Matthew Trueblood

Amid a thrilling and encouraging start to the season, the Brewers have experienced their first serious adversity. Brandon Woodruff was placed on the 15-day injured list with shoulder inflammation, creating a flurry of questions about the rotation going forward. For now, at least, the answer to one of those questions is: Janson Junk. Beyond that, it seems (though the pitch-classification data now available to the public via Baseball Savant for Triple-A games is quite messy in the early going) that Junk has, ahem, junked his traditional changeup, and is now throwing solely a splitter as his offspeed pitch. He's getting a bit more depth on that, too, though again, we're battling some uncertainty based on obvious errors in pitch typing. He's also busted out a sinker with significant arm-side run, which would pair nicely with the slider against righties if he can get both pitches working on the same plane consistently. His curveball has good spin mirroring with the four-seamer, and might continue to be a weapon against lefties, although between the changed shape of his slider and the development of the splitter, the curve is becoming a bit redundant in his evolving repertoire. That Junk has seven games and roughly 25 innings of MLB experience already has to be of some comfort to the Brewers, too. He's not going to freak out upon taking the mound. Still, he's filling big shoes, at a pivotal time on the schedule. As Í detailed before the season began, the Brewers start this season with 19 crucial games, and so far, they've only played 11 of them. Junk will start the rubber game against a Diamondbacks team that looks poised to compete (perhaps directly with the Brewers) for a Wild Card berth, then (in all likelihood) in the opener of the team's series in Seattle next Monday, before making his Miller Park Brewers debut against the Red Sox the following Sunday. Those are three tough lineups and tough opponents, and the stakes are high. Meanwhile, Woodruff's status is of enormous concern, no matter what Junk is able to deliver. Without him, the Brewers are far more dependent upon not only Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta (which would be fine), but Eric Lauer and Wade Miley. They've dipped into their farm depth for starting help sooner than they would have liked. This injury, which is ostensibly unrelated to the Reynaud's Disease that sidetracked Woodruff for part of 2022, also muddies the water for his long-term outlook. It has to be harder today for the Brewers to talk themselves into a long-term commitment to the most promising extension candidate of their Big Three, even if this does turn out to be a minimum stay on the injured list. There's no good news, except to whatever extent one accepts that they really are just being abundantly cautious and now downplaying the fact that their co-ace has a barking shoulder--well, that, plus the fact that Junk is representative of an organization stocked with better high-level pitching depth than most clubs, and that the team might therefore weather a couple of short absences (or a sustained one) better than their rivals. View full article

The Brewers finished a thrilling first homestand with a 6-1 win on Easter Sunday. While superficially easy, though, that win was hard-earned, and depended on a key reliever springing a trap at a quietly pivotal moment. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports The Brewers finished a thrilling first homestand with a 6-1 win on Easter Sunday. While superficially easy, though, that win was hard-earned, and depended on a key reliever springing a trap at a quietly pivotal moment. If it's true that MLB seasons are evenly divided into games that a team will inevitably win, those that a team will inevitably lose, and those that can be either won or lost, with the third bucket making the difference, then the Brewers are off to an even more promising start than their 7-2 record implies. Early in Sunday's game, Milwaukee built a narrow lead, but in the top of the seventh inning, that lead came under threat. Peter Strzelecki had entered to face the top of the Cardinals lineup in the frame, and although he got two quick outs, he then got into a sudden and dangerous jam. A walk to Brendan Donovan and a single by Paul Goldschmidt brought Nolan Arenado to the plate with two on and two out, and since the score was just 3-1, Arenado represented the go-ahead run. In that situation, a seemingly safe victory can become a loss in the crack of a bat. Strzelecki missed wide with a first-pitch fastball, and then missed even worse with another heater--this time, right down the middle of the plate. Arenado was caught off-guard, though, and took the very hittable strike to level the count 1-1. If the moment hadn't already felt vital and the advantage fragile, that pitch made it feel very much so. To salvage the situation, Strzelecki reached a bit deeper into his bag of tricks than is typical. A 1-1 count is often the one on which a plate appearance hinges. If you want to fool a hitter, you can't afford to wait and hope to make it happen with two strikes. That 1-1 pitch has to be the goods. Strzelecki threw Arenado a changeup. Arenado swung and missed, and he missed badly. It's hard to blame him. Conventional wisdom, in the voice of every color commentator in baseball history, implores pitchers not to get beaten on their third-best pitch, and there's no question that Strzelecki's best pitches are his fastball and slider. He hardly ever throws that change to righties, in particular. If you're Arenado, you have to sit on the fastball and keep the slider in the back of your head on 1-1. The changeup can't even be in your mind. That was what Strzelecki was counting on. As much as we (rightly) talk about pitchers using their best pitch more often and about the various adjustments to pitch mix hurlers can make in a macro sense, we should talk almost as much (but actually talk hardly at all) about getting lots of value from pitches that don't grade out as well or get used nearly as often. Frequencies don't matter as much as payoffs. If a pitcher puts in enough work on a pitch to have confidence in it at a moment like that one, they can throw it five percent of the time to a given handedness of batter (or even less, in theory) and still make it a difference-maker. Strzelecki got the whiff on Arenado because he was looking hard in or soft away, and got something soft inside. After that pitch (and one more outside fastball), Arenado was set up perfectly for the slider, and Strzelecki finally threw him one. He got the strikeout he deserved, and crisis was averted. Matt Bush put three runners on base with nobody out in the Cardinals' next turn, but that didn't inspire the same degree of nail-biting, because in the meantime, the Brewers had tacked on three insurance runs. They ran the Cardinals out of town four games back in the division and with just 10 more head-to-head contests to make up the gap. The relentlessness of the lineup and the consistency of the bullpen have been deeply impressive so far, but if it weren't for Strzelecki's gambit on that pitch to Arenado, we might feel very differently this morning. As I wrote before the season began, the Brewers have a tough and crucial early schedule. They're only halfway through the 19-game gauntlet, but the returns to this point are downright dazzling. Every game that could reasonably have broken their way so far has done so, and not through sheer luck or an opponent folding, but because the team has forced the issue on the bases, or because of their resiliency when something does go wrong, or because of a reliever who was willing to go an unorthodox route when the stakes were high. If they keep this up, they'll be back in the playoffs this year. Third Bucket Record: 3-0 View full article

Last year, only the Yankees and Braves hit more home runs than did the Brewers. Already this season, despite playing half their six games in frigid conditions at Wrigley Field, Milwaukee is ninth in MLB in slugging. How do the Brewers do it? Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports Last year, only the Yankees and Braves hit more home runs than did the Brewers. Already this season, despite playing half their six games in frigid conditions at Wrigley Field, Milwaukee is ninth in MLB in slugging. How do the Brewers do it? It's been a brief tenure for Connor Dawson and Ozzie Timmons as the Milwaukee Brewers' hitting coaches, and it's too early to say that they'll be immune to the prevailing trend in MLB, which is toward very high turnover in that role. However, those two have done an excellent job of implementing and teaching the core principles to which the organization has cleaved for several seasons. They're finding power in unexpected places and generating more of it from the expected ones by doing some simple stuff well. A decade or two ago, it was common for teams to have instructional identities. Certain teams ardently taught a particular kind of pitch, or even pitching mechanics, and they didn't brook any dissent from players who didn't fit into their molds. One of the very welcome changes to player development over the last several years has been the end of that style of coaching. Players are now invited and encouraged to be themselves, and plans for their improvement are shaped around what both the player and the organization do well. Any organizational predilections have become guidelines, rather than rules. The Brewers' hitting instruction is a terrific example. They don't make everyone do things the same way. They do drill hard on good swing decisions, though, and especially on swing decisions that favor a hitter's power. Even before Dawson and Timmons arrived, but especially since the start of 2022, it's possible to watch a Brewers game and see how their hitters dismiss certain areas of the strike zone when the count, situation, or opponent dictates it, giving them a greater chance of taking a called strike but also a greater chance of hammering a mistake pitch if a pitcher throws one. Tightening players' zones and reducing chases has been a strength for Milwaukee going back at least half a decade. That can make the team a great landing place for players with good bat-to-ball skills, including some power, but with confused or underdeveloped approaches. The number and caliber of players who have come through Milwaukee recently and seen their power output and overall value rise are impressive, and they're a huge part of why this team has had a great run of contention. Milwaukee is also very good at a tidbit of mechanical instruction that helps hitters generate more power, though, and that deserves a little bit longer a look. Be it Willy Adames, Luis Urías, Mike Brosseau, or Owen Miller, guys tend to make a specific change when they come to Milwaukee: they get more upright in the batter's box. The clearest way to see this, though, is by looking at one of the team's internal projects, Tyrone Taylor. Here's a video of a hit Taylor collected in May 2021: c0e1278d-814d-47d5-8709-202a46331f9c.mp4 And here's one from the middle of last season: 43c24544-d3f5-4f0c-b325-47a672aa8c5f.mp4 Note the change in his setup. In the video from 2022, Taylor has his back much more straight at the plate. He's almost leaning backward. That sets him up to a couple of things differently than he did in the past. As he lifts his leg to begin his stride, he's almost forced to lean forward, which engages his core muscles and starts a sequence of movements that can generate a steeper bat path without losing bat speed. It's subtle, but that first forward movement and clenching of the big muscles throughout the torso can be key to creating power. As it happens, this setup change didn't work for Taylor in the long run, and he found his September success last year after changing things up. That's a story for another time, but it's a good reminder that Dawson and TImmons aren't being dogmatic. They're just trying things they know will work for most hitters, on most hitters. Seeing the way Taylor leans back above, you probably flash on Urías's distinctive lean in the box. It's born of the same cues. Miller has started to do a smaller version of the same thing already this year. That tilt in one plane of movement is one thing the staff is teaching well, and it's contributing to the power the team is generating. The other thing is harder to see from the predominant modern camera angles, but equally important: the Brewers are keeping their upper half back well as they gain ground on the pitcher with their legs, creating the torque and the lift that power requires. Take another look at Joey Wiemer's first hit in the majors: eda3c0e6-95e6-49d8-b1cd-17f3793f6dab.mp4 Wiemer takes a big stride. He closes the gap between himself and the pitcher and creates a lot of energy flowing into the path of the pitch. With his upper half, though, he stays back a moment, letting his hips bear much of the weight transfer and leaning slightly back to steepen the angle of his bat path, without dropping his back shoulder or hands and creating a swoop or slowdown in his swing. Interestingly, William Contreras has a new mechanical quirk this spring. Just before truly starting his swing, he lifts and steps away from home plate with his back foot, going from a neutral to a closed stance even as the pitcher is making his delivery. That's partially just about seeing the ball well, while still creating the torque and lift with which a closed stance can help, but it's also about rhythm. As Dawson and Timmons try to fix Contreras's launch-angle problem, they're having him try this as a way to both move his contact point further in front of his center of gravity and get his swing started sooner. Nolan Arenado famously taps his back foot as a way of starting the rocking motion that is a powerful swing. He comes forward, goes back, and then explodes forward again, and the back-foot tap lessens the risk that he gets "stuck" on his back side and is too slow in making that weight transfer. There's a little bit of that thought in Contreras's new move, too. The Brewers aren't likely to finish third in MLB in home runs again. They've already proved, though, that they can get more power from many players than other teams might, simply by offering unorthodox moves and concepts to players who need new ways to visualize the essentials of a power approach and swing. So far, it's working. View full article

Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Mets was the second of this year that could have gone either way for the Milwaukee Brewers. It was a test of their resiliency and depth, and they passed it. If Voit is still on first base when Winker hits that ball, he might not score. It was a 3-2 count, so he would have been off with the pitch, giving him a chance, but Starling Marte also has a terrific arm, and he reached the ball quickly. Once Voit elected to try for the steal of a run, the Mets should have thrown through to take the out, and let the question of whether Yelich could get home before Francisco Lindor ran down Voit resolve itself as it might. That was the pivotal sequence of the game. The team aspect of it, the immediate response to adversity, and the fact that Milwaukee’s bullpen is better than New York’s made the game feel eminently winnable as soon as Voit crossed home. Indeed, the team’s top four relievers combined to get 14 outs and allowed just one baserunner, and then Garrett Mitchell stepped up in the bottom of the ninth and added to both his own legend and the good feelings around the whole young core of which he’s a part. The Brewers have had a near-magical start to 2023. This is their second notable comeback win, and they’re making Miller Park a very exciting atmosphere. Presumably, the park will be packed this weekend as they face the Cardinals, and another series win would put the team into the driver’s seat for the division title, even if the drive ahead remains unfathomably long. For now, they can savor a crucial and wonderful win. Third-Bucket Record: 2-0 View full article

It’s far too early to draw conclusions about its sustainability or significance, but Brian Anderson has had a strong start to what he hopes is a second act of his career. The Brewers’ new third baseman and right fielder is finally healthy, and a spring training full of experiments has yielded a swing and approach with which he can be more dangerous. Whether this can last is unknowable. We can only say with confidence that it's been made possible by the freedom Anderson has felt and the adaptability he has shown since arriving in Maryvale in February, but those things make a pretty good start on being a productive big-league hitter. View full article

Every game counts the same in the standings, but not all games could honestly have gone either way. In Saturday’s taut pitchers’ duel, the Brewers got a win in one that certainly fell into that category. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports Every game counts the same in the standings, but not all games could honestly have gone either way. In Saturday’s taut pitchers’ duel, the Brewers got a win in one that certainly fell into that category. Baseball people say that every team will win 54 games each year, and every team will lose 54. It’s what a club does with its other 54 games that matters. That’s not just fortune-cookie wisdom; it’s actionable. We can, with a bit of time and perspective, try to put a finger on the games that fall into that third bucket of 54 contests. If a game doesn’t go in that bucket–if its outcome was almost predetermined, based on something like relative travel schedules or pitching matchups or the untameable breaks of the game–then it’s not worth losing any sleep over it, in either direction. If a game does belong to that third bucket, though, then it’s a truly important result, even if each one still only shifts the team’s fortunes over the course of the season by about two percent. In those cases, it makes sense to take more careful stock of what happened, and to allow the game to linger with us a bit longer. The Brewers’ loss on Opening Day was a second-bucket game. That one was ticketed to become a loss from the get-go. It was a festive Wrigley Field. The Cubs made three early, tough defensive plays to scupper Milwaukee’s offensive plans, and took advantage of two Brewers mistakes in the bottom of the third. Ron Kulpa’s strike zone was consistent, but its bulge low and away to right-handed batters favored Marcus Stroman’s style more than Corbin Burnes’s. That game goes in Bucket Two. Saturday, though, was different. By the sixth inning, it was clear that that game belonged to the third bucket, and not only because of the scoreless tie. The game ebbed and flowed. Milwaukee put two runners on base in the first inning, but Justin Steele utterly thwarted them thereafter. Dansby Swanson cracked a leadoff double in the bottom of the fourth inning, but Brandon Woodruff stopped that rally in its tracks. When Ian Happ finally put a crack in the eggshell holding the game in stasis, it was a major blow, but it didn’t have the air of finality. The endgame plan Craig Counsell and the staff executed after that was brilliant. Whereas Woodruff was very fastball-forward, the bullpen–Peter Strzelecki, Matt Bush, and Devin Williams–favored their offspeed stuff. At the plate, Counsell waited to see how David Ross would deploy his bullpen, and he seized the advantage the Cubs allowed him by way of not having a lefty in their bullpen, pinch-hitting both Garrett Mitchell and Jesse Winker at opportune moments. Sure, the rest is a bit about luck. Winker’s single could as easily have found the glove of Nico Hoerner at second base as it made its way to the outfield grass. William Contreras’s game-winning hit probably should have been a harmless flyout. When Devin Williams took a line drive off his biceps, it could have hit his elbow instead. Even once that calamity was averted, the ninth inning could have gotten away from the Crew. Cody Bellinger was due to bat with two runners on base and nobody out, and he hit the ball hard, but it found a glove and turned into a double play. That, though, is how these Bucket Three games work. A team earns its good luck by keeping close games close, and by making aggressive strategic choices like pinch-hitting or starting a runner. Those types of games are also the ones where superior talent or depth can just win out through a kind of miniature attrition. Sometimes, a game is a third-bucket game for one team, but not for the other. On Saturday, though, the Brewers and Cubs both ended up in a third-bucket battle, not least because the game was between them–two divisional rivals, now limited to 13 encounters over the long season. The Brewers survived it. In some sense, now, the Brewers are 1-0, not 1-1, because their loss was one of those that just happens, but their win was the kind of game that can easily become a loss. It was a good, needed win, and now the Brewers can try to take the series Sunday. View full article

See! Had it all the way!

Thank god it's so damned hard to call a screwball.

Please be ok. Like, unaffected ok, not just stay in the game ok.

Hey hey! That's a helluva first big hit! Got it in the air and everything!

That looked like the ol' unintentional intentional. Yelich has to make them pay.

Still nobody out. Top of the order. Gotta kill 'em dead now.

Oh absolutely! Though I think it's more a situation-by-situation effect than one particular guy totally not being able to handle it in all cases.

Maybe he feels like Mitchell's a much better bunter.

Ye of little faith... The Cubs' bullpen is not bulletproof. And Happ didn't hit that that hard, so if they get someone in there whom the Crew can actually lift the ball against, we could see some stuff.

I actually think Yelich looks a little better so far, mechanically. He's staying back with his upper half better. If he gets the timing right, I think he can start lifting it a bit better from here. But, we'll see. Frustrating start.

Contreras has to learn to elevate the ball, man. Same problem his brother has run into over the years.

The best bait catches the biggest fish.

This is half-right, but the more important half, so thank you! It’s actually MLB Pipeline, ESPN, and BA, and that’s important, because Wiemer did make Pipeline’s list. But whereas I thought he was ON ESPN’s list, I see now that he was merely on their honorable mention or just-missed list. (It’s VERY aggravating that two of these lists are behind paywalls, given that they have a tangible effect on the game now. But whatever.) I’ll update the piece. Thanks again!