Matthew Trueblood

As Corbin Burnes understood it, the Brewers made the argument that he was "in the forefront of the reason why we didn't make the postseason last year" during the hearing earlier this week. That was the big takeaway from his polite but angry account of the process of salary arbitration, delivered to reporters at the team's spring training complex Thursday morning. Whether the team intended to argue that, exactly, will remain unknowable to us, because the hearing itself will not become a matter of public record. All that really matters, though, is that that is what Burnes heard. This, as many have said, is the gigantic risk a team takes by going to arbitration with a player who is critical to their short- and long-term prospects for success. While the difference between the figures at which each side filed (nearly $750,000) is more significant than the general narrative has allowed, it's now likely that they'll spend more than that amount cleaning up the mess they've made. It will cost them incrementally more to extend some other player, or to convince a free agent to join their cutthroat gang. It will hurt their image with fans, many of whom already resented the thought process behind the Josh Hader trade and the general approach to this past offseason. They'll lose money, and they might well lose Burnes. Worse, the case is grossly unfounded. Burnes did struggle down the stretch last year, with a 4.27 ERA in his final 10 outings, but the team went 6-4 in those games, and he was more uneven than truly bad. 2022 Pitching Game Log Date Opp Rslt Inngs Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA Pit WPA cWPA Aug 18 LAD W,5-3 GS-6 W(9-5) 4 5.2 6 3 3 2 6 0 0 2.48 103 0.095 0.06% Aug 23 @ LAD L,1-10 GS-4 L(9-6) 4 3.2 5 7 4 2 3 1 1 2.66 81 -0.293 -0.18% Aug 29 PIT W,7-5 GS-6 5 6.0 8 5 5 1 5 2 0 2.84 102 -0.327 -0.20% Sep 3 @ ARI W,8-6 GS-6 4 5.2 7 5 5 3 5 1 0 3.02 110 -0.269 -0.15% Sep 8(1) SFG W,2-1 GS-8 W(10-6) 4 8.0 3 1 1 0 14 0 1 2.93 100 0.437 0.23% Sep 14 @ STL L,1-4 GS-7 L(10-7) 5 7.0 7 3 3 1 5 2 1 2.97 107 -0.080 -0.06% Sep 19 NYM L,2-7 GS-6 L(10-8) 4 5.2 7 5 5 1 4 1 0 3.12 100 -0.203 -0.16% Sep 24 @ CIN W,10-2 GS-7 W(11-8) 4 6.1 4 2 2 3 8 0 0 3.11 102 0.139 0.13% Sep 30 MIA W,1-0 GS-8 W(12-8) 5 8.0 4 0 0 0 7 0 0 2.98 103 0.563 0.66% Oct 5 ARI L,2-4 GS-3 4 3.0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 2.94 40 0.152 0.21% 20-13 W-L:12-8 4.7 202.0 144 73 66 51 243 23 13 2.94 3274 3.173 2.74% Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 2/16/2023. Note that there are two games in that stretch against the juggernaut Dodgers, one against the Cardinals, and another against the Mets. There are also two games Burnes won virtually singlehandedly, shielding a weary bullpen by not only shutting down the opponent but doing so for eight innings while the offense did the bare minimum. He increased the team's Championship Win Probability Added even during the toughest stretch of his season, and the fact that he wore down slightly can't be fairly held against him under the circumstances. He bore up under the weight placed upon him precisely the way an ace ought to do. Next time he's asked to pitch deep into September and push his odometer past 200 innings in pursuit of a playoff spot, he's likely to be better able to sustain himself. He'd never gotten the chance to do it before, thanks to the six-man rotation in 2021 and the stunted 2020 season. Surely, he learned much from the minor struggles he endured late in 2022. The Brewers probably should have considered that and given him credit for it, rather than viewing a minor underperformance as an opportunity to seize leverage and cancel out one minimum-salary roster slot by inflicting a Pyrrhic victory on themselves and their best player. Here are Burnes's remarks, with a hat tip to MLB.com beat writer Adam McCalvy. We're eager to hear from you. This kind of grievance can be overblown, and the Crew could turn and spend their savings from this win on further reinforcement of the bullpen. Is there any way they can salvage this, in your eyes?

I want to build this discussion of Luis Urías and his plan at the plate around earlier work this week at Brewer Fanatic, by Tim Muma and by Harold Hutchison. On Tuesday, Tim wrote a great piece about the potential that Rowdy Tellez could do more damage by taking a new tack at bat. On Wednesday, Harold wrote about whether the Brewers should sign Urías to a contract extension. In some measure, though, that question hinges on whether Urías can sustain and build upon his success at the plate over the last two seasons. In turn, that question might hinge on whether Urías can modify his approach to better suit his strengths and weaknesses at bat. Since arriving in Milwaukee, Urías has rapidly evolved as a hitter. In his current incarnation, he has two major strengths: very good plate discipline, and above-average power. In each of the last two seasons, he’s walked more often than an average hitter and struck out less often than an average hitter. His isolated power is .182 in that span, better than the league average, and well above the typical mark for someone who manages the strike zone so well. In baseball, though, everything is about tradeoffs. This version of Urías has been trading quite a few singles for some of his walks, and it might be capping his offensive ceiling too low. More importantly, because of Urías’s contact profile throughout the zone, he might be letting too many of the pitches best suited to him sail by unmolested. No team in MLB swung at the first pitch less often than did the Brewers last season. It’s a coaching philosophy, part of an overarching commitment to grinding down opposing pitching staffs. Lowest First-Pitch Swing Rate, MLB Teams, 2022 Team Swing % Brewers 25.9 Guardians 26.8 Cardinals 27.1 Diamondbacks 28.3 Pirates 28.4 That approach works well for individuals who make good swing decisions overall, and who don’t miss mistakes when they come. That describes Urías well, which is why he’s become solidly above-average since joining the Brewers. However, there’s one more tendency required to make this kind of programmed patience work to its greatest possible extent: plate coverage. While Urias has that in the strictest sense, he does all of his damage within a single segment of the zone: between the thigh and the navel. Here is his expected production by location against all fastballs in 2022: It doesn’t have to be that way. The fact that Urías, a hitter with fine pitch recognition and good hand-eye coordination, makes contact so consistently even on pitches outside the zone speaks to the ways he could have found success with a different approach. This one is lower in volatility than some of those approaches, though, and trying to reset and rebuild him as that kind of hitter entirely would probably do more harm than good. Still, some adjustment is in order. If Urías is going to stick to an approach that prizes strike-zone management and a more grooved version of his swing, he needs to get more aggressive on the first pitch. For one of a few reasons, consider the way fastball location changes as the count progresses. Average Pitch Height by Count, Fastballs, MLB 2022 Average Pitch Height by Count, Fastballs, MLB 2022 Strikes on Batter Avg. Pitch Ht. (ft.) 0 2.5 1 2.6 2 2.8 That’s just a loose illustration of the principle, but it’s enough. Hitters who depend on getting a pitch in the heart of the plate to produce shouldn’t wait around for deep counts, even if they have the contact skills to make that approach viable. Like Tellez, Urías has enjoyed plenty of success doing things just the way the Brewers have asked them. Each could find their next gear by coming back toward the pack a little bit in terms of patience and locking in on pitches they can drive, especially early in counts. That’s part of the key to the Brewers being a top-tier offense in 2023.

The thing I'll always remember most about Eric Thames is an article that appeared on FanGraphs in May 2017. In it, Travis Sawchik detailed the way Thames reinvented himself as a player and matured as a person during his three-year sojourn in South Korea, where he was exiled after being unable to find a big-league job in the States. It was good writing, but what jumped off the virtual page wasn't Sawchik's work, but the marvelous material Thames gave him with which to work. If you don't recall the story, or never read it, go check it out now. If you do remember it, but only in outline, let's bring back a detail or two together, for the joy of it. The piece centers on the way Thames coped with the boredom and loneliness of being in a foreign country, alone, with no knowledge of the language and little of the culture. Two of the most delightful details, though, lay in the nitty-gritty stuff. For one thing, Thames remembered reading and hearing about how Barry Bonds used to focus on a spot about three and a half inches in diameter, and make the ball be there before swinging. He talked about how he strove to emulate that, and the awesome results he achieved once he did so. At the time that Sawchik wrote the piece, Thames did, indeed, look Bonds-ian, with one of the lowest chase rates in the majors and extraordinary power. That was what he had done over a full season in Korea, finally catching the Brewers' eyes. Over time, of course, Thames was unable to sustain quite that caliber of mastery. He chased more often with each passing year during his Brewers tenure, and strikeouts became a problem, though his power never diminished much and he continued to draw walks at a stellar rate. In his stunning comeback season of 2017, he hit .247/.359/.518, with 31 home runs, helping keep the Brewers unexpectedly competitive late into the season. The encores to that spectacular showing were less impressive, but he still thumped 72 of his 96 career MLB homers with the Crew, and was a vital part of their playoff clubs in 2018 and 2019. That he got worse after the piece ran is only a reminder that no matter how strong or disciplined one is, it's impossible for most people to see the ball the way Barry Bonds did. Thames also alluded to the flat swings of Ted Williams and Rod Carew in his discussions with Sawchik for the piece, and talked about his swing path being "like an airplane landing," a neat way to name the challenge of getting the bat on plane (pardon the pun) with the pitch while maintaining speed. The other interesting thing, tossed off casually in the piece but a superb reminder of the athleticism and power required of great ballplayers, is that Thames felt lucky to have hardwood floors in his apartment in Korea. "If you swing a lot on carpet, it tears up the carpet," he told Sawchik. "I got lucky on that one. A lot of dry swings in that apartment." The implication there--the force a person has to be pulling from and moving through the ground to tear up a carpet just by swinging at imaginary baseballs in tennis shoes--is awesome. Thames had to work relentlessly to find the approach and the swing that worked for him, but that tiny anecdote is a reminder that he also possesses incredible physical gifts. The Brewers and their fans were lucky that when those gifts were in full bloom, Thames wore the ball-and-glove. Here's his retirement announcement, from Instagram. Thames last played in MLB in 2020, with the Nationals.

The first run of PECOTA-projected standings for 2023 make the Milwaukee Brewers co-favorites in the NL Central with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Crew are projected to win 87.6 games by the system, which utilizes thousands of simulations of the season to get average outcomes. The Cardinals are pegged for 87.5 wins, a meaninglessly small step shy of Milwaukee. Compared to the ZiPS-projected standings posted at the end of last week at FanGraphs, though, this is cause for celebration. That system had the Cardinals some eight games ahead in the divisional race, the projection system equivalent of this: As I discussed on Monday, ZiPS creator Dan Szymborski chalked that wide gap up to the system liking the Cardinals' depth better than Milwaukee's. Having PECOTA to which to compare it now, though, I'm unconvinced. The real difference seems to lie in the fact that ZiPS is much higher on the Cardinals' positional stars--especially Nolan Arenado and Tommy Edman, and is higher on the Cardinals' projected rotation than is PECOTA. Meanwhile, PECOTA likes the Brewers' key hitters much better than ZiPS does. Some of that exuberance might strike us as irrational. Christian Yelich is projected for 3.4 WARP, driven both by a better defensive rating under Prospectus's new defensive metric (also discussed in Monday's post) and by his sheer production over the last several years. As Caleb Miller talked about Monday afternoon, Yelich certainly isn't the MVP-caliber slugger we so admired and so much miss, but he's been a solid contributor even over the last couple of seasons. That said, his PECOTA projection feels bullish. The system is wooed not only by his long track record, but the highly sustainable way in which he creates offense. He's too well-rounded to fully crash to being below-average, at least in the short term. The system also adores new acquisition Jesse Winker, whose projected 127 DRC+ paces the squad. If he lives up to that billing, it would be a disappointment, indeed, if the team didn't play past the first weekend of October. It feels a bit like PECOTA tuned out for 2022 and elected to give Winker a mulligan on his woeful campaign, but that might not be the worst approach. On the other hand, there are projections here that seem somewhat dour. William Contreras only gets a 96 projected DRC+, which feels anemic compared to the potential he displayed in 2022. Prospectus editor-in-chief Craig Goldstein addressed that disappointing figure on Twitter: It's true that Contreras, like his famous older brother, hits too many ground balls, but he made such strides last year in terms of consolidating his skills and finding a viable approach at the plate that it's hard not to dream on continued progress. The system is also down on Brice Turang (projected DRC+: 79), and isn't sold on the stick of Luis Urías (100) continuing to be markedly above-average. Those individual projections deserve longer looks on another day, but for now, let's close with one more observation: it looks like something close to "NL Central champs or bust," based on these projections. Though the Cubs only sneak in for about 5 percent of the divisional win probability, leaving the Cardinals and Brewers to split 95 percent, neither team has even 65-percent overall Playoff Odds, according to the report. That's because the Dodgers (97 projected wins), Mets (97), Padres (94), Braves (92), and Phillies (90) leave very little room for a Wild Card entrant from the NL Central. More so than ZiPS, PECOTA seems to expect the NL Central contenders to lose wins to the new schedule. Get ready, then, for a long and fierce battle with St. Louis. That sounds a little bit stressful, but it's also the main ingredient in the recipe for a maximally fun summer at Miller Park.

On Friday, FanGraphs released its first look at the projected National League standings for 2023, according to the ZiPS projection system. These are always interesting gauges of where teams are as spring camps open, but this year, they seem to have special significance, as we try to sort through the implications of the newly balanced schedule and the changing rule set. For Brewers fans, though, it might be a good self-care choice to ignore these, or at least to take a wait-and-see approach. The system projects the Crew not only to finish a distant second to the Cardinals in the NL Central (91 wins to 83), but to miss the playoffs for the second year in a row. Dan Szymborski, the proprietor of ZiPS, wrote in the post revealing the projected standings that his system "doesn't like Milwaukee's depth anywhere near [as] much as St. Louis'," and cites that as the biggest reason for the gap. Obviously, that's a subject on which there could be plenty of debate. A tweet from MLB.com's Mike Petriello near the end of last week reaffirmed what we all know, which is that the Brewers actually do an excellent job of avoiding massive failures and fielding sub-replacement players. This is a time of year in which we often welcome thoughts of June, with its sunshine and the end of the school year and the final banishment of the cold wetness of spring in the Upper Midwest. I read the tweet above, and I thought immediately of June, but in a bad way. It doesn't feel like Ashby will be available any sooner than May. It's more realistic to focus on June, and at that point, it's very much worth asking whether he would best help the team by preparing for and focusing on working out of the bullpen. Suddenly, the stakes of the Wade Miley contract feel higher, as do the chances that Bryse Wilson or Robert Gasser make a meaningful number of starts for the Crew in 2023. It's not the news we're waiting for (yet), but it does sound like Craig Counsell envisions an extension that would keep him on the top step of the Brewers dugout beyond the end of his contract, which expires at the end of 2023. Todd Rosiak of the Journal-Sentinel spoke to Counsell, who gave a long quote in which he said he and Mark Attanasio have already had conversations about him staying on beyond 2023, and that he feels both happy and motivated. At this stage, I wouldn't read any negativity or danger into the fact that an extension isn't yet done. If that remains the case on March 1, we'll have to revisit the topic, but I'm operating under the assumption that Attanasio and Arnold both find Counsell (as I do) to be one of the five or six best managers in baseball. As long as he wants to be back, he's likely to be, though the leash will grow short and the seat warm if the team doesn't return to the playoffs this year. Finally, with spring training set to begin this week, there was a late flurry of cleanup activity on the free-agent market. The Cubs scooped up Michael Fulmer, a right-handed reliever. The Dodgers grabbed David Peralta, a left-handed DH who can fake an outfield corner spot when needed. Neither of those are high-impact moves, and either player would have been redundant for the Brewers, so the only impact involved is that the Cubs (projected by ZiPS to finish five games behind the Brewers as of Friday morning) edge a bit closer to them, and that the Dodgers get marginally safer from being caught if they end up battling Milwaukee for a Wild Card spot. When Andrew Chafin signed with the Diamondbacks, though, I did wince a little. First of all, the Diamondbacks, too, are in the sub-contender zone, but even closer on the Brewers' heels than are the Cubs. The ZiPS standings had them at 81 wins before the Chafin deal. They're one of those teams who could pose an especially unexpected and frustrating problem if the standings tend toward chaos come August and September. Chafin is a great fit for their thin bullpen. (As an aside, it's nice that he gets a second stint with the team who drafted him in 2011 and developed him patiently over the ensuing years.) Secondly, though, Chafin would have helped the Brewers' bullpen, and they'd been one rumored landing spot for him. The relief corps leans extremely right-handed, with only Hoby Milner seemingly safely locked in from the left side. Ashby's injury enters into this conversation. So does the fact that Chafin would have offered a really good change of look and stuff profile from Milner and Ashby, and from the Brewers' staff as a whole. There are still ways Arnold can supplement Counsell's set of options, but Chafin was a very good one, now gone by the boards. That's a lot to chew on. As ever, I welcome your thoughts, on the projected standings; the trickle-down effects of Ashby's apparent unavailability early on; Counsell as this team's long-term leader; and the need (or not!) to further bolster the roster by scouring the free-agent scrapheap.

Plainly, that's a question every fan has to answer for themselves. That doesn't mean there aren't some wrong answers, but there's a long list of right ones. This is a franchise still in search of its first World Series title, and just its second pennant. This year marks a quarter-century of play in the National League, and no National League pennant has yet belonged to the Brewers. The Bucks have won their championship. The Packers are a source of frequent frustration, but also perennial competitiveness, and they've won two titles in the lifetime of the average Brewers fan. It's fair to argue that this team, with three stars nearing free agency and one erstwhile superstar locked in for the long haul, needs to put an end to one of those droughts in order to be called a success. It's no less valid, though, to counter that the model of sustainable competition put in place by David Stearns and carried forward, now, by Matt Arnold depends on defining success more broadly than that. For that matter, Mark Attanasio thinks along the same lines. "I hope to never go through a rebuild here," he said last Opening Day. "At the trade deadline, we'll be looking carefully. We definitely have some flexibility this year." He said all that in the context of trying to get the team over the hump and deeper into October, but come July, they used that flexibility in a different way. While Corbin Burnes, Willy Adames, and Brandon Woodruff catch all the headlines, Eric Lauer is also only two years from free agency. Devin Williams is just three years away. This team has to at least contend this season, but given the way the front office and the owner each think about the challenge of winning consistently in a small market, we have to think through what shape success could take even if one of those players is traded before August begins. Certainly, a resurgent power season from Christian Yelich would shift the narrative on his contract in a welcome way. That narrative has already outstripped any real damage the team is suffering from having signed Yelich, though. His demise is much-exaggerated, especially in light of new defensive metrics from Baseball Prospectus that show him to have been almost perfectly average over the last three years. (The previous state of the art in defensive evaluation marked him almost 10 runs worse.) Most important, though, especially because of the way this team prefers to operate, is what we see from young players. If Jackson Chourio's development continues at anywhere near the pace and the level that it sustained last year, he'll arrive in the majors during the second half and make an immediate impact. Even failing that perfect an outcome, they should have the playing time and the normal evaluative conditions to get a firmer handle on which of Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell, and Joey Wiemer can be long-term regulars in the outfield. The same goes for Luis Urías and Brice Turang on the infield. Walker McKinven will try to prove, once again, the team's prowess at developing catcher defense, which could render William Contreras a superstar if it works yet again. I'm willing to give a list of boxes that need to be checked for this year to be a success, even if the championship eludes the club again. The team should resolve the uncertainty around at least two of Woodruff, Adames, and Burnes. Extensions are ideal, of course, and I'd certainly hope for at least one of those, but failing that, they should exploit the trade market and get back more controllable talent, staying competitive while sowing more of the seeds of long-term contention. Their organizational paradigm won't do well with the challenges that come if two of these guys are just a year from free agency come the fall. The outfield of the medium-term future needs to be clear. If Tyrone Taylor has his hoped-for breakout, terrific, but it seems more likely that they'll need to see at least two of Mitchell, Frelick, Wiemer, and Chourio have good years in order to feel the kind of confidence I'm talking about. That's a reasonable hope, given the caliber of those young players, but it's far from guaranteed. Another pitcher emerges. With Aaron Ashby starting spring training behind schedule, and with the myriad questions that encircle the top four starters on staff, the team needs to enjoy another breakout performance, like the ones they've gotten from Woodruff, Burnes, Freddy Peralta, and Lauer in succession over the last four years. Chris Hook has more than adequately replaced Derek Johnson, which seemed so improbable upon his departure, but now he faces another tough test. Given what Hook does well, I would sooner bet on Robert Gasser or Jansen Junk than Ethan Small to make the leap required, but all three are candidates. So, for that matter, is Bryse Wilson, although his opportunities to prove himself as a starter for 2023 will be much more limited. The same goes for Gus Varland. The team has to make the playoffs. This is a "last but not least" situation, if ever there was one. All four of these criteria are, to me, necessary, but none of them are sufficient without the rest. The infallibility of some of the larger-market NL Wild Card contenders has been oversold. The Cardinals are hardly an unbeatable division favorite. The Brewers have to play some home games at Miller Park in the playoffs in order to call their season a success. That said, there are good cases to be made that they can be successful without winning the pennant, or even winning the division. Again, though, this is deeply subjective, and I welcome your thoughts and your lists of criteria for a satisfying Brewers year.