strike guys out, any pitching success is a mirage.

    That’s pretty much what it boils down to. Limiting walks helps, getting grounders and soft contact is good too, but ultimately Ks are King.

    There are 104 pitchers with at least 300 IP since 2021. Sorting the leaderboard by ERA- it looks like the Top 8 all have an above average K%+.

    First guy with a below average K rate is Sandy Alcantara at #9 though his 99 K%+ is just the tiniest bit below the line.

    The aforementioned Miley (76 K%+ | 75 ERA-) at #11 is the first guy on the list notably below average at getting punch outs, with Ranger Suarez (97 K%+ | 76 ERA-) at #12 another guy just below average.

    After that everyone from #13 to #43 on the list has a K%+ of 99 or better with the exception of Marcus Stroman (93 K%+ | 84 ERA-) at #34 on the leaderboard.

    All told there are 44 pitchers over the last three years to have posted an 89 ERA- or lower over at least 300 IP.

    Of those 44 only Miley, Suarez, Stroman and Martin Perez (82 K%+ | 89 ERA-) posted a K%+ below 99.

    The other three guys joining Alcantara with a 99 K%+ were Jordan Montgomery, Merrill Kelly and Patrick Sandoval.

    • Like 1
    eddiemathews

    eddiemathews 200

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    13 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

    That’s pretty much what it boils down to. Limiting walks helps, getting grounders and soft contact is good too, but ultimately Ks are King.

    There are 104 pitchers with at least 300 IP since 2021. Sorting the leaderboard by ERA- it looks like the Top 8 all have an above average K%+.

    First guy with a below average K rate is Sandy Alcantara at #9 though his 99 K%+ is just the tiniest bit below the line.

    The aforementioned Miley (76 K%+ | 75 ERA-) at #11 is the first guy on the list notably below average at getting punch outs, with Ranger Suarez (97 K%+ | 76 ERA-) at #12 another guy just below average.

    After that everyone from #13 to #43 on the list has a K%+ of 99 or better with the exception of Marcus Stroman (93 K%+ | 84 ERA-) at #34 on the leaderboard.

    All told there are 44 pitchers over the last three years to have posted an 89 ERA- or lower over at least 300 IP.

    Of those 44 only Miley, Suarez, Stroman and Martin Perez (82 K%+ | 89 ERA-) posted a K%+ below 99.

    The other three guys joining Alcantara with a 99 K%+ were Jordan Montgomery, Merrill Kelly and Patrick Sandoval.

    Yup. Getting a batter via the K means you have a 99.99% chance that he will be out. If you rely on more batted ball outs the chances that it isn't an out increase astronomically. Errors, driblers, seeing-eye hits, bloops...all of these mean more baserunners. The best pitchers will almost always be the guys that are really difficult to get the bat on the ball. It is, of course, generally important to not walk tons of guys, too.

    Until we get to the time when MLB is filled with 13 guys like that in every roster spot (and we seem to get closer to it every year), teams will have to rely on some pitchers that don't pitch with high k rates.. And yeah, they can be inconsistent because of bad luck, injury, etc. BTW, I always have thought that Burnes has had really bad luck on batted balls. It seemed really weird.

    Of course, a lot of these "soft tossers" would rate as above average in velocity even 20 years ago.

    Thurston Fluff

    Thurston Fluff 763

  • Verified Member

    • Posted

    13 hours ago, sveumrules said:

    That’s pretty much what it boils down to. Limiting walks helps, getting grounders and soft contact is good too, but ultimately Ks are King.

    There are 104 pitchers with at least 300 IP since 2021. Sorting the leaderboard by ERA- it looks like the Top 8 all have an above average K%+.

    First guy with a below average K rate is Sandy Alcantara at #9 though his 99 K%+ is just the tiniest bit below the line.

    The aforementioned Miley (76 K%+ | 75 ERA-) at #11 is the first guy on the list notably below average at getting punch outs, with Ranger Suarez (97 K%+ | 76 ERA-) at #12 another guy just below average.

    After that everyone from #13 to #43 on the list has a K%+ of 99 or better with the exception of Marcus Stroman (93 K%+ | 84 ERA-) at #34 on the leaderboard.

    All told there are 44 pitchers over the last three years to have posted an 89 ERA- or lower over at least 300 IP.

    Of those 44 only Miley, Suarez, Stroman and Martin Perez (82 K%+ | 89 ERA-) posted a K%+ below 99.

    The other three guys joining Alcantara with a 99 K%+ were Jordan Montgomery, Merrill Kelly and Patrick Sandoval.

    I think that shows strikeout pitchers can succeed anywhere. For teams that put a high priority on defense FIP beating may be a lot easier to do.



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