Milwaukee Brewers Pitcher of the Month - May 2023

The Brewers have struggled in the month of May with injuries to their rotation, missing Brandon Woodruff, Wade Miley, Aaron Ashby and getting worry-inducing performances from Freddy Peralta. How tough has it been? They had to give Julio Teheran an MLB deal! That being said, there have been some standouts, and one man in particular.

Before we name our Pitcher of the Month, here are the others who were considered. 

Honorable Mentions

Corbin Burnes
Burnes has a level of expectation on him that other pitchers just don’t, purely because of how dominant he’s been for the Brewers over the last few seasons. He hasn’t looked at all like the Cy Young version of himself, with his strikeout and whiff rates in particular dropping considerably. However, he has shown an ability to pitch through the trouble, being the only Brewers starter to regularly eat innings. 

He has recorded a 3.3 ERA in May, including an eight-strikeout, seven-inning performance against the San Francisco Giants, with only a blow up against the Houston Astros to really tarnish his numbers. He gave up six home runs, far more than he would expect, but his strikeout rates did trend upwards from the month of April in a glimmer of hope that he can find a higher level of performance once again.

Devin Williams
Williams gave up just three hits in the month of May, although one was an inconsequential home run, and is still perfect in save opportunities and in tied games. Due to his reduced workload (in part because of a lack of winning situations, and also extending leads late) he has been used for more multi-inning work, including three straight multi-inning saves. 

He does have the propensity to walk batters on occasion, but he’s as cold as ice when men are on base, holding opponents to a .107 batting average. As one of the few Brewers who have been as high quality as expected, he’s been invaluable in keeping the heads above water with the currently stacked injured list.

Adrian Houser 
The blow-up start against the Toronto Blue Jays has really hurt his May numbers, with a lot of ground balls getting through the infield in both some fielding mishaps and some bad batted ball luck. However, prior to that, he showed a revised arsenal with increased usage of his four-seamer to left-handers that made a significant difference to his effectiveness. 

He had a 2.25 ERA in May prior to his start against the Blue Jays, while going 11 1/3 innings combined against the Tampa Bay Rays and Houston Astros stacked, in form line-ups without giving up a solitary run. Houser will have occasional games where balls get through the infield, and he does rely heavily on his defense, but he’ll be hoping to brush his last start off and take his form through June.

Pitcher of the Month -
Joel Payamps
Joel Payamps has been outstanding in this last month, increasingly being used in big situations during games and coming up clutch, most notably in the series against the Houston Astros where he came in for clean-up duty twice against the heart of the order, striking out all four batters faced with runners in scoring position. He has a 1.38 ERA with 20 strikeouts in 14 innings of work, holding hitters to an OPS of .559.

He is ninth in the league for relievers Win Probability Added during this stretch, initiating a lot of weak contact while also using his improved slider to strike out hitters at a far higher rate than expected, going from 6.6 K/9 in 2022 to 9.9 K/9 so far this season. This is less to do with absurd chase rates or swing and miss stuff, but he keeps hitters off balance in the strike zone, then uses slider down and away to get outs with two strikes.

Most important is the exit velocity, and as you can see below, he doesn’t allow too much hard contact. When he keeps the four seamer up in the zone, it's nearly impossible to square up. The sinker has been hit hard, but the movement profile does allow his slider to play better.

Payamps is currently in the 91st percentile for average exit velocity, 94th percentile for walk rate and 78th percentile for strikeout rate.’ He has been an excellent addition for the Brewers, and they’ll hope to see it continue through June.

So what do you think of the choice for Brewers pitcher of the year? How would you rank their performances? What does it mean? Leave some comments below.