sveumrules

wRC+ is just a more granular version of OPS+. League average OPS with runners on was 735 in 2022. Brewers as a team were at 756, Renfroe at 843. League average OPS with RISP was 741 in 2022. Brewers as a team were at 798, Renfroe at 823.

Kinda crazy to think that Corbin, Woody and Freddy have all been on the team together for half a decade now. Thought it might be a good opportunity to look back on how they have evolved individually and as a trio over the years. 2018 (65 G | 18 GS | 158.2 IP | 2.3 rWAR | 1.9 fWAR) Freddy: 78.1 IP | 105 ERA- | 92 FIP- | 1.0 rWAR | 1.2 fWAR Woody: 42.1 IP | 89 ERA- | 81 FIP- | 0.4 rWAR | 0.5 fWAR Burnes: 38.0 IP | 64 ERA- | 93 FIP- | 0.9 rWAR | 0.2 fWAR [Got their feet wet in the regular season, then showed a glimpse of what they were really capable of throwing a combined 24.1 IP of 1.85 ERA with 37 K | 7 BB in the playoffs.] 2019 (93 G | 44 GS | 255.2 IP | 0.3 rWAR | 3.8 fWAR) Woody: 121.2 IP | 82 ERA- | 67 FIP- | 3.0 rWAR | 3.3 fWAR) Freddy: 85.0 IP | 119 ERA- | 94 FIP- | -0.6 rWAR | 0.9 fWAR) Burnes: 49.0 IP | 199 ERA- | 137 FIP- | -2.1 rWAR | -0.4 fWAR) [All three started the year in the rotation, only Woody ended there. Made playoffs anyway with a miraculous September run.] 2020 (40 G | 23 GS | 162.2 IP | 5.2 rWAR | 5.3 fWAR) Woody: 73.2 IP | 68 ERA- | 72 FIP- | 2.3 rWAR | 2.1 fWAR Burnes: 59.2 IP | 47 ERA- | 46 FIP- | 2.5 rWAR | 2.4 fWAR Freddy: 29.1 IP | 89 ERA- | 54 FIP- | 0.4 rWAR | 0.8 fWAR [Burnes emerges as an ace & Freddy starts figuring it out while Woody just did Woody things.] 2021 (86 G | 85 GS | 490.2 IP | 17.0 rWAR | 16.2 fWAR) Woody: 179.1 IP | 61 ERA- | 69 FIP- | 6.3 rWAR | 4.7 fWAR Burnes: 167.0 IP | 58 ERA- | 38 FIP- | 6.2 rWAR | 7.5 fWAR Freddy: 144.1 IP | 67 ERA- | 73 FIP- | 4.5 rWAR | 4.0 fWAR [Love it when a plan comes together. Three All Stars, an historic FIP season from Burnes, Woody 5th in the CY, career best from Freddy.] 2022 (78 G | 77 GS | 433.1 IP | 10.9 rWAR | 10.1 fWAR) Burnes: 202.0 IP | 73 ERA- | 79 FIP- | 5.3 rWAR | 4.6 fWAR Woody: 153.1 IP | 75 ERA- | 77 FIP- | 3.9 rWAR | 3.5 fWAR Freddy: 78.0 IP | 88 ERA- | 77 FIP- | 1.7 rWAR | 2.0 fWAR [Burnes cracks 200 IP and leads league in Ks, Woody was mostly back to normal once he got the numbness under control, Freddy limited by a sore shoulder.] 2018-22 (362 G | 237 GS | 1501.0 IP | 35.7 rWAR | 33.2 fWAR) Woody: 570.1 IP | 72 ERA- | 72 FIP- | 15.9 rWAR | 14.1 fWAR Burnes: 515.2 IP | 76 ERA- | 68 FIP- | 12.8 rWAR | 14.3 fWAR Freddy: 415.0 IP | 90 ERA- | 80 FIP- | 7.0 rWAR | 8.8 fWAR [Really hope we get at least one more season with this trio. Splitting the difference between 2021/22 think they will need to crack at least 80 GS | 450 IP | 15.0 rWAR in 2023 for the Brewers to get back to the playoffs.]

Brewers 110 wRC+ with men on base ranked 14th in MLB, Renfroe had a 131 wRC+ with men on base. Brewers 120 wRC+ with RISP ranked 6th in MLB, Renfroe had a 123 wRC+ with RISP.

He opted out of the 2/70 left on his deal because he’ll be able to get more than that. Seems perfectly reasonable to me, though SS market is pretty packed again with Dansby, Xander and Trea joining Carlos in search of the big bucks. That’s four of the top five SS by WAR over the last three seasons, with all four also ranking in the Top 15 among all position players. Here’s how that three year WAR leaderboard looks with contracts… 00 Ohtani (18.6 WAR | 1/30, then FA) 01 Judge (17.9 WAR | FA) 02 Trea (15.9 WAR | FA) 03 JRam (15.9 WAR | 7/141) 04 Freeman (15.2 WAR | 6/162) 05 Goldy (14.5 WAR | 5/130) 06 Machado (14.3 WAR | 10/300) 07 Soto (13.2 WAR | 3/27 Arby) 08 Mookie (13.0 WAR | 12/365) 09 Lindor (13.0 WAR | 10/341) 10 Realmuto (12.7 WAR | 5/115) 11 Nolan (12.1 WAR | 4/129 Opt Out) 12 Xander (12.0 WAR | 3/60 Opt Out) 13 Dansby (12.0 WAR | FA) 14 Altuve (11.9 WAR | 5/151) 15 Correa (11.7 WAR | 2/70 Opt Out) 16 Tucker (11.3 WAR | 3/2 pre Arby) 17 Harper (10.9 WAR | 13/330) 18 Trout (10.7 WAR | 12/426) 19 Semien (10.6 WAR | 7/175) 20 Tatis (10.6 WAR | 14/340) 21 Bichette (10.4 WAR | 3/2 pre Arby) 22 Yordan (10.3 WAR | 6/115) 23 Nimmo (10.3 WAR | FA) 24 Seager (10.3 WAR | 10/325) 25 Riley (10.2 WAR | 10/212) Few random observations… Trout only 18th in WAR, makes me feel old. But also shows how insane of value a guy like Tucker is whose three year earnings are less than one paystub tax hit for Harper/Trout just below him. Same thing but to a slightly lesser extent with a guy like Soto. Sandwiched between three guys on 30 million a year deals, but only got 27 million for all three of his years. MLB is it’s own economy, some might even say a legalized monopoly or cartel. Their annual revenue is larger than the GDP of something like 60 countries (mostly island nations & Liechtenstein, but still) and in the same neighborhood as Rwanda or The Bahamas.

Obviously the details are what make everything interesting, but in a macro sense we know the math is stacked against us even at our best. 50/50 to win the division with a shot at the Wild Card if they don’t, and about a 5-10% chance to win the WS if they make the playoffs. FanGraphs had us at 10.6% to win WS last year at the start of the playoffs. At the start of this postseason, FanGraphs had the WS odds for each of the teams at HOU (17.2%), ATL (16.9%), LAD (15.3%), NYM (11.6%), NYY (10.0%), PHI (5.9%), SDP (5.1%), TOR (5.0%), TB (4.4%), SEA (4.1%), STL (2.7%) and CLE (1.8%). So we prolly missed out on a 5-6% WS shot this year. Would I have preferred that over zero? For sure, but even in an expanded playoff field and only like half the league really trying somebody is going to just miss out. Per Spotrac the 6 NL teams with the highest payrollS made the playoffs with STL lowest at $170M, 12th overall. Brewers were 19th at $143M. Given the current economic reality of MLB the Brewers are going to be facing an uphill battle every year to crack that Top 6, much less land one of the Top 2 spots that really set up teams for the hypothetically cleanest path to the WS.

All signs point to this being our last season with a shot at a postseason appearance with Hader. If he wasn’t dealt at the deadline, he likely would have been dealt in the off-season. Ruiz/Gasser (or whoever they’re dealt for) will have multiple opportunities to help this team make the postseason. I don’t see how Hader’s 7.31 ERA with SD guarantees us a playoff spot over Rogers 5.38 ERA with the Brewers. No one thing single handedly blew anything, the results of 162 games are influenced by myriad factors contributing to varying degrees. In 2021 the Brewers pitchers posted 26.3 rWAR, 3rd in MLB. In 2022 they posted 15.6 rWAR, 14th in MLB. What was supposed to be the strength of the team ended up being a mediocrity. Sure, win two more games after the deadline (or any other time in the season) and you make the playoffs. That’s worth some percentage points. But the pitching staff as a whole dropping 10+ wins from Top 3 down to middle of the pack would get a lot more of the percentage points for me.

Except the trade hasn’t ended up yet. That’s like saying the Padres won the Grisham/Urias trade after two months of a six year trade. Rogers put up -0.6 WAR in his two months as a Brewer, Hader put up -0.9 WAR as a Padre. How terrible (or who knows, maybe even good) the trade ends up being will have a lot more to do with the 12 years of service between Ruiz/Gasser than 10 months of Hader/Rogers.

Posted this on another thread, but the writing was on the wall well before the deadline. After the franchise best 32-18 start they went 25-27 heading into the deadline. Here are the splits from those two runs of games... 04/07-05/30 (32-18) PIT: 81 ERA- (4th) | 83 FIP- (2nd) | 8.2 rWAR (4th) | 8.6 fWAR (1st) OFF: 228 RS (7th) | 103 wRC+ (10th) | 7.0 WAR (7th) About what what we expected coming into the season, a dominant pitching staff and an above average offense leading to one of the better teams in baseball. 06/01-07/31 (25-27) PIT: 107 ERA- (18th) | 106 FIP- (21st) | 3.1 rWAR (20th) | 3.1 fWAR (23rd) OFF: 239 R (12th) | 111 wRC+ (7th) | 9.9 WAR (6th) Offense mostly held serve adding 8 points of wRC+ and almost 3 WAR, though run scoring fell off a little relative to the rest of the league. Pitching went in the tank. Hader missing time and giving up runs in bunches instead of putting up all zeroes the main culprit (+1.5 rWAR first 50, -1.0 rWAR next 52). During this stretch the pitching staff essentially consisted of four guys, Burnes (1.6 rWAR), Williams (1.6 rWAR), Woddruff (1.5 rWAR) and Box (0.7 rWAR). Our fifth best pitcher during this stretch was Jandel Gustave (0.3 rWAR), that pretty much says it all. I wouldn’t go back and trade those prospects for a playoff appearance, this team wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

Yeah, Lauer pitched more, but not better. 76 ERA- | 95 FIP- in 2021 compared to 91 ERA- | 112 FIP- in 2022. Pretty crazy how just about every returning pitcher put up worse results in 2022. The foibles of pitching, I guess. Burnes 21: 58 ERA- | 38 FIP- Burnes 22: 73 ERA- | 79 FIP- Woody 21: 61 ERA- | 69 FIP- Woody 22: 75 ERA- | 77 FIP- Peralta 21: 67 ERA- | 73 FIP- Peralta 22: 88 ERA- | 77 FIP- Houser 21: 77 ERA- | 102 FIP- Houser 22: 117 ERA- | 105 FIP- Suter 21: 73 ERA- | 92 FIP- Suter 22: 93 ERA- | 110 FIP- Hader 21: 29 ERA- | 39 FIP- Hader 22: 105 ERA- | 87 FIP- Ashby 21: 108 ERA- | 84 FIP- Ashby 22: 110 ERA- | 102 FIP- Only guys to to really stay the same or get better (beside Milner) were… Box 21: 80 ERA- | 86 FIP- Box 22: 73 ERA- | 89 FIP- Devin 21: 60 ERA- | 66 FIP- Devin 22: 48 ERA- | 51 FIP-

Yeah, Lauer pitched more, but not better. 76 ERA- | 95 FIP- in 2021 compared to 91 ERA- | 112 FIP- in 2022. Pretty crazy how just about every returning pitcher put up worse results in 2022. The foibles of pitching, I guess. Burnes 21: 58 ERA- | 38 FIP- Burnes 22: 73 ERA- | 79 FIP- Woody 21: 61 ERA- | 69 FIP- Woody 22: 75 ERA- | 77 FIP- Peralta 21: 67 ERA- | 73 FIP- Peralta 22: 88 ERA- | 77 FIP- Houser 21: 77 ERA- | 102 FIP- Houser 22: 117 ERA- | 105 FIP- Suter 21: 73 ERA- | 92 FIP- Suter 22: 93 ERA- | 110 FIP- Hader 21: 29 ERA- | 39 FIP- Hader 22: 105 ERA- | 87 FIP- Ashby 21: 108 ERA- | 84 FIP- Ashby 22: 110 ERA- | 102 FIP- Only guys to to really stay the same or get better (beside Milner) were… Box 21: 80 ERA- | 86 FIP- Box 22: 73 ERA- | 89 FIP- Devin 21: 60 ERA- | 66 FIP- Devin 22: 48 ERA- | 51 FIP-

I’d imagine there is somewhere between none and a zero percent chance Shohei is dealt after agreeing to $30M for his last Arby’s year, but mostly wanted to bump this thread just to do a five year check in on Ohtani and try to find some statistical comps for him now that his sample size is getting up there. Career Hit 2272 PAs | 137 wRC+ | 13.3 WAR Career Pit 349 IP | 70 ERA- | 71 FIP- | 11.0 rWAR Over the same 2018-22 time frame Ketel Marte and Framber Valdez matched his respective Hit/Pit WAR totals exactly. The hitters to match or exceed Ohtani’s combined five year WAR are Freeman (24.3), Arenado (24.8), Trea (24.9), Bregman (25.0), Lindor (26.6), JRam (27.5), Judge (27.8), Trout (28.6) and Mookie (30.0). Only two pitchers, Scherzer (27.0) and deGrom (26.2) topped Shohei’s combined WAR with Cole (23.9) and Verlander (23.4) coming up just short. Getting a little more granular on the rate stats here were some guys with similar K/BB/HR rates on the mound… Shohei: 138 K+ | 100 BB+ | 76 HR+ Burnes: 140 K+ | 78 BB+ | 77 HR+ Gerrit: 155 K+ | 77 BB+ | 99 HR+ Woody: 129 K+ | 74 BB+ | 79 HR+ Rodon: 128 K+ | 100 BB+ | 70 HR+ Glasnow: 147 K+ | 105 BB+ | 90 HR+ Pretty much looks like Rodon with more Ks or Burnes with more BBs are the closest profiles. On the offensive side it looks like the closest overall profile is Ronald Acuna,.. SO: 267/354/532 | 11.4 BB% | 26.9 K% RA: 277/370/517 | 11.4 BB% | 25.3 K% All that is pretty nuts and all, but even crazier is it took Shohei a little time to get warmed up. He’s racked up 19.0 of that 24.3 career WAR in just the last two years. From 2021-22 his hitter WAR of 8.9 is tied with Bryce Harper and Bryan Reynolds for 24th while his 10.1 rWAR pitching is tied with Robbie Ray for 9th. Neither the best hitter (Judge 16.9 WAR) nor pitcher (Alcantara 12.4 WAR) are particularly close to Ohtani’s 19.0 combined WAR over the last two years. One last thing for Ohtani to do (besides play in the postseason) is sync up his hitting/pitching for a monster 11-12 WAR season before hitting free agency. 2021: 5.0 hitWAR | 3.9 pitWAR 2022: 3.8 hitWAR | 6.2 pitWAR

Since coming up in 2019, Yordan Alvarez ranks 3rd in wRC+ (164) and 23rd in WAR (14,0). The main things holding back his WAR are being primarily a DH (-31.5 positional adjustment) and only ranking 129th in PAs on account of coming up partway through 2019 & various injuries since then. Will prolly end up 3rd or 4th in AL MVP this year. Crazy to think of him in the middle of this Dodgers lineup if they hadn’t traded him to HOU for Josh Fields.

Jays have Kirk who was an All Star and Moreno who was a Top Ten overall prospect entering the season before putting up a 120 wRC+ at AAA and a 113 wRC+ in MLB during his age 22 season. Jansen is expendable depth for the Jays. Prior to being acquired by the Brewers, Omar posted a 113 wRC+ and 4.5 WAR over 1,216 PAs. The main thing holding back his value was his defense at -41 DRS and -22.3 FRM. Kinda crazy how his profile flipped with the Brewers, 85 wRC+ and 4.5 WAR over 867 PAs with +6 DRS and +20 FRM. Jansen is at 98 wRC+ and 6.6 WAR in 1,079 career PAs. While he hasn't hit as well as Omar for his career, he is at 124 wRC+ over his last two seasons/453 PAs and he hasn't been a butcher behind the plate with +10 DRS and +9.2 FRM career. I'd think Jansen's trade value is higher now than Omar's was when we acquired him.

Building out on the Sale comparison a little bit... Burnes 2020-22 428 IP | 145 K%+ | 74 BB%+ | 59 HR9+ | 63 ERA- | 58 FIP- | 14.4 rWAR | 14.0 fWAR Sale 2015-16 pre-trade 435 IP | 141 K%+ | 64 BB%+ | 91 HR9+ | 83 ERA- | 74 FIP- | 9.4 rWAR | 10.9 fWAR Corbin outpitched Chris by a considerable degree, the advantages Sale had were an extra year of control and a longer track record of success. At the same time Sale had racked up 1110 MLB IPs before being traded after his age 27 season. Burnes is only at 515 IPs after his age 27 season, so maybe that is actually advantage Burnes too. Less wear & tear on what appears to be more a traditional workhorse SP frame.

Murphy is about to enter Arby so he's gonna start costing money, A's are cheap. They have Langeliers (top prospect from ATL in the Olson trade) who spent all year in AAA with a taste of MLB at the end of the season plus their top prospect Tyler Soderstrom played predominantly C between AA/AAA last year. They have the depth and aren't set to compete any time soon, so cash in now. Not an exact comp, but the last big Ace traded with multiple years of control I remember was Chris Sale. He had 3/38 left on his extension before being dealt for Moncada (ranked between #2-5) and Kopech (ranked between #16-36) as the headliners.

Only four of the Brewers top 13 players by PAs - McCutchen (98), Peterson (96), Caratini (84) and Narvaez (71) - had below average wRC+. The other nine - Renfroe (124), Brosseau (118), Wong (116), Hiura (115), Yelich (111), Urias (110), Rowdy (110), Adames (109) and Tyrone (102) - were above average by wRC+. All told 1,840 of the Brewers 6,122 PAs (30%) were taken by players with a wRC+ below 100. Domingo was a butcher in the field with -34 DRS | -30 UZR | -27 OAA for his career and hit for a 101 wRC+ and 0.9 WAR over 826 PAs covering his last three seasons in MLB. Renfroe for his career is at +22 DRS | -1 UZR | -2 OAA, so he’s much better afield and over his last 1,094 PAs he has put up a 118 wRC+ and 4.6 WAR.

Yeah, the best teams are the one who combine a mix of scouting/analytics then effectively communicate that to the players for hopefully actionable results. The Angels have been one of the worst run organizations in all of pro sports for over a decade now. Not sure they’re the best example for anything other than how NOT to do things. Top 5-10 payroll every year & still can’t make the postseason, already wasted Trout’s prime, now a couple years into wasting Ohtani’s prime. Poorer teams like the Rays & Indians & Brewers (not to mention richer teams like the Dodgers & Astros) have been employing a collaborative approach between the front office & field staff to pretty great success. Where are the excerpts from the chapters when Maddon was working with Friedman in TB & Epstein in CHI?

Soto & Machado sure, but Bell hit 192/316/271 (79 wRC+) for SD. If Stearns traded prospects for that kind of production his coat of tar & feathers would be another layer thicker.

WS Pref Tiers for the DS teams… 01-03 Been A Long Time CLE | SEA | SDP 04-05 Big Market But Been A Bit PHI | NYY 06-08 Somebody New Please ATL | HOU | LAD

Mariners scored 690 runs and had a 107 wRC+ this year. Guardians scored 698 runs and had a 99 wRC+ this year. Padres scored 705 runs and had a 102 wRC+ this year. Brewers scored 725 runs and had a 103 wRC+ this year. Best hitting teams in the Wild Card round, STL (772 R | 114 wRC+), NYM (762 R | 116 wRC+), TOR (775 R | 117 wRC+) are about to go 0-3.

Musgrove el perfecto through four. Padres up 2-0.

There’s definitely a little bit of Khris Davis syndrome going on with the perception of Yelich’s defense. Over the last two years there 24 players with at least 1,000 innings in LF. Overall, Yelich is at -3 DRS (14th), +6.3 UZR (6th) and -3 OAA (12th). On arm component only he is -6 by DRS (20th) and -4.5 (23rd) by UZR. Davis was in a whole other stratosphere though with arm components of -25 by DRS and -23.2 by UZR before moving to a primary DH role.

League average wRC+ this past season at the three viable spots for Yelich to play were 111 (1B), 106 (LF) and 101 (DH). Maybe as time goes on teams will go back to using DH for a slugger only kinda guy but this year teams were essentially putting a 2B (99 league average wRC+) at DH. I wonder if some of it is just availability of those kind of bats has decreased as the game has trended younger post-PED testing & now there are 30 spots to fill instead of only 15? FanGraphs positional splits go back to 2002 & every year from then until 2016 league average wRC+ for DH ranged from 104-111, except for 2013 at 100 even. Things start going wonky in 2017 with a drop all the way down to 96 from 108 the year before in 2016. 2018/19 rebounded to normal levels, 110/105 wRC+, before dropping back down to 97 in the universal DH pandemicized 2020. Then a jump back up to 104 when it went back to full season AL only in 2021.

Yelich’s contract isn’t preventing the Brewers from extending Burnes or Woodruff or Adames. It isn’t the reason they won’t be major players in free agency. It’s a factor, sure, but the root cause is the uneven economic playing field teams operate on, driven by the massive differences in local TV deals. If the Brewers could run $281M (LAD) $264M (NYM) or $246M (NYY) or $229M (PHI) or $211M (SDP) or $207M (BOS) or $193M (CHW) or $189M (LAA) or $178M (ATL) or $175M (HOU) or $171M (TOR) opening day payrolls they could have more than one player making 25 million on the roster. Until MLB & the players union agree to massive changes in the way revenue is distributed among teams this is the reality. That the Brewers have won the 6th most games in MLB over the last five years (more than everyone except for LAD, HOU, NYY, TBR and ATL) gives me confidence they’ll be able to figure out a way to remain competitive even if Yelich is only chipping in a couple two tree WAR for his 26 million.

FanGraphs updated their Top 100 for end of season, Chourio #5, Wiemer #79, Turang #82. Also had this blurb on Jackson… Even while Chourio was performing from a surface-level stat standpoint, he had among the worst in-zone contact rates in minor league baseball for a time. In the 62 games he played at Low-A, only nine were played in ballparks with park factors under 115 according to Matt Eddy’s research on minor league park factors. Milwaukee’s Low-A ballpark has a home park factor of 115 and a home run park factor of 124 (!), and aside from the nine games I mentioned, Chourio played all of his road games in parks that were at least as offense-friendly as his home park. He slashed .324/.373/.600 in Low-A despite being in the bottom 10% of minor league in-zone contact rate during that span. The thing about Chourio to remember, though, is that he’s just 18 years old and has quickly grown into elite bat speed. His in-zone contact rate improved throughout the season even as he was promoted, and he ended the year with a 76% in-zone contact mark. Analysts I’ve spoken to about this are split as to whether or not they are concerned about Chourio’s bat-to-ball skills. I do think there’s some risk here, but this is a player with a shot at being a 70 FV, so even as I’m baking risk into FV grades, he needs to be in that 60 FV tier.