Matthew Trueblood

Opening Day brought the Brewers frustration and some trepidation, as they lost 4-0 to the Cubs and will have to wait to hear about the severity of Luis Urias's hamstring injury. Still, baseball is back, and there was more to the first game of the season than those feelings. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Corbin Burnes's Two Gears on the Cutter In the first inning, Ian Happ drew a two-out walk against the Brewers’ ace, bringing the dangerous Cody Bellinger to the plate. As rough as the last two seasons were for Bellinger, he looked good enough this spring to merit the cleanup spot in Chicago’s Opening Day lineup, and right field was the one place where the ball was carrying well in the air Thursday. Burnes knew Bellinger would step into the box thinking about creating an early run, especially in his first at-bat with a new team and in front of a raucous home crowd. He took advantage masterfully, and it was a reminder of what makes him special. His first pitch to Bellinger was a cutter, but not one of the riding cutters at 96 miles per hour that he had thrown to the first few hitters. Instead, the pitch came in at 94, and it dove like a slider toward Bellinger's back foot. That highlighted something interesting about Burnes and his lethal cutter: it can be two different pitches for him. He doesn't just throw the cutter in place of his fastball. He manipulates the pitch, such that it can also work as a breaking ball. Here are all of the cutter Burnes threw in 2022 that were over 95 miles per hour. Now, here are his cutters below that speed. The second cluster is lower, showing us that Burnes can create more vertical movement with the cutter when he takes a little bit off of it. He applies so much spin to it that turning it into as much a breaking ball as a fastball is relatively easy. He got ahead of Bellinger on that version of the offering, then induced a groundout with a good changeup, a pitch Bellinger was not going to hit hard after seeing that cutter the previous pitch. Willy Adames Has to Keep His Head The Cubs' four-run third inning didn't have to be that way. Dansby Swanson swatted an opposite-field single to score the first Cubs tally, but as the throw came in from right field, Willy Adames noticed Swanson taking a big turn around first base, and tried to steal an out by throwing behind him. Instead, he threw wildly, and Nico Hoerner came home to score a second run. While Adames's awareness is laudable on one level, he was trying to do too much there. A few batters later, with runners at the corners and two outs, Yan Gomes hit a slow grounder up the middle. Adames fielded it cleanly, but seemed caught between trying to beat Trey Mancini to second base himself and throwing over to first to retire Gomes and end the inning. He chose the former, which was a mistake. Mancini had gotten a good secondary lead and was running hard, and he beat Adames to the bag. Adames had had to charge past second to grab the ball. Trying to take it to the base meant a reversal of his momentum. Gomes, a catcher, is very slow. It seemed as though Adames just froze a little, letting the previous error get into his head. He's a very talented defender, but he'll need to be more clear-headed out there from now on. Good Relief Work It didn't change the game, because the Crew never did crack the Cubs' pitching staff, but the bullpen was solid after Burnes's departure. Peter Strzelecki, Gus Varland, and Javy Guerra worked around a couple of jams, but didn't allow a run in three innings of work. For Varland, it was a successful big-league debut. Guerra threw the four hardest pitches either team tossed all day. It was small consolation in a tough loss, perhaps, but those three provided a reminder that Craig Counsell still has formidable depth in his relief corps. View full article

That’s fair. I’m evaluating him based on how it looked and on some specific things I think he needs to do but isn’t, rather than on the numbers. But you’re still right. He’s one of those guys who can be effectively wild, who has success in different ways than most, and that can make even a close scouting-and-stats evaluation unreliable. We’ll see! I really like watching Lauer when he’s right and I hope he comes out looking strong, maybe with a couple of the adjustments that looked necessary this spring.

It’s finally here! Happy Opening Day 2023. To celebrate, let’s look ahead and make a few bold predictions for the Brewers, in what should be a fun and pivotal season in the progress of the franchise. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports We don’t need to faff around here. The concept is simple. I have five bold predictions to offer for the coming campaign, which I hope nicely balance being interesting and unexpected with being plausible. Let me know whether I’ve succeeded after you read them. Garrett Mitchell will steal 40 bases. This one is my leadoff hitter, because of all my hunches about the coming season, it’s the one about which I feel most excited. Mitchell has to corral the strikeout problems that showed up when he reached MLB last season in order to get anywhere near this figure, but he’s an excellent candidate to do it if he can manage to put the ball in play. Mitchell hits the ball hard, and is a left-handed batter. The constraints on infield shifts will make his life easier at the plate this year, if only by some marginal amount. Once he reaches base, obviously, there are the newly enlarged bases and the limitations on pickoff attempts by pitchers working in his favor. Most of all, though, Mitchell has elite speed, and he’s been an efficient and reasonably aggressive baserunner in his pro career to date. Combining the minors and majors, Mitchell has 42 stolen bases in 45 attempts since being drafted in 2020, all in just 625 plate appearances of playing time. A midseason trade for a Marlins starting pitcher will cost the team one of Joey Wiemer and Sal Frelick. Let’s face it: there’s a little bit of a logjam on the Brewers’ organizational outfield depth chart. With Christian Yelich a fixture for another half-decade and little flexibility to slide guys to the designated hitter slot for 2023, a pinch is on already. If Mitchell plays the way I predicted above, and if Tyrone Taylor is able to pick up where he left off last year once his elbow heals, then Frelick and Wiemer will be fighting for a very small slice of playing time, indeed. For reasons you can read shortly, I think the Brewers will be in the market for a starting pitching upgrade come July, and the Miami Marlins are a good fit. With Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff still slated for free agency after 2024, Matt Arnold might try to create more long-term certainty in the starting rotation by angling for a controllable starter, and if that happens, one of Frelick and Wiemer will need to be included in a deal. Trevor Rogers, along with the sinker he’s added this spring, is an especially appealing target, given what he and the Brewers’ pitching development team each do well. Jackson Chourio will make his debut, and it will come before September. Admittedly, this one is related to the prediction that Wiemer or Frelick will depart the organization by July 31. Absent either that kind of trade or a spate of nasty injuries, it would be hard for the teenaged Chourio to mash his way to the parent club. In theory, it should be difficult for that to happen even in that event. What this prediction comes down to, then, is a belief that Chourio is one of the truly special prospects who comes along only every five or 10 years. That’s bold, to be sure, but it’s not crazy, because if the Brewers didn’t see him that way, they wouldn’t have pushed him so aggressively throughout 2022, allowing him to reach Double A at the end of his age-18 season. It’s possible to have the kind of successful season he had even in the face of challenging level assignments at a very young age without being that sort of exceptional player, but Chourio’s stats do acquit him well. It’s not his numbers that give me this conviction, though. It just seems as though Chourio has the rare capacity for making the right play, composing himself in the face of a difficult moment, and staying under control even while playing to the edge of his athletic gifts. If all of that turns out to be true, he’s going to shred the Southern League, and he’ll force his way to Milwaukee for the stretch drive. Bryse Wilson will make at least 15 starts. On the surface, the starting rotation looks like the deepest and least delicate segment of the Brewers’ roster. By early June, I think we could be recalling that impression with bitter longing. Adrian Houser will open the season on the injured list. Aaron Ashby is at least a month away from being available, and there are reasons to believe it could be longer. Add to those present troubles the perpetual risk of Freddy Peralta feeling something and needing to be shut down, and suddenly, it’s easy to envision a miniature crisis in the back half of the rotation. As I have chronicled throughout the last two months, and as Tim Muma mentioned in his piece on broad concerns yesterday, Eric Lauer has looked dreadful this spring. There are several ways that Wilson could be pressed into starting duty by the end of April, and he’s done enough good work with the team’s pitching instructors this spring to merit some faith that he’ll seize that opportunity if it arises. The Brewers will win the NL Central and reach the NLCS. It won’t be easy. The season ahead is long, and lots of change is possible for this roster, even within the six-month schedule. I think they have more ways to beat teams than the Cardinals have, though, and that they’ll strike the balance they just missed last year when they traded Josh Hader. Of course, if they do reach the postseason, they immediately become a dangerous team, because of Burnes and Woodruff, but also because of the rising young talent they might have in place by the time 162 games are in the books. Those are my predictions for this year. What are yours? Where did I go crazy, and where could I have gone even bolder? Jump into the comments and get yourself on the record before first pitch. View full article

In the second part of our final piece surveying the rest of MLB to tie together our preview of the 2023 Brewers, we take on the dregs of the American League. The Brewers are going to host a bunch of games against bad junior-circuit clubs this season. Image courtesy of © Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports We have just two tiers and six teams left to discuss in this preview. Hopefully, though, they'll account for a healthy number of Brewers wins in 2023. The Sky’s the Limit but There is No Floor: Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox All three of these teams could, plausibly, put everything together and force their way into the AL playoffs, causing trouble for unsuspecting NL teams along the way. It just seems wildly unlikely that they actually will. The Rangers have spent several fortunes on star players the last two winters, and while Corey Seager and Marcus Semien were sound investments, they were miles short of sufficient. Throwing bad money after good, then, the team bought an entire starting rotation this winter, and looks poised to spend over $100 million on starters who might combine to throw 600 innings. Jacob deGrom is awesome when he’s on the mound, but he’s not going to suddenly morph into a workhorse. Nathan Eovaldi is a slightly more durable but markedly worse spin on the same thing, and Andrew Heaney is somehow even less durable than deGrom, but also worse than Eovaldi. The Rangers have some decent young hitters populating their lineup around Seager and Semien, but the balance of probability says that it won’t matter. The Brewers visit Texas August 18-20. That’s the last of the AL teams the Brewers face on the road, though. The five worst teams in that league will all come to Miller Park this year, presenting the Crew with an opportunity to make some hay. They need to take advantage. They can start with the Orioles, who might have their best starting pitcher (Grayson Rodriguez) by the time they arrive on June 6, but who are breaking camp without him as they waffle between serious contention and self-righteous nonsense. Adley Rutschman is the game’s best young catcher. Gunnar Henderson is the favorite to win the AL Rookie of the Year. Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander, and Austin Hays have survived another offseason without being traded, and they combine to provide some genuine punch in the lineup. With Kyle Gibson as the Opening Day starter, though, none of that will suffice. By comparison with the Red Sox, though, the Rangers and Orioles are downright methodical and predictable. The volatility of the Red Sox’s cocktail of veterans and prospects is off the charts. They paid $90 million for Masataka Yoshida the moment he was posted by his NPB team, and it might pay off handsomely–or be a repeat of the Rusney Castillo catastrophe. The good news is that Corey Kluber and Justin Turner will be in the lineup on Opening Day. The bad news is right there on the calendar–speaking of which, the Sox come to Milwaukee April 21-23, part of the same homestand as the Angels and one more team. What Stage of the Rebuild is This, Again: Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Oakland Athletics Between Boston and Los Angeles, the Tigers come to town, making clear how good an opportunity the Brewers have to rack up wins during that stretch. After an upstart vibe pervaded in 2021, Detroit splashed some money around during the lockout winter, and then everything went as wrong as it could possibly go. That got the front office fired, and new head honcho Scott Harris has largely hit the reset button, plunging the team back into the rebuild they’d been doing for the previous half-decade. Javier Báez will have a better 2023, but not nearly a good enough one to save this team. They need Spencer Torkelson to recover from a massively disappointing rookie showing in order to be so much as respectable. Similarly, though far less dramatically, the Royals were lousy in 2022, and it led to the overdue dismissal of a long-tenured executive. Dissimilarly, they retained and promoted someone from within, and the changes that appear to have taken place are of degree, rather than kind. Vinnie Pasquantino is an above-average first baseman and an emblem of the team’s rapidly improving development infrastructure for hitters. He’s just not a transformative type of player, and the guy in the organization who is (Bobby Witt, Jr.) has yet to live up to that potential. The Royals visit Milwaukee over Mother’s Day weekend. Finally, there are the A’s. They’ll bring Esteury Ruiz back for a brief visit to what were technically his old stomping grounds June 9-11. They also signed Jace Peterson this winter, which is a good encapsulation of how they spent their time. They got good value on neat little role players in several transactions. They just didn’t do anything to actually get better than they were last year. They will improve, but only incrementally, and almost inevitably: they weren’t as bad their record last season. Summary The peculiar partition of their interleague schedule–nearly all their good opponents on the road, nearly all their bad opponents at home–makes it hard to see the Brewers being far from .500 in this set of 46 games. If they’re an especially tough and disciplined team, they might steal an unexpected number of road games against those top teams and go 26-20. If they lack focus against the cupcakes, they could stumble to 20-26 fairly easily. We know that baseball is a game of small margins and big variance. This change to the schedule, and the Brewers’ matchup against their 15 American League opponents, will illustrate that in 2023. Their hopes of reaching the playoffs could hinge on how they handle the challenge. 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The 2023 Brewers will play every team in the American League. Like every other team in MLB, they will vault from 20 games of interleague play last year to 46. Their final 12 games of April will be against AL clubs. Let’s take a quick tour of that circuit, to finish our big season preview. Image courtesy of © Rich Storry-USA TODAY Sports As we did with the NL Central clubs and the other two NL divisions as a group, we’ll tier the American League out based on their playoff viability and the danger they pose to the Brewers, beyond that which any MLB team poses to any other in a two- or three-game series, just by showing up. We’ll also note when the Crew plays each team, for reference. The Astros: Houston Astros No man is an island, but the Astros are very much a tier unto themselves on the junior circuit. Even without Justin Verlander, and without having made any notable effort to replace the man who won the AL Cy Young Award, this team is better, deeper, and more complete than anyone else on that side of the league divide. At least, in the first iteration of the Houston dynasty, an opponent could take minor solace in the fact that their lineup leaned heavily toward right-handed batters. Now, there’s no refuge, and there’s no hope. Alex Bregman and José Altuve are counterbalanced by Kyle Tucker and Yordan Álvarez. Altuve broke his thumb in the World Baseball Classic, but his short-term replacement, David Hensley, could start for a dozen teams on a full-season basis. José Abreu has signed up to add further right-handed thump and excellent clubhouse leadership to a crew that hardly even needed it. All of that is not to mention exceptional up-the-middle defense from World Series MVP Jeremy Peña and Game 5 hero Chas McCormick, plus veteran backstop Martín Maldonado. That crew is all in support of the deepest and scariest pitching staff in baseball, a group that rendered some very good offenses utterly helpless last October. The Brewers face the buzzsaw on May 22-24, but happily, they do have the privilege of hosting the defending champions. Beasts of the East: Toronto Blue Jays, New York Yankees We need to applaud the Blue Jays. Despite a disappointing 2022 in which they fired their manager mid-season and lost in the Wild Card Series, they stayed as aggressive last winter as they have consistently been over the last few years. Undaunted by the poor returns on their huge investment in José Berríos, they signed another big contract for a starting pitcher, in Chris Bassitt. They pulled the trigger on a fascinating challenge trade, sending young catcher Gabriel Moreno to Arizona for slugging, dazzling defensive outfielder Daulton Varsho–who will play left field, because they also signed Kevin Kiermaier to take over in center. All of that shoves George Springer over to right field, where he might stay healthy for once. If Springer can play even 140 games (a plateau he last reached in 2018), this lineup can be the most lethal in the league. Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. had a down 2022 only by comparison to his unbelievable 2021, and remains a fearsome slugger at first base. Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, and Alejandro Kirk give the team a balance of power and pure hitting that extends deep into the order. With a bevy of veteran starters and a high-ceiling bullpen, they’re only a half-step off the Astros’ juggernaut status. Still, they’re only a narrow favorite in their own division, because the Yankees are going to be good, too. They’re much less exciting and fun than Houston or Toronto. Their biggest winter move was retaining Aaron Judge, who just had his career year. They brought in Carlos Rodón, but he’s already having slight injury trouble, and that three-word phrase tends to shorten to just one word in a hurry when Rodón is involved. The Yankees also allowed themselves to be outbid on some potential upgrades in left field, and will try to reclaim Aaron Hicks for a second time. Where they’re good, though, they’re very, very good. Gerrit Cole and Nestor Cortes are a perfectly good duo atop the rotation, pending Rodón getting back on the mound and up to full speed. Judge and whatever subset of Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton, Josh Donaldson, and D.J. LeMahieu can manage to be healthy at a given moment form a potent heart of the order, and the team infused some youth into the mix by handing the starting shortstop job to Anthony Volpe. The bullpen is less full of famous names than it was a few years ago, but it’s no less potent. The Brewers visit both of these imposing foes, traveling to Toronto at the turn from May to June and to the Bronx in mid-September, in a kind of swap for the series in which the Yankees came to Miller Park last fall. Flawed but Formidable: Seattle Mariners, Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Guardians, Tampa Bay Rays We’ll try to go a little more quickly through the teams who have less clear outlooks, and this group begins that set. The Mariners have a young rotation without a truly weak link, so when the Brewers travel to Seattle April 17-19, they’ll see some nasty stuff. The Crew’s own starters (and relievers) will get to face a top-heavy lineup, though, one still missing a second superstar or a high-level supporting cast of any shape for Julio Rodríguez. The only AL team Milwaukee faces two different times, and for a total of four games, is the Twins. The classic rivalry will play out in Minnesota in mid-June, and then in Wisconsin August 22-23. While their rotation has a lower ceiling than does Seattle’s, the Twins have great depth in that unit, too, and they can hit better than Seattle can. Carlos Correa’s long offseason saga ended where it began, tying together a positional core that just needs good health to win the AL Central. (Alas, good health has been far too much to ask for the Twins the last two years.) Speaking of good health, keeping everyone on their feet and on the field was one of the secrets to the surprising 2022 Guardians. Never bet on that repeating itself, at least without a longer track record of it than Cleveland has demonstrated. Indeed, they’re already dealing with more injury nervousness this spring, and although they have enough good players to weather a few losses, they didn’t spend enough money this winter to put the firewalls in place in case the injury bug spreads. The Brewers go to Cleveland June 23-25, which will be a pivotal juncture, leading into a month and a half of exclusively intraleague play. The Rays are like the Guardians, but they’ve never had a year quite as lucky as Cleveland did last year. They take a few more risks, especially on guys with injury histories, and they understand that they’ll be bit by that strategy sometimes. In between those bad breaks, though, they can play some of the most beautiful and efficient baseball in the league. The Brewers are fortunate that they’re visiting the Rays May 19-21. At that time of year, in the Tropicana Dome, there’s no chance of one of those crowd atmospheres that turns Randy Arozarena into Superman. You Should Be Better Than This: Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels No two teams more clearly belong to their own category than these. Both clubs have tons of talent, and they both try to supplement it. Neither can solve the cosmic mystery of translating having a bunch of good players into being an actually good team. The Angels made some genuinely solid moves this winter, not only acquiring Hunter Renfroe to shore up right field, but landing Gio Urshela and Brandon Drury to stop gaps on the infield. Still, they have a weak bottom of the order and a shallow starting rotation. The White Sox are like the Angels, only the good stuff is worse and the bad stuff is also worse. They’re even less deep. They spent more on Andrew Benintendi than the Angels spent on anyone this winter, but Benintendi doesn’t really solve the team’s problems. They have three guys who have had dominant, ace-caliber seasons in MLB, in Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, and Lucas Giolito, but tellingly, it feels unlikely that any of them are going to have that kind of campaign in 2023. The Brewers have to travel down to the South Side to play the Sox in mid-August, but they get the Angels at home to close out April. In addition to giving home fans a chance to see Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout play, those games indicate a bit of a trend. Stay tuned. Later today, we'll talk about the rest of the AL, including when and where the Brewers play them. View full article

Opening Day is practically here. We just have time to finish previewing the Brewers by putting them into the context of the league with whom they'll compete. Here's a quick tour of the National League East and West, where some formidable rivals for any Wild Card berths reside. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports If the 2023 Brewers are going to reach the playoffs, they're most likely to do so by knocking off the Cardinals and winning the NL Central. That's because, in a National League that only admits six playoff teams, there are seven serious contenders, and the best two teams in each of the East and West will be extremely tough to beat. Let's sweep through the league by splitting the 10 teams who make up those divisions into five tiers. The Four Goliaths: San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, New York Mets For all the money they've spent over the last two years, the Mets remain the most visibly vulnerable of the would-be titans on the coasts. Early injury trouble for José Quintana is just one reminder of a broader, more pernicious fact about the team: they're old, and they're slightly fragile. They've amassed admirable depth by signing enough solid veterans to keep Brett Baty, Mark Vientos, and Francisco Alvarez in the minors to open the season. The same is true on the pitching side, where Tylor Megill constitutes enviable Triple-A depth for a team already down one starter. Crucially, though, having good depth is not as good as not needing good depth in the first place. The Mets' core hitters and pitchers (outsider, perhaps, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso) all have either age- or injury-related red flags attached to them, and it creates a downside the rest of the elite contenders don't quite have. Still, these are largely nitpicky points. New York won 101 games last year, and could easily win 91 this time even if they experience some regression or some bad injury luck. The Brewers will see them very soon, to start to take their measure. The Dodgers' weaknesses are more glaring than New York's, but the Dodgers' weaknesses hardly ever turn out to be actual weaknesses. More than at any other time in the last decade, this team will be reliant upon its prospects to smoothly transition to the majors and have an impact, but they are the state of the art in player development, even at the big-league level. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Clayton Kershaw, and Julio Urías have less in the way of star-caliber support staff than they have had in the past, but that quartet is a terrific start on winning 100 games, anyway. If the Dodgers have merely their average year of finding, creating, or promoting good players alongside their superstars, they'll be locks for October. Bad vibes and bad luck have turned the Padres back in their first few attempts to assert lasting dominance over the NL West, but this year, they might just have both of those things licked. Even a kettle bell dropped on Joe Musgrove's foot doesn't appear likely to portend doom for this crew. They have the highest upside on the circuit, and their downside still doesn't look all that bad. Their DH platoon consists of two guys who remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, but everywhere else in the lineup, there's a prime-aged player with the potential to be somewhere between an average player and a universe unto themselves. Their starting rotation is the only one in the league that feels both as deep and as impressive at the top as the Brewers', and Josh Hader leads a bullpen as deep as any the Brewers built around him during his tenure in Milwaukee. Even more thoroughly formidable, though, is Atlanta. They had the top two rookies in the National League last year, and they have All-Stars at catcher, third base, first base, and right field, none of whom are either of those now-sophomores. If Ozzie Albies can get out from under the whammy this season, their lineup will be complete. Their relentless success in the Draft is also paying dividends on the pitching staff. The Brewers can't realistically expect to win a majority of games against any of these teams. It can (and probably will) still happen that they beat one of them more often than not, but there's no individual matchup in which they're even a plausible coin-flip. That means that four of the five non-NL Central champion playoff spots are spoken for, in a single tier that Milwaukee is unlikely to reach. Richer Cousins: Philadelphia Phillies The tier into which the Brewers (and, for what it's worth, the Cardinals) fit contains just one team from the East and West combined. The Phillies only squeaked past the Crew to reach the postseason last year, and the fact that they promptly plowed through the NL and took home a pennant doesn't change the fact that they had a similar true talent level to that of the Brewers in 2022. Over the winter, the Philadelphia front office tried to create some separation from Milwaukee and St. Louis, and close any gap between themselves and the Mets and Braves. They not only signed Trea Turner, but invested heavily in the bullpen, and they rounded out their starting rotation with Taijuan Walker. A couple weeks ago, it felt like the Phillies were a clear step above the Brewers. Since then, pitching wunderkind Andrew Painter has come down with a balky elbow, and southpaw starter Ranger Suárez has had a setback with what first seemed to be a minor forearm problem. Bryce Harper is still recovering from elbow surgery he had after the World Series last fall, and won't be available in the early going to make up for the absence of Rhys Hoskins, who tore his ACL trying to field a Grapefruit League ground ball last week and is out for the year. The version of the Phillies we'll actually see for much of this season is not the daunting team Dave Dombrowski tried to construct. The Brewers can and should view the free-spending Phils as beatable. The Real Trouble: San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks They repeatedly came up empty in their pursuit of an elite player over the offseason, but the Giants still picked up a bevy of good players on reasonable deals. They have a deep and varied pitching staff, a highly modular offense that can score runs in more ways than they could a year ago, and the most thorough and multilayered staff of coaches and development specialists in MLB. They have the talent to stay in the hunt for any Wild Card berth that doesn't require 90-plus wins, and their non-player talents will keep them close to the ceiling the players' talent sets. If anything, though, the Diamondbacks are even more dangerous. They've quietly cultivated not only an unheralded but exciting core (including Rookie of the Year favorite Corbin Carroll, sweet-swinging catcher Gabriel Moreno, perennial Cy Young dark horse Zac Gallen, and the deceptively explosive Ketel Marte), but improved depth. It would take a 90th-percentile set of outcomes for them to compete for the playoffs, but if they catch that wave, it could hit low-lying contenders like the Brewers like a tsunami. These are the teams whom the Brewers have to beat resoundingly, when they face them directly, and ahead of whom they need to sit in the standings in order to have any kind of confidence or to take a buyer's stance at the trade deadline. Two West division afterthoughts could have a major influence on Milwaukee's season. If Pitching Mattered as Much as Old People Say: Miami Marlins I fervently hope that the Marlins take a turn for the better this year. It's only now, with greater clarity in terms of ownership's commitment and direction and with her own manager in place, that Kim Ng is getting to put her own imprimatur on the Fish. So far, though, her tenure has done nothing to rescue the team from the doldrums in which they've drifted for the huge majority of their existence. A winter trade of Pablo López for Luis Arraez was sensible, in that the team needed an infusion of offense and had surplus starting pitching. What they really needed, though, was another Luis Arraez, and then an Aaron Judge or a Trea Turner to drive the two Arraezes in. Instead, they converted Jazz Chisholm into a center fielder, and it seems profoundly unlikely that he transmogrifies into Ken Griffey, Jr. out there. How to Go from High to Low: Colorado Rockies, Washington Nationals The Colorado Rockies are not a serious MLB team. They don't deserve a serious treatment. They're a disaster, and the Brewers' job whenever they so much as refuel the team jet in Denver is to scoop up wins by the handful. If anything, the Nationals are even worse, though, at least in the short term. They signed a long extension with Keibert Ruiz, whom they acquired in the trade that freed them of the burden of future Hall of Famers Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. They hope to see a full season of the same dazzling defense that C.J. Abrams showed at shortstop last summer, after being acquired in the trade that emancipated Nationals fans from the tyranny of future Hall of Famer Juan Soto. What they can't fairly hope, though, is that they'll do anything to free themselves from the quagmire they've wandered into at any point in the next two years. Summary The bottom feeders of the NL are very bad, but there aren't enough of them for the Brewers to rack up enough easy wins. They're going to have to play tough against the handful of dominant teams in the NL, in order to keep themselves in the hunt even for the final Wild Card berth, and the best-case scenario remains that they merely do so better than the Cardinals. If they do that, they should win the division, rendering some of this temporarily moot. Tomorrow, to close out this series, we'll speed run through the American League, because the Brewers also have to worry about all 15 of those squads to some extent this year. View full article

In what figures to be the last twist of the Brewers’ long spring of roster uncertainty, Owen Miller made the Opening Day roster, relegating Joey Wiemer to Triple-A Nashville. The reason is partly roster math, but it's also partly about Miller, whom the team might have unlocked this spring with some refinements to his approach. Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports It came a couple beats after the barrage of news early on Monday, which included Luke Voit re-signing on a big-league deal and Brice Turang officially making the cut. Owen Miller is a Wisconsin native and a fine, versatile player, but for many fans, taking him over an outfield prospect as highly-regarded as Joey Wiemer was the wimpy choice. The only thing more frustrating than following a team that doesn’t take a far-sighted approach to roster decisions is following one that takes an extremely far-sighted one, and the Brewers are the latter. That’s a good thing, in the long run. While they have less of a crunch on the 40-man roster than many other teams right now, the Brewers are rightfully cognizant of the costs and risks that come with putting a player they hope will be a long-term part of the organization onto the 40-man roster. In the case of Wiemer, it wouldn’t have triggered any immediate crisis, but if Tyrone Taylor’s rehab goes smoothly, he could be back with the team by May 1. At that point, they’d need to demote Wiemer, and they’d be one player shallower in the upper minors for having forced him into the picture right away. Of course, it’s far from a guarantee that Taylor will be back that soon. The elbow injury with which he’s dealing has already required a platelet-rich plasma injection, which tends to mean that there’s some substantial damage or inflammation in the affected area. The key thing to keep in mind, then, is that the Brewers still have the ability to option Miller (or someone else) in a couple of weeks, or to make Wiemer the first callup to the parent club, if they start to sense that Taylor is going to have a long road back to the lineup. In the meantime, Miller has more to recommend him than meets the eye, and it’s a good bet that the Brewers believe they can boost his production well above the 89 OPS+ he put up with Cleveland in 2022. If there’s one thing Milwaukee has consistently done in recent years, it’s helping hitters make good swing decisions. They pride themselves on not expanding the zone, but also on crushing what’s within their hitting zones. That’s exactly where Miller needs help. Last year, Miller did several things well. He’s fast. He fielded three infield positions sure-handedly. He also made contact at a healthy rate. His deficiencies were a lack of authoritative contact and too little patience at the plate. For his career, he’s walked in just 6.1 percent of his plate appearances. A few years ago, Luis Urías was in the same position. In his two stints with the Padres, he had an OPS+ of 76, thanks to a pitiful hard-hit rate and too many strikeouts for that profile, Those issues carried over into his first season with the Brewers, the pandemic-ruined 2020. Since then, though, Urías has become a dangerous and fascinating hitter, and much of it can be chalked up to the way he and the Brewers’ hitting coaches have overhauled his approach. Urías leverages the count by adjusting his swing rates to it. That doesn’t sound revolutionary. Every serious hitter does it, and certainly, every MLB hitter does it. The trick is that every hitter has to do it uniquely. The best situational approach, based on count, depends on a hitter’s strengths and weaknesses, and on what pitchers might be expected to throw them in that situation. Both Urías and Miller are right-handed hitters with line-drive swings. When they’re right, they hit the ball in the most productive band of launch angles more often than a typical hitter. Both also make contact at above-average rates. However, they both also have below-average power, in an absolute sense. That means that their approaches based on count should be very similar. They can expect similar things from pitchers, and their swings and skills create roughly the same balance of risk and reward when they make their swing decisions. Here’s how often each swung last year, based on who was ahead in the count, and where their respective swing rates ranked among qualifying batters. Player Behind in Count Even Count Ahead in Count Swing Rate Percentile Swing Rate Percentile Swing Rate Percentile Luis Urías 56.9 77th 38.1 20th 42.5 9th Owen Miller 54.8 66th 38.7 23rd 55.8 83rd That’s the difference between Luis Urías and Owen Miller–a 110 OPS+ and an 89. It’s all in the fact that, with the count in their favor, Urías was able to be patient, knowing that even if the pitcher stole a strike against him, he could try to spoil a two-strike offering, and if the pitcher elected to be careful, he would only get further ahead, or else draw a walk. Miller, meanwhile, got antsy. He tried to attack anything he saw once he got ahead, and it didn’t work, because he’s not that kind of hitter. It would be unfair to expect Miller to instantly morph into Urías this season. There is an often underrated element of intrinsic talent involved in pitch identification and plate discipline, and Miller might not be able to see and react to pitches quite as consistently as Urías does. On the other hand, he’s looked phenomenal this spring at the plate, and he’s an even better overall athlete than Urías is. It might be that the Brewers have found another solid piece for their lineup, just by helping him make the same approach adjustments that worked for his new teammate. View full article

Our long national nightmare is over. Luke Voit is back in Brewers camp, this time with a spot on the 40-man roster and a contract that could keep him in blue and gold through 2024. Milwaukee also made a few other moves, as they prepare their roster for Opening Day. Image courtesy of © Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports Ultimately, the Brewers and Luke Voit decided they were better off staying together. Voit had opportunities elsewhere before he signed the minor-league deal that first brought him to Maryvale last month, and he had other opportunities when he became a free agent this weekend, but none were as appealing as the Brewers' offer. You can now pencil Voit in as the designated hitter or first baseman against lefties in the early going, even if that's a slight oversimplification. When the Brewers announced Friday that Keston Hiura wouldn't make the team, it felt like an assertion of their intention to keep Voit, who fills nicely the void left by Hiura. In sync with bringing Voit back, the team officially designated Hiura for assignment, which is just a procedural move at this point. They had no leverage to lose in any trade talks (Aaron Rodgers jokes welcome, head for the comments), and Hiura had to be waived or released this week, anyway. More newsworthy, then, are the other concomitant moves here. The Brewers optioned Abraham Toro to Triple-A Nashville. That was an expected move, at this point. He didn't do enough to overwhelm the team or overcome the stiff competition for the final infield spots, and Mike Brosseau made that competition a tighter one by hammering Cactus League pitching so relentlessly. This isn't, by any means, the last we'll hear from Toro. He's a great option to have available when injuries force the team to dip into their minor-league depth, even if the 40-man roster will be crowded in the meantime. We can't pretend to have known that Sal Frelick would be sent down at the same time, but the 40-man roster math made this the path of least resistance. Frelick has proved his contact-oriented approach can withstand the greater intensity of high-level stuff. Now, he can go to Nashville and work to prove to the team that he's a capable defender in both center and right field. Soon enough, injury or other exigency will create an opening in the outfield. This is an exciting day for Brewers baseball. Voit is a dynamic bat to add to the mix, despite his limitations. Turang adds speed and defense at the bottom of the batting order, and if he hits the way he's shown the ability to, he could help the lineup turn over beautifully, too. We finally have a good idea of what the Brewers will look like and how they'll try to win games, early in the season. What do you think? Will Wiemer grab the final spot, completing the youth surge? IS Frelick being done dirty here? How would you line up the club against both righties and lefties? Let the discussion commence. View full article

In the month leading up to Opening Day, we’ve looked closely at every aspect of the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers. Now, though, we need to put it all in context, and the most important way to do that is to carefully consider the other four teams in the National League Central. Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports The challenge here won’t be figuring out where to place the Brewers ordinally. The Cardinals are a narrow but clear favorite to win this division, and the hierarchy of the three teams trailing behind the Brewers is very clear. We do want to do two things that could be tricky, though. First, we should calibrate our expectations by estimating how close the Brewers are to being better than St. Louis. Then, we should assess how much of a fight the Cubs, Pirates, and Reds will put up, to get a sense of how many wins the Brewers might pile up in case they end up fighting for a Wild Card berth. Beating the Busch Bullies They’ve only won two of the last seven division crowns, but the St. Louis Cardinals still feel (and, perhaps, will always feel) like the hegemon of the division. They won the division fairly easily last season, running away from the Brewers down the stretch, and although they’ll miss all of Yadier Molina’s intangible value and the very tangible home runs Albert Pujols launched throughout the second half, they’ve more than replaced the lost production. Willson Contreras will deliver considerably more punch behind the plate than the Cardinals have gotten from Molina any time in the last five years. The Cards’ answer to Jackson Chourio is Jordan Walker, a fast-rising outfield prospect with elite power who will break camp with the team and slot right into their thunderous lineup, which had two MVP-caliber cornerstones last year in Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt. Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman, and Brendan Donovan balance out those right-handers, and even their extra bats are fairly imposing. If that all sounded a bit too imperious and intimidating, though, take heart: there are lots of potential pitfalls for this team. While Oliver Marmol made a net favorable impression last year as a rookie manager, he lost much of his coaching staff, and one of the guys the team hired to replace the lost talent (Matt Holliday, who was slated to become the bench coach) abruptly changed his mind shortly after his appointment. It’s not yet clear that Marmol’s smiling, seemingly collaborative approach to his job is going to be a successful one. He had a manager-proof roster and clubhouse last year. That’s much less true now. It’s much less true, in part, because Contreras is a much better hitter than Molina, but nowhere near the same kind of leader or trusted companion to a pitching staff. Whatever noises he made about the Cubs being the problem after leaving them via free agency to sign with St. Louis, Contreras is a limited defender who doesn’t frame pitches well, call a great game, or manage difficult situations the way great catchers do. No one questions the sincerity or ferocity of his intentions, but he might never be capable of converting those intentions into impact. Nor are the team’s other dependable veterans as dependable as they might seem. Adam Wainwright has had a brilliant career, but its final season has begun with diminished velocity in both the Grapefruit League and the World Baseball Classic, and with a groin strain that will sideline him to open the season. Wainwright’s absence only exacerbates and illuminates the major weakness of this team, which is a thin and unimposing starting rotation. Rarely do teams with starting staffs this weak get past 90 wins. Goldschmidt and Arenado are a combined 66 years old, and they each slumped badly at the end of 2022. The Cardinals aren’t invincible. They never are, really. They’re favorites in the division, but there remains room to rush past them and win the title. The Brewers just have to play to their own potential and take advantage if St. Louis stumbles. Let Ricketts Be Ricketts When the Brewers won the division in 2021, they did it in part by being the club who pressed the detonator button and completed the overdue implosion of the pseudo-dynasty the Cubs forged from 2015-20. The Crew went 15-4 against the ragged remnants of the championship team that gave them such fits over previous seasons. Last year, alas, was a very different story. The Cubs took 10 of 19 from Milwaukee, and the six-game difference in the Brewers’ record against their top rivals was more than the gap by which they missed making the playoffs for a fifth straight season. After an offseason spending spree that brought them new long-term fixtures at shortstop and in the starting rotation and some short-term help in the heart of the lineup, Chicago hopes it’s back in the periphery of the playoff hunt. They still didn’t spend as aggressively as they could have, though, and they didn’t make any significant trades to effect a real turn of the proverbial corner. The Brewers remain comfortably better than their nearest neighbors. This year, they just need to do a better job of proving it in direct confrontation. Will the Pirates’ or Reds’ Bright Futures Light Up Their Dreary Present? Now well into what will be long rebuilds, the Pirates and Reds are not dangerous to any team fighting for a playoff spot in 2023. The only shame for the Brewers is that they have 12 fewer contests against those two teams this season than they’ve had in each of the last several. As with the Cubs, though, it’s imperative that Milwaukee assert its superiority by actually seizing each opportunity to beat the have-nots. That affects their outlook when it comes to any Wild Card contest, because they’ll have to tangle with more of the tough teams in the American League in place of those should-be easy wins against Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Nor will either of those teams roll over as easily this year as they did in the last couple. The Reds hope their young starting pitchers, whose eventual upside is something akin to what the Brewers enjoy now, take the expected steps forward in their second full seasons in 2023. Hunter Greene is the hardest-throwing starter in baseball. Nick Lodolo is a solid left-hander who could give the Brewers fits, and Graham Ashcraft is the kind of high-upside mid-rotation guy the Reds have missed even when they’ve assembled adequate top-end hurlers in recent years. Their positional depth is not yet ready to support that group consistently, but on any given day, they’ll be a more dangerous opponent. By contrast, the Pirates made some significant free-agent investments (by their standards) this winter, the better to support a big-league core that is getting close to respectability. They elected not to trade Bryan Reynolds, despite his request that they do so. Oneil Cruz will get a full season to prove himself as a shortstop and a dynamic slugger. Ke’Bryan Hayes could return to stardom with better health. We could see one or both of the team’s highly-touted catching prospects before the year is out, and the team already has a viable rotation and a sneaky-good bullpen, led by Team USA relief star David Bednar. Summary Instead of 76 games, the Brewers will only face the NL Central 52 times this year. That makes each of those head-to-head showdowns more important, not least because of the depressive effect that schedule shift could have on the team’s overall record. Still, in an absolute sense, it means that their division rivals will have a smaller impact on that record than in past seasons. As long as the team takes care of business the way it should, the Brewers will either succeed or fail this year based on how they do against their other opponents. Tomorrow, we’ll briefly check in on the rest of the NL, to further contextualize our expectations for the team. View full article

Opening Day is just five days away, and in the dwindling hours before the first pitch of the Brewers' season is thrown, it's a good time to ponder the crucial stretch that faces the team right away. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports Other than the elbow injury to Tyrone Taylor and the shoulder trouble that plagues Aaron Ashby, the Brewers have largely survived spring training with good health. It's a good thing, too, because much about this team's season depends on how they play right away, in the season's first three weeks. Opening the season at Wrigley Field against the Cubs isn't exactly daunting, but it's an immediate reminder that the Brewers are a bit closer to the middle of the National League pack than they are to the front of it. If the Cubs win that series, it's not only an early indication that they might be more frisky than expected, but also an opportunity missed. The Brewers only get 13 games against the NL Central's lesser lights this year, rather than 19, and they need to make hay while the metaphorical sun is shining. There's also an inherent adversity involved in March and early April baseball in Chicago, where the weather is invariably cold and windy and the skies are always some shade of dark gray. From there, though, things get much more conventionally tough. The first home series of the season comes against the Mets, who won 101 games last year and believe they can be even better in 2023. Buck Showalter's rigging of the New York rotation to get Justin Verlander the start in the team's home opener later in the week will allow the Brewers to miss Verlander, but they still have to try to hit Max Scherzer in one game of the set, and they'll be the first MLB team to face Kodai Senga in a game that counts. Milwaukee's starting pitchers can match the Mets', but New York is a deep, dangerous team. The Cubs and Mets are just warm-up acts, though, because the first weekend home set the Brewers have is against the co-favorites in the NL Central, the Cardinals. That will be a tremendously fun series--an early clash between two teams who should be fighting for something all year, and our first look at the matchup of the two Contreras brothers behind the plate in heated battle. For that very reason, though, and because this is one of just two home series the Brewers have against their chief rivals this year, losing the series would signal trouble. Once the Cardinals leave town, so do the Brewers, and the pressure and difficulty only builds. Without a day off, the team flies back to Arizona to face the upstart Diamondbacks, a club in much the same kind of position as the Cubs this year, but with more compelling young players dotting their lineup and rotation. From there, it's on to San Diego, for four games against the team FanGraphs projects to have the best record in the NL this year, and then the West Coast swing wraps up with three games in Seattle, another 2022 playoff team with high hopes for 2023. The 10-game, 10-day road trip is as stern an early test as any team can face, especially given the caliber of the opponents, and it comes right on the heels of some games with naturally heightened leverage in the push for the six playoff spots in the NL. No team's season is truly made or broken in April, but the Brewers have to start well this year. If they're mired in semi-contention come July, the front office will probably supplement the roster, but they might trade one of Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes, or Willy Adames even while doing so. That's how Matt Arnold thinks, and it's why the first half has disproportionate import for this club. Given that, these 19 games to open the season become more important than usual, on multiple levels. View full article

Milwaukee Brewers fans saw the end of one (miniature) era and the dawn of another Friday, as the team set the wheels in motion to bid adieu to Keston Hiura and open the season with one of their top outfield prospects on the roster. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports With various roster deadlines creeping up on them, the Brewers essentially announced their intention to part ways with former first-round pick Keston Hiura, as well as non-roster outfielder Tyler Naquin. Since Hiura is out of minor-league options, he had to make the team in order to avoid being exposed to waivers this spring, and the Brewers now have the time between Friday and when they set their roster officially next week to either find a trade partner for Hiura or designate him for assignment. Things are slightly different for Naquin, who won't be added to the 26- or 40-man roster right now but whom Matt Arnold said the team would be open to having play for Triple-A Nashville if he elects to remain with the organization. That seems unlikely, though, because injuries and other roster roulette could open a spot on an MLB roster for Naquin if he chooses to become a free agent again. We don't yet have full clarity on the pending Luke Voit situation. He was initially in the lineup for the Brewers' Cactus League contest Friday, but then removed from it, and could opt out of his minor-league deal if not added to the 40-man roster today. We'll update this piece if and when news breaks on that front. In the meantime, let's hear you. Would you have given Hiura or Naquin a longer look? Would you prefer to see Wiemer or Frelick next week at Wrigley Field? View full article

In the last leg of our long positional preview series for the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers, let’s examine the middle relievers, the up-and-down guys, and the potential swing men who will round out this roster. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports A month ago, nothing was certain when it came to the lower half of the bullpen hierarchy for the Brewers. For the final three spots, there seemed to be as many as five or six credible candidates. Now, however, most of that uncertainty has been eliminated. Of the four roster spots open for pitchers beyond the nine men we’ve already discussed in our pitching previews, three are pretty much sewn up. The spring training battles have largely been decided, and the pitching staff has taken shape. Gus Varland: The Late Charge To the team’s credit, the Brewers didn’t give up on Varland, or even deprioritize him, after a rocky start in the Cactus League. On the contrary, he’s been given increasingly valuable chances to prove himself, and as camp has progressed, so has the Rule 5 pick and erstwhile Dodgers prospect. Velocity matters, and the fact that Varland has consistently pushed his heater up to 95 and 96 miles per hour (touching 97 in his outing Thursday) has helped nudge him forward in the competition for a bullpen job. Roster math and the rules always carry more weight than some fans would prefer, too, and the fact that Varland would have been lost if he hadn’t earned a place on the 26-man roster right away afforded him a bit of grace. What jumps out most, though, is the biting slider that he’s seemed to command with increasing consistency in each outing. It’s not hard to find a reliever who throws in the mid-90s anymore. It’s not hard to find one with a good slider. Varland hasn’t yet shown enough to be thought of as a budding star of the relief corps. If he can sharpen his command of the fastball, keep the slider as tight as it has looked recently, and throw both with conviction to both lefties and righties, though, that potential is there. In the meantime, he’s a fine bridge guy for medium-leverage situations, and the team might use a phantom injured list stint to try to keep him around even if he encounters some adversity early in the regular season. Bryse Wilson: Ahead of the Curve? As I wrote in Parts Two and Three of our starting pitching preview, Eric Lauer’s lousy spring has widened the spectrum of potential roles Wilson could fill for Milwaukee to open the season. One month ago, I wrote about the way Wilson raised his arm slot near the end of 2022, and how his baseline of skills could fit both that new mechanical profile and the Brewers’ organizational proclivities when it comes to developing pitchers at the big-league level. He’s stuck with that mechanical adjustment this spring, and he’s been fairly successful, especially thanks to improved command of what looks increasingly like a modern sweeper. Wilson still doesn’t profile as a full-fledged starter, absent some further and very unexpected evolution. At this point, though, he’s looking like an easy and valuable inclusion in the bullpen, as a long man and as a piggyback candidate for Lauer or Wade Miley, both of whom might need to keep starts short to begin 2023. Adrian Houser: A Study in Stubbornness In no way is the above subtitle a dig at Houser. On the contrary, stubbornness is an essential characteristic for success among professional athletes. The competitiveness of the field and the difficulty of the endeavor make it so. The obdurateness that prevents, say, a right-handed power pitcher lacking a credible weapon against left-handed batters from acceding to efforts to convert him into a reliever is one side of a coin, the other side of which is the resiliency to keep working and find success after giving up a huge home run or having an entire year of misery and frustration. That doesn’t make it any less true, though, that stubbornness heads off many potentially brilliant bullpen careers. The guys who convert from starter to reliever and go from an afterthought to a star–Liam Hendriks, Daniel Hudson, and Kendall Graveman, to name a few recent exemplars–tend to have two things in common: 1. They had no real choice but to embrace the conversion to relief, but 2. They realized that fact and took it in stride. Many hurlers who could be near-elite setup men languish in Triple-A rotations or bounce along the waiver-wire carousel instead, seeking places where they might be allowed to continue pursuing a starting role, and letting the potential magic in their arms get away from them, 75 meaningless pitches at a time. That’s too harsh a way to frame Houser, but at 30 years old, the man born on Groundhog Day is coming up on a real danger of falling into a rut. He’s had four years to establish himself as a starter for this team, and all he’s demonstrated is sufficient competence to stay employed. Now that he’s being forcibly moved to the bullpen, he still sounds more interested in an improbable return to rotation glory. If he shifted his focus to paring down his arsenal and maximizing his stuff, though, he could become a versatile and potent weapon for Craig Counsell. This is the moment to set stubbornness aside. Houser needs to recognize it. Javy Guerra: A Man, a Plan, a Fastball The lanes were wide open for Jake Cousins, Joel Payamps, Abner Uribe, or some unheralded non-roster invitee to claim the final spot in the bullpen this spring, especially while Guerra was away. He went to pitch for Panama in the World Baseball Classic, leaving innings and eyeballs free for the taking in Maryvale. None of those who remained were especially impressive, though, and Guerra has a capacity to purely overpower opponents that can be wonderfully valuable in the middle of a game. Imagine a team trying to get used to Miley’s cutter, which often slips under 90 miles per hour but is basically his fastball, only to have Guerra come in on his heels, throwing nearly 100 from the right side, with the ability to give it either sinking action or more of a cut-ride profile. Out of options, Guerra could prove impossible to keep if the team tries to slip him through waivers. The odds of Payamps sticking around are a bit better, and the upside he has–not only in a vacuum, but relative to the other pitchers who will make up this bullpen–is a bit worse. That makes Guerra the likely selection. Others, and a Couple of Key Questions Payamps is unlikely to stick around if he doesn’t make this roster, but the team still has plenty of depth for the inevitable emergencies of the long season. Jake Cousins will probably get the first call from Nashville, if and when it’s a reliever the club needs. His strikeout upside is huge, but control problems are a persistent and pernicious problem. The same goes for Cam Robinson. If the Brewers have another Peter Strzelecki in their system, it’s Ryan Middendorf, an undrafted free agent last June who shot through their system after signing and has caught Counsell’s eye this spring. He’s typical of what sometimes feels like a bottomless system when it comes to intriguing relief arms. To close, though, let’s pivot back to the short-term outlook for the parent club. They will carry 13 pitchers at all times, but whether that takes the form of six starters and seven relievers or five starters and eight men in the pen remains to be seen. A middle course is likeliest, with Wilson (and perhaps Houser) working long relief and making multiple spot starts. The thorniest navigation, for Counsell and for Matt Arnold, will be the fact that this unit is a bit more locked into place in terms of optionable arms and veteran status than is their preference. By midseason, this bullpen will look different. It’s unlikely that every relevant hurler will be healthy and effective even for those few months, but even if they are, Justin Wilson and Aaron Ashby will disrupt the picture. There will be roster- and elbow-based attrition. The Brewers probably have the depth to weather it all, but no segment of any team’s roster is more susceptible to sudden and total reversal of fortune than these last few arms in the bullpen. Milwaukee is no exception. View full article

Only one position remains on our spot-by-spot preview of the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers. Today is part one of our breakdown of the bullpen, focusing on the high-leverage guys who will protect the team’s late, slim leads. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports Obviously, this iteration of the bullpen has a very different vibe than the last few. There’s still a clear and often unhittable relief ace, but that’s different than two. In the absence of Josh Hader, the Brewers will try to get some of the same excellence from a trio of strong setup men. Meanwhile, Devin Williams will step into the role vacated by Hader, presumably for a full season. Devin Williams: America’s Airbender Team USA ran out of steam a few innings too soon in the World Baseball Classic, but Williams was up to the challenge of facing the loaded Samurai Japan lineup. He was great throughout the tournament, in fact. Having been sidelined during the team’s brief appearance in the 2021 postseason, he seized upon his first taste of a playoff atmosphere, which can only be a good sign. Many have noted, and some have worried, that Williams’s velocity is down this spring. Even in his appearance in the WBC Final, he averaged 92.5 miles per hour with his fastball. That was down 1.4 miles per hour from 2022, which itself saw him lose 1.4 relative to 2021. Obviously, it’s only March, but given the adrenaline of that setting, I do think it’s likely that Williams has genuinely lost speed on his heater. The delightful, incredible, wonderful thing is: it doesn’t matter. With his powerful, downhill delivery–that perfectly timed snap from spinal extension to flexion, the arm action that lets him release the ball closer to home plate than anyone else in MLB–he can miss bats and set up his devastating screwball perfectly well without great velocity. 653940da-fba5-436c-86c7-1905bd2e12f3.mp4 Williams got whiffs on 34.8 percent of opponents’ swings against the fastball last year, eighth-highest of 372 qualified pitchers. That number might diminish slightly if he’s throwing 92 or 93, rather than 95, but more of his heater’s potency comes from that extension and from the fact that opponents have to be ready for the screwball than from sheer speed, anyway. When he’s throwing 92, it has the same effect as most pitchers throwing 96. Matt Bush: The Stuff Monster It’s Williams who matriculates to a full-time version of the closer’s role that belonged to Hader until the infamous trade last July. In a sense, though, it’s Bush who will be asked to be a full-fledged replacement for Hader. He’ll just do it from the role in which Williams waited until that deal. FanGraphs recently began posting a suite of stats that use multiple characteristics to evaluate individual pitches on a granular level. It’s an exciting but complicated advancement in our understanding of pitching, and will need to be a fuller conversation at another time, but the numbers can help us quickly tell a story or two here. For instance, Bush has one of the game’s elite fastballs, in a way that makes him as close a replacement for Hader’s overpowering heater as any team could hope to have found. 99e91771-9b90-4d2c-8121-dec17072b4ae.mp4 In PitchingBot’s pitch grades, Hader has the best fastball in MLB based on sheer “stuff” (combining speed, movement, release point, and other data), but Bush ranks 19th, and that’s out of 409 qualified hurlers. In Fastball Stuff+, a similar stat on a different scale, Hader led the league at 163 (100 is average, and higher is better), but Bush came in at 145, good for seventh. Bush locates his fastball better, too. In Fastball+, which blends physical characteristics with sequencing and location elements, Bush ranks 15th, which is actually much higher than Hader. No one needs these numbers to know that Bush’s high-90s, high-spin fastball is an overwhelming offering. What they do, though, is help us contextualize and calibrate that brilliance. Bush is a poor man’s Hader, and obviously, that he is right-handed instead of left-handed does matter, but the fact that the team found even a facsimile of their erstwhile ace in the same window during which they traded Hader away is a reminder of why this unit is such a strength for the team. Peter Strzelecki: Pete Competes This will be Williams’s first full year as the closer and Bush’s first full year as a Brewer, but it’s Strzelecki’s first full year, period. For a former undrafted free agent and someone who has weathered significant injury setbacks, to get this far at all is a considerable victory. That’s not how Strzelecki thinks about it, though, and that’s why the Brewers love him so much. On pure stuff or past results, a case could have been made to have Strzelecki competing with guys like Jake Cousins or Javy Guerra for one of the final bullpen spots this spring. Right from the start, though, it was fairly clear that that wasn’t the case. His makeup sets him apart, and the Brewers wisely treated him as a locked-in piece of the bullpen core coming into camp. This team makes most of its decisions based on hard facts and the ability to find tiny edges, but sometimes, maximizing the latter means eschewing the former. Hoby Milner: The East-West Southpaw Williams is the pitcher whose fastball plays up most, relative to his velocity, but the pitcher in this bullpen whose velocity most belies his overall effectiveness might be the soft-slinging southpaw, Milner. Without a pitch that even averages 90 miles per hour, Milner has found consistent success, thanks to a well-documented shift in the way he attacks the strike zone and an improved changeup on which he was able to rely much more against righties last year. Summary There’s a little more fragility to this year’s bullpen than there was to last year’s. It’s easier to envision things going sour than it has been in any other season of the team’s recent run of contention. These four hurlers all have some question marks attached to them, from Williams’s intermittent control problems to Milner’s lacking power. Still, on balance, the strength of this high-leverage relief squad is impressive. They give opponents many different looks and have disparate repertoires. That helps make them something close to the modern platonic ideal of a playoff bullpen. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the bevy of other arms who will round out the bullpen throughout the season, and how they can build a great house on the foundation these four establish. View full article