Jack Stern

Image courtesy of Jon Endow-Imagn Images More than anything, the Brewers’ only loss in an otherwise successful series against the Mariners came because Dustin May put them in a 7-0 hole after two innings. Even after that, the offense battled back to make it a close 7-5 loss. Milwaukee might even have notched a three-game sweep, if not for a few poor at-bats that quashed potential late-inning rallies. Trailing 7-2 in the sixth, William Contreras and Christian Yelich walked. Andrew Vaughn singled to load the bases with nobody out for Luis Lara. Lara watched a pair of strikes to go down 0-2 (including a pitch fully inside the zone that he thought was a ball) before chasing an Eduard Bazardo sinker up and away. “The pitch before that might have been a ball, I don't know, but he let that really bother him,” Pat Murphy said postgame. “Then he went to the next pitch, and he wasn't as focused.” After Joey Ortiz’s sacrifice fly plated the runner from third to make it 7-3, Cooper Pratt stepped up with two outs. After Bazardo executed a back-door sinker for strike one, he missed badly with two sweepers to put Pratt ahead 2-1. Hitters say that there are no longer true fastball counts in the modern game. For the most part, they’re correct. The league fastball usage has steadily decreased throughout the pitch-tracking era, particularly since the turn of the decade. In 2015, hitters saw fastballs on 70.9% of pitches when ahead in the count. This year, that rate is down to 64.4%, a significant difference. This was a rare fastball count. The Mariners still had a four-run lead, and Bazardo had fallen behind on non-competitive breaking balls with leadoff hitter Brice Turang on deck. He needed an in-zone pitch to regain count leverage. Pratt didn’t need to sell out for velocity, but he needed to be ready to pull the trigger on a fastball over the heart of the plate. He wasn’t. Bazardo planted a sinker right down the middle, and Pratt watched it go by for strike two. That set up a chase on a sweeper that nearly hit the dirt for an inning-ending strikeout. Positioned for a big inning, the Brewers barely scratched across a run. Pratt had a shot at redemption in his next at-bat in the eighth, coming up as the tying run with runners on the corners in a 7-4 game. In a similar setup, Seranthony Domínguez fell behind 2-0, first with a sweeper that bounced in the other batter’s box, then a fastball yanked low and away. Again, Pratt needed to be ready for the fastball. He got it again and swung—but this time, he probably shouldn’t have. It was a sinker barreling toward the inner third of the zone. Pratt was late and got jammed, bouncing a double play to second that plated a run but left the bases empty while still trailing by two. It would be the last run the Brewers scored. “Pratt's last two at-bats, he just left the zone and left the zone [again],” Murphy said, referring the second time to a pitcher’s pitch that Pratt should have taken with no strikes. He was out of the lineup the following day, with Ortiz starting at shortstop, instead. Just three months apart in age, Pratt and Lara are traveling similar paths. Both are trying to establish themselves in the big leagues during a playoff push after signing pre-debut extensions. Both have been valuable from the get-go, thanks to their defense: Pratt already has 4 Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop, while Lara is at 1 Out Above Average in right field. Offensively, it’s been a mixed bag. That was expected. Pratt has posted better results (97 wRC+) than Lara (84 wRC+), but Lara’s at-bats have arguably been better. His .325 xwOBA and 91 DRC+, metrics that focus on plate discipline and contact quality, are higher than Pratt’s. Lara’s ball-strike recognition has been impressive for his age, as he’s chased just 21.7% of pitches outside the zone. After that strikeout, he bounced back with a line-drive single up the middle in his next at-bat. Pratt deserves some grace for a pair of rough at-bats in his first game back from a hamstring injury, but his swing decisions were less refined in the minor leagues. At times, he’s shown a knack for the measured opposite-field approach the Brewers wanted to see before he grows into his raw power, but his chase rate had been ballooning in recent weeks, even before the injury. “Those kids are 21,” Murphy said. “Sometimes in this league, when you're 21, you make those kind of mistakes. [Jackson] Chourio’s made them. He's done the same thing. So they'll have to learn from it.” Now is the time for those lessons. The Brewers aren’t asking Pratt or Lara to be their most important bats as rookies, but if they start games in the postseason, they could hit in pivotal situations. To succeed in those moments, they’ll need to stay mentally grounded and have smart at-bats. Milwaukee is constantly striking a balance between developing and competing in the big leagues, and they're experiencing both sides with their two youngest players. View full article

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect Kyle Harrison isn’t at his best right now. Since returning from a stint on the injured list with forearm tightness, his velocity and command have been below their first-half levels. That was the case again on Tuesday night. Harrison’s fastball averaged 93.5 MPH (well below his season average of 95 MPH) and he threw just 47% of them in the strike zone. “I think there was flashes of brilliance, and then there was times when he was kind of not in sync, and the fastball didn’t play like it normally does,” Pat Murphy said postgame. As Harrison approaches his career-high of 124 ⅓ innings from 2024 (between the big leagues and a rehab start last month, he’s at 104 this year), he’s battling mechanical issues. His arm angle has steadily gotten lower, particularly since his return from the injured list. “Just looking at the history of my time here, it’s been as the season gets longer, and as you go further in the season, the arm release likes to drop a little bit,” Harrison said. “I’ve always known that with myself, but then it’s staying consistent on the work throughout the week to make sure I maintain that.” Harrison is at his best when his arm angle is closer to 34°. That’s when his slot is high enough to drive through the baseball and backspin it to create the carry on his dominant four-seamer. In Harrison’s last start in San Diego, his slot dropped to a season-low 28°, and he allowed a season-high eight runs. Those velocity and mechanical declines are real concerns to monitor down the stretch. The Brewers will need the healthy and effective version of Harrison in October. For now, amid those issues, he still struck out eight in five scoreless innings Tuesday night. After just three swings and misses through his first three innings, he induced six whiffs over his final two frames. “I’d say the heater was more down in the zone early, and then just wasn’t really getting up to the arm slot I’d like,” Harrison said. “It took a little bit longer than I liked, but yeah, the heater command definitely got better.” Harrison is a microcosm of the Brewers as a team right now. The dog days of August are here, and they just played 17 games in 17 days—a stretch that included parts of two West Coast trips. They lost Joey Ortiz, Cooper Pratt, and Brice Turang to concurrent injuries, forcing a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency infield of Andrew Vaughn at third base and Gary Sánchez at first. Using a six-man rotation left them a man short in the bullpen even before Abner Uribe hit the injured list. They were swept by the Padres last week in a three-game series filled with poor situational hitting and questionable defense. “Seventeen games and two West Coast trips in a matter of three weeks wasn’t easy,” Jake Bauers said. “I think everybody was kind of feeling it a little bit. I don’t know that anybody in here will tell you that, but I think we were feeling it toward the end there.” And yet, the Brewers kept winning just enough. They snapped their three-game skid with a ninth-inning comeback win against the Dodgers, the first of three wins in the four-game series. At the start of those 17 games, they led the NL Central by 5.5 games. After going 10-7 in that stretch, they returned home with a five-game lead. Monday was a much-needed off day. With a grueling trip in the rearview mirror, the Brewers returned to play and clobbered the Mariners in a 22-0 win, the most lopsided victory in franchise history. It didn’t start that way. The Brewers were still in grind-it-out mode through the first half of the game, clinging to a 1-0 lead through four-and-a-half innings. That lone run scored on a gritty baserunning play by Bauers in the first. After an aggressive send by third base coach Matt Erickson on William Contreras’s two-out single to shallow left field and a strong throw by Randy Arozarena, Bauers looked like an easy out at the plate. He tried to dive headfirst into home, just as he did successfully on a nearly identical play in LA on Sunday. This time, the throw took Cal Raleigh into the lane to which Bauers had already committed himself, so Bauers’s dive attempt took him into Raleigh’s glove. “I saw the replay. I definitely wasn’t trying to hit his glove,” Bauers said. “I was more trying to protect him and me because I didn’t want to barrel through him. I didn’t want to break my neck on his chest protector.” In bracing himself, Bauers inadvertently swatted the ball out of Raleigh’s glove. As Raleigh retrieved it, Christian Yelich noticed that Bauers hadn’t touched the plate and yelled at him to dive back into home. “I don’t really remember what happened after that,” Bauers said. “I just remember Yeli screaming at me to touch home.” It wasn’t pretty, but Bauers’s left hand barely beat Raleigh’s tag to score the run. That kind of scratch-and-claw play epitomizes the Brewers’ identity under Murphy, and it’s been their means of survival during this stretch. Every inch has felt like a mile. “I play hard,” Bauers said. “I don’t know any other way. Regardless of the score, if I’m out there, I’m going to play hard.” After that 18-pitch first, the Brewers worked Bryce Miller for 23 more pitches in the second. The breakthrough didn’t come until the fifth, though. After they pecked away with two singles and a pair of walks (including an RBI knock by Jackson Chourio and a sac fly by William Contreras), Yelich blew things open with a three-run homer to make it 6-0. That ended Miller’s night at 92 pitches in just 4 2/3 innings. “That’s how we play,” Murphy said. “To be able to lay off really tough pitches and not panic that you have to swing because you’re down 0-1. Having two strikes is not a death [sentence]. Those type of at-bats. Then Yeli hits a big homer, and you break through.” The floodgates opened from there, with a combination of quality plate appearances and poor Seattle defense. Earlier in the day, there were symbols affirming that the most grueling portion of the schedule was over. Turang returned to the lineup after missing four games, and Pratt began what could be a one-game rehab assignment in Appleton. With each run that scored, the road trip seemed further in the rearview mirror. Exactly one week ago, Gary Sánchez was lobbing eephus pitches in a blowout loss. Now, he was finishing off a blowout win. More challenges lie ahead. The Brewers must manage the workloads of Harrison and their other young starters during a pennant race. Next week, they begin a stretch of 16 games in 16 days, seven of them against the second-place Cubs in two series that could decide the division. They still can’t let off the gas, even after weathering what was likely to be their toughest stretch on paper. Most teams have hot streaks throughout the course of a 162-game season. What separates the best teams is their ability to avoid prolonged losing streaks when they aren’t playing well and their environment is stacked against them. The Brewers earned a comfortable division lead by playing their best baseball in the first half. This is the time for staying afloat. So far, they’ve remained up to the task. View full article

Image courtesy of Jon Endow-Imagn Images Logan Henderson is not Tarik Skubal. At his best, Skubal’s two fastballs flirt with triple digits. They comprise just one part of a powerful five-pitch mix from the left side. His ceiling is the best starting pitcher in baseball. Henderson, meanwhile, averages 93 MPH with his heater, and his ceiling is probably a solid No. 2 starter. But when the Brewers reportedly withheld Henderson from an already-aggressive trade offer to the Detroit Tigers, and Skubal instead became a Los Angeles Dodger for a pitching-centric return, the calculus wasn’t just about ceiling. Skubal was a rental who would make at most 15 more starts through a 2026 World Series run. Even if the best version of Skubal is better than the best version of Henderson, the latter could easily perform similarly for the rest of this year, after which he’ll have five more seasons of team control before free agency. Skubal’s body of work since he started breaking out in 2023 is more significant, but Henderson has come impressively close to his rate stats in his first 17 big-league starts. That includes a nearly identical strikeout-minus-walk rate, among the most powerful predictors of pitcher performance. Pitcher GS IP ERA- FIP- DRA- SIERA K-BB% Tarik Skubal 96 581.1 60 59 70 2.80 26.9% Logan Henderson 17 88.2 61 78 87 2.95 26.3% The emphasis here is “close.” If the question is whom to pick for 15 starts, the answer is Skubal. If the question is whom to pick for a winner-take-all postseason start, the answer is Skubal. Henderson isn’t a bad alternative, though. He’s capable of matching him within such a 15-start stretch and on a given night. Henderson going directly against Skubal just a couple of weeks after the trade was a prompt test of that hypothesis. The early returns supported it. Skubal didn’t have great support from his defense, as just one of the two runs he allowed was earned. For that reason, it’s not quite fair to say Henderson outdueled him, but he absolutely matched him. Beyond their box-score lines, the two were nearly identical when it came to commanding the strike zone and missing barrels. Pitcher IP H ER BB K CStr + Whiff Whiff Hard Hit Barrel Tarik Skubal 6 7 1 2 7 31% (29/93) 29% (15/52) 47% (8/17) 6% (1/17) Logan Henderson 7 3 1 1 6 28% (31/109) 28% (18/64) 50% (9/18) 5% (1/18) Adding to the symmetry is the fact that both pitchers are propelled by their excellent changeups. Both Henderson and Skubal induced whiffs on 50% of swings with their changeups Sunday, offsetting louder contact against their fastballs. Most notably, Henderson got another opportunity to pitch into the seventh inning after an unsuccessful attempt in his last start. In San Diego, his fastball velocity tumbled to 90.6 MPH in his seventh frame, and he hung a changeup to Jackson Merrill for a go-ahead home run. On Sunday, Henderson averaged 93.7 MPH in the seventh, tossing a scoreless final inning and tying a career high with 93 pitches. As things currently stand, Skubal and Henderson could line up for a direct rematch in a postseason game. Even if they don’t, Henderson profiles as one of the Brewers’ top three starters, so they’ll start him in important October games. Whether those outings come against the Dodgers or someone else, they’ll hope for similar results to what they would have gotten from Skubal had they acquired him instead. A Sunday afternoon outing in August guarantees nothing from a rookie starter in the postseason, but it was the latest sign that the guy the Brewers insisted on keeping could match the game’s best arms when needed. View full article

Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images After he allowed a season-high six earned runs against the Minnesota Twins in his last start, Shane Drohan knew what went wrong. "I was just too low with the slider," he said postgame. Drohan's tight gyro slider is his best pitch. FanGraphs's Stuff+ model grades it as his most dominant pitch (108 Stuff+), and big-league hitters have managed just a .215 xwOBA against it (with a 41.6% whiff rate) this year. It wasn't a useful part of his arsenal last Friday, however, because he was not nearly competitive enough with it. Sliders are usually more of a chase pitch than an in-zone pitch, because their late break occurs after the hitter has already decided to swing. But to force those chases, the slider must start in or near the bottom of the zone. Drohan wasn't doing that against the Twins. Just a quarter of his sliders were in the zone, and most of them bounced in the dirt well shy of home plate. "I was just throwing it too low," Drohan said. "It could be a couple inches higher, so out of hand it's looking like that fastball at the bottom of the zone." The Twins made him pay. Because those sliders were nowhere close, they could effectively eliminate swinging at anything around the bottom of the zone. That allowed them to focus on the top of the zone, where Drohan likes to attack with his fastballs. Of the nine hits he allowed, eight came on fastballs, and five came on heaters at or above the belt. Drohan wasn't hit as hard as his line indicated. His average exit velocity against was 78.6 mph, and only six of 18 batted balls (33.3%) were hit 95 mph or above. If anything, that's a testament to how deceptive his fastballs can be. However, those deceptive heaters usually induce plenty of swings and misses around the top of the zone. The Twins only whiffed twice each at Drohan's four-seamer and cutter. Eliminating the slider was the difference between a whiff and contact that could find the outfield grass, even if it wasn't hit hard. "They eliminated down, and the breaking ball didn't come into play," Pat Murphy said. "His slider did not come into play much, and that's been key for him." The issues with the slider have become a recurring problem for Drohan over his past few starts. Before his Twins start, he bounced plenty of uncompetitive sliders in Anaheim, but he threw enough at the bottom of the zone to work six solid innings with seven strikeouts. He even induced chases on some of those bad misses against a poor Los Angeles Angels lineup. A better offense made him pay his next time out. "They hit them hard," Murphy said. "You give up 10 hits, or whatever you gave up, that's unusual. A couple homers. He missed some spots." On the whole, Drohan is still authoring a productive rookie season. His 3.87 ERA is still above average, and his 3.50 xERA and 3.34 FIP are both a touch lower. He's one of the reasons Milwaukee's pitching staff has kept chugging along amid injuries and workload management measures. "He's throwing the ball great for us," Murphy said. "Let's not act like he hasn't been good. If you had to pick four guys from the July time frame, this guy would be one of the four in everybody's ballot who have put us in this position." As October nears, though, the Brewers will have to decide whether Drohan fits best as a back-of-the-rotation starter or a multi-inning reliever who can pitch in high-leverage situations. He has the arsenal and poise for either role and has shown flashes in both. To be the productive starter version, Drohan needs to get his slider closer to the plate more consistently. View full article

Image courtesy of John Hefti-Imagn Images After his name appeared in rumors last month, Logan Henderson remained a Brewer after last Monday's trade deadline. Given that the club reportedly made Henderson off-limits in trade talks for Tarik Skubal, it seems that's the outcome both player and team preferred. "I saw my name thrown in there," Henderson told reporters after his last start on Tuesday, the night after the deadline. "I actually saw [Matt] Arnold earlier today, and I said thank you for not dishing me away." To this point, Henderson's big-league opportunities have not been as consistent as he and the Brewers prefer. At this time one year ago, elbow inflammation ultimately ended his season prematurely. Earlier this year, he missed six weeks with a low back strain. As a result, Henderson has made just 15 career major-league starts. Including last year's postseason, that's four months of big-league games in which Henderson has been with the Brewers but unable to pitch. He's still found ways to benefit from that time. "When I've been on the shelf, I'm watching the game all the time," Henderson said over the weekend. "I'm always still thinking about baseball, still seeing how I can improve in a lot of different areas. I live and breathe the game, and I'm always thinking about it and seeing how I can get better." One might expect that missing time due to injury could impact a 24-year-old rookie's ability to settle in at the game's highest level. It's had no noticeable effect on Henderson, who has looked at home on a big-league mound whenever he's been available. In those 15 starts, he's pitched to a 2.39 ERA, 3.06 FIP, and 91 DRA- with an excellent 32.6% strikeout rate. "I don't know that I have a great answer for that," Henderson said of his ability to pick up where he left off after being sidelined. "I feel like when I get back in a 'compete' mode and when I'm in-game, it's like I get in that zone and it's kind of hard to explain." In his five starts last year, Henderson proved that his stuff could get big-league hitters out, but the jury remained out on whether he could succeed sustainably as a starting pitcher. His ride-run four-seamer and fading changeup from a low slot created a lethal two-pitch combination, but he lacked feel for a third pitch with consistent glove-side movement. In his debut season, 89% of Henderson's pitches were a fastball or changeup, raising questions about his effectiveness multiple times through a lineup. Henderson is quelling those concerns this year. He's reduced that combined usage of fastballs and changeups to 78%, mainly by making his cutter a bona fide secondary pitch to right-handed hitters. Last season, Henderson did not throw a single cutter to a righty, but for much of this year, it's become his go-to secondary in those matchups. "Honestly, it's kind of just a comfortability thing," Henderson said. "Being able to have a full offseason with it, spring, then time in Nashville, I felt really good about it. If I'm a two-pitch pitcher to a righty, you can flip a coin and you know what's coming. So I think it's a really good buffer, and I think it's a good pitch. I think William [Contreras] likes it a lot too because he calls it a lot. So I think a lot of it was just him pressing cutter behind the plate, me being convicted in it, and just kind of running with it." Metrically, Henderson's cutter still grades as his worst pitch. A decent chunk of them still back up with slight arm-side run, rather than true cut. Stuff is only part of the equation, though. Last year, Henderson also threw a short gyro slider as a potential fourth pitch. Over the offseason, he traded it for a sweeping breaking ball. Both have graded as nastier pitches than the cutter, but Henderson has struggled to find a consistent feel for them. The cutter has been a more repeatable in-zone pitch, making it a more sensible third offering. "It's how does this blend with my arsenal, and then how does it feel coming out of my hand? How does it feel throwing it?" Henderson said. "Last year, I had the gyro, and I loved it, and I thought it was a good pitch, but I didn't execute it great. It didn't feel good on my elbow, so I'm not throwing that one anymore. And then the cutter, I think, is just necessary. You look at my arsenal, and I'm not throwing the slider a ton, so I need something turning left." Furthermore, despite its unimpressive characteristics, the cutter has excelled at missing barrels. According to Statcast, Henderson's cutter has posted a +1 run value while holding opponents to a .279 xwOBA, 33.3% hard-hit rate, and 20.5% whiff rate. The raw movement numbers are probably underselling it. Henderson's cutter may not actually cut much, but he's been told the movement is late enough to miss the sweet spot of the bat. Additionally, because he throws from a low slot and gets so much run on his fastball and changeup, the cutter might have extra perceived cut by comparison. "Ty Duvall, one of our bullpen catchers who catches me every day, has given me that feedback before," Henderson said. "On paper, it might not look like it cuts a whole lot, but it's hard enough and late enough to where it's just the perfect amount of cut to be able to get guys off the four-seamer and miss the barrel with that last amount of cut." The next item on Henderson's checklist as a developing starter is length. He has completed six innings in just three of his 15 starts. It's not a matter of efficiency, but of durability. The Brewers have routinely pulled him after five innings with a pitch count at or below 85 pitches, citing pitch-tracking and biomechanical data showing that his stuff declines around that threshold. "Those things are all great goals to have, but you got to be able to maintain your stuff beyond that," Pat Murphy said in late July after Henderson expressed that he wanted to start working deeper into starts. The Brewers have since let him work into the sixth inning in two straight outings. They could give him more leash on Monday night, as running a six-man rotation during a stretch of 17 straight games without a day off has left them short-handed in a seven-man bullpen. However, Murphy also made clear that Henderson throwing his best stuff for five innings is better than pacing himself for seven. "I don't want him thinking about getting deeper in games and conserving pitches," Murphy said. "You've got to fight to get outs, man." Henderson is finally getting an extended opportunity to show that fight, and he's becoming a key cog in the middle of Milwaukee's rotation. "It has been good to get a little runway here to make a good stretch of starts," Henderson said. "Just trying to keep doing that moving forward." View full article

Image courtesy of IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect When David Hamilton returned from the injured list amid hot streaks by Joey Ortiz and Cooper Pratt, Pat Murphy said the intention was to find playing time for all three, hinting that the Brewers would handle the left side of the infield with more nuance than a straight platoon between Hamilton and Ortiz at third base. However, since Hamilton's activation, he's started 10 of Milwaukee's 11 games against a right-handed starter. Ortiz, meanwhile, has drawn just one start at third base against a right-hander. His other two starts against righties have come at Pratt's expense at shortstop. It's the latest sign that the Brewers as an organization remain bullish on the athletic Hamilton's potential, even as he's made very few strides in harnessing that athleticism for more than a couple of plays or at-bats at a time. Earlier in the week, Murphy shed more light on how the Brewers are handling Ortiz. As they have with Andrew Vaughn, they're shielding him from right-handed arsenals with more horizontal movement. "It's a type of righty," Murphy said. "There are righties that have [a] great two-seam, great sweepers. You don't play Joey as much against them." Those east-west pitches, Murphy explained, can exploit recurring issues with Ortiz's front side as he strides toward the pitcher. After he gets busted inside with a two-seamer, he opens up early to cheat to it, leaving him unable to stay on a breaking ball moving away from him. "If you're one of those hitters where wherever the pitcher's going, your eyes go there and don't respond to the other side [of the plate], it's more that than it is [your swing]," Murphy said. "So the swing decisions are affected more when a guy's bearing in on you … You have to be way, way convicted on what you're going to do with that. But in Joey's case, he had that habit for a long time of just his front side going, because he wanted so much to get to how he was being attacked, and it didn't serve him." Statistically, that doesn't bear out cleanly. In 2026, Ortiz has fared a bit better against right-handed sinkers than right-handed four-seamers, and he's been passable against sweepers. In a much larger sample for his career, though, Ortiz has done his best work against more vertical right-handed pitches like four-seamers and curveballs, while struggling against sinkers, short sliders, and sweepers. The Brewers urge their hitters to take pitches they would struggle to hit before they get to two strikes. For Ortiz, that means keeping his focal point toward the outer third of the plate. His swing length is a bit longer (7.5 feet, according to Statcast) than the league average (7.3 feet), and his hands can sometimes lag behind the rest of his body when he opens up. Staying on pitches middle or away can help keep everything in sync. "Now he's understanding, 'I got to take that and rely on what I can [hit] out over,'" Murphy said. "Or when [the pitcher] mistakes the two-seamer [over the middle], it's staying closed and staying linear, so he can handle everything else." Bat tracking data reveals Ortiz's inconsistency in keeping himself closed on sweepers. His overall rate of early swings and flails away from the ball are both around the league average, but he's more prone to extreme flails and very early swings than the average right-handed hitter against a righty sweeper. Ortiz's last two starts against right-handers have come against Tyler Mahle and Bubba Chandler, both of whom lean mostly on four-seam fastballs without much arm-side run. That could change if he becomes more consistent against side-to-side right-handers, but as long as the Brewers continue to believe in Hamilton and the rest of the infield remains healthy, adhering to arsenal matchups will remain the playbook. View full article

The Brewers’ biggest trade deadline deal was a four-player swap with the division-rival Cardinals on Monday afternoon. Milwaukee acquired veteran starter Dustin May and reliever JoJo Romero in exchange for outfield prospects Josiah Ragsdale and Alexander Frias. That looks at first glance like a steep return. Injuries have kept May from making good on the promise he showed as a young starter for the Dodgers, and his 4.38 ERA for St. Louis this year is nothing special. Romero is a solid middle reliever. Both are rentals who will be free agents after this season. Meanwhile, Ragsdale was Brewer Fanatic’s No. 16 prospect, while Frias appeared in FanGraphs’ Top 50 prospects in their latest midseason update. Several fans and pundits were quick to call that a clear overpay, but there’s more to dive into here. First, Ragsdale and Frias were both breakout prospects who remained beneath other outfielders on the organizational depth chart. The Brewers’ internal evaluations of both players are likely lower than the consensus. Second, May and Romero are great fits for Milwaukee’s pitching infrastructure with more upside than one might assume. May’s results with the Cardinals this year were unremarkable, but his 3.91 xERA, 3.14 FIP, and 93 DRA- all suggest he’s pitched like an above-average starter. Most importantly, his arsenal has improved this year. “The stuff is really electric,” president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold said. “You saw what he did against us a couple weeks ago, and he was really, really good. He’s a guy that we’re happy to have on our side.” May has reintroduced a curveball and changeup this year to expand his secondary stuff, but the Brewers are almost certainly more interested in his fastballs significantly improving. He's always been a fastball-heavy pitcher, but when May returned from his second career elbow surgery last season, he couldn't get the same mileage out of his hard stuff. His four-seamer, sinker, and cutter combined for a poor -12 run value, prompting him to throw more breaking balls that he couldn't spot in the strike zone. This year, May is back to throwing more heaters, and his fastball run value has flipped to an elite +11. "My biggest thing is fastball execution," May said. "If I'm able to execute the fastballs, the offspeed stuff just plays off it, whether it's in the zone or not. So being able to kind of place the ball in and out is my biggest thing." In his prime, May approached 100 mph with his four-seamer and sinker, but his average velocity dipped to around 95 mph last year. This year, he’s back to sitting nearly 97 mph, and his cutter is at its highest velocity since 2020. It’s not just the velocity bump. May is also creating better angles with those three fastballs, allowing them to play off one another more effectively. He has raised his arm angle from 21 degrees to 34 degrees this year, which has added more than 2 inches of backspin carry to both his four-seamer and cutter, which also has more consistent glove-side movement. "I think going into the offseason, the biggest thing for me was kind of getting back to my old throw," May said. "So that was something that I really worked on, and I feel like I've kind of gotten back to a close version of my previous self, whether it be arm angle and slot and everything like that, just to be able to maximize the efficiency of my throw." The biggest piece to the puzzle, particularly for the Brewers, is May’s sinker. A higher arm slot raises the spin direction of a baseball, which is why May’s four-seamer and cutter now have more carry. It hasn’t affected his sinker, though, which has not lost any sink. That’s because May is generating more seam-shifted wake on the pitch. This seems to be because of his unique offset sinker grip, which orients the two seams in a way that creates a greater air pressure imbalance on each side of the ball as it spins toward home plate. Hitters look for spin to identify a pitch as it makes its way toward home plate. When they see the ball spinning in a certain direction, they use that spin to predict how the ball will move. This year, May is creating an even greater difference between how much hitters expect his sinker to sink based on its spin and how it actually sinks. Take a look at the two clock-like graphics below. In 2025, there was a clear difference in the direction May’s sinker would spin (the orange bars on the left) and how it would actually move (the orange bars on the right). The bars on the right were lower on the clock, meaning May’s sinker would move down and to the right more than it was spinning. This year, there’s an even greater difference between the spin and the movement. Because of his higher arm slot, May’s sinker is spinning more vertically, but it has just as much depth and horizontal movement. By getting the same amount of sink from a higher arm slot, it looks to the hitter like May’s ball is sinking even more than it did last year. His sinker’s vertical approach angle, which measures how “steep” a pitch looks to the hitter, has dropped from -5.28 degrees to -5.51 degrees this season. That means May’s sinker now ranks among the steepest in baseball. The bottom line is that all of May’s fastballs are behaving better. His four-seamer has more carry, his cutter has more cut, and his sinker looks like it has more sink. With those improved fastballs, May can throw three pitches with very similar spin out of his hand, but with very different movement. According to MLB Pitch Profiler, his proMax+ (a stat that measures how well a pitcher mixes different pitch shapes while making them look the same out of his hand) has jumped from 92 to 107. That makes May a perfect new toy for pitches coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson, who value tunneling three different fastballs off each other in the strike zone. With the Cardinals, May threw his sinker mostly to right-handers and his cutters mostly to left-handers, and he threw plenty of four-seamers to both sides. The Brewers could balance all three fastballs more evenly to both sides and bring May’s overall fastball usage closer to the 75% he averaged with the Dodgers years ago. Romero doesn’t have three fastballs, but his leading pitch is also a power sinker that averages just 0.9 inches of induced vertical break (a lower number means more sink). The southpaw has very little extension toward home plate. With a shorter stride, his body is more upright and further above the ground, which raises his release height and adds to his perceived sink. Aaron Ashby creates a similar effect with low extension, albeit from a much higher arm slot. Romero’s sinker has a -5.89 vertical approach angle, which is an elite -0.73 degrees steeper than expected from his release height and velocity. It’s gotten ground balls on at least 60% of batted balls in every year since 2021. There’s a reason why the Brewers felt comfortable giving up what they did to bring in two division-rival arms. At minimum, a healthy May should remain a reliable innings-eater. At best, he could dominate down the stretch with one of baseball’s best fastball combinations. When Romero returns from an appendectomy, he’ll give Pat Murphy a ground-ball specialist who can ease the strain on the team’s leverage relievers. Don’t be surprised if what looks like an overpay becomes a great value deal for Milwaukee. View full article

Image courtesy of Jon Endow-Imagn Images Multiple reports indicated that the Brewers were in on the Tarik Skubal sweepstakes before the Tigers traded him to the Dodgers. Hours before Monday afternoon's trade deadline, manager Pat Murphy confirmed that Milwaukee pushed to acquire the most notable name on this year's market. "I know we went after trying to get that player," Murphy said. He made clear that it wasn't a half-baked pursuit or a due-diligence check-in on Detroit's asking price. From Murphy's comments, it sounded like the Brewers felt they made a compelling offer—possibly one they felt exceeded the three-player offer the Dodgers made. "I don't know exactly the details of it, but I know this: it isn't as simple as, 'That's a better package,'" Murphy said. "It's not as simple as that. There's a lot more layers to it. I don't understand it fully, but I think this is a bigger situation, rather than, 'Well, that was a better package.' To say the Brewers didn't try is simply incorrect." Murphy wasn't implying that a conspiracy was afoot, of course. He just meant that teams accept some trades and decline others based on idiosyncrasies of evaluation and based on some externalities. That the Tigers took the Dodgers' offer doesn't mean that, objectively, that offer contained more talent or future value than the one the Brewers made. "I think we were prepared to push a lot of chips in," said president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold, speaking generally after declining to discuss specific trade targets and negotiations. Yet, Skubal became the latest star to join the large-market, high-spending, repeat-champion Dodgers on Saturday night—two full working days ahead of the deadline—in exchange for a polarizing package that many pundits deemed light. Murphy's remarks will further fuel theories of shady operations making it happen, but that's a discussion for a different time. For the Brewers' front office, the immediate reality was that Skubal was off the table, and they needed to look elsewhere for reinforcements. "When you're in on a lot of stuff, there's certainly some things where you come up short, and you just got to pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and try to do what you can to get the next thing," Arnold said. "And ultimately, I think we were able to accomplish a lot over the last 48 hours to get some stuff done to really help the team." That included a deal with the division-rival Cardinals for right-hander Dustin May and left-hander JoJo Romero, and a trade with the Rockies for breakout reliever Antonio Senzatela. The trio satisfies Milwaukee's greatest need for the rest of the regular season: pitching. The Brewers rank third in baseball in ERA- and first in FIP-, but several key hurlers are facing workload concerns. "I think, especially this time of year, you can never have too much pitching," Arnold said. "I think the guys that we got are pretty battle-tested, experienced guys." First came the deal for May and Romero, which cost what many deemed an overpay in breakout prospects Josiah Ragsdale (Brewer Fanatic's No. 16 prospect) and Alexander Frias. However, it could be that the Brewers' internal evaluations of Ragsdale and Frias, who were behind a few other outfielders on the prospect depth chart, are lower than the Cardinals'. Both May and Romero have steep power sinkers, and the former has upside after rediscovering his upper-90s velocity this year. The deal could age better than the industry expects it to for the Brewers. "It's hard to make trades. It's not as easy as, 'Well, just this guy for this guy or this guy.' It's just not that easy," Murphy said. "And the rating of the prospects and all that kind of stuff, be careful. That's been proven not to be very valid, specifically." May should provide an upgrade over an inconsistent Brandon Sproat in the rotation, while allowing the Brewers to manage the innings of Jacob Misiorowski, Kyle Harrison, and Shane Drohan. Romero will be out a few more weeks as he recovers from an appendectomy. Senzatela, who has broken out as a multi-inning reliever by adding velocity and supporting his four-seam fastball with a new cutter and sinker, will join the bullpen immediately. He'll ease the strain on Aaron Ashby and Chad Patrick, who have recently been inconsistent after heavy usage. With 50 regular-season games left to play, the Brewers are looking to secure a first-round postseason bye while holding off the Cubs in the NL Central. To maximize their success for those 50 games, they needed more pitching depth. At minimum, May, Romero, and Senzatela are solid additions, and each has the upside to become even more impactful. However, for the Brewers to take down the Dodgers or another juggernaut in a short October series, they arguably need more power bats who can change a game with one swing. Their 101 home runs are the fewest in baseball, and their .144 isolated power ranks 27th. They probably would have been well-served by adding a bat, but it's easy to see why they didn't. There were few true power hitters traded, and pitching was a greater need to reach the postseason. Furthermore, the clearest way to upgrade the offense would be replacing Christian Yelich (92 wRC+) at DH, a move that could have negative implications off the field. It was not a fantastic deadline, but it was among the Brewers' best in recent seasons. They went fishing in deeper waters than usual this year, and after coming up empty on Skubal, they struck their usual balance of improving their big-league roster without losing any of their blue-chip prospects. "We certainly talked about doing some irresponsible stuff as well, but I would say we tried to thread the needle," Arnold said. The tight-knit clubhouse will try to weave their way through the rest of the campaign with the help Arnold found in the eye of that needle. View full article

Image courtesy of Ken Blaze-Imagn Images The Brewers began their trade deadline activity on Saturday morning with a four-player deal with the Guardians. Reliever Craig Yoho and outfielder Blake Perkins went to Cleveland, while catcher Bo Naylor and reliever Codi Heuer joined Milwaukee. In optioning both Naylor and Heuer to Triple-A Nashville, the Brewers reinforced that the deal is (for now) a swap of peripheral players. None of the four had clear roles in their former organizations, but each may be more appreciated by their new teams. Naylor is the most notable piece coming back. The Guardians' first-round pick in 2018, he enjoyed a productive rookie year, hitting .237/.339/.470 (123 wRC+) in 67 games. He didn't make much loud contact, though, and his approach of catching fastballs out in front to pull them in the air left him vulnerable against secondary pitches. Those aspects of his profile quickly caught up to him, and he's hit just .192/.266/.351 (74 wRC+) since the start of 2024. Patrick Bailey, Austin Hedges, and David Fry all surpassed Naylor on Cleveland's catching depth chart, but he has a clearer path to playing time in Milwaukee. Reports have been mixed on whether the Brewers are shopping incumbent backup catcher Gary Sánchez, but if he's dealt in the next 50 hours or so, Naylor could take his place. Even if Sánchez stays, he'll be a free agent after this season, and William Contreras will hit the open market after 2027. Once that catching core thins, Naylor could be ahead of Jeferson Quero as the next man up. Quero was an excellent defensive catcher with a promising bat, but his development was stalled by a shoulder injury two years ago, and Will Sammon and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic report that the reason why he's been exclusively a DH since June 28 is a biceps injury. Even if Quero rounds into better form on both offense and defense, Naylor could have more upside, particularly at the plate. Despite his subpar hard-hit rate in the big leagues, he was scouted with above-average raw power. The Brewers diverge from much of baseball in emphasizing deep contact and an all-fields approach over pulling the ball in the air, so they could make Naylor's bat more consistent and tap into some doubles power with a more balanced approach. In any case, Naylor looks like a potential supporting piece for the stretch run, then a more important long-term piece if things go according to plan. The 26-year-old is controlled through 2030 and is first-time arbitration-eligible this winter, but the Brewers could push that back one more year if he remains in Triple-A for the rest of the season. He's more likely to help than Perkins, whose defense in center field and left-handed swing cratered after he fractured his shin last spring. It's the opposite tradeoff in swapping Yoho for Heuer, as the former is a rookie reliever with enticing stuff, while the latter is a non-tender candidate in a few months. After the Brewers selected him in the eighth round of the 2023 draft, Yoho skyrocketed through the minor leagues with an arsenal of elite east-west movement and debuted last season. The writing was on the wall for his time in Milwaukee, though, as the big-league coaching staff remained reluctant to trust him over concerns about his control and whether his stuff could deceive more disciplined hitters. The Brewers will replace him with Heuer, who owns a passable career 3.76 ERA, 3.97 FIP, and 4.20 SIERA but has spent most of the season with Triple-A Columbus. As a 30-year-old journeyman, he lacks Yoho's upside, but the Brewers probably believe his arsenal gives him a higher floor as a middle reliever they can shuttle between Nashville and Milwaukee. Like Yoho, Heuer throws from a low right-handed slot and naturally pronates when he releases the baseball, giving him a solid fastball-changeup combination. The difference is that he has less raw movement and a tighter velocity spread. His mid-90s fastball runs less than Yoho's, his changeup has less downward movement and is 8 mph faster on average, and his short gyro slider is more useful than the big 77-mph curveball Yoho could not control. The Brewers' top assignment for Yoho was to throw more strikes. They also felt hitters could pick up his changeup too early because of its low velocity and big movement, prompting Pat Murphy to say last month that it was "not a swing-and-miss" pitch, even though Yoho has gotten whiffs on 33.1% of changeup swings in his limited big-league career. With shorter shapes and closer velocity across his pitches, Heuer may be better-equipped right now to throw strikes and make his pitches look similar to each other out of his hand. According to the tunneling metrics at Baseball Prospectus, batters have an 82.4% chance of correctly identifying Yoho's changeup by the time they must decide to swing or take, and a 69.5% chance of identifying his sinker. For Heuer's changeup and four-seamer, those chances are 56% and 78.7%, respectively. Even though those pitches have less actual movement, their perceived depth to the hitter is similar to Yoho. Standing 6-foot-5, Heuer is three inches taller than Yoho and throws from a slightly higher slot. His pitches move downward less, but because he's throwing them from a higher release, they approach home plate at more of a downward angle. Vertical approach angle looks at both movement and where the pitcher releases the ball, making it a great metric for measuring how much carry or drop a pitch appears to have to a hitter. Vertically, Heuer's stuff looks strikingly similar to Yoho's. His secondaries have actually gotten more swings and misses, both this season (the table below) and for their careers. Craig Yoho Pitch Type MPH Vert Horz VAA Stuff+ Whiff% Sinker 94.4 6.3 16.2 -5.3 91 12.1% Changeup 79.1 -4.2 16.4 -7.6 92 35.0% Curveball 77.7 -9.1 -17.3 -9.5 174 - Codi Heuer Pitch Type MPH Vert Horz VAA Stuff+ Whiff% Four-Seamer 95.4 14.2 10.4 -5.2 94 10.5% Changeup 87.1 5.2 16.0 -7.1 91 33.3% Slider 86.5 0.7 -4.3 -7.9 107 54.5% Yoho, meanwhile, could be a better fit with the Guardians, who throw significantly fewer fastballs (57.9% as a team) than the Brewers (67.3%, once again the highest rate in baseball). Even if he pans out as a high-leverage arm in Cleveland, the Brewers would only lose so much future value in giving up on a talented one-inning reliever. It's fair to question whether they truly gave Yoho's skill set a fair opportunity and shipped him out too quickly for what they believe is the better short-term version of him. For now, though, the Brewers have probably made their bullpen slightly better today and their catching mix slightly better in the future. More moves are almost certainly coming as the trade deadline nears. View full article

Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images With baseball’s August 3 trade deadline days away, pitching remains the Brewers’ greatest need. They're a great team in an enviable position, but in order to maintain their lead in the NL Central and make a push for the top postseason seed, they need to gather some reinforcements. It would be surprising if Milwaukee did not acquire a mid-rotation starter, a reliever, or both. If the club adds a couple of arms, it will have to send a couple out. Joel Kuhnel currently lives on the roster bubble. The 31-year-old right-hander owns a career 5.58 ERA and 4.73 FIP in 117 appearances, most of them in low-leverage situations. As a Brewer, he’s pitched to a 6.52 ERA and 9.32 FIP. He’s out of minor-league options, so if there’s no room for him, they must remove him from the 40-man roster and expose him to waivers. Whether by design, coincidence, or a combination of both, Kuhnel’s ramp-up to return from the injured list is lining up with the trade deadline. The Brewers haven’t revealed his next steps after a live batting practice session in Appleton on Thursday, but as a one-inning reliever, he should only need one rehab appearance before he’s ready to return next week. Their trade deadline activity will probably determine whether there’s a spot for Kuhnel. Even with DL Hall on the mend, the Brewers could use another reliever capable of pitching multiple innings in close games to ease the strain on Aaron Ashby and Chad Patrick. A short-range lefty to take what was formerly Jared Koenig’s role would also help. Adding a starter could push someone currently in the rotation mix into long relief. Should those deals not come together, there are worse fallback options than adding Kuhnel back to the bullpen. Despite his grisly performance before his injury, there are reasons why he seemed to be Pat Murphy’s preferred choice when a ‘B’ reliever had to pitch in a pivotal situation. When the Brewers acquired him from the Athletics in June, it was actually the second time they brought him in; they also signed him to a minor-league deal during the 2024 season. Kuhnel’s sinker has helped him post a 50.4% ground-ball rate and hold right-handed hitters to a .614 OPS this season. His velocity has jumped a couple of ticks since coming over, making his stuff above average for the first time in his career. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Team Sinker MPH Sinker Stuff+ Cutter MPH Cutter Stuff+ Curveball MPH Curveball Stuff+ Total Stuff+ ATH 94.5 97 89.9 94 80.3 103 94 MIL 96.5 100 91.5 105 83.9 122 103 The problem has been controlling those gains. As a Brewer, he’s walked 12.2% of hitters and plunked two batters. That’s a flip from the kind of pitcher he has typically been. He posted an excellent 5.6% walk rate for the Athletics and has walked only 6.4% of opponents for his career. Leading up to his injury, Kuhnel was pitching frequently in key situations when the Brewers were short-handed in the bullpen, and that workload seemed to be taking its toll. That’s not a full excuse; taking the ball regularly is part of the job for a big-league reliever. Still, he could fare much better in the right role. The Brewers can do better than Kuhnel to round out their relief corps, and if they make additions before Monday evening, he’ll be among the first on the chopping block. There’s no harm in keeping him around as an insurance option, though. His stuff is good enough to be a serviceable middle reliever, if he's given the chance. View full article

Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images Early in the season, the left side of the infield looked like a short-term weakness for the Brewers. For now, Pat Murphy faces the good problem of finding playing time for three capable players between shortstop and third base. Barring an acquisition before next Monday’s trade deadline, Milwaukee will probably get less offense from shortstop and third base than most other positions. It’s still safest to assume none of Cooper Pratt, Joey Ortiz, or David Hamilton will be above-average hitters by season’s end. Pratt and Ortiz have been red-hot in July, though, and Hamilton’s elite range has helped him accrue 7 Defensive Runs Saved at third base despite shoddy fundamentals and a nagging elbow issue. Before the Brewers’ series against the Colorado Rockies last weekend, Murphy was asked how the club would handle playing time on the left side of the infield after Hamilton’s return from a brief stint on the injured list. “We get them all in there,” he said. “Pratt, Ortiz, Hamilton, they all play a lot. They’re all starters.” The Brewers like all three players, so it makes sense to balance their opportunities accordingly. However, since Hamilton and Ortiz are both great defenders and below-average hitters, it also makes sense to ride the hot hand for now at third base. That’s how Murphy seems inclined to play things. On Friday, Ortiz started at shortstop over Pratt to get him and Hamilton in the same lineup. On Monday night, he started at third base against right-handed starter Tyler Mahle. “If he keeps playing well, he’ll keep playing,” Murphy said on Friday. “There’s days that it doesn’t match up as [well], but he’s been great for us, and we’re not going to do anything to hurt his confidence.” “Confidence” has long been Murphy’s buzzword surrounding Ortiz’s play, but lately, it’s been repeated in a positive context. After he lost his shortstop job to Pratt, Murphy met with Ortiz and reminded him that the Brewers still valued his abilities. He cited longtime Marlins and Dodgers utility man Miguel Rojas as a shortstop who became the best version of himself after a long stretch as a spare piece. Within a few days, Ortiz responded. Since June 29, he’s hitting .316/.358/.592 (157 wRC+). In just 191 innings at third base, he has already racked up 4 DRS. “My view is that I’m on the team for a reason,” Ortiz said after falling a home run shy of hitting for the cycle last Wednesday. “Wherever they need to put me, I’m gladly ready to play anywhere they need me.” “He’s just in a good, free space,” Murphy said. “He sees the ball a little more confident with two strikes. A little more confident, period. Just swinging the bat with conviction.” Ortiz has made some subtle tweaks to his setup and stride in the box, but conviction has made the greatest difference. He’s swinging at more strikes, and he’s swinging harder. Split xwOBA Z-Swing% Bat Speed (MPH) Fast Swing% Hard Hit% Through June 28 .285 55.6% 72.3 21.6% 32.4% Since June 29 .341 60.8% 74.3 49.2% 41.3% Ortiz’s bat speed is up by 2 MPH, and his rate of “fast swings” (defined by Statcast as swings with a bat speed of at least 75 MPH) has more than doubled. That's allowing him to make more hard contact. Players can train bat speed with the goal of naturally swinging faster more often, but it's an offseason project. The in-season jump Ortiz has experienced generally does not come from training. That bat speed was already in there; he’s just unleashing it more often. During his struggles, Ortiz looked like he was playing defense on offense. He wouldn’t swing the bat until he had to with two strikes, and he wasn’t using his best, most powerful swing. Now, he’s seeing the ball well and letting it rip. “He’s way more confident, and when you’re more confident, you can get your 'A' swing off,” Murphy said. Publicly, Ortiz said that his confidence hasn’t fluctuated throughout his time in Milwaukee. That can't be fully quantified. However, the authority with which he’s swinging has typically been a solid indirect measurement of how he’s feeling at the plate. Ortiz was similarly great in May 2024, slashing .290/.366/.581 (159 wRC+). That stretch featured strikingly similar swing metrics: an average bat speed of 74.9 mph, a 49.5% fast swing rate, and a 57.4% zone swing rate. Like that month of May, Ortiz is probably amid his hottest run of the season and won’t keep hitting at this level. He’s been a bit lucky during this stretch to make up for some poor luck earlier in the year. His swing decisions have been better lately, but they still haven’t been great. But there’s been a real shift in his conviction behind his improved results. The Brewers should take advantage of it while Ortiz stays hot. “I’m just really happy for the person,” Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Craig Yoho ascended so quickly to the big leagues as a reliever that it's easy to forget he's only in his fourth season as a pitcher. A position player for most of his injury-riddled college career, the 26-year-old didn't move to the mound until 2023 at Indiana and was drafted by the Brewers that summer. He's now trying to find his footing in the majors in just his third full professional season. "This is, what, my third-and-a-half year pitching, something like that?" Yoho said at his locker in the Milwaukee clubhouse over the weekend. "So there's still a lot of stuff I'm learning about myself and stuff in the game of baseball that I haven't experienced yet. It's been, in a way, just a learning experience through it all." Yoho's elite movement, particularly the screwball-like shape of his changeup, helped him tear through college and minor-league hitters with ease. In the majors, he's encountered more first-time challenges. Some of the lessons have been mechanical, but most have related to the mental game and his daily work with the Brewers' big-league pitching coaches. "Just going in each and every day, understanding the work I need to put in to be ready to go that night, and just having the right mindset of going into the game," Yoho said. He's also learning the best way to use his arsenal. The pitches Yoho originally threw after converting to pitching were effective until he reached the majors, so he never needed to think much about which pitches he should throw to perform at the game's highest level. That changed after Yoho struggled to a 7.27 ERA, 6.48 FIP, and 6.61 SIERA in 8 ⅔ innings in his debut season last year. Late in the year, he experimented with a shorter slider to replace his curveball, but he ditched it when it started to blend with his cutter. He made a grip change this year to give his changeup even more depth, increasing its induced vertical break from -3 inches to -4.4 inches. During his most recent stint in Triple-A Nashville, Yoho made his most substantial yet simplistic change: he added a sinker and has since used it as his primary fastball instead of his four-seamer. "I decided to start pitching my last year of college, and [the four-seam was] the grip I chose," Yoho said. "It wasn't necessarily like a rhyme or reason to it. So, for the most part, my arsenal hadn't changed since the day I picked up a baseball." The four-seamer moved inconsistently because it wasn't the best fastball grip for Yoho. He's an extreme pronator, which means his palm turns outward, away from his body and over the top of the baseball as he releases it. That allows him to create the sideways spin that makes his changeup drop and fade, but it also produces a four-seamer with lots of arm-side run and very little carry, instead of a normal four-seamer that looks like it's rising due to more vertical backspin. In other words, Yoho's four-seamer is a worse version of a sinker with less sink. Why not add a real sinker instead? "It's always crossed my mind because his four-seam is kind of like a two-seam anyway, so might as well just get some depth to it," Brewers pitching coordinator Jim Henderson said. "It's something I've thought about pretty much every offseason, but hadn't actually done anything with," Yoho said. "I always kind of wondered if it would actually help my arsenal or not." At the beginning of July, he finally added the sinker. Yoho is using a standard two-seam grip with his fingers riding along the parallel laces of the ball, with the friction of those seams allowing him to rip the ball off his fingertips more comfortably than he can with a four-seam grip. "The hand coming off the ball feels great," he said. Unsurprisingly, the sinker has nearly the same amount of run as Yoho's four-seamer, but it has more depth. It has averaged 6.7 inches of induced vertical break, while the four-seamer has averaged 11.4 inches (excluding his outings at Coors Field, where the ball moves less due to the high altitude). Yoho has still mixed in some four-seamers to show hitters slightly different versions of two similar fastballs. In addition to generating more sink to induce more ground balls, Yoho and the Brewers are hoping that more consistent movement will help him throw more fastballs for strikes. "I got to start my line a little bit more on my glove side, just so that way when the ball runs, it comes back [into the strike zone]," Yoho said. "With the four-seam, I felt like sometimes it would come back a lot, sometimes it wouldn't as much, and so it was a little bit working against what I was trying to do. So the two-seam has helped kind of clean some of that up." "I like it because I think it's a training tool for his mechanics," Henderson said. "When you throw sinkers back-door [to righties], you can't come out of your delivery." The improved control has yet to materialize, as Yoho has thrown fewer sinkers in the strike zone (47.7%) than four-seamers (52.6%). That's what Henderson and lead pitching coach Chris Hook are monitoring most. Their main message to Yoho has been that he must force hitters to honor his fastball in the zone to get chases and early swings against his changeup. "If he commands the fastball, if they have to respect the fastball, then the changeup, no matter what [the velocity] is, is going to have them out in front," Henderson said. One of the reservations the Brewers have with Yoho's changeup is its low velocity, which can give hitters time to recognize the pitch and take it for a ball or foul it off, even if they were initially fooled by it. During the second half of July, his changeup has gone from sitting around 77 mph to more than 80 mph. That velocity bump wasn't by design, but it's a welcome improvement. "Movement's great, but when it's big and it's early, big-league hitters are good enough to spoil it or take pitches that aren't tracking [in the zone]," Henderson said. "So for him to be able to sell it a little bit more with some velo is good if he can maintain movement, and then there's still the Bugs Bunny one that can mess different hitters up." Yoho has done a solid job of missing barrels this year, posting a 29.1% whiff rate and 32.6% hard-hit rate. However, his current success is not sustainable. He's allowed three home runs and walked 10.8% of batters faced while benefitting from a .116 batting average on balls in play. For those reasons, his 4.84 FIP and 3.90 SIERA are both higher than his 3.32 ERA. As a result, the Brewers have used him mostly in a low-leverage role. Yoho still profiles as a potential trade candidate with a murky future in Milwaukee, but he's trying to adapt and do what he can to become a reliable member of the bullpen. "It hasn't really been a conversation about roles," Yoho said. "Honestly, from pitch one, I'm ready to go, to the last pitch of the game." View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Pat Murphy was eager to discuss Joey Ortiz's fantastic game after Wednesday's Brewers win over the New York Mets, but he was just as excited to talk about another hitter's multi-hit performance after prolonged struggles. "How about Yelich today?" Murphy asked after praising Ortiz. "Nine-pitch at-bat to lead off the game, which is underrated, RBI, an RBI triple—good at-bats against really good pitching." Yelich drove in Ortiz twice: first with a single in the second inning, then with that triple in the sixth. He has four extra-base hits on the current homestand, hitting .250/.375/.500 (a 140 wRC+). "I'm pumped for 'Yeli,'" Murphy said, deliberately shouting him out a second time in his five-minute press conference. After a rough first half, Yelich's production and role will be a major storyline down the stretch. If the season ended today, his 99 wRC+ would be the lowest of his career, and the first time he's been a statistically below-average hitter. Lackluster results in a sample of around 300 plate appearances aren't new for Yelich. His overall solid production has experienced more ebbs and flows in recent years. Just last year, Yelich got off to a slow start before doing his best work in the second half. When things went poorly in the past, Yelich was still hitting the ball hard and usually getting a bit unlucky. That hasn't been the case this year. His .299 xwOBA is lower than his .316 wOBA and is a career low. His hard-hit rate and average exit velocity are also personal worsts. Yelich has never really been a contact hitter, but his whiff rate has jumped to 30.5%, his worst mark outside of the shortened 2020 season. In the rolling chart below of Yelich's xwOBA over 200 plate appearances, that blip in 2026 below the red average line jumps out. It's still just a blip, but it's a first-time blip. In other words, Yelich has never had a stretch this prolonged in which his quality of contact (not just his results) has been this poor. Yelich is moving more rigidly. His average sprint speed is down from 28.2 feet per second last season to 27.3. He hasn't looked flexible enough to reach low pitches with his swing path, making it even harder for him to make contact with back-foot breaking balls (the league's whiff rate on those pitches is 40.2%; Yelich's is 63.6%). Being stiffer has also limited Yelich's skill set and made him less valuable in a few smaller ways. In another pair of unwelcome firsts, he now has below-average speed and has taken fewer extra bases on balls in play than the average runner, according to Statcast. Yelich's infield hit rate has cratered from 7% of ground balls in each of his previous two seasons to a career-worst 4% in 2026. Earlier this month in Pittsburgh, he laid down a near-perfect bunt for an attempted hit. It took him long enough to get out of the box and run to first that third baseman Nick Gonzales, positioned on the dirt near the traditional shortstop position, had enough time to charge the ball as it rolled down the third-base line and throw out Yelich by half a step. YkJMeExfWGw0TUFRPT1fQndBRUJWVldVRllBREFjQ1ZRQUhWdzlTQUZsVVUxa0FBZ2RUQkZZTVVnQUdWUVpT.mp4 These could all be symptoms of an underlying injury. Yelich missed time in April and May with an adductor strain and a recurrence of back issues. But with Jackson Chourio, Garrett Mitchell, Jake Bauers, and (until his recent shoulder injury) Sal Frelick all playing well, there's been no need for him to play through pain. When his back has flared up in the past, the Brewers have usually shut him down pretty quickly. The likelier and more sobering answer is that at 34 years old, Yelich is physically declining and cannot move like he used to. If that's the case, he and the Brewers should not count on a return to form, because that form is gone. Instead, he must make physical adjustments to perform without his past mobility. As a 14-year veteran in tune with his body, Yelich is equipped to make that transition, but it's still challenging to do in-season. The Brewers are already quietly platooning Yelich; he's started just two of their last eight games against a left-handed starter. But it's too early to relegate him to a part-time player. Not only has he earned a long leash, but Frelick will be sidelined for an undetermined stretch, and Andrew Vaughn's 98 wRC+ against right-handers isn't much better than Yelich's. If Frelick returns and Yelich doesn't improve, it will be easy to say that the Brewers should reduce the latter's role, but it's not that simple. Yelich is their highest-paid player, their longest-tenured hitter, and a respected clubhouse figure who leads more with his conduct on the field than with his words. To demote him in the lineup—or, even worse, to the bench—is an open acknowledgment that something is wrong, and that it's not immediately fixable. The implications could bleed off the field. To avoid that dilemma, Yelich must start producing. That's why any signs of life, like those glimpses since the All-Star break, are encouraging. View full article