Jack Stern

The Brewers throw more sinkers than most pitching staffs and fewer offspeed pitches than any. There's a method behind that madness. Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports The 2024 Brewers' innings puzzle has looked far different than in recent years. From a personnel standpoint, offseason departures and injuries have forced Pat Murphy’s squad to churn through an alarming number of arms one month into the season and rely heavily on relievers to compensate for short starts. The out-getting strategy also looks different on a per-pitch basis. Brewers pitchers use fewer offspeed pitches (changeups, splitters, and forkballs) than any other staff in baseball, throwing them just 6.8% of the time. That’s a noticeable margin; the next-closest team is the Pittsburgh Pirates at 9.3%. The league average is 13.8%. Last season’s Brewers staff threw offspeed pitches 12.3% of the time. Milwaukee excels at maximizing pitchers’ strengths, and the flip side of that approach is limiting opponent exposure to weaknesses. That appears to be part of the story here. The Brewers feature an assortment of pitchers with respectable fastballs, and they have one of baseball’s best defenses behind them. Many of these pitchers throw both sinkers and four-seam fastballs, enabling them to attack various parts of the strike zone with different goals, depending on the platoon matchup and game situation. Coaxing weak or middling contact that the defense can convert into outs is a pillar of the Brewers’ run-prevention strategy, and throwing plenty of fastballs is the catalyst. Their 53.8% fastball usage rate is the fourth-highest in baseball, and their 26.7% sinker usage is the third-highest. The strategy has been effective. Opponents have posted a below-average .380 slugging percentage in plate appearances ending on a fastball from Brewers pitchers, the ninth-lowest mark in baseball. Conversely, the Brewers lack effective offspeed pitches across their staff. That’s due to a combination of roster construction and their aforementioned plan of attack. To break this down, let's begin with a crash course on offspeed pitches. Not all of them are created equally, and there can be differing driving forces behind their effectiveness. The best changeups and splitters have noticeable, late fade and tail, because the pitcher excels at killing spin and pronating. These pitches often average around zero inches of induced vertical break. Because the ball is not fighting the effects of gravity, it drops more as it approaches the plate. A more common changeup is the straight changeup, which relies mainly on separation from the fastball. It lacks inherent standout traits, but is effective because it looks like a fastball out of the hand. Brewers pitchers average 6.7 inches of induced vertical break on offspeed pitches, the fourth-highest mark in baseball. That means their offspeed pitches typically behave as straight changeups. They don't profile well because they lack the separation from the fastball needed to make them effective. The average offspeed pitch of a Brewers pitcher is 4.1 mph slower than their average fastball, the second-worst velocity differential in baseball. The Brewers also have the smallest difference between the induced vertical break of offspeed pitches and fastballs, at 5.1 inches. That lack of shape differential stems mainly from the Brewers’ affinity for throwing sinkers, which can blend with changeups due to their similar movement profiles. Lackluster velocity separation and mediocre offspeed shapes create even more overlap. The pitch movement chart below illustrates this; notice how most of the changeups thrown by Brewers pitchers fall within the sinker clusters and often profile as worse versions of those sinkers. According to the Stuff+ pitch grades available at FanGraphs, the Brewers have the worst changeups in baseball. The early results when their pitchers throw changeups are mixed: an above-average 35% whiff rate but a too-robust .407 opponent slugging percentage and a league-worst 23.3% chase rate. The rest of the league is throwing more offspeed stuff than ever. It's no longer a fastball league, and after a few years of being a slider league, we're now seeing MLB become more of a generalized kitchen-sink outfit. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of their pitchers and the defense behind them, the Brewers have chosen which pitch types to emphasize and which ones to keep tucked away. Given the results so far, it appears they’ve made the right decision in throwing more fastballs at the expense of offspeed offerings, even if it's a move against the grain of pitching orthodoxy. With good conviction and command, a cutter and/or a sinker can be as effective against an opposite-handed batter as a changeup, and the Brewers' personnel right now make it worth pursuing that course. View full article

When Colin Rea allowed a go-ahead home run to Trent Grisham in the Brewers' series opener against the Yankees, it initiated a discussion about game planning and what constitutes good pitch selection. Image courtesy of © Reggie Hildred-USA TODAY Sports Friday night’s outing was hardly Colin Rea’s best showing. The right-hander allowed a season-high five earned runs. Still, in typical Rea fashion, he ate innings and performed well enough to keep the Brewers in a game they eventually won in extra innings. All of the scoring against Rea came on a trio of home runs, the last of which was a three-run blast in the fourth inning by Trent Grisham. The pitch that Grisham ambushed was a sinker, which was an interesting pitch call by Rea and William Contreras considering how the at-bat was unfolding. After falling behind 2-0, Rea fired a sinker down the middle. Grisham launched a fly ball down the right-field line that hooked foul by a few feet and bounced off the top of the railing along the edge of the lodge level down the foul line. Rea had just gotten away with a hittable pitch. Grisham nearly timed it up but was just early enough to miss a home run. Based on that timing, one could vouch for throwing a breaking ball or changeup with the expectation that Grisham would be further out in front for a whiff or a lazy fly ball. When a hitter is timing up hard stuff, slowing down his bat can be an effective way to neutralize him. That kind of approach is arguably more crucial for Rea than other pitchers. None of his pitches stand out in terms of velocity or shape, so his effectiveness stems from mixing speeds and locations to keep hitters from growing comfortable against any part of his arsenal. Rea and Contreras did slow things down on the next pitch with a cutter but then returned to the sinker. Grisham was right on time, depositing it into the second deck in right field. Should Rea have thrown some breaking or offspeed pitches to get Grisham off the fastball? Pat Murphy didn’t think so. According to Murphy, Rea and Contreras were trying to attack one of Grisham’s cold zones with a sinker inside. There is no wiggle room between Grisham’s cold and hot zones, so when Rea’s pitch missed its intended location, it drifted into the latter. “Wherever you see guys’ hot zones, if you study the hot zones, [the cold zones are] right next to it,” Murphy said. “He didn’t execute that pitch. He wanted to get it further in. And it would’ve been a good pitch if he got it further in, but he didn’t, and it’s all about executing it. To Murphy, the problem was not the attempt to exploit one of Grisham’s cold zones but that Rea failed to locate the pitch. “I thought it was a good selection, poor execution,” he said, adding later that the pitch probably needed to be higher as well because Grisham likes to drop his barrel on pitches low and inside. The plan was grounded in statistical reality. Grisham’s slugging heat map against sinkers and two-seam fastballs since the start of 2023 reveals that he has done virtually no damage when he sees them inside and above the belt. As Murphy said, that cold zone immediately gives way to a danger zone when the ball leaks over the plate or below the belt. If Rea executed the pitch, he likely would have retired Grisham. Even if Grisham had it timed up, his inability to run his barrel through that part of the zone would have produced a harmless swing. Murphy acknowledged the argument that Rea should have thrown a secondary pitch instead but noted that slowing things down could also backfire. “If you threw him a breaking ball there, he could have spit on it and took it, you know? But you’re trying to make pitches. Or you hang a breaking ball, and he hits it to the moon, too.” Rea certainly could have made a mistake with a breaking ball had he thrown it in that situation. However, he would have had a greater margin for error. Grisham’s coverage against breaking balls pales in comparison to his range for damage against sinkers. If a pitcher executes a breaking ball anywhere over the outer half of the plate, Grisham is unlikely to hit it. Seeing it after a fastball would make covering that portion of the zone even more difficult. The at-bat speaks to the dynamic environment of game planning and pitch effectiveness. The Brewers had a plan against Grisham based on scouting and data, but other data points and in-game observation support another way to pitch him. In either case, Rea needed to execute the plan by hitting his spot. MLB hitters make pitchers pay when they don’t. View full article

The Brewers' pitching staff just absorbed another blow with the news that Wade Miley will undergo Tommy John surgery and miss the rest of the season. The loss further complicates the club's innings puzzle and puts even more strain on its pitching depth. Image courtesy of © MARK HOFFMAN/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL / USA TODAY NETWORK The hits keep coming for the Brewers’ pitching staff. Wade Miley, who hit the injured list earlier this week with left elbow inflammation, revealed on Friday that he will undergo Tommy John surgery in the coming days to repair damage to his UCL. “It sucks,” Miley said in the Milwaukee clubhouse before the series opener against the New York Yankees. “But at the end of the day, it’s always a possibility, especially for pitchers, that it can happen.” At 37 years old, a major elbow injury may not seem like a great prognosis for Miley’s future as a player, but he expressed some optimism about a potential return to the mound in 10 to 12 months. “I’ve kind of always said I want to go out on my own [terms]. I still feel like I got more in the tank.” Miley also disclosed that he has pitched through elbow pain since 2019. He sees the UCL repair as a potential opportunity to pitch pain-free for the first time in years. It’s the latest blow for a staff already short starters Brandon Woodruff, Jakob Junis, and DL Hall and relievers Devin Williams, J.B. Bukauskas, and Taylor Clarke. The Brewers re-signed Miley to a one-year deal in December to help stabilize an inexperienced rotation. Instead, they will receive just seven innings from him in 2024. The Brewers still have enough pitching depth to succeed without Miley. Tobias Myers impressed in his MLB debut in Pittsburgh on Tuesday and will start again on Sunday. He could receive a prolonged opportunity in the rotation. Prospect Robert Gasser returned from the minor-league injured list and threw four innings for Triple-A Nashville on Wednesday. He could be ready to debut after another tune-up outing. Still, the cupboard is starting to run thin, and more inexperienced arms are being asked to fill new roles. The challenges are mounting for Pat Murphy as he tries to cover innings each night. “There’s a limit to depth,” Murphy said. “We’re having to fill in with guys that we had no idea would be in the big leagues.” As the Brewers try to backfill Miley’s spot in the rotation, he’ll still be there to provide value in any way he can off the field. “I love the clubhouse atmosphere we have right now,” he said. “Just being able to help the younger guys, or help whoever, you know? If they got a question, be there for them and just find ways to be somewhat impactful without being able to play.” “He’ll do anything he can to help the Brewers this year,” Murphy said. “And believe me, he will help.” View full article

The book is out on Jackson Chourio's weaknesses as a hitter, and pitchers have responded accordingly. It's now on the Brewers' top prospect and would-be star rookie to make his first round of big adjustments. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports Jackson Chourio is 20 games into his big-league career, and his results so far have been mixed. The 20-year-old phenom made an immediate impact on both sides of the ball throughout his first week in the majors, but has since fallen on harder times. Chourio entered Wednesday hitting .218/.271/.385, for a well-below-average 82 wRC+. Slash lines can still change dramatically from day to day this early in the season, so results do not mean much yet. What matters more is the process, which has also been a mixed bag for Chourio. When he has produced, it’s been a product of his elite tools. Chourio's excellent bat speed and raw strength have already produced four home runs, and his speed has helped him post a 16% infield hit rate on ground balls, more than double the league average. He’s also shown solid pitch recognition. Two of Chourio’s four homers have come against breaking balls. Last Monday, he recognized a two-strike changeup, waited back, and launched it off the top of the wall in left field. What he lacks is a refined approach. Laying off outside pitches has been a struggle for Chourio, whose 34% chase rate is several ticks higher than the MLB average of 28.4%. That aggressiveness has made him vulnerable against breaking balls low and away. In contrast to his two homers on hanging sliders, breaking balls below the belt have rendered Chourio helpless, dragging his wOBA against such pitches down to .242. None of this is worrisome for Chourio’s long-term outlook. Facing big-league pitching is a different beast than hitting at any level of the minors. Most young hitters find themselves having to fine-tune their swing decisions accordingly. Chourio’s exceptional pitch recognition and ability to punish mistakes already give him a leg up as he faces a learning curve. It will still be a bumpy ride, though. Pitchers have already figured out how to exploit Chourio’s weaknesses, which will limit his offensive production until he makes his first round of adjustments. Opponents know that Chourio is vulnerable against breaking balls down and away, and have already made it the foundation of their game plan against him. An eye-opening 41.8% of the pitches Chourio has seen have been breaking balls, the fourth-highest rate of any qualified hitter. Pitchers are hammering him off the outer third with soft stuff. The approach has become more vivid in some of Chourio’s recent plate appearances. Michael King spammed him with sweeping sliders well off the plate last week during his no-hit bit. Chourio went 0-for-3 against King, with a pair of strikeouts on sweepers in the left-handed batter’s box. Jared Jones threw six sliders to Chourio out of seven pitches on Monday night, generating four swinging strikes. Pitchers have figured out how to neutralize Chourio just 20 games into his big-league career. Despite continuing to have a game or two each week that flashes brilliance, his OPS since Apr. 8 is .540. He's already shown the vital capacity to adjust, but it may take some time for his approach to catch up to his tools. View full article

Pat Murphy's use of relievers has lacked necessary guiding principles, an issue that reared its head when the Brewers blew a save on Friday night. His bullpen management must become more coordinated to avoid adverse long-term effects. Image courtesy of © Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports Pat Murphy talked in spring training about the value of flexible bullpen usage. With the starting rotation likely to cover fewer innings and Devin Williams hitting the shelf with stress fractures in his back, relievers needed to be ready to pitch in various situations to help the Brewers string together 27 outs each night. Murphy has delivered on his promise of an all-hands-on-deck approach through the first three weeks of the season, but his usage tendencies for specific relievers have been loose to a fault. There is a difference between flexibility and a chaotic lack of direction, and Murphy’s bullpen management veers toward the latter. In fairness to Murphy, he has been dealt an unfavorable hand. Short starts and injuries to Williams, Trevor Megill, Taylor Clarke, Wade Miley, and Jakob Junis have compromised the staff and forced relievers to absorb a heavy workload early in the season. How Murphy distributes that workload, however, could be improved, and it starts with developing some ground rules for usage. The Brewers have leaned on creative and aggressive bullpen usage in the past, but that approach still came with a few stipulations designed to maximize the group’s output over a 162-game season. High-leverage arms rarely pitched when the team was losing unless they needed work. Concentrated workloads were limited, particularly early in the season. As part of the Johnny Wholestaff approach, less-proven pitchers needed to cover innings. Those guard rails were absent throughout the past several days. It started on Tuesday night when Joel Payamps, Abner Uribe, Elvis Peguero, and Hoby Milner all pitched with the Brewers down a handful of runs. Payamps, Uribe, and Peguero returned the following afternoon as part of a bullpen game, and Milner was warming up at one point. That level of usage is pushing it this early in the season. Uribe threw 31 pitches on Tuesday and 14 more on Wednesday. Milner entered Wednesday having thrown 64 pitches in the previous four days and nearly threw more. Murphy used high-leverage arms in a low-leverage game to preserve long reliever Bryse Wilson as his starter for Wednesday’s bullpen game. Tobias Myers, whom the Brewers promoted to provide length in that game, did not pitch. The club demoted him the following day. On Friday, Murphy tried to alleviate the recent strain on his bullpen by asking Trevor Megill to convert a two-inning save in his return from the injured list. Megill’s 11-pitch eighth inning and the state of the other relievers made this a reasonable decision, but Murphy abruptly changed course once Megill issued a two-out walk. Joel Payamps started throwing, and Murphy brought him into the game after Megill allowed a base hit to Alec Burleson two pitches later. Payamps’ first eight pitches demonstrated that he wasn’t ready to go. He hit Ivan Herrera with a slider to load the bases and issued a game-tying walk to Brendan Donovan before inducing a Paul Goldschmidt groundout to end the threat. Murphy’s lack of commitment to either reliever in the inning created a messy situation. For Payamps to be ready at the first sign of trouble, he needed to be warming up at the start of the inning. While warmup pitches lack the intensity of in-game ones, they’re still part of a reliever’s workload. There were two plausible directions for the ninth inning: ride or die with Megill or let Payamps start a clean inning. Instead of choosing a direction, Murphy played it in the middle. He revealed after the game that Megill was on a 30-pitch limit; if that was the case, giving the ninth to Payamps was probably the best route. Murphy was unnecessarily aggressive with his bullpen usage yet again on Saturday, calling on Uribe for 30 pitches in a multi-inning outing with the Brewers leading by six runs. That brought Uribe’s pitch count to 88 in seven days. The awkward workload delegation stems partially from the rotation averaging an MLB-worst 4 ⅔ innings per start, but Murphy’s hesitancy to trust his lesser relievers is also a catalyst. Myers, who has pitched as a starter in Nashville, was on hand Wednesday to fortify the staff with length. Instead, his presence rendered the group shorthanded for two days when Murphy preferred Wilson as his starter and avoided using Myers. It helped the Brewers in the short term, as the high-leverage unit combined to shut out the Padres. However, similar decisions in future games will negatively affect the bullpen’s long-term health and effectiveness. Murphy has also relegated Thyago Vieira to a stretched-out garbage time role. Vieira has thrown 50 and 45 pitches in two of his five appearances, respectively. That’s more than he’s accustomed to as a high-leverage pitcher in the minor leagues and overseas. It also thins the bullpen for a few days while he recovers. The workload balance in the bullpen would be better if Vieira pitched more frequently in medium-leverage situations. Managing a big-league pitching staff isn’t easy, especially one with as many moving parts as the Brewers have. Still, Murphy must better apportion innings moving forward. That starts with setting boundaries and trusting the back half of the bullpen. View full article

Wednesday's bullpen game shutout demonstrated that while the Brewers' pitching staff has lost some firepower from last year, elite defense can still help this group succeed. The Brewers tag-teamed their way to their first shutout victory of the season on Wednesday, avoiding a series sweep by defeating the San Diego Padres 1-0. Bryse Wilson, Bryan Hudson, Elvis Peguero, Abner Uribe, and Joel Payamps combined to limit the Padres to five hits in a bullpen game. The pitchers involved were not the only contributors, though. They combined for just three strikeouts. After Wilson started the afternoon with back-to-back punchouts, only one of the remaining 25 outs was a strikeout. Instead, the five hurlers relied on their defense. Brewers pitching induced 16 ground balls, and the infield converted 15 into outs. Standout moments included multiple plays by Adames in the hole at shortstop and a slick inning-ending double play initiated by Oliver Dunn at third base in the sixth inning. “We just take it for granted,” Pat Murphy said of his infield defense. “Willy made some incredible plays. [Jake] Bauers picked him up a couple times with some great picks [at first base].” Milwaukee’s defense was tightly interwoven with the pitching staff last year, and the relationship cultivated much of the team’s success. Brewers pitchers enjoyed the league’s lowest batting average on balls in play (.267) in 2023 because the defense made plays on so many batted balls. That collaborative game plan still lies at the heart of the team’s identity. Wednesday’s shutout was a perfect example of the run-prevention blueprint in action: pitchers attacked the zone with movement to induce weak contact, and defenders made plays. “Defense is the best friend of a pitching staff,” Murphy said. “It all kind of works together.” When both parties are doing their jobs, everyone benefits. Defenders stay engaged and ready to make plays when they have more opportunities, and pitchers feel less pressure on the mound with the assurance of a plus defense behind them. “Being able to rely on the defense that we have is an amazing confidence-builder as a pitcher,” Wilson said. “Knowing that whether the ball is hit softly or very sharply, I have a guy there that’s going to make the play. I think it helps to cut down on the walks, as well. We don’t have to be perfect as pitchers.” Showing up on defense will be as crucial as ever behind a new-look rotation that lost co-aces and strikeout artists Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. The Brewers will rely on a deep and diverse group of pitchers with varying profiles, including several without swing-and-miss stuff, to piece together innings. Their latest win demonstrated that the plan can still succeed amid changing personnel on the mound. View full article

The Brewers have benefitted from significant batted-ball luck during their recent offensive tear, but they’ve also made at least one improvement that should hold up throughout the season. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports Even after scoring just six runs across its last two games, the Brewers’ offense has still been one of the most productive in baseball. Milwaukee enters Wednesday with a 125 wRC+ as a team, the third-highest mark in the sport. Its .346 batting average with runners in scoring position leads Major League Baseball. The offense tied a franchise record last week, when it scored at least seven runs in six straight games. That stretch included three games with a double-digit run total. As exciting as it would be to see the Brewers sustain that gaudy output, the lineup will come back down to Earth. The regression may have already started in the current series with the San Diego Padres. Many stretches of offensive dominance (especially ones from a team that lacks power hitters throughout its lineup) require some good fortune on balls in play. The Brewers have experienced such luck when hitting the ball on the ground. Milwaukee hitters are batting .355 on ground balls, 47 points ahead of the Texas Rangers for the highest mark in baseball. The league's batting average on ground balls is .245. This lineup has traits that could enable it to overperform most teams on grounders. According to Statcast, the Brewers have the fourth-highest average sprint speed in baseball, and that speed should help them leg out infield hits at a high rate. Pat Murphy’s offense has also deployed a style of play that can manufacture a few extra hits on ground balls. The Brewers have hit 17.2% of their ground balls to the opposite field, a few percentage points higher than the league average. This can help with beating the shaded positioning that remains legal in baseball, especially early in the season, when opponents have yet to gather enough data to adjust how they align their infielders. Then there are plays like the one Joey Ortiz executed on Monday night. With Blake Perkins running from first base on the pitch, the right-handed Ortiz chopped a ball to the right side. Because second baseman Xander Bogaerts vacated his position to cover the base, the ground ball snuck through for a hit. That’s not a lucky play, but an intentional one by Ortiz. Still, none of these elements are enough to explain a success rate on ground balls over 100 points greater than the league average. Guiding grounders through holes at such a high rate is not a repeatable skill. Teams improve their positioning as the season progresses. The precise locations of gaps in the infield change from batter to batter, and even pitch to pitch. It’s physically impossible for most hitters to consistently time their swings to produce contact that finds those gaps. The Brewers have the ingredients to be a pesky offense when hitting ground balls, but not a revolutionary one. Those results will soon regress, and what once looked like great pieces of hitting will become routine groundouts. That doesn’t mean the offense will fall off a cliff, though. The Brewers are also producing more damage by driving the ball, which was the sustainable means of scoring they lacked last season. Milwaukee’s offense has incrementally improved its fly ball rate from 25.3% to 27.9% this year, but more importantly, those fly balls have become more impactful. In 2023, 40% of the Brewers’ fly balls counted as hard hit (exit velocity of at least 95 mph). That figure has jumped to 51.7% this year, which is the third-highest mark in baseball. Hitting fewer lazy fly balls and more well-struck ones has helped Brewers hitters do more damage when they elevate. After ranking 23rd in baseball with a .414 wOBA on fly balls last year, they now rank fifth with a .486 wOBA. An even more impressive .522 xwOBA implies that the Brewers have been unlucky on fly balls. During the three-game series in Baltimore, the abnormally deep left-field wall at Camden Yards turned several would-be home runs for Willy Adames, William Contreras, and Rhys Hoskins into outs or doubles. A good portion of the Brewers’ stellar scoring output is smoke and mirrors, but the lineup has made real strides that should hold up throughout the year. While not one of the best offenses in baseball, this group is a welcome improvement over last year. View full article

DL Hall's fastball has gone from a plus pitch to a below-average one in his first three starts of the season. To turn his performance around, he must recapture the traits that made the pitch effective. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports DL Hall’s first three turns through the Brewers’ rotation have been rocky. In 12 ⅔ innings, the left-hander has produced a 7.11 ERA, 7.44 FIP, and a subpar 15.6% strikeout rate. Each of those starts has taken a different shape. Hall was inefficient and demonstrated poor command in his season debut. His pitch execution improved in his second start, but the Seattle Mariners still tagged him for three earned runs in a tough-luck third inning. The Baltimore Orioles hit him hard in his latest outing on Saturday, slugging three home runs in 3 ⅓ innings. What has remained constant through all three appearances is a lackluster fastball, a surprising development given Hall’s reputation when the Brewers acquired him as part of the package for Corbin Burnes in February. Hall’s heater drew a 70 scouting grade from FanGraphs, and was regarded as the cornerstone of his arsenal. It induced whiffs on 30.2% of swings, while holding opponents to a .266 wOBA last season out of the Baltimore bullpen. That effectiveness has evaporated in Hall’s first run as a big-league starter. The whiff rate against Hall’s fastball has tumbled to 10.2%, and opponents have torched it for a .494 wOBA. The Orioles tallied five hits against it on Saturday, including a pair of home runs. Hall’s fastball does not have a single standout quality, but several above-average ones combined to make it a plus pitch. Those traits have regressed to start his Brewers tenure. He was always going to lose a tick of velocity as he stretched out into a starter, but Hall is suffering from a greater slowdown than expected. His fastball has fallen from 95.6 mph last year to 92.6 this season. Just as importantly, the pitch has lost a couple of inches of carry, declining from 15.2 inches of induced vertical break to 13.5. That can be the difference between a swing underneath the ball, which produces a whiff, or a harmless fly ball and a barrel. Lastly, Hall is not throwing his fastball to ideal locations to the extent he used to. After elevating 50.8% of his fastballs with the Orioles last season, he has elevated 41.6% of the ones he has thrown this year. These changes have combined to turn Hall’s fastball from a plus offering into a batting practice pitch. Hall’s release point and extension have not discernibly changed. He may be battling some other mechanical flaw that is preventing the ball from leaving his hand with conviction. It's not just the transition from relief to starting, or a problem of having left his velocity in Baltimore, because he was up to 97 MPH even this spring, in Cactus League action captured by Statcast cameras. If there's a mechanical problem, it arose some time in late March. A mental block having to do with the goal of working deep into games would better explain the data we have. The big, lurking concern, of course, is an injury, but without any hard evidence of that or a hint of it from Hall or the Brewers, we can only notice a 2.3-MPH difference from his maximum velocity in a multi-inning spring start and his peak on the young regular season and wonder. Whatever the issue, sorting through it is the first hurdle Hall and the Brewers must clear as they work to develop him into a big-league starter. While his breaking stuff and changeup have shown promise, Hall needs an effective version of his fastball to succeed in any role, and he doesn't have one so far. View full article

The Milwaukee Brewers added to their starting pitching depth on Friday, by claiming Vladimir Gutierrez off waivers from the Miami Marlins. It will take some changes to his fastball to make him a helpful part of that mix. Image courtesy of © Sam Greene-USA TODAY Sports The starting rotation was the most precarious area of the Brewers’ roster entering the season. Milwaukee added to that mix last week by acquiring righthander Vladimir Gutierrez. He’s been assigned to Triple-A Nashville, but could soon make some starts or long relief appearances for the parent club as it continues to chew through arms early in the season. Gutierrez’s big-league numbers do not point to someone who can offer much help. The 28-year-old was once a highly-regarded international prospect, but has struggled to a 5.47 ERA, 5.62 FIP, and 6.02 DRA in 33 MLB appearances (30 starts). Much of those struggles stem from his fastball. Gutierrez’s slider has shown promise, but his four-seamer has been borderline unusable against big-league opponents. According to Statcast, the pitch has cost Gutierrez 25 runs in his brief MLB career, and hitters have slugged .621 against it. Gutierrez’s four-seamer has below-average spin and has averaged 14.6 inches of induced vertical break. The observed vertical movement of his fastball is about an inch less than the average four-seamer thrown at a similar speed with a comparable release distance. Many effective four-seam fastballs have higher spin rates and greater induced vertical break. These qualities help the pitch minimize the effect of gravity as it approaches the plate, giving it the illusion of rising action that hitters often refer to as “life” or “ride.” Because Gutierrez’s four-seamer lacks these qualities, the pitch looks flat to opponents, causing it to run into barrels frequently. Gutierrez needs a reliable fastball to make an impact at the big-league level. There are a couple of different paths to making that happen. One option is for the Brewers to help Gutierrez get behind the ball and generate truer backspin to produce more vertical movement. They helped Bryse Wilson make this tweak last season, and his four-seamer went from one of the worst in baseball to holding opponents to a .213 slugging percentage last year. The other route is to replace Gutierrez’s four-seamer with a two-seamer or sinker. J.B. Bukauskas made this transition, but he started with a fastball with even less vertical movement than Gutierrez’s heater, so converting to a heavy sinker was quite natural. The final option is, perhaps, the most likely route: having Gutierrez throw both a two-seamer and a four-seamer. Milwaukee has increasingly emphasized having their pitchers throw two kinds of fastballs. Wilson, Joel Payamps, Hoby Milner, and Colin Rea are among the current examples. These pitchers use sinkers in the bottom third of the zone and elevate four-seamers to change eye levels. Even if neither pitch is effective in isolation, the idea is that the difference in shape and location helps both offerings play up. At any rate, we know one adjustment Gutierrez has already made, which might be what prompted the Brewers to scoop him up. He's drastically increased his release extension this spring, in addition to adding a tick to his raw fastball velocity. That effectively makes his heater 1.5 MPH hotter than it was last year. With those fastballs on which his extension approaches eight feet, Gutierrez is as much an outlier as Bryan Hudson or Hoby Milner. The Brewers love to target guys with good extension, and Chris Hook and his staff teach it well, to boot. They also like to create tough angles for the hitter by moving a pitcher to whichever side of the rubber renders him most extreme, but Gutierrez has already done some of that work himself, too. His release point is farther toward third base and a few inches lower than last season, contributing to a flatter vertical approach angle (VAA) on his heat. This doesn't mean the fastball is already fixed, but it does underscore an important point: there's something there with which to work. The Brewers like this kind of project, and this one offers more to their chief pitching lab techs than meets the eye. Gutierrez has yet to make his debut in Nashville. As he starts working with Milwaukee’s pitching development system, expect the qualities of his fastball and the role it plays in his pitch mix to change. View full article

The Milwaukee Brewers scored a season-high 12 runs on Sunday, but the most encouraging offensive play of the day may have been a walk. Their rookie phenom must improve his swing decisions to succeed against big-league pitchers, so his bases-loaded free pass in the fourth inning was a promising sign. Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports There were ample fireworks in the Brewers’ 12-4 drubbing of the Seattle Mariners on Sunday. The Milwaukee offense set season highs in runs scored and hits, and William Contreras erupted from a lukewarm start to the year with a 4-for-5 day that featured two home runs. Amid all the action, though, the most encouraging play of the afternoon may have been a walk. The Brewers already had an 8-2 lead when Jackson Chourio stepped to the plate with the bases loaded in the fourth inning. Instead of delivering a knockout punch, he drew a four-pitch walk to extend the lead to 9-2. In a vacuum, it was not the most exciting outcome. In the context of Chourio’s development, it was highly encouraging. Chourio’s multi-tool athleticism has been on immediate display eight games into his big-league career. He’s batted .281/.324/.500, hit two home runs, stolen a base, and made multiple impressive catches in right field. One of the few knocks on Chourio’s performance so far is his plate discipline. He entered Sunday having drawn one walk while striking out 10 times. He drew that walk in his first career plate appearance, on March 29. His 35% chase rate ranks in the 19th percentile of MLB hitters. Chourio has made poor swing decisions and tried to hit too many pitches that would be balls. Throwing fewer pitches in the zone to exploit that aggressiveness is one of the first adjustments opposing pitchers will make, and he’ll have to respond with more patient plate appearances. The bases-loaded walk stood out because it pointed to an ability to make such an adjustment. The pressure of an opportunity to blow the game open with a hit could have led Chourio to be overly aggressive and chase those pitches out of the zone. Instead, he recognized that he wasn’t getting a pitch to hit and accepted a walk. “That’s the type of growth we want,” Pat Murphy said of the moment. “Strikes and balls are important. You swing at strikes, and you take balls. It sounds real easy, but it’s not. But over time, the great hitters can do that and force the pitcher to throw the ball over the plate. That’s what Jackson has to learn, and that was a signal of it.” It’s best to temper expectations for Chourio’s rookie season. There will be growing pains. His plate discipline and quality of contact do not support his output so far, and his first bout of struggles in the big leagues will come soon. As exciting as it would be to see Chourio launch himself into Rookie of the Year consideration with an electric debut, it shouldn’t be anyone’s top concern. What matters most is that Chourio lays the foundation for a long and productive career. That includes understanding when and how to adjust as pitchers learn how to attack him. A seemingly minor plate appearance in a blowout win was an encouraging sign on that front. View full article

Freddy Peralta was carving through the Seattle Mariners until a rocky sixth inning. The end of his outing exposed flaws that he must correct to be a reliable ace atop the rotation. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports It was a tale of two outings for Freddy Peralta on Friday night. Making his second start of the season, Peralta appeared on his way to a successful follow-up to his excellent Opening-Day outing. He allowed one hit through his first five innings, striking out seven and inducing 12 swinging strikes. Things took a turn in the sixth. After J.P. Crawford snuck a leadoff single through the left side of the infield, Seattle began ambushing Peralta’s fastball. Mitch Haniger turned around a fastball on the black of the inside corner for a single down the third base line, Mitch Garver hit a sharp line drive to center for a sacrifice fly, and Cal Raleigh lined a ball to deep right field for another run-scoring hit. Peralta’s pitch selection throughout this sequence was questionable. As the Mariners kept making loud contact on fastballs, Peralta kept throwing them. 61% of the pitches he threw in the sixth were heaters. He didn’t mix in more breaking balls, which induced 10 of his 13 total whiffs, and had hitters looking foolish through the first five innings. A slider Peralta threw to Haniger produced the lone whiff of the sixth despite being up and over the plate. Instead of doubling up with another breaking ball, he returned to the fastball and paid for it. Pat Murphy had a different explanation for the sixth-inning damage, alleging that Mariners runners could see the ball in Peralta’s glove from second base and relayed the pending pitch type to hitters. The Mariners did not start ambushing his fastball until Crawford advanced to second. A few minutes after Murphy’s assertion, Peralta said he was unaware opponents knew what was coming in the inning. Whether pitch calling or pitch tipping contributed to the rough inning, both represent strategic flaws in Peralta’s game last night that became exposed. He’ll need to correct them to be the reliable ace the Brewers need him to be without Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. Keeping hitters off-balance is a fundamental aspect of pitching. When the Seattle batting order turned over a third time and started making louder contact against his fastball, Peralta should have known to lean more on his secondaries. Making in-game adjustments is often a key to navigating an order multiple times and pitching deep into games. Peralta must have that ability in his toolbox. If runners were sneaking a peek at the inside of Peralta’s glove, he must find a way to obstruct their view. That could require adjusting how he comes set when pitching out of the stretch. The outing was a reminder that while Peralta has the stuff to lead a rotation, there remains room for growth. Whether he takes another step forward has significant implications for a starting staff with few reliable innings-eaters. View full article

After long stretches in the leadoff spot over the last two seasons, Christian Yelich is off to a productive start as the Brewers' three-hole hitter. He says his mindset remains the same, regardless of his position in the lineup. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports The Milwaukee Brewers’ offense has been a mixed bag to open the year, but Christian Yelich has looked as locked-in as ever. In four games, the Brewers left fielder has already racked up six hits, including two home runs. The former National League MVP has been a prominent driving force behind the club’s season-opening winning streak. That immediate production has come under different circumstances than in recent years. It’s been an interesting journey for Yelich in a Brewer uniform. First, there was his two-year run as the best hitter in the NL. After his season-ending leg injury in late 2019, we saw a three-year dropoff in production, but then came a rebound season last year that constituted his best output since before that fateful foul ball. As his profile shifted back from elite slugger to the more balanced, high-on-base style of hitting he showcased during his days with the Miami Marlins, Yelich moved from the three-hole in the lineup to the leadoff spot for about half of 2022 and the majority of 2023. This year, Yelich is back to hitting third. The change allows Pat Murphy to bat one of Sal Frelick or Garrett Mitchell at leadoff, while splitting his left-handed bats around William Contreras at the top of the order. The three-hole has long been considered the marquee spot in the batting order, and hitters who occupy it are expected to be run producers. The current iteration of Yelich, who has hit a combined 33 home runs over the past two seasons, does not fit that mold. The Brewers, however, do not adhere to conventional batting order roles. For example, Frelick, an on-base machine with little home run power, received most of his starts in the cleanup spot last year. Instead, the emphasis is on playing matchups and staggering lefties and righties to prevent opposing pitchers from getting into a rhythm. It should come as no surprise, then, that Yelich is not altering his mindset to comply with the traditional expectations of someone batting third. “I don’t think anything really changes,” he said, hours before hitting a 423-foot blast to dead center field in the Brewers’ home opener. “The batting order is the batting order the first time through, and after that, it’s kind of just where you come up in the inning.” Yelich’s statement aligns with the analytical assertion that batting order holds minimal influence over scoring, in a large sample. Managers can line up their hitters with the hope that everything unfolds according to plan the first time through, but the reality is that base-out states throughout a game are unpredictable. Hitters bat in various situations within a single game, let alone an entire season. “I’ve hit all over the lineup in my career,” Yelich added. “I’m kind of used to [hitting] wherever you’re at.” Hitters cannot control the game situation surrounding each plate appearance, but they can control their mindset and approach. Yelich finally looked comfortable in those areas last season, after trading his leg kick for a toe tap and seemingly letting go of the pressure that comes with having once performed like an MVP for two seasons. Yelich’s offensive identity will be similar to last year's: a good feel for the strike zone and loud contact to all fields when he swings. That's what led to his early success to open the season. "Great strike-ball [recognition]," Murphy said. "When you're hitting the ball 110, 112 a lot, and your strike-ball is really good, you're going to be a really good player." Regardless of his spot in the order, Yelich will continue to be patient and draw plenty of walks. He’ll use the middle and opposite fields, knowing that loud contact in the air to his pull side will come naturally if his timing is locked in. The fact that he has no plans to change a productive formula is encouraging, as is his early-season production. View full article

DL Hall allowed just two runs but labored through four innings in his first start of the season. The outing was a reminder that there will be some early bumps as Hall adjusts to life as a big-league starting pitcher. Image courtesy of © Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports DL Hall’s official Brewers debut was a productive one by measure of runs allowed. He held the New York Mets to two runs in four innings, and his team won 7-6 to remain undefeated in the young season. It was not an efficient outing, though. Hall labored through those four innings, allowing nine baserunners and requiring 73 pitches to record 12 outs. He induced just five swings and misses, including none against his fastball. That fastball was short a few ticks of velocity compared to when Hall pitched out of the Baltimore Orioles bullpen last year. His heater averaged 95.6 mph last season but sat at 92.1 on Saturday. The loss of velocity in longer stints was not unexpected, but it highlights the importance of Hall successfully commanding and sequencing his entire arsenal to find success as a starting pitcher. In his first big-league start since 2022, he struggled on those fronts and looked like an inexperienced starter trying to find his footing. Hall issued two walks but was in the strike zone a decent amount. 61.6% of his pitches were strikes, and 59% were in the zone. However, poor command was a theme throughout his afternoon. Many of Hall’s offerings were either over the heart of the plate or missed so far out of the zone that they were uncompetitive pitches. That lack of execution kept hitters in the driver’s seat, even when he got ahead. Hall reached 0-2 counts to four of the first five hitters he faced, and three of them reached base. Most of the pitches Hall threw in those 0-2 counts were poorly located. Brandon Nimmo went with a slider too close to the zone for a base hit, Francisco Lindor hit a hard lineout on a belt-high curveball, a waste pitch curveball hit Pete Alonso, and Starling Marte fouled off a series of fastballs over the plate as he worked a walk. New York recorded six hits against Hall, all on pitches that caught far too much of the plate. Hall’s first official appearance as a Brewer shouldn't discourage anyone about his outlook, but it is a reminder that many hurlers face a learning curve as they try to establish themselves as big-league starting pitchers. The 25-year-old still showed fleeting glimpses of his promise on the mound, particularly when he struck out Nimmo in the second inning on a series of well-placed sliders. Hall remains a key piece of the rotation and can have a strong 2024 season when the dust settles. However, there will be some bumps in the early going, and that's okay. It's a necessary part of the development process. Hall is not yet a finished product. View full article