The Brewers Have Done It Again: Trevor Megill & The Dominant Closer Theory

I understand the hesitancy people will have in handing a proverbial crown to a guy who has made all of four appearances and pitched three and one-thirds innings this season. It's a sample size smaller than "small", and yet, my goodness. Is Trevor Megill good or what?

Sure, we sort of knew this last year when Megill filled in for an ailing Devin Williams and locked down 21 saves and earned a 2.72 ERA (3.10 FIP) in 48 appearances. The team traded Williams to the Yankees this offseason precisely because it knew it had a closer in waiting, much like when they traded Josh Hader to the Padres in the summer of 2022. Much like Williams' early struggles in the Bronx right now, Hader imploded upon arriving in San Diego (though he eventually figured things out) while the Brewers anointed "The Airbender" as the most dominant closer in the bigs for the next 2.5 seasons.

So, let's just revel in the new guy the Brewers have slamming the door shut in the ninth inning. He's obviously not going to keep this pace up across the whole 162-game season, but man are these numbers fun to gawk at.

Let's start with the basics: Megill has allowed two hits and zero walks in his 3 1/3 innings of work, good for a 0.00 ERA and 0.600 WHIP. Not impressed? Can I offer you a literal 50% strikeout rate? Or what about a -0.60 FIP. Yes, his Fielding Independent Pitching is currently in the negatives. Teams aren't allowed to give runs back, but Megill is trying his darnedest to make it possible.

He's also allowing a .333 BABIP, which is about 75 percentage points higher than last year, suggesting a bit of bad luck may even be baked into his numbers, especially when you consider he's in the top percentile in hard contact allowed.

Yes, there's been some worrisome trends in the early going, including the face his fastball velocity (97.3 mph) is currently down about 1.5 mph from last season. Still, his knuckle curve is generating whiffs at the exact same 55% rate it did last year, and the fastball is actually faring far better in that realm, generating whiffs on 38.5% of swings. Plus, that curve has allowed a .319 wOBA thus far, compared to an expected .172 xwOBA. It's hard to overstate just how good of a spurt this has been.

Now is the time when I encourage you to all slow your horses before banging on the drum for Megill to become the first reliever to win Cy Young since Eric Gagne did it for the Dodgers in 2003. There's a lot of season left to go, and we all know how one bad appearance can completely ruin a reliever's stats.

But, for what it's worth, through eight combined appearances thus far, the difference in WAR between Megill and Williams is 0.5. It isn't supposed to be easy to move on from someone named after the Avatar, but not everyone has a Trevor Megill to fall back on.