The Brewers Dominate Opponents in... Time of Possession?

In basketball and American football, time of possession is a carefully tracked team statistic. It's a stand-in for overall quality of play and control of the action, meant to help one discern when the scoreboard isn't telling the whole story. In world football, a graphic pops up fairly often to tell the viewer which team has had possession for a greater percentage of the time. This is valuable information, forming a natural avatar for the physical game. Because those games are played end-to-end, with each team defending a goal and trying to advance the ball toward the other one, we naturally (and usually accurately) envision greater time of possession for one side as more time spent in the other team's end, where they have a relatively strong chance to score and the other team has virtually none.

Our brains don't naturally map time of possession onto baseball in the same way, because baseball is not a linear game. It's played in circles, with each side defending the same territory in their turns, and there's no clock on the game (save the countdown clock that is the number of outs left for a team, after they begin with 27). Yet, it matters. After all, whereas all those other sports contain at least some means by which to immediately convert defense to offense within a single play, baseball is rigid. Only one side is allowed to score at a time, so "possession" is more valuable there than in any of the other three sports considered here.

Moreover, part of what time of possession communicates is which team is more tired. It's harder, by conventional wisdom at least, to play defense than to play offense, in all three of the end-to-end sports. American football uses two different shifts of personnel, but in basketball and soccer, whichever side has had greater time of possession can be expected, on average, to be fresher at the end of the game. Well, this, too, is truer in baseball than anywhere else. Pitches are precious; each one is a tick on the odometer of a hurler who could break down under their accumulating workload. Plus, when you're on offense, several teammates have the chance to sit down, get some water, and relax. While you're on defense, every player in the game (save the DH) has to be on the balls of their feet, running, diving, hustling, thinking hard.

Of course, because it's a game of turns instead of territory, baseball enforces a relatively even distribution of possession. That's why we tend not to think about it much. Teams can't usually make the election to play a more possession-focused version of the game. You can be a pitch-to-contact staff, but that only works if you're good enough to get outs at a high rate that way. You can be a take-and-rake offense, but that will only lengthen your term of possession if you get on base that way. It's as much a measure of skill, on both sides of the ledger, as it is of style.

Today, let's take a look at it, anyway. Here's how all 30 teams are doing, so far in 2024, in terms of possession rate and win percentage. I created Possession Rate, and it's very simple: The percentage of all pitches thrown in all games for a team that were thrown by opponents, while they were on offense. By making it pitches, rather than plate appearances, we at least allow for the stylistic variations between teams, even though we'll still end up measuring their quality, as much as their preferences.

As the headline there implies, Possession% is a very good predictor of Win%, and again, that makes sense. It's not necessarily saying that possession is extremely valuable, in and of itself, but rather that when we measure Possession%, we catch a lot of team quality in the net. As fans of the end-to-end sports well know by now, those games' versions of time of possession are also noisy, with the caliber of a team dictating their ability to maintain possession, rather than their affinity for possession contributing to their overall quality.

The relationship is not a blip, though, and neither is the Brewers' very high rating. They've consistently been an above-average team in Possession% since their breakthrough season under Craig Counsell, in 2018. (The only data point here in which they ran on the wrong side of 50% in Possession was 2020, which doesn't count.)

This season's Crew has been especially dominant in terms of possession, though, for reasons that should be familiar by now. The team's hitters hardly ever expand the zone and are relatively patient even within it, and their pitchers go right after opponents, but don't miss an exceptional number of bats. They have a great defense and a good, OBP-focused offense. Of course they're doing well in terms of Possession%.

But wait, there's more here! According to Statcast, only three teams--the Giants, Guardians, and Royals--work faster, on average, than do the Brewers. The Pace metric listed is just an average number of seconds between pitches, and it's rough-hewn. It doesn't perfectly account for timeouts, pitching changes, and other such wrinkles, but as far as it goes, we can say this: the Brewers make the other team stay on the mound and stand in the field more than all but two other teams in the league, and when they're on the mound and in the field, they not only economize in terms of pitches thrown, but minimize the actual, real-world time they spend there.

Pitching injuries and heavy bullpen use remain legitimate concerns for the Brewers, as they prepare for the stretch run toward another NL Central title. The need for William Contreras and Willy Adames to get a little bit more rest is also very real, and can't be totally erased by the team's excellence in maintaining Possession%. Maybe there's some extra value, though, in forcing the other team to play more defense than you play early in the season. Maybe that leaves more in your tank for August and September.

By measuring two totally distinct sets of games, here, we weaken the relationship between Possession% and Win%. You'd need to do much more rigorous, fancier math to say for sure whether maintaining a high Possession% over the first few months means a fresher, better team for the final two, but there's a logic (and a small amount, at least of evidence) to support that.

The season resumes Saturday. The Brewers have to be ready, because the Cardinals aren't going away, and even if they hold them off, the job isn't done. The goal for this team should be to keep playing well into October, and to make a deeper run than they have in years once they reach the postseason. The good news is, so far, they're showing the ability to preserve some bullets, some energy, and the opportunity to score for themselves, at the expense of their opponents. Perhaps no team in the league is doing it better.