Jake McKibbin

The Brewers may feel confident in their current position, but one bad week and they'll be back in the scrap for playoff places. How are their playoff rivals performing in September, and what does their week ahead look like? Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports After going 3-3 on their recent road trip against the Pirates and the Yankees (despite some admittedly painful losses leaving behind a belief that it could have been so much better), the Brewers are well-positioned to take their division. The next step on that journey is a three-game series at home, against the Miami Marlins, currently nestled in the final Wild Card spot for the National League. A couple of teams are fighting for that final berth, and the Cubs are still giving the Brewers a fight within the division, so let’s take a look at the weeks to come. Before we do, here are the current standings and projections: Philadelphia Phillies Playoff Odds – 96.3% The Phillies have been on an absolute tear since the All-Star break, with their offense coming to the fore in a slew of comeback wins, bolstered by the power output of Trea Turner, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos (who has cooled off of late). They have question marks in their rotation, with Aaron Nola struggling mightily this season and a huge load being placed onto Zack Wheeler’s shoulders as a result, but this offense can carry them through most teams. This coming week, they start with a doubleheader in a four-game series with the Braves, before a three-game set against the Cardinals in St Louis. The Cardinals have played notably better baseball of late, with a 6-4 record over their last 10 games and an offense that seems to have finally clicked. The Phillies will have a little concern over a potential banana skin week, as the Braves show no signs of impugning the high quality of baseball they’ve produced this season, especially with three further games still to come against Atlanta after this week. Chicago Cubs Playoff Odds – 85.3% After a three-game sweep of the listless Giants this past week, the Cubs looked to be pushing back into contention for the NL Central, but going 1-3 with some tight losses to the Diamondbacks has stunted their momentum. Justin Steele, despite the massive career high in innings pitched, is going from strength to strength, allowing just one earned run across 15 innings in his two starts in September, while the back end of their bullpen (in particular, Mark Leiter Jr.and Adbert Alzolay) has struggled a little more this month, with WHIP’s north of 2.50. Cody Bellinger (1.043 OPS, five home runs) and Seiya Suzuki (1.226 OPS, 10 extra-base hits) are leading their offensive charge in September. After a rough schedule against playoff-caliber competition last week, the slate eases up a little for the Cubs, with a three-game series in Denver against the Rockies to close out a 13-game stretch without any off days, before traveling to Arizona to face a Diamondbacks team that have come back to life of late, and who just took three of four against the Cubs this past weekend. Coors Field is always a tricky spot to go and play, and while this week looks less threatening on paper, any slip-up could be costly for the Cubs. Arizona Diamondbacks Playoff Odds – 43.0% At the break, Arizona seemed certain to be in the playoffs, perhaps even as champions of the NL West, but a resurgent Dodgers team coupled with a cataclysmic implosion in July and August left their hopes resting on a knife edge. In September, however, they’ve steadied the ship, led by above-average contributions from Lourdes Gurriel Jr.(1.058 OPS), Ketel Marte (.994 OPS), Corbin Carroll (.919 OPS) and Gabriel Moreno (.848 OPS), together with some dominant pitching from Merrill Kelly and the straightening out of Zac Gallen, who dominated in a shutout against the Cubs on Friday. This week for them looks similar to the Cubs, with a four-game road trip against the struggling, yet potent New York Mets, before hosting the Cubs for what is a huge series. One of these contenders could find a markedly different outlook depending on the results of that series, and all eyes will be on it in Milwaukee. They may not have Zac Gallen available for that series, something the Cubs will be excited about. Miami Marlins Playoff Odds – 30.5% At times, the Marlins have looked like they were fading, only to bounce back in improbable ways throughout this playoff run. In September, they're 7-2, with series wins over the Dodgers and the Phillies. Offensively, they’ve had some hot bats to lean on in Jesús Sanchez (1.208 OPS) along with Jazz Chisholm (.306 Average), Luis Arraez (.344 Average), and in total have six hitters with an OPS over .800 this month, and all six with a slugging percentage of over .500. Their pitching staff has somewhat rebounded, too--particularly Sandy Alcantara, who went eight innings and conceded just two earned runs in his most recent start, but Eury Perez has given up four home runs in under 10 innings so far in September, and his workload this season could be catching up to him. Alcantara was also recently placed on the 15-day IL, so there are cracks appearing for the playoff hopefuls, especially with the struggles of Johnny Cueto. This week they’re beginning with a four-game set at American Family Field against the Brewers, before a three-game series at home to the Atlanta Braves. Having won series against big playoff contenders last week, they’ll need to keep their form going in another incredibly tough week of baseball. Missing Alcantara, they’ll be relying heavily on Braxton Garrett and Jesús Luzardo to hold up their starting rotation against the Brewers, with two starters still to be determined. In reality, the offense will need to stay hot to remain in contention at the end of this week. San Francisco Giants Playoff Odds – 33.2% On paper, the Giants should be relishing their position, with an offense that can do serious damage, led by the hot bats of Mike Yastrzemski, JD Davis, Mitch Haniger and Wilmer Flores, coupled with the on-base skills of LaMonte Wade Jr. The Giants have eight hitters with an OPS over .800 in September, but have been let down mightily by the back end of their rotation. In September, Kyle Harrison (7.59 ERA), Alex Wood (8.44 ERA) and Alex Cobb/Tristan Beck (10 ER in seven innings) have all struggled, as has their bullpen (beyond Camilo Doval’s usual excellence). They lost six straight games against the Padres and the Cubs, before sweeping the Rockies at home to finish the week, giving some glimmer of a resurgence. This week is going to be an intriguing one for them, with a three-game series against the pesky Cleveland Guardians before a four-game stretch in Colorado, which can be as unpredictable as they come. Colorado are 2-8 in their last ten games, but always a threat at home. The Giants should be looking at a winning week, but neither of these series will be easy. Cincinnati Reds Playoff Odds – 14.2% Despite being just as far back as the Giants, the Reds odds are significantly lower, perhaps in part due to the variance in performance of some of their rookies. Of recent note, there will be concern over the performance of Andrew Abbott, who was dominating opposing hitters for much of the summer. His workload may be catching up to him, as he's recorded a 6.10 ERA across his two starts in September. None of their regular starters have an ERA south of 5.00 this month, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The returns from the IL of Jonathan India, Joey Votto and Hunter Greene may galvanize the club. Votto’s return in July led to a surge that had them leading the NL Central, dominating any team not from Milwaukee. Both he and India homered in their first games back, and alongside the fiery-hot Will Benson (1.256 OPS in September), they can make this a lineup to fear once more. The Reds have an upcoming week that a contender dreams of in September. All on the road, but they have a three-game set in Detroit against a Tigers team that are a slight improvement on recent expectations, with Kerry Carpenter and Spencer Torkelson flying the flag high, and then onto a three-game series in New York against the Mets. A big week could really force the race wide open, especially if there’s a fall from grace for the Diamondbacks or Cubs. Every game becomes more and more valuable as time ekes away for the regular season, and it’s likely one of these teams has a big hot stretch to end the year. If the Brewers hold onto the NL Central title, who can you see taking the sixth seed in the playoffs? And who do you think matches up best with the Brewers? View full article

I actually thought on first viewing his upper body sways towards home plate before he turned and throw. Once you move towards home plate, you can't pickoff. Wiemer went on that movement too, as borderline imperceptible as it is they time their jumps based on that

That's huge

Good god

Part of the issue for Frelick is he hasn't made quality contact, a lot of balls in play from pop ups and weak grounders. It'll come I'm sure, just the usual rookie adapting to the increased quality in the big leagues

On Saturday, Bailey Falter came in after a couple of innings from hatch, he's a lefty too so it maybe fits. Hasn't had the best of seasons, hanging the curveball a lot, so not too terrified if he does come in. Should be able to do damage, he's not striking out many, averaging regular hard hits, but doesn't allow many walks so the Brewers will need to him out of the way

Colin Selby starting for the Pirates. He's a right handed opener, with a 1.43 WHIP on the season. He's got a big old sinker, but not much movement wise, and it's been smacked around a bit to start his career. Likely going a maximum of two innings His off speed stuff is getting a lot of swing and miss, so important not to let him get ahead of you too often

I almost said this verbatim in the article, it was in the final edit! Couldn't agree more, Santana doesn't have to have every day either

He'll adapt, he's just going through the main pitfalls all rookie's do in the big leagues, but it may not be by the end of the season There's a definite temptation to be closer to the Phillies model, let your pitchers strikeout hitters, and the hitters rack up the runs. The infield defense will be top notch regardless, so still suits the groundballers like Miley and (to am extent) Burnes while the outfield can be used as hitter friendly spots

Would you consider resting Frelick for say Taylor in CF a little more often?

The Brewers need power. Rowdy Tellez has been crushing baseballs. If that's not enough, here's more on why he deserves more at bats in September. Image courtesy of John Fisher/Getty Images In the first month of the year, Rowdy Tellez hit .247/.333/.553, with eight home runs and a BABIP of just .236, suggesting some underlying bad luck was also involved. He was the Brewers' standout hitter and looked set for a career season. Since then, injury issues have led to a much more troubled season, but there’s reason to believe he’s back to that same form he showed early in the season. One thing the Brewers have missed recently is the power bats that can drive runs in with more regularity instead of needing three hits an inning to score a run. As such, should he be getting significantly more playing time? The Key Stat for Tellez To assess fully whether Tellez is back, let’s look at some of the metrics that have predicted his success in recent years. The critical thing for him is his average exit velocity, but more importantly, the consistency with which he hits balls “hard” (95 mph+). In 2021, this figure was 48.1%; in 2022, it was 46%. For 2023, despite the hot start, it’s sitting at under 40%. His biggest weakness earlier in the year was against breaking balls, and of speed, he had a real habit of weakly popping them up. Take a look at the progress since then in the number of plate appearances he’s had: It’s hard to deny that Tellez is marmalizing the ball of late, to the point that in August, he had a .358 xBA against both fastballs and breaking balls and an xSLG of .487 and .638, respectively. The Brewers had a lot of solid hitters in August, but one big standout hot streak was missing and could have sealed the division coming into September. With how often they have been getting men on base recently, one power bat can do a profusion of damage. Why It’s Sustainable While with the way Tellez hits the ball, it would be very interesting to see his fly ball rate go up significantly, he is, in fact, a line drive hitter, and he creates them in all parts of the strike zone: He can have a propensity to occasionally roll over balls in the lower part of the zone, but his line drive rates are exceptional and create the best chance for a hit. You know he can do damage, and with men on third and less than two outs, he’s highly likely to find the outfield grass even if he doesn’t get a hit. Even if he does hit a ground ball, you have a big chance of getting it through the infield when hitting the ball as hard as he is presently. How does he fit in? The DH spot has been filled more often than not by the solid bat of Mark Canha and William Contreras on his days off from catching duty. It’s tough to argue against either of these players getting more game time. Still, there is a situation where Canha more regularly patrols the outfield in a rotation with Yelich, Taylor, and Frelick against right-handers to leave this spot open for Tellez and allow Santana a day off now and then. He’s averaging just slightly over a plate appearance per game over the last 14 days, and with his bat as hot as this, it needs to be more. Any Concerns? In the early part of the season, Tellez was showing an unusual level of passivity at the plate and quite low swing and miss rates as a result. Since returning, this whiff rate has skyrocketed, especially a concerning 44.4% rate on fastballs. It is a very small sample size, but there is an underlying suggestion that he may end up in a cold stretch that drags the team down. When he connects, he's connected brilliantly, but there is just a little worry here. His average exit velocity in August on fastballs was 112.1 mph, and 95 mph on breaking balls. That’s a hitter who is locked in and prepared to do damage. There is a considerable case to see more of Tellez down the stretch, and if he keeps putting up numbers like those, it’ll be hard to leave him out. Power is something that offenses need, and the Brewers have an amalgam of hitters with contact profiles that can get on base but not a whole lot that can clear the bases with any regularity. Tellez has done nothing but fire since coming back into the squad. It’s time to let him loose. View full article

@treego14show us how it's done!

Phantom so they can keep him should rowdy or Carlos Santana go down, no coincidence it's right at the end of his eligibility for the IL He can't join another playoff team so basically just taking the salary and hanging around

Just did a piece on him, bad news is I don't think it's fatigue related. His stance has changed and his exit velo, which has always been upper tier, has stopped massively in August. I think it's a simple fix, but we'll see

He now has six strikeouts in ten at bats in September, and an OPS of just .676 in August, a far cry from his earlier production. Here's what's changed with Christian Yelich over the last month, if any luck was involved, and most importantly, is it fixable. Image courtesy of @WKTY Christian Yelich has become noticeable for his number of hot streaks over recent years that had the crowds hailing his return to form. He caught fire for two months, but has regressed massively since, did he con the fan base again? This year, everyone was more cautious, but after two months of high level performance, including an OPS of over 1.000 in July, it seemed as though Yelich had returned to, if not his best, then a Miami Marlins version of himself, basically doing everything his MVP-self executed apart from pulling the ball in the air with regularity. Since then however, everything has gone downhill. Dreaming of a return to form of mid-year Yelich would tip this offense to the next level, but can he get back on track before the end of the season, and what has changed over the last month? Is this Just Bad Luck? Unfortunately, luck doesn’t have as much to do with this as you’d like. WOBA is a great measurement for how likely a player’s batted balls and walk rates are to get on base, and Yelich’s xWOBA on the season as a whole was .387 at the end of July. In August, this dropped to .295, so something has changed markedly in his play at the plate. The first place to look with Yelich, as always, is his launch angle. He can impact so much bat speed on the ball, but the problem comes when his launch angles drop too much, to the point that they’re bouncing two or three times in the infield. Statcast has it’s monthly alignment slightly off, the highlighted period is in fact July, however you can see that it’s a huge indicator for his form, Particularly concerning is his negative launch angle on fastballs, a pitch he has absolutely crushed so far this season. The trend with his launch angle has a clear pattern for his form when added to the data below: Month Launch Angle xBA xSLG OPS May ‘23 7 .318 .582 .842 Jun ‘23 3 .294 .452 .912 Jul ‘23 6 .339 .573 1.015 Aug ‘23 0 .231 .334 .676 On top of hitting more lower angled ground balls than at any point in the season, Yelich has also been getting alarmingly increased numbers of swing and miss, with a whiff rate of 21% rising to 27.4% in August, and 36.4% so far in September. Of more issue however is that his exit velocity dropped off significantly. His lowest recorded monthly exit velocity this season coming into august was 91.8 mph, and was up to 94.4 mph in July. In August this cratered to an average of 86.3 mph. Yelich has always hit the ball hard, even when pounding it into the ground, so this is particularly concerning, and a notable outlier from anything he has previously produced for the Milwaukee Brewers Taking all this into account, it seems fairly clear that this is not an outburst of poor luck like the one he had in May, and in fact all the ingredients are there for a sizeable slump in form. What’s changed? In short, tension. Let’s look at a few still frames, and there’s one very noticeable difference amongst them. Yelich above is hitting a home run off Miles Mikolas in 2019. In and around the point of release, you can see how upright and relaxed Yelich’s posture looks. His languid, free flowing swing loses a lot of power when he forces it, so being limber is absolutely key. It’s one big reason why I believe he can go on short spurts of vintage performance, where he loosens up and relaxes, before tightening up again when something goes wrong. Here he is in July 2023, remarkably similar in the initial stance. During this period, he was crushing balls at a rate not seen since 2019, and you can see why with the similarities between the images at the point of release. Pay close attention to where his right elbow is here, as well as the stance when looking at an image from Saturday’s game. And now for the weekend, lining an RBI single against Aaron Nola for his only hit so far in September, but you can already see just how much more hunched up and crouched over he is at the plate, eliminating a key source of his power. By crouching over to this extent, it reduces the amount of torque generated by the hips, potentially the source of his dip in exit velocity. His right elbow is pointing almost down towards the ground as a result, instead of the 45 degree angle he has during his hot stretches in both 2023 and 2019, which significantly impacts how he can get the bat into the hitting zone, as well as tensing up the whole shoulder muscle as a result. Can He Rebound Again? Absolutely. While the results may be chalk and cheese, the only noticeable difference is his upright stance at the plate, and the lead on effect it has on the tension in his shoulder. It’s getting in the way of him timing the ball as he would like, and timing his swing effectively, making the swing as a whole a little more jerky, and wrist oriented at the end. He can’t quite get the bat out in time, and is having to flick his wrists a lot to get it in the zone on time, resulting in far greater variance in his quality of contact. Any sporting movement in the world, to be repeatable and explosive, has to be as tension free as possible, something Yelich's swing in August has felt the ramifications of. With the hitting coaches the Brewers have, it stands to reason that a simple fix and tweak could set him on a tear similar to July, at which point, the Brewers offense becomes truly fearsome. He has so much power in that bat waiting to be unleashed, and could carry the Brewers through the postseason in a hot stretch. As always, Yelich is a tantalizing watch, and how he performs will have a close connection with how the Brewers finish out the season. View full article

Maybe disappointing, but you have a series against the Pirates with the three aces going out and a struggling pitching staff where only Oviedo (who pitched last night and won't this series) showing above average straps as a starter in August Another chance to build some real momentum here

Joseph Hernandez maybe as well? Could see Bradley Blalock as they look to determine if they'll add him to the 40 man or not for next season

I noticed the same, a little less power so far than expected too in terms of results, though he hits it like a bullet

Wilken 3-3 having hit a two run bomb. Good lord he's on one

That's an absolute rope from Joey, very unlucky to go straight at Schwarber

I ththe Cubs have been out hit in their last six games, and had a lower xBA on each match against the Brewers. Yet Milwaukee were "lucky" to win that first game

Potentially Miller until/if the feel Donaldson is ready, but Miller hasn't been going all that well in Triple A. I'd be nervous of him getting many AB's