Jake McKibbin

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Pitch-tipping has been a big topic for the Milwaukee Brewers over the last week. Robert Gasser saw his pitches being highlighted on Saturday by Andy Pages from second base. It appeared that Pages was able to gain an idea of what pitch was coming, giving Teoscar Hernandez all the information he needed to turn on a sweeper inside and crush it over the left field wall. Afterward, Pat Murphy had this to say: There are a variety of ways to steal signs. One of the most common is having a runner at second base who can see the pitcher's hand as it enters the glove, whether they grip it differently, set up differently, or make other mechanical tweaks for different offerings. Before the PitchCom system, this runner could also pick up on signs thrown down by the catcher. It can also be exposed by the catcher getting set too early, showcasing locations, or even assuming different stances for different receiving locations. Most catchers switch between putting different knees down for different offerings at different times, and there can be hidden clues in there. William Contreras goes with his right knee down around 15% of the time, with his left knee down about 83% of the time, for example. Again, after Saturday's game, Murphy spoke to Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Eliminating pitch tips altogether is almost impossible, and you usually need the issue to be exposed before you realize there's a problem. The Brewers have dealt with it earlier in the year with both Brandon Woodruff and Trevor Megill, and they'll no doubt see things getting picked up throughout the rest of the season. One thing they can do, however, is maximize their own chances to pick up on tells from the pitcher/catcher, and minimize those opportunities for other teams. How The Brewers Use Pitch-Tipping To Their Advantage It should surprise absolutely no one that the Brewers are well ahead of this offensively. Since 2024, no team has faced more pitches with a runner on second base, and only the Mets and Diamondbacks have slugged more with a runner on second base (I'm using pitches as a barometer, as it gives less time for the runner on second to watch for any signs that they can relay to the dugout for future at-bats). On top of that, the Brewers far and away led the league in the difference between slugging with men on second base and their overall slugging for the year. Below is a graph showcasing weighted on-base average (WOBA) on second base against the pitches faced by a team with a man on second: The Brewers rank third in WOBA since 2024 with a man on second base, and the sheer volume of pitches they see in this situation gives them ample opportunities to assess both pitchers and catchers for any clues or tells that might be coming, and relay that subtly to the man at the plate. Once something is picked up, the rest of the team can continue to observe this throughout the rest of the game, any time they reach second base, and it has an exponential effect. Slugging is valuable here as it implies hard hit contact and often of the aerial variety, something the Brewers aren't traditionally known for. Having a jump on a pitch allows them to get the bat head out earlier, and for people like Jackson Chourio, Christian Yelich, et al, that's all they need. Overall, from 2024-2026, the Brewers ranked 14th in the league for slugging with a .398 mark in all situations, but if we narrow it down to a man on second base, they jump all the way up to fifth with a .428 mark. Contrast this with the Dodgers, who jumped from a .438 mark to a .446 slugging mark with a man on second base, and it seems the Brewers have identified something in this situation that helps them surge in power output. So, is this a runner on base thing, or is it a man on second base thing? Well, if we isolate the stats over the 2+ years of this sample to men on base, but not including a runner on second, and the Brewers regress to similar positions in comparison with the rest of the league, ranking 12th in WOBA (0.329) and 16th in slugging percentage (0.426). So to conclude, the Brewers are getting: More pitches with a man on second base than anyone else in the league A big boost to slugging percentage with men on second, both in raw numbers and compared to the rest of the league A smaller boost to slugging with men on base and no one on second, but not an outlier jump vs the rest of the league's performance It almost seems as though having a man on second is their secret sauce. It's also something their offense is geared towards, with a number of speedsters who have good plate discipline and can reach first and steal second, or stretch a long single into a double. It's one reason they can survive without the home run ball, and why stealing bases and getting that extra base is so important to their offensive identity. So how does this play out on the other side of the ball? The Key To Avoiding Pitch-Tipping: Keep Your Opposition Off Second Base Defensively, the Brewers cannot control the tells their pitchers are showing, but they can make it a focal point to keep teams off of second base. They can also attempt to identify signs of pitch tipping internally before it becomes an issue, and we might be able to pick up some signs of that in the data. It should again come as no surprise that the Brewers grade out exceptionally well here, too. They face fewer pitches than any team bar the Chicago Cubs, who they're almost neck and neck with, and lead the league in WOBA against when they find men on second base: In fact, the Brewers are almost 30 points below the average wOBA league-wide, a monumental difference. Park factors can play into this (see Colorado in the top right), but the Brewers are evidently taking steps to mitigate pitch tipping. William Contreras has become an expert at controlling the run game, with the Brewers allowing a league-leading 17 stolen bases this year and having caught 16 would-be stealers. Murphy also mentioned that at times the catcher can be the source of pitch tipping, and it should be pointed out the lengths Contreras goes to in order to avoid being predictable. He's constantly twitching and moving around behind the plate, starting his glove in incorrect spots, dragging his glove in the dirt or up high, and using his athleticism to catch and frame the ball despite all of these moving parts. Here's one example, look at where he starts vs where he catches this ball back in 2025: It should come as no surprise that, once again, it appears the Brewers are leading on the margins. Compared with the rest of the league, they've found ways to mitigate the pitches a runner on second base sees over the course of the season; they've got a catcher with the athleticism and nous to throw off anyone assessing his own positioning and techniques. They're also seeing more pitches with men on second, and they're capitalizing with higher gains in WOBA and slugging percentage than any other team in baseball during those situations. The Brewers are leading the league in managing pitch tipping. Honestly, are we really surprised? View full article

Not sure if I've nailed it 100%, but you can see roughly 4 mph of velo difference between the cutter and slider, and six inches or so more downward break

At this point, I would say we know as much as we ever will or should about Luis Peña barring any setback. @ARobsBrewCrewis providing a fantastic service but we also need to be careful not to cross any lines, and he's done a great job so far of keeping the fan base informed and the players medical situation private. If we could leave the Peña questions for a while as the situation is clearly sensitive and the Brewers are being justifiably cautious, I think that would be best for all involved. Can't say I speak for everyone, but let's just be careful not to abuse the privilege we have here

Haha honestly, I just love how del Chiaro is so excited for his prospects. He gets so pumped for them, like a proud dad. Seems like an awesome dude

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images We've been here before. Garrett Mitchell may be one of the most polarizing players in the Brewers organization, combining tantalizing upside with glaring weaknesses. He's the type of player capable of dominating a playoff series matchup, or draining offensive momentum. We saw the Pirates destroy him with high fastballs a few weeks ago, and the results haven't been pretty overall. Including yesterday's home run, Mitchell has hit .281/.284/.303 over the last 30 days, with a 35,2% strikeout rate. Combined with Mitchell scuffling in the outfield (-5 Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), according to Sports Info Solutions) while trying to be careful to avoid diving on his weak shoulder, there has been a justifiably loud murmuring about whether Mitchell is fit to be an almost everyday player in the major leagues. Despite that, there has been some data to suggest that Mitchell has been improving, without the results to show for it. If we look at his rolling swing and miss rate on pitches inside the strike zone, there's some clear progress being made: We can see a steady trendline in the above graph, culminating in Mitchell (over his last 60 in-zone swings) being in the 50th percentile in MLB for contact rate. At points in the season, Mitchell's in-zone contact rate dropped below 60%, so to see it now approaching 85% marks an extreme transformation. Why hasn't this translated to results? Well, the problem is two-fold. Mitchell's strikeout rate has always garnered a lot of attention, but his ground ball rate has historically been a cause for concern, as well. He had a 55.8% ground ball rate in 2024, dropped to 46.5% in 2025, and is currently at 51.5% this year. No matter how hard you hit the ball, if you're hitting the majority of balls on the ground or low line drives, you will be susceptible to bad luck and rely on finding holes. Those holes are bigger if you hit a ball 115 MPH, but major-league infields are so good that you need to find the outfield grass to be consistent in this game. It should come as no surprise, then, that Mitchell's sweet-spot rate (the rate at which he finds ideal launch angles on his batted balls) almost perfectly mirrors his overall production: Mitchell got off to a rip-roaring start, before finding himself in a funk as he tried to cut down on the swing-and-miss. He was late on a lot of balls and pounding them into the ground, before recently making some better contact and seeing some extra bases as a result. There's one other problem. Mitchell is still striking out an awful lot despite the reduced whiff rate, with his 40-plate appearance rolling average sitting exactly on his season average of 37%: So, how has the zone contact improved to this extent and his chase rates also improved, but his actual strikeouts haven't changed? There are a couple of ways. Perhaps Mitchell is just not swinging as much? Or perhaps he's lasting longer in at-bats, fouling off pitches before eventually whiffing? Let's take a look! Up to April 19, Mitchell had swung at 25 high fastballs. He fouled off 13 of those pitches and whiffed on the other 12. In a two-strike count, you could force Mitchell into a swing, and he wasn't doing any damage in those locations. The ball wasn't even being put in play. Over the last month, he's swung at a lot more fastballs, and been targeted more heavily, but the whiff hasn't been as bad as we thought: Out of 91 high four-seam fastballs, Mitchell has swung and missed on just 20 of them, good for a 21.9% whiff rate. Initially, these resulted in more foul balls, and, when he did put the ball in play (note the numbers below the EVs are not balls in play, just the pitches located to that section), he's been hitting rockets: The problem is, while Mitchell has been getting his bat to the high fastball more often, he's being forced to do so more often. Pitchers (especially righties, working up and away) have worked him there more frequently. Mitchell hasn't whiffed in the last month on a lefty's four-seam fastball, but right-handers have found it easier to pound that spot. On top of that, Mitchell appears to have been so dialed into the high fastball that he's struggled against his bread-and-butter breaking pitches, with skyrocketing ground ball rates and high whiff rates against changeups and sliders. There's an implied question to parse here. Is Mitchell getting a hold of the high fastball only because he's expecting it on each and every pitch? Or can he find a balance where he can handle breaking pitches and off-speed offerings, while still managing the fastball? Hitting at the highest level of the sport is a chess match, and Mitchell showing off on Sunday with his home run against Bailey Ober is one way to place doubt in a pitcher's mind. If he can continue to progress against the high fastball and force pitchers into a more nuanced approach, that bodes well for him, but to avoid the streaky results, he will need to be capable of more than just selling out for one particular offering at a time. After all, everyone else in the league throws harder than Ober, which makes it easier for them to put Mitchell in the rocking chair. The initial signs are good. He's making more contact than ever, and he's not doing it by just stopping himself from swinging. There are more foul balls, and he'll need to turn those into actual balls in play more often, but the trend lines are pointing upward across the last month, and a little confidence can go a long way. If he can find that adjustability to cover more than just one offering at a time, the second half of 2026 could be a very fun time for Mitchell. View full article

Jesus MadeLuis PenaJett WilliamsCooper PrattLogan HendersonJeferson QueroLuis LaraBishop LetsonAndrew FischerBraylon PayneMarco DingesJosh AdamczewskiBlake BurkeTyson HardinBrock WilkenBrady EbelJD ThompsonJosh KnothLuke AdamsManuel Rodriguez

Ignoring the ratings for now, as they're almost entirely rated to velocity (and average IVB for the arm slot) but something about Mayorquin is really fascinating. Tons of whiff, six strikeouts in three innings, just an impressive all round showing from the 18 year old

I actually emailed them about this, probably get lost in the melee but its a little frustrating and probably an easy fix

CJ Hughes homer coming off the bat at 98.3 mph and going 404 feet is somewhat surprising, not sure I've seen a sub-100 mph ball go that far before. Perfect launch angle but does slightly make me question some of the data coming through Its not impossible, but on only four occasions has a hitter hit a ball sub-99 mph outside of Colorado and hit a home run further than CJ Hughes managed to. Oddly enough, each of the occurrences (and the ones tied for 404 fit with Hughes which would extend the sample size to 6 hitters) happened in either 2015 or 2017. He must have back-spun that ball like crazy

Cristopher Acosta is a more aggressive promotion than I expected, have we heard anything about him stateside in extended ST?

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images If you put the phrase "side of the rubber" in the Brewer Fanatic search tool, you'll be inundated with a plethora of Matthew Trueblood articles. The Brewers have used this with aplomb in the past to change how pitches tunnel as they approach home plate, and to change the angles they arrive at to either keep them over home plate for longer or shorter periods of time, and Matt loves to write about it. In Kyle Harrison's case, what they've managed to do is create an angle for him to pitch from that really emphasises his breaking ball, while creating an even more unique fastball for the hitter to deal with. It's a familiar formula; I just beat Matt to writing about it this time. Fastballs aren't straight. The majority of true four-seam fastballs have an element of tailing action, moving toward the pitcher's arm side. Harrison was already an outlier in this respect because of his low arm slot, which traditionally makes getting a fastball to "rise" more difficult and emphasizes that tailing action. Where some pitchers try to cut their fastballs and emphasize the vertical movement, Harrison has an outlier combination of both vertical and horizontal movement. The only starter in baseball with a comparable fastball from the left side is Cole Ragans, with 17" of induced vertical break and 13.6" of horizontal break. That's quite the comparison, with Ragans's four-seamer performing to an expected batting average of just .188 in 2025. It feels important to preface this article by also admiring how the Brewers have put in a lot of work to clean up Harrison's delivery, and have managed to access more induced vertical break than ever. He averaged 13" with the Red Sox in 2025 and is now up to 15" on average. That makes a heck of a difference in the batted-ball quality for opposing batters. Now, on to the juicy stuff. If we compare the pitch chart above for 2026 with his chart from 2025, there are some notable changes. The breaking pitches are breaking slightly less; the fastball is rising more; there's been a small change in arm angle; and, of course, the changeup profile was altered when he moved to a "kick-change". What I'd like to focus on, however, is the HAA, or the horizontal approach angle. There's been a lot of talk about vertical approach angles on fastballs, making them appear as though they're still rising by the time the pitch reaches the plate. Vertical approach angle is affected by spin rates, arm angles and location (i.e., there will be a lower vertical approach angle on pitches at the top of the zone than at the bottom). Horizontal approach angles, accordingly, are affected by arm angles, release points and horizontal break. When talking about the usefulness of this approach angle, imagine yourself in a batter's box, with a coach lobbing balls toward you. The first coach lobs from right in front of you, and your brain finds it easy to pick up the point at which you'll make contact. Now, imagine the coach changes position and throws from a 45° angle. That ball is now coming toward you at a different trajectory, and your brain is forced to decipher movement on two planes. We have to remember as well that, although the ABS system uses a two-dimensional "pane" to assess whether a pitch is a ball or strike at a fixed point halfway from the front of the plate to the back, hitters have different positions within the batter's box that can change the point at which they impact the ball. Most make contact significantly in front of the ABS zone, which can neutralise some of the angular momentum of a pitch, but there is an interesting tradeoff. Waiting farther back in the box to make contact will reduce the vertical approach angle of a pitch, as gravity has more time to win its battle with a fastball's spin, but it exacerbates the sweeping horizontal angle of an incoming pitch. It's this secondary movement that Harrison's move across the rubber optimizes for his two main offerings. On the fastball, where previously it actually entered the zone quite straight, it's now boring in on the right-handed hitter, with his changeup as a real threat to veer the other way. As for the slurve, this is perhaps the most meaningful change. The graph below highlights the relationship between Harrison's horizontal approach angle and his hard-hit rate: We can see a clear correlation between Harrison's slurve performance in each of his seasons in the big leagues, tying in well with the line of best fit. While the regression line expects some, well, regression, this season, it still predicts that the slurve will be measurably more successful with an increased horizontal approach angle (HAA). In short, the more the slurve is sweeping across the front of the strike zone, the more Harrison can avoid barrels and reduce the quantity of hard-hit balls. While there are some changes in locations with the slurve, the quality of contact seems to be controlled more by its change in shape, based on a new angle. In 2025, the pitch had an expected Weighted On-Base Average (an overall expected metric covering strikeouts, quality of contact, walks, etc) of .356. That figure was .347 across a larger sample in 2024, and .402 in 2023. In 2026, his xWOBA is just .197 on the pitch. It's a small-ish sample, but the trend lines suggest a direct correlation between his HAA and the quality of contact given up, such that we should expect this to continue. One final point based on his last start. Looking at the 2026 pitch map, his slurve has been anything but a consistent, downward-breaking shape throughout the season. He's seen it back up quite regularly and failed to get that downward movement. In his last start, however, you can see how much tighter and more consistent the slurve shape was, with how clustered together the blue dots are: As a result, the whiff rate skyrocketed. He could command it better as a result, finding locations in the shadow areas that encouraged chase and some really uncomfortable swings. He showed that, even with the early success of his slurve, there's more in the tank. The Brewers have made some simple adjustments that have allowed yet another pitcher to take a leap forward. It's almost comical at this point. And Harrison is taking full advantage of the H&H Car Wash. Have you enjoyed Kyle Harrison's start to the season? And perhaps for myself, do you enjoy these kinds of analytical pieces? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! 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Also, looking under the hood, but keep an eye on Brady Ebel's at bats. Some of the background stats have me wondering if he's not that far off, there's some very positive signs in there. The downside is you'll probably catch some other Warbirds AB's, which are really not pretty (Jose Anderson 50% strikeout rate, 47% whiff rate, I see you)