Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images He has pitched better than his 4.42 ERA suggests, but even from a process standpoint, Abner Uribe hasn’t been the dominant late-inning force he was last season. His 3.60 FIP, 3.37 SIERA, and 92 DRA- look more like the ERA estimators of a solid middle reliever, not a high-leverage arm. His 25.3% strikeout rate is still above average, but his 22% whiff rate only ranks in the 27th percentile of qualified pitchers. All of those marks are far cries from last year, when Uribe posted a 1.67 ERA, 2.75 FIP, 2.89 SIERA, and 77 DRA- with a 30.2% strikeout rate. He induced whiffs on an excellent 32% of swings and ground balls on 54.3% of batted balls. Uribe owed much of that breakout to a more balanced pitch mix. He used his sweeping slider a career-high 46% of the time, even making it his most-used pitch to right-handed batters. According to Baseball Savant, it held opponents to .203 wOBA, yielded a 46.8% whiff rate, and was worth 7 runs. This year, Uribe has slashed his slider usage and reverted to the sinker-heavy mix that was less successful earlier in his career. With its elite velocity and late movement, Uribe’s sinker is a good fastball, but it’s not a great one. Pitch modeling metrics regard his slider as his nastiest pitch. It induces more swings and misses and weak contact than his sinker, making it an important equalizer in Uribe’s arsenal that prevents opponents from sitting on velocity. The slider hasn’t been as useful this year, however, entering the weekend with a -1 run value. That has prompted Uribe to lean more than ever on his sinker this month. Uribe’s slider hasn’t actually become a worse pitch. Last season, it had a 130 Stuff+ and -1.4 StuffPro; this year, it’s at a 127 Stuff+ and -1.3 StuffPro. The difference has been that he’s stopped throwing it competitively. After throwing it for a strike 67.5% of the time last year, Uribe has managed just a 59.4% strike rate with his slider in 2026. He’s falling behind in counts with it and failing to put hitters away, which is why it suddenly has a negative run value despite minimal damage against it. Sweeping breaking balls are useful in-zone pitches against same-handed hitters, who will struggle to stay on the pitch as it breaks away from them. Opposite-handed hitters can square them up more easily as the ball breaks back toward their barrel. Right now, too many of Uribe’s sliders are missing outside the zone to right-handers and inside the zone to lefties. Compared to last season, right-handers have looked just as feeble when swinging at Uribe’s slider, recording zero hits with a 47.6% whiff rate, but its in-zone rate has fallen from 47.1% to 28.6%. The nasty sliders that once started over the plate before sweeping out of reach are now starting on the corner and breaking into the other batter’s box, making them easier for most of those hitters to take. On the flip side, Uribe’s slider neutralized lefties last year because he threw it at or below the knees or near their back foot, where it had more perceived depth and generated more swings over the top of it. This year, he’s thrown a whopping 66.7% of his sliders to lefties in the zone, many of them around the belt. As a result, they’re slugging .615 against it with just an 11.1% whiff rate. The current version of Uribe is still a useful pitcher, but a limited one. His ground ball rate has bounced back this month, largely thanks to that sinker, but his heater does not miss enough bats or force chases outside the zone. For things to truly start clicking again, Uribe’s breaking ball must become a weapon again. His feel for that pitch could have a pronounced ripple effect on the back end of Milwaukee’s bullpen this summer. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images Garrett Mitchell owes many of his continued opportunities as the Brewers’ starting center fielder to his high ceiling. When he’s clicking, no position player on the 40-man roster has the potential to be a more explosive player. Part of what makes Mitchell so polarizing is that his shortcomings are glaring issues, but he’s countered some of those flaws by being elite in his areas of strength. For most of his career, that has included being an excellent defensive center fielder. Mitchell entered this season with 10 Defensive Runs Saved and a 7 Fielding Run Value in just 822 ⅓ innings, a pace that would make him one of the game’s most valuable defenders at the position over a full season. It’s been a much different story in 2026. Mitchell has been a negative up the middle, with -3 DRS and -2 FRV in just over 300 innings. Mitchell is converting fewer plays, despite having some of the best reads and athleticism of his career. His average sprint speed of 29.7 feet per second is the fastest he’s run since his debut in late 2022. According to Statcast, he’s covering 2.3 more feet with his jump (distance traveled in the correct direction within the first three seconds of a ball being hit) than the average outfielder, which is a career best. The issue hasn’t been tracking the ball. Mitchell is putting himself in positions to make just as many rangy catches as before—if not even more. However, things unravel quickly when he faces danger in the final pace or two of completing the play. Mitchell has already accumulated a laundry list of injuries by age 27. He’s finally been able to stay on the field for the most continuous stretch of his career, but has looked afraid to put himself in harm’s way. That hesitancy cropped up almost immediately during Opening Day weekend, when Mitchell made his first atypical failed attempt of the year against the Chicago White Sox. 40.mp4 Based on the trajectory of the ball and how much ground Mitchell had to cover, Statcast assigned him a 40% catch probability for this play. It was far from a routine opportunity, but it’s the kind he has historically made with ease. As he usually does, Mitchell made it to the ball, but once it appeared he might need to dive for it, he slowed down and got tangled up as he reached for the catch while trying to stay on his feet. Ironically, he could have caught this one on the run had he kept closing in at full speed, but that hesitation to lay out thwarted his attempt. Here’s a similar play from the Brewers’ last homestand against the San Diego Padres: 5_2.mp4 With just a 5% catch probability, this was a far more challenging play that required a dive to complete. The fact that Mitchell got there speaks to his athleticism and his jump on the ball. He did lay out for this one, but it was a half-hearted attempt in which he never fully left his feet. This time, the irony lay in Mitchell jamming his wrist on the awkward dive, thus injuring himself in an apparent attempt to avoid injury from a harsher landing. Mitchell’s most egregious misplays have come on fly balls taking him back near the wall, where he has frequently pulled up to avoid a hard collision. His worst non-catch of the season also came during the Padres series, when he missed a ball with a 99% catch probability. By slowing down as he neared the warning track, he forced himself to leap backward toward the ball, and it popped out of his glove. 99.mp4 He had a similar issue in Miami less than a month earlier. This time, in addition to slowing down, Mitchell turned his eyes toward the wall and braced himself before making the catch, turning a would-be flyout into a triple. As another play with just a 5% catch probability, this was a challenging one, but he had already completed the hard part of getting there. It’s an opportunity an athlete of his caliber should convert. 5.mp4 Mitchell hasn't lost the tools of an excellent center fielder, but if he keeps failing to use them, it should become a factor in how the Brewers construct their lineups. This version of Mitchell is not demonstrably better in center than Jackson Chourio, who posted -4 DRS and 1 FRV in over 700 innings there last season. Chourio started up the middle in consecutive games on Sunday and Monday, allowing Pat Murphy to start Jake Bauers, Andrew Vaughn, and Christian Yelich in the same lineup for the best version of the Brewers’ offense. Because of Mitchell’s upside, that may not become the permanent arrangement any time soon. Even if Chourio starts making more appearances in center, Mitchell will get semi-regular starts as long as he’s healthy and providing nearly average offense. But the longer Mitchell’s cautious approach leaves his defense lagging behind his ability, the less convincing the argument that he’s part of Milwaukee’s best starting nine. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images From the moment they reacquired him from the Boston Red Sox a few weeks before spring training, the Brewers have raved about David Hamilton’s athleticism. “From an ability standpoint and his work, I couldn't ask for anything more to work with,” third base and infield coach Matt Erickson said. “I think he’s a part of this for a while.” Compared to the headline return of left-handers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan, Hamilton may have looked like a throw-in piece in that Boston trade—a part-time player who could replace Andruw Monasterio in a utility role. The Brewers see him as anything but an afterthought. He’s appeared in 34 of the team’s 41 games, has taken the seventh-most plate appearances despite hitting near the bottom of the order, and has recently taken much of Joey Ortiz’s playing time at shortstop against right-handed pitchers. Hamilton’s track record as a 28-year-old doesn’t point to much upside. In 668 career plate appearances, he’s hit for a 76 wRC+, 80 DRC+, and .272 xwOBA, meaning both his results and process in the box have been extremely poor. But the Brewers see a player who can move quickly and explosively. Hamilton’s average sprint speed of 29.2 feet per second ranks in the 95th percentile of runners this year. That athleticism, they believe, gives him the potential to be an elite defender at any position and hit for more pop than he’s shown so far. “He's not even scratching the surface of what he's capable of,” Murphy said, “but there are some big, big adjustments he needs to make to be the player we think he can be. And I'm sure the Red Sox saw the same thing.” So far, the Brewers have not gotten much more out of Hamilton than the Red Sox. In 118 plate appearances this year, he owns a 75 wRC+, 86 DRC+, and .269 xwOBA. Each of those numbers nearly matches what he did in Boston. Baseball Prospectus has credited him with 0 Deserved Runs Prevented at both third base and shortstop, meaning he’s been an average defender instead of a plus one. There have been two noticeable changes to Hamilton’s offense this year: he’s walking 11% of the time, and he’s leveraging his speed by bunting, leading baseball with eight bunt hits. That approach has gotten him on base more often, but it’s tanked any semblance of power in his game. Hamilton’s .327 on-base percentage is easily a career high, but he has just one extra-base hit. That walk rate might not hold up, either, as he expands the zone much more than the average hitter with two strikes. Shrinking the field with bunts and making speed his defining attribute won’t help Hamilton unlock his upside. If anything, it discourages a breakthrough. The Brewers aren’t trying to pigeonhole him into playing that style of offense, Murphy said, but for him to be a helpful piece right now, he needs to reach base with walks and singles on the ground. “If he gets to first, wow, he's dangerous,” Murphy said, alluding to Hamilton’s base-stealing ability. “So we're trying to build it from there. The swing part, the amount of impact he can have, he's got some in there. He's got some bat speed, and his hands work. He can handle different pitches. He can hit the ball hard. But that's a process, though.” Behind the scenes, the Brewers are trying to make Hamilton’s swing—most specifically, how he rotates his torso—more nuanced. He’s always been a pull-happy hitter who has hit the ball hardest when it leaks back over the middle or is low and inside. Pitchers have countered that by pitching him away, where he often fails to stay on the ball. Because of his inclination to open up and pull the inside pitch, nearly all of Hamilton’s hard-hit fly balls this year have occurred on pitches around that low-and-in pocket. The problem is that he’s doing that same thing on most pitches, regardless of location. In both clips below, you can see Hamilton’s front side fly open as he swings. On the middle-in fastball, he rips a hard fly ball to center field. On the middle-away sinker, he rolls over to second base. hamilton_swings.mp4 If you freeze the video just as he’s about to make contact, his chest is similarly open toward right field on both swings, even though they’re on opposite sides of the plate. Hamilton keeps his eye on the ball and adjusts his swing path to make contact with both pitches, but he’s not in a position to work through the pitch away because his chest is already rotating toward right field. “Your direction is here,” Murphy said, gesturing toward a hypothetical right field before pointing in the opposite direction, “and that pitch is coming from here. You’re going to pull off it. You’re going to hit around it. You’re going to smother it, when it’s closer to him. So having him understand how to get on the ball line is a really tough process.” That process has yet to bear fruit. The results have been more mixed for Hamilton’s continued work with Erickson on the left side of the infield, where he has misplayed a handful of routine opportunities. Ortiz got off to a similarly unremarkable start as a full-time shortstop last year, and it took him months to develop a more explosive first step alongside his fluid hands and body control. Hamilton is the opposite: his first step and range are elite, but he struggles with controlling that explosiveness. According to Baseball Prospectus’s Attempt Range metric, he has fielded two more balls than the average shortstop would reach, but he has completed plays at a slightly below-average rate. “His metrics are unbelievable, but controlling the baseball, throwing accurately, redirecting the ball, tags, all that stuff, he's got a ways to go,” Murphy said. “But his movement and the ground he can cover, those metrics are unbelievable.” On some occasions, Erickson said, Hamilton has been so eager to complete a play that he’s taken his eye off the ball prematurely. It caused him to miss a catch on an attempted double play turn against the Pittsburgh Pirates last month. hamilton_field_error.mp4 Other times, Hamilton has gotten stuck in his fielding position after a grounder enters his glove, prompting him to urgently fire an errant throw to make up for that lost time. That also happened multiple times in that Pittsburgh series. hamilton_throws.mp4 In each instance, Hamilton struggled with the start-and-stop rhythm of completing certain plays. At times, his raw athleticism has outpaced his tempo on the infield. “I think that's something with all infielders in general, and especially ones that are super explosive and twitchy, not to play the game too fast,” Erickson said. “You want to break down and slow down for the catch, and then kind of keep that same rhythm through the catch and through the exchange and into your throw. And I think the guys that do that are the most consistent throwers with accuracy.” After still grading as a negative defender at shortstop a few weeks ago, Hamilton’s metrics have trended positively since the calendar flipped to May. There’s still work to be done (Erickson wants to see a more consistent arm action across throws), but he’s looked more comfortable lately. “He's a versatile piece, because he can play all three infield spots, and he can play them all very well,” Erickson said. “Now we’ve just got to get him to be consistent as much as possible.” Even if the Brewers remain bullish on his ceiling, the reality is that Hamilton has not progressed enough overall as the club nears a decision point on the left side of the infield. Milwaukee shortstops have combined for a 49 wRC+ so far this year, and prospects Cooper Pratt and Jett Williams have started adapting to Triple-A pitching within the last two weeks. Ortiz is more likely to lose his roster spot to one of those two, but their arrival would push Hamilton into more of a part-time role. For now, he’ll remain in the lineup against most right-handed pitchers as the Brewers keep trying to tap into his skill set. “This is a super valuable kid, but it's got to come together,” Murphy said. “He’s got to understand exactly who he is and what he can become, and understand what adjustments he needs to make and how to do it.” View full article

Image courtesy of © Geoff Burke-Imagn Images When the Brewers activated Christian Yelich from the injured list on Tuesday, it was not surprising that they optioned Tyler Black back to Triple-A Nashville as the corresponding move. If anything, it was expected. Black was effectively the Yelich replacement: a left-handed-hitting DH and occasional left fielder. He was going to lose most of his at-bats with the former NL MVP back in the fold. Furthermore, despite his productive .333/.357/.481 slash line, Black was not actually having quality plate appearances or putting good swings on the ball. His .369 wOBA was nearly double his .192 xwOBA, which was so low because he struck out 25% of the time and had just a 15% hard-hit rate. Baseball Prospectus evaluated his performance less harshly but still credited him with just an 86 DRC+, meaning he deserved to perform 14% worse than the average hitter based on the process of his plate appearances and the quality of pitching he faced. Black did, however, show a change that could make him a more viable hitter down the line. He's changed his bat path this year, decreasing his swing tilt from 37 degrees in 2024 and 39 degrees in 2025 to 35 degrees this year. Pat Murphy teased that modified swing when Black was recalled, saying he and the Brewers had worked on making his bat path less choppy to help him make more consistent contact. "He had that small margin for error this way in his swing," Murphy said last month, referring to Black's inability to get his barrel to pitches at different heights in the strike zone. "We're helping him try to [get] a little more on plane a little bit. Because it's hard to hit that other way, with that 'V,' you know? A lot of guys did, but you're going to mishit a lot of balls." With a swing tilt nearing 40 degrees, Black had one of the steeper, more vertical swings in baseball. Such a swing travels downward more before working its way back up as it makes contact with the pitch. Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh has a similar 37-degree swing tilt this year as a left-handed hitter. Notice how his swing path forms a "U" shape as it travels through the hitting zone. marsh.mp4 There's no one right swing path for success – every hitter is different, and there's more to a swing than just its tilt – but a naturally steeper path can often put hitters in a better position to make the best kind of contact with different pitches, provided there's some adaptability to the swing based on pitch height. Murphy himself considers more vertical swings to be the most productive. Black's bat path didn't have that "U" shape, though. Instead of traveling in an arc, his bat often came straight down and then straight up. He makes contact very deep in the hitting zone – about 21 inches toward the pitcher from his center of mass, according to Statcast. With such a steep swing, you would expect his bat to still be coming down when he makes that deep contact, producing a negative attack angle. Instead, his attack angle last season was 9 degrees, meaning his bat was already coming back up by that time. That's the choppy "V" shape Murphy is referencing. If all of that sounds like a mouthful, here's what it looked like in real life back in 2024. You can see Black chop at a fastball down the middle, with his bat quickly traveling straight down and then straight up. It was a very hittable pitch, yet he was late on it and underneath it, producing a 77.6-mph bloop single to left-center. It was a hit, but it wasn't the kind of contact any hitter would hope to make with such a fastball. black 2024.mp4 In addition to lowering his swing tilt, Black's attack angle also decreased to 5 degrees in his brief time with the Brewers this year. His swing path is still pretty steep, but it's far less choppy. You can see how it's a more normal-looking path in one of Black's few hard-hit balls this year, a fastball he pulled off the right-field wall for a double against the Arizona Diamondbacks. black 2026.mp4 It's worth noting that those two swings occurred in different situations. One was a middle fastball, and the other was closer to the outside corner. The first was also a defensive two-strike swing, while the second came in a 1-1 count, where a hitter will usually look to do more damage with an in-zone pitch. Still, those two cuts illustrate the problem with Black's previous swing and how he and the Brewers are trying to correct it. The payoff hasn't come yet, though, with Black still looking overmatched by big-league pitching. His timing was still too late during his latest stint, and he chased too much and rarely made solid contact. Those mishit balls would have eventually found more gloves. Black is best off in Nashville for now, where he'll continue getting at-bats to grow more comfortable with that revamped swing. "Tyler knows that he's good enough to play in the big leagues," Murphy said. "He knows that he's wanted, and his time will come again." View full article

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images After his struggles reached their apex in a blown save on April 14, Trevor Megill’s results have flipped for the better. Megill has allowed just one earned run in his last nine outings, picking up four holds and an extra-innings save while settling in as a productive setup man ahead of Abner Uribe. It hasn’t been a run of favorable luck, either. Megill has been legitimately dominant during this stretch, missing barrels and posting excellent strikeout and walk rates. Most of his major ERA estimators since April 16 are below 2.50. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Date BF ERA xERA FIP SIERA Hard Hit K% BB% K-BB% Through 4/14 29 14.40 7.90 4.12 5.00 52.6% 17.2% 13.8% 3.4% Since 4/16 33 1.00 1.75 1.34 2.21 35.0% 33.3% 6.1% 27.3% The turnaround has not come from Megill rediscovering the lost fastball velocity that plagued him in his first several outings. In fact, his velocity has continued to decrease ever so slightly, even at the time of year when he starts rounding into form. His heater averaged 99 mph last May, but it’s at just 96.9 mph this month. Sitting 96-to-98 now looks even more like his new normal than an early-season blip on the radar. At that velocity, Megill’s fastball remains a magnet for loud contact instead of the overpowering pitch it was when it regularly touched triple digits. It’s performed more reliably during this stretch, though, largely because Megill has used it more strategically. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Date FB MPH FB Exit Velo FB Hard Hit FB wOBA FB xwOBA FB Whiff% Through 4/14 97.5 98.7 77.8% .520 .595 16.7% Since 4/16 97.2 91.0 57.1% .299 .402 22.9% For starters, Megill has made his pitch mix far less predictable. Here’s how he attacked hitters through that blown save: Since that outing, Megill has not only decreased his overall fastball usage and thrown more curveballs, but also mixed those pitches more evenly in most count situations. It’s become harder for hitters to pick up on patterns and sit on a certain pitch. As a fireballing late-inning reliever, Megill has never needed to be a command pitcher. His breakout with the Brewers stemmed mostly from throwing more pitches in the strike zone, not locating them in perfect spots. With reduced velocity, his old approach of trying to throw every pitch down the middle—knowing his fastball would stay true through the zone, while his curveball would drop below the knees—is no longer viable. Instead, Megill appears to be targeting more specific locations when playing his fastball and curve (which is essentially a short, tight gyrospin slider at this point) off one another. In those early weeks of the season, his command was sporadic, but the middle of the zone still looked like his focal point. Lately, his location has looked more deliberate. Megill is keeping his fastball around the top of the zone to righties, allowing him to land more in-zone curveballs out of the same tunnel for takes and weak contact. Against lefties, he’s setting up chases on back-foot breaking balls with low fastballs shaded inside. In addition to throwing more high fastballs, Megill is also backspinning them a bit more, and his release height is slightly higher. Those changes have increased the carry on his heater, improving its induced vertical break from 19.1 inches to 20 inches during this stretch. Small improvements like that can be the difference between a barreled ball and a swing slightly underneath his fastball. Without its best velocity, Megill needed new strategies to keep hitters from timing it up. He’s made some impressive progress on the fly in response to his struggles, allowing him to remain a key piece in the Brewers’ bullpen—for now. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images After taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the Washington Nationals last week before a cramp ended his night early, Jacob Misiorowski's follow-up start was arguably more dominant. The right-hander held the New York Yankees -- who entered Friday as the third-best offense in baseball, by measure of wRC+ -- to two hits and two walks over six scoreless innings, striking out 11. Throughout the night, he shattered records on the radar gun. In the first inning, Misiorowski threw the five fastest pitches thrown by a starting pitcher in the pitch-tracking era (which began in 2008), hitting at least 103 mph seven times. He fell one strike short of opening his outing with an immaculate inning when his ninth pitch was a ball just below the zone to Aaron Judge. "I had no clue," Misiorowski said postgame. "I got told in the dugout. I went back and looked and thought it was close, but yeah." Misiorowski didn't sit 103 the entire night, but he held triple-digit velocity throughout, averaging north of 100 mph in every inning but the fourth. In the sixth, his final fastball of the night and 94th pitch overall was 102.7 mph. "Never seen that," said Shane Drohan, who picked up his first big-league save with three innings of relief behind Misiorowski. "That was a first." "I've had games in the past where you get that sudden burst of adrenaline in the fifth or sixth somewhere, and you find it back," Misiorowski said. "But this was a first for the big leagues." Misiorowski leaned heavily on that signature fastball, throwing it 60% of the time and recording seven of his strikeouts with it. Sitting at 101.1 mph, it was the highest recorded average fastball velocity (four-seamers and two-seamers) in any outing of at least 90 pitches. It was actually the third time he's set that record in his last four starts. Misiorowski's start against the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 25 (100.5 mph) ranks second on that list, and his start before that on April 19 (99.7 mph) is third. As the weather has warmed up, so has Misiorowski's velocity. More impressively, he's maintaining it deeper into games, a product of the lanky 24-year-old adding strength and learning to better use his body since debuting in the big leagues last summer. "If you look at his legs and you look at his body, he's working," Pat Murphy said. "He's got guys like [Brandon Woodruff], our strength staff, they're showing him, 'Look, man, this is how you've got to maintain. You want to be a major-league pitcher, you've got to work in between those five days.' And he's in there working." In his current form, Misiorowski could establish himself as the hardest-throwing starting pitcher that baseball has ever reliably documented. His average fastball velocity of 99.7 mph would be the highest of any qualified starting pitcher season in the pitch-tracking era, a full tick above Jacob deGrom's 98.6-mph average in 2020 and Paul Skenes's 98.2-mph mark last year. A pitcher's best velocity and command usually go hand in hand. When his body is moving most effectively, he's putting himself in the best position to generate energy at release and throw the ball accurately. That's been the case for Misiorowski. His fastball averaged 98.5 mph through his first four starts, and he threw just 45.2% of them in the zone. In his last four, his fastball has averaged 100.5 mph with a 56.1% in-zone rate. In those outings, he's cut his walk rate to 8.9% while striking out 41.6% of batters faced. "It's not just velo," Murphy said. "There's a lot more to it." That has included Misiorowski's poise on the mound and his handling of physical and mental adversity. Some of his outings as a rookie (and a couple last month) were derailed by one rough inning or fatigue near the end of starts. On Friday, he remained sharp through a long break during a four-run second inning for the Brewers' offense and an injury delay in the fourth for Brandon Lockridge, who suffered a right knee laceration in a collision with the left-field wall. Misiorowski still looked strong as he neared 100 pitches in the sixth. "You saw it in Boston, his legs got really tired," Murphy said. "His legs were tired today, and he said that. He said, 'Hey, I'm not done, but my legs are getting tired.' So with that, he maintained his composure and didn't walk people, or whatever. He got right back on the horse." Misiorowski is breaking out. His stuff is better than ever. His control is better than ever. His mound presence is improving. He leads baseball in strikeouts. Misiorowski quickly put himself on baseball's radar last season, but his two latest outings checked every box of a pitcher who has arrived as one of the game's elite starters. "I think he's learning day in and day out what it takes to be a big-time guy," Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Results alone made it clear that the Brewers were missing Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn. Through May 3, Milwaukee’s offense posted a collective 96 wRC+, which ranked 18th in baseball. Their .354 slugging percentage ranked 28th. Both hitters quickly helped in that regard upon returning from the injured list in St. Louis on Monday. In two games, Chourio has gone 6-for-9 with three doubles, while Vaughn launched his first home run of the season on Wednesday afternoon. Beyond their individual results lies the pair’s larger impact on the Brewers’ offensive identity. With Chourio and Vaughn sidelined, their lineup made do with an even more extreme version of the scrappy small-ball approach that has defined them during the Pat Murphy era. According to Baseball Savant, last season’s Brewers had baseball’s fourth-highest ground ball rate and laid down the second-most bunts. Without Chourio and Vaughn (who was only active for four plate appearances on Opening Day), they were the only team with a ground ball rate over 50%, the league’s highest by nearly four percentage points. They also bunted four more times than any other team. Through a combination of fortunate sequencing and timely, well-executed small ball, the Brewers have gotten more mileage from that approach than many might expect. Despite that below-average wRC+, they were eighth in runs scored without Chourio and Vaughn. It would always be challenging to successfully ride that style of play through a 162-game season, though, so regaining those two hitters and their more powerful batted-ball profiles was a welcome change. Chourio’s career ground-ball rate is 45.1%, and Vaughn’s is 43.1%. In addition to supplying more line drives and fly balls, the two bring something else the lineup was lacking more generally: hard-hit balls. Without them, the Brewers were 24th in hard-hit rate. While Chourio and Vaughn’s contact quality is closer to good than great, their respective hard-hit rates ranked in the 62nd and 84th percentiles of hitters last season. The aggressive Chourio also brings a damage-hunting approach to a lineup that once again has baseball’s lowest swing rate. Blake Perkins, Luis Matos, Greg Jones, and Tyler Black filled most of the playing time while Chourio and Vaughn were on the shelf. In 118 combined plate appearances, they combined to hit eight balls with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph. In 19 plate appearances, Chourio and Vaughn have hit nine. With two of their heavier hitters in tow, the Brewers’ lineup now comes together more cohesively. Their presence takes pressure off Brice Turang as one of the few remaining power bats in the order. Black, Jake Bauers, Sal Frelick, and Garrett Mitchell need not hit in as many unfavorable left-on-left matchups and can return to roles better suited to their skill sets. Murphy won’t be forced to sacrifice flexibility with late-game substitutions by starting backup catcher Gary Sánchez as the DH. As encouraging as the early results were, the bigger-picture impact makes Chourio and Vaughn’s returns most promising. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images As is true of most teams, Brewers catchers have been far more successful in using baseball’s new ABS challenge system than their hitters have been. According to Statcast, catchers across the league (plus a small handful of pitchers) have won 59% of challenges, while hitters have won just 46%. That’s not surprising; catchers have a much better view of the strike zone from behind the plate than hitters do in the batter’s box. “People were saying back in spring training, like, it's going to take a while for the hitters, because they have, all of a sudden, the new strike zone,” said Pat Murphy, referring to the the system not using the rulebook 3D strike zone, but a 2D zone above the middle of the plate, determined based on percentages of the batter’s measured height. “Catchers do, too, but they've obviously got the view [behind the plate] that no one has.” What has been surprising, though, is just how poorly the Brewers have utilized their challenges on offense. Their catchers have combined to win a nearly average 57% of challenges, but their hitters have won just 33%, which ranks 28th among 30 teams. Overturn rate alone does not supply context for those challenges, nor does it measure whether the Brewers have a sound strategy that they’re executing well enough. More than anything, the club evaluates challenge decisions on the situation, wanting hitters and catchers to use it in the most impactful moments. “I think you could say leverage or non-leverage,” Murphy said last week of challenge situations. “If it’s a pitch that alters the at-bat—so strike three, ball four, something like that—look at those things. Guys in scoring position make it a bigger situation.” Statcast uses a pitch’s location and run probability to determine which are reasonable challenge opportunities. Using data on the types of pitches and situations in which most players across the league challenge, it also estimates how many runs a team has gained from its challenges, compared to expected runs gained. On average, 66% of challenges initiated by hitters have qualified as reasonable challenges. Milwaukee hitters are slightly above that mark at 67%, yet they’ve gained 0.5 fewer expected runs from overturns than expected, which ranks 23rd in the league. The Brewers have made some noticeably poor challenges lately. Greg Jones exhausted their final challenge in the fourth inning last week on a called strike almost entirely in the zone, and Garrett Mitchell lost it in the second inning over the weekend on a pitch on the outside corner. The real issue, though, is that they have not challenged enough at opportune times; their 15% challenge rate on reasonable opportunities ranks 27th. “It’s when you don’t challenge on a ball that’s clearly incorrect in an opportune time or a leverage time,” Murphy said. “We call them ‘fives.’ When you get a five, if you don’t challenge, you’re hurting your club. Even if it’s this much off.” The Brewers have such a low success rate because they decline to challenge more pitches that would be overturned. They’ve taken 90 called strikes outside the zone this year, the sixth-most in baseball. That hesitancy has been a theme throughout their lineup. With the exception of Gary Sanchez, who has been one of baseball’s most aggressive challengers, the team doesn't have anyone on the active roster who is proactive in suing for their rights at the edges of the zone. Whether it’s a fear of losing a challenge or a lack of discernment on pitches around the edges, it’s been a surprising weakness for a lineup that prides itself on knowing the strike zone. The Brewers have become known for winning on the margins, but they’re currently losing on this one. Murphy noted that there could be some understandable growing pains for hitters who have not used the challenge system before, but they must improve over time. “As long as our catchers are trending in the right direction, I think that’s equally as important,” Murphy said. “The hitters now [have] to get a little more comfortable with it.” View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Pat Murphy has not been one to quickly trust unproven relievers. That made it notable when Shane Drohan, with two big-league appearances with mixed results to his name, warmed up for the sixth inning with the Brewers leading 3-2 on Tuesday night. Milwaukee added a few more runs to give him some breathing room, but Drohan was still tasked with protecting a three-run lead in the middle innings in his third MLB appearance. He worked a perfect inning, striking out one and generating three whiffs out of his 10 pitches. “I really like him, man,” Murphy said. “He was locked in. I don’t know how many pitches he threw in that inning, but it was 1-2-3, and it was crisp.” Drohan’s second stint with the team this month has been more successful than the first, but that doesn’t mean much in two small sample sizes. What matters is that the 27-year-old left-hander, who already learned plenty about himself throughout the past couple of seasons, has continued tinkering and polishing his game. That work has shown up in improved stuff and execution his past two times out. When Drohan debuted in Boston on April 8, he was using the full wind-up he reintroduced last season, which he felt improved the tempo and explosiveness of his delivery. drohan1.mp4 After that outing, Drohan reverted to a hybrid wind-up. In his last two outings, he’s been starting with his back leg parallel to and against the rubber, eliminating the extra movement of stepping back and repositioning his body as he begins his delivery. drohan2.mp4 “I just kind of went back to that preset back leg,” Drohan said. “It just felt like it synced everything up a lot better.” Because it’s closer to pitching fully out of the stretch with runners on, a reduced wind-up would always be best for Drohan to repeat his delivery consistently. Now that he feels it’s his best starting position, it should serve him well. The early results have been encouraging: more strikes and improved velocity, with his four-seamer averaging nearly 96 mph in that shortened outing on Tuesday. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Game Date Pitches 4FB Velo Zone% 4/8 63 93.4 46.0% 4/24 71 94.6 46.5% 4/28 10 95.9 60.0% “It just allows me to really step on the gas at the right time in my delivery,” he said. “Sometimes, it can be a little early, so I feel like that preset foot just allows me to get into the back leg and go down the mound and then really finish the throw at the right time.” With a six-pitch arsenal that includes two great breaking balls and a solid changeup, Drohan has the tools to start. That’s been his role in Triple-A, and the Brewers figure to keep him stretched out as depth for as long as possible. He could be optioned back down in the coming days for a fresher long relief arm. “We’re always trying to get as many starters as we can,” Murphy said. “I think there’s a length role there for him, for sure. He’s built up already.” However, Drohan flashed his upside as a reliever on Tuesday by letting his two best pitches – his four-seamer and slider – play at a higher speed in a shortened stint. That might be his more immediate path to impacting the big-league club in 2026. “It’s a cool, nice adrenaline rush when the phone rings and they say your name,” Drohan said of pitching in relief. “But other than that, it’s not much different. Just get guys out, whether it’s the beginning of the game or whenever they call you.” Whatever role he fills, the Brewers acquired him to contribute at times throughout the season. He hasn’t gotten the same opportunities as Kyle Harrison, whom they acquired alongside him from the Boston Red Sox a few months ago, but Drohan is showing glimpses of how effective he can be. “I think he can help us,” Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images At times, pitchers have appeared aware of the hole in Garrett Mitchell's swing. Knowing his struggles against high fastballs and his excellence against breaking pitches around the bottom of the zone, they've consistently thrown him more hard pitches and fewer spinning ones than the average hitter. Right-handers have tried to beat him with the north-south game, pairing high fastballs with changeups below the zone. For the most part, though, opponents have yet to match the extreme nature of Mitchell's swing with a commensurate extremity of approach. In fact, many pitchers this year have dialed things back to a more standard mix. It's part of the reason why Mitchell has posted a career 116 wRC+ despite a 34.5% strikeout rate, including a 126 wRC+ (with a 37.9% strikeout rate) to begin the 2026 season. He still gets enough low fastballs and mistake breaking balls, which he obliterates thanks to his elite strength and bat speed. Mitchell has been pitched more like a normal hitter this year, but he's anything but that. Normal hitters have weaknesses, and many of them have one at the top of the zone, but Mitchell's bat is nearly guaranteed to miss anything elevated. For his career, he has put the ball in play on just 9.5% of swings against fastballs in or above the upper third of the zone (the league average during that span is 27.3%, nearly three times higher). He's whiffed on 54% of those swings and managed just four hits in 76 at-bats, a .053 batting average. With such a low success rate, there's an argument for throwing traditional pitch sequencing out the window, and that there's no need to show Mitchell anything but high fastballs until he proves he can touch them. Repeatedly executing that pitch is easier said than done, though, especially with the knowledge that the moment a pitcher misses below the letters, Mitchell will make them pay. That, along with disjointed playing time throughout his injury-riddled career, may be why no team had attempted such an approach. As Matt Trueblood laid out last week, a lower top line of the strike zone has also made it harder for pitchers to put the ball in places that force Mitchell to lean into his own weaknesses. Throwing it where he can't handle it often means throwing it where he can afford to lay off it and get ahead in the count, under the new, ABS-tailored zone. That changed over the weekend, when the Pittsburgh Pirates came to Milwaukee and peppered Mitchell with an onslaught of high fastballs. In three games, 37 of the 44 pitches he saw were fastballs, and 24—a whopping 54.5% of all pitches and nearly two-thirds of the heaters—were high. The approach worked. Mitchell pieced up a couple of mistake pitches, hitting a 108-mph lineout and a 100-mph double on fastballs around his belt line, but he went just 1-for-10 in the series, with three strikeouts. If there was a silver lining, it's that two of those strikeouts came against Paul Skenes in the series opener. As the weekend progressed, Mitchell began fouling off most of those high fastballs, instead of missing them entirely. That's an expected improvement after seeing the same pitch so many times, but Mitchell still looked thoroughly overmatched, swinging late and underneath those balls to softly clip them foul. Even knowing with near certainty that those high fastballs were coming, he still put those pitches in play on just two of 14 swings (14.3%) and whiffed on 35.7% of them. Here are all of those swings compiled on video: Mitchell high FBs.mp4 While most teams may not execute elevated fastballs as consistently as the Pirates did, their success could embolden more pitchers to take that extreme approach against Mitchell. Earlier in the week, the Detroit Tigers threw him high heaters 34.8% of the time. He tripled off one of those pitches but whiffed on 71.4% of swings against them, going 2-for-9 in the series. By being selective and capitalizing on pitches in his hot zones, Mitchell has produced despite having one of the sport's most extreme cold zones. To his credit, he has also spent significant time trying to close that hole in his swing path. None of that work has yielded improvement, though, and teams could start targeting that weakness more aggressively. In his fifth season, Mitchell may finally be staring down the ultimate test of whether his swing path will work against big-league pitching. View full article

Image courtesy of © Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images You could see the seeds of an eventual Brewers comeback early on, even as Tarik Skubal put up zeros for most of his start. After Skubal cruised through their lineup the first time through on just 26 pitches, Milwaukee made him throw 28 in the fourth inning. The Brewers were playing their game, working long at-bats and forcing the opposing starter to exert himself, even if they weren't hitting much. "Kind of make him uncomfortable and be annoying," Blake Perkins said. "That's kind of our game, sometimes." It's been an even bigger part of their game recently. Down Jackson Chourio, Andrew Vaughn, and Christian Yelich, the offense is in survival mode. With four starters in the lineup on most days with OPS marks well below .650, the Brewers aren't generating much offense by driving the baseball. That's left them scrapping even harder, relying on walks, infield singles, bunts, and steals—all ways to advance runners without the ball leaving the infield—to scratch across runs. They were back at it against Skubal on Thursday afternoon, even mixing in a few timely line drives. After a Gary Sánchez bloop single and a Luis Matos ground ball through the hole into right field to open the seventh, Perkins worked a seven-pitch at-bat, forcing Skubal into the heart of the strike zone with a fastball that he lined for a game-tying double. "He's coming after you, so I think we had to be ready to swing early," Perkins said. "But I think, at least for me in general, trying to bring him closer [to the middle], because he tries to throw that changeup off the outside part of the plate." Joey Ortiz hit a hard line drive up the middle to move Perkins to third, and David Hamilton snuck a ground ball into left to score him. The Brewers had an improbable lead, a hard-earned prize from an afternoon of gritty at-bats. "Skubal, he's really, really good," Pat Murphy said. "We had some things go our way and laid down some great bunts, put pressure on him. I'm proud of our club that we battled this way when things are going against us." That close lead would be short-lived. Ángel Zerpa allowed a game-tying solo home run to Jahmai Jones in the eighth, and Abner Uribe allowed a walk-off shot to Spencer Torkelson in the ninth, continuing a turbulent start to the season for the Milwaukee bullpen. "They did what they needed to do," Murphy said. "They hit homers off leverage relievers." The contrast was striking. According to Statcast, the Brewers managed just a 30% hard-hit rate on the afternoon with zero barreled balls, but they squeezed four runs out of minimal solid contact, giving it everything they had through meticulous approaches and small ball. On the other side, the Tigers flipped the game multiple times with one swing, scoring four of their five runs on home runs. Both lineups had competitive at-bats, but scoring seemed easier for the side that slugged. "They didn't attempt to steal, or they didn't attempt to bunt," Murphy said. "They could swing the bat. They were poised, and they deserved to win." While the Tigers got their big hits, the Brewers couldn't break the game open, even as they kept pecking away. "They kept their composure and turned those double plays and made quality pitches at quality times," Murphy said. "We didn't put the nail in and hit. We didn't get the big hit when we could." At a larger level, that's what's missing from the Brewers' current lineup. The healthy version is not built around slugging, but without their trio of currently injured hitters, it's forced to rely too heavily on the slow assemblage of single runs. Milwaukee is 25th in baseball in home runs and has the highest ground-ball rate, by a long shot. Small ball can be a separator between two good offenses, but it won't get you the big hit. Chourio is getting closer to a rehab assignment, while Vaughn and Yelich are further off—perhaps another four weeks from returning to action. For now, the Brewers don't have much choice but to keep grinding out at-bats. They'll continue to do that no matter the situation, but their lineup needs more true production. View full article

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images Ángel Zerpa's tenure with the Brewers has gotten off to a rocky start. The hard-throwing left-hander has picked up two holds and two saves in 10 appearances, but he's also blown two saves and struggled to a 5.73 ERA, 6.45 xERA, and 4.78 FIP, with as many walks (five) as strikeouts. That's not what the Brewers envisioned when they acquired Zerpa from the Kansas City Royals over the offseason in exchange for Isaac Collins and Nick Mears. They believed—and still do—that he can be a dominant high-leverage reliever near the back of their bullpen. Zerpa's results in Kansas City never quite followed his great stuff, which is headlined by a power sinker that averages just 3.2 inches of induced vertical break with 17.3 inches of arm-side run. "I think it's frustrating from our standpoint, because I think he's so much better than what he's shown so far," said pitching coordinator Jim Henderson, who specializes in working with the team's relievers. "I think that there's just so much more in there." Because he left Brewers camp to pitch for Team Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, Zerpa didn't get the amount of work with Henderson, Chris Hook, and the rest of the team's pitching coaches that they would have preferred. That's left them working things out on the fly in regular-season games. The Brewers deployed Zerpa across multiple innings in three of his first seven outings, the last of which saw him surrender four runs when he returned for a second frame. His last three outings have each been one-inning engagements, as the team has reevaluated whether he's suited to handle multiple ups in an appearance. They also want to make his delivery simpler and more consistent. As the rare reliever who pitches out of the windup with the bases empty, Zerpa has more movement than usual in his delivery. Those tweaks are much easier to make in a preseason setting. "I think we would have done those things in spring training, we just kind of missed those opportunities with the Classic," Henderson said. "So now we're just trying to attack those things, the simplified things, and get it more consistent for him." While the Brewers have not gotten as far as they would have liked by now in facilitating a breakout, one of the adjustments they have made has Zerpa on the right track. At the time of the trade, it looked like they could unlock his upside by turning his slurve-like breaking ball into a harder and shorter slider that appeared more like a fastball out of his hand. They did exactly that. "He's kind of a power guy," Henderson said, "so what can you do that can power this breaking ball in front? So we kind of settled on just wanting to throw it harder, maybe even just a little bit shorter, on the tip of the plate, and just match what he does intensity-wise [with the sinker] with a good breaking ball." Because he doesn't have long fingers, all of Zerpa's pitches have lower-than-average spin rates. By trying to throw a bigger breaking ball, he was working against his capabilities. "With guys trying to make bigger sweepers, if you don't have the fingers long enough, it kind of slips out on you, and I think that's kind of what was happening to him," Henderson said. "When he tried to make it big, he wasn't able to work in front of it or work around it as much as if somebody with a little longer fingers were." Because he's no longer trying too hard to spin the ball for bigger movement, Zerpa is now throwing the slider from a lower arm angle, much closer to his sinker. His release points are now similar enough that hitters shouldn't see that slider pop out of his hand earlier than his heater, which seemed to be the case at times earlier in his career. "It's not a big focus for us, but you can definitely tell that there's a little something there that's recognizable for the hitter when you see the slot change," Henderson said. "Just trying to have these two pitches funneled together is important." Starting the sinker and slider from the same tunnel should lead to more swings and misses and chases outside the zone, two significant missing pieces that have kept Zerpa from putting everything together. Instead, his 17.3% whiff rate is nearly identical to last year, and his chase rate has decreased from 26.6% to 19.2%. That's because poor command has left those pitches in the middle of the zone, instead of where they play best at the bottom. Even with too many pitches around the belt, Zerpa is still inducing ground balls at an elite 62.2% rate. The Brewers have tailored his side work toward getting the ball down more consistently. Zerpa no longer throws flat-ground pen sessions with a standing catch partner, which creates a higher target; all of his work is with catchers on a knee or in a squat, replicating where he needs to locate in games. "It's a good sinker," Henderson said. "The results are actually still fine, even when it's elevated. Can't imagine what it's going to be when we get it to the lower third." The ingredients in Zerpa's left arm are still there. In some ways, he's closer to that breakout than he was at the end of last year. For now, though, there's still work left to get everything into place. "He pitched fantastic in the Classic," Henderson said. "I think that's always tough. You come off this high and this intensity, and then you come back down a little bit, even though it's in the big leagues, and then we ask him to go multiple [innings]. It's a lot to handle, and I just don't think we've got to the crispest version of him yet. So I'm looking forward to getting him in a consistent kind of role here and getting him going." View full article