Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Pat Murphy's message to the Brewers clubhouse before Game 1 of the NLDS was simple: be ready. "We talked during the week. One of the things we made a point of, or maybe the main thing we talked about, is, 'Promise me you'll be ready the first pitch,'" he recalled. "When the bell rings, you're ready. You don't get a couple rounds to figure out whether or not you want to fight. Be ready in the first round." That would be pertinent advice in any situation, but especially so on Saturday afternoon. The Brewers, returning to action after a five-day bye, could not ease back into a game against the Chicago Cubs, who disposed of the San Diego Padres on Thursday and can counter many of Milwaukee's strengths. Michael Busch's home run on Freddy Peralta's fourth pitch of the game rudely reaffirmed that reality. Their patient offense needed to respond against Matthew Boyd, one of baseball's best strike-throwers. Boyd finished the regular season with the 13th-lowest walk rate and the third-highest zone rate among qualified starters. The Brewers, meanwhile, finished a second straight season with baseball's lowest swing rate, including the lowest on first pitches. Craig Counsell remarked the day before that their hitters "don't swing much" under Murphy's orders. Murphy wasn't having that notion on Saturday morning. "(Counsell) didn't finish that," he quipped. "I tell them, 'Don't swing, jump in front of it. Try to get hit by a pitch.' When I was a bench coach, he didn't like that. … But we're not going to just sit and take. It's not what we do. We might take more than others because we've got young guys and it takes them a few pitches to get adjusted." A few hours later, his hitters came out swinging against Boyd, so much so that they bounced him from the game two outs into the first inning. After leadoff man Jackson Chourio took a 2-0 called strike, the Brewers swung at each of his next 12 in-zone pitches before his exit, including three straight doubles on as many pitches to kick off a six-run frame. "We came in with an approach," said Blake Perkins, whose RBI single after an 11-pitch at-bat ended Boyd's day. "As you guys saw, it was very aggressive." It was perhaps the offense's most active start to a game all year. Between Boyd and Michael Soroka, the Brewers offered at 16 in-zone pitches in the first inning, more than in any of their regular-season games. "We hit some balls where they weren't, and we were ready," Murphy said. "I loved the at-bats early." That hot start put the Brewers in a favorable position the rest of the afternoon. Freddy Peralta, pitching with an eight-run lead for much of the day, worked into the sixth inning. Murphy could stay away from Abner Uribe in the series opener, using Aaron Ashby, Jared Koenig, and Nick Mears for outings of 20 pitches or fewer to close it out. A five-game series isn't won in Game 1, but outside of Jackson Chourio's hopefully minor hamstring injury, the Brewers couldn't find themselves in a much better position. An early punch in the mouth put Chicago on the defensive. It also helped Milwaukee keep its bullpen relatively fresh, while the Cubs are still reeling a bit from emptying their relief corps last week. The next task is taking advantage of that position. The Brewers can't let up, especially against a team that can frustrate lineups by playing excellent defense and slugs more than Murphy's woodpeckers. "We know what we're trying to accomplish, and we're going to focus on doing that and focus on ourselves," said Brice Turang. "It's just taking that energy and, however you do it, taking it and moving it on to the next day." View full article

The 2025 Milwaukee Brewers have built their offensive identity around applying pressure. Ask any hitter or coach about their success, and it’s one of the first phrases you’ll hear in response. At their best, Brewers hitters put up a stubborn battle against each pitch, combining for the lowest chase rate among 30 teams and striving to put those in the strike zone in play. When they do, they sprint full-throttle down the line. Once they’re on first base, they try to advance an extra 90 feet at any opportunity. The Brewers force opponents to pitch quickly and to make plays quickly. When they don’t, this offense has made them pay. It’s hard to argue with the regular-season results. Despite ranking 25th in isolated power (.145), Milwaukee’s offense scored the third-most runs in baseball. It placed second in on-base percentage (.332) and ninth in wRC+ (107). Opposing defenses were less efficient against the Brewers than any other team, slumping to a -28 Fielding Run Value (last) and letting them reach on an error 43 times (third-most). Applying pressure, an approach that had Pat Murphy likening his hitters to woodpeckers, worked over the course of a regular season. The Brewers will soon find out whether it’s a viable strategy in the postseason, where they will immediately square off against arguably the greatest potential foil to their brand of offense: the division-rival Chicago Cubs. Milwaukee went 6-7 against Chicago this year, a reflection of how well both clubs counter the other’s strengths. The Cubs do that best in the field, where they make the plays that the Brewers challenge their opponents to execute. Chicago’s defense has arguably been the best in the National League this year. In the regular season, it led the NL in FRV (41), Defensive Runs Saved (83), and Deserved Runs Prevented (20.9). The Cubs roll out excellent defenders at five of the seven non-battery positions. Player Position DRS FRV DRP Michael Busch 1B 2 -1 1.2 Nico Hoerner 2B 17 12 5.5 Dansby Swanson SS 7 3 -1.2 Matt Shaw 3B 12 -1 2.7 Ian Happ LF 9 0 13.5 Pete Crow-Armstrong CF 15 21 9.6 Kyle Tucker RF -1 0 -5.2 That defense responding well to pressure helped the Cubs punch their ticket to the NLDS. The San Diego Padres threatened a ninth-inning comeback in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series. After Jackson Merrill led off the inning with a solo home run to make it a 3-1 game, two hit-by-pitches brought the go-ahead run to the plate with one out. Jake Cronenworth chopped a shallow 72-mph grounder toward shortstop for a potential infield single, but Shaw charged left and got a handle on the ball in time to retire him by just less than half a stride. QWb8UxZRHH19Fth-.mp4 It’s precisely the kind of sequence the Brewers have pulled off successfully all season long: creating traffic on the bases, then daring a defender to make a challenging play on a well-placed grounder. For lesser teams, this kind of play often ended in disaster. The third baseman didn’t get there, hung onto the ball for an infield single, or rushed the throw before getting his grip and footwork in order and fired it up the line. Shaw completed the play, even showing the wherewithal to take an extra beat before throwing when the ball nearly slipped out of his hand. Such plays could go against the Brewers throughout the NLDS, rather than in their favor. They already experienced it in some of their regular-season showdowns. Milwaukee hitters actually made better contact against the Cubs than they did overall on the season, yet saw fewer balls in play fall for hits, because that elite defense snatched them up. Opponent R/G BA OBP SLG xBA xOBP xSLG HardHit% Barrel% Whiff% BABIP MLB 4.98 .256 .329 .402 .255 .330 .401 40.1% 6.8% 22.6% .302 CHC 4.30 .239 .314 .393 .256 .331 .417 44.3% 8.0% 20.1% .276 October would already be a new test of how far the Brewers could succeed with middling in-game power. Their run-prevention and baserunning excellence mean they need not slug with the most potent lineups to win games, but they need enough big swings to cut through playoff randomness and make a deep run—and they may need more against the Cubs than anyone else. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Jared Koenig’s regular season was a productive follow-up to last year’s breakout. The crossfire left-hander appeared in 72 games, second-most among Brewers relievers, posting a 2.86 ERA with peripherals that matched or bested his rookie campaign. In one facet, though, it was a tale of two seasons. Koenig carried pronounced platoon splits through July that had him looking most suited for a specialist role down the stretch and into October. Lefties slashed .213/.259/.293, but righties tagged him for a .312/.385/.505 line. He flipped the script once the calendar turned to August, fueling two months of late-season dominance. Koenig allowed just three earned runs across 22 innings the rest of the way, with righties hitting just .140/.232/.260 against him. The turnaround followed from a new approach. In the first half, Koenig attacked righties as he does lefties, pairing his deceptive sinker and cutter combo over the heart of the plate to produce uncomfortable takes and late swings. They slugged .525 against the cutter through July, though, so he’s since relegated it to a show-me pitch and featured his changeup more. Koenig also appears to have lowered his sights. He’s still attacking righties aggressively in the zone with his sinker, but around the knees, instead of at the letters. That sinker-changeup pairing near the bottom of the zone has been far more effective. Righties went from slugging .475 with a 9.7% barrel rate against Koenig’s sinker through July to slugging .172 with a 5.6% barrel rate the rest of the season. His changeup, meanwhile, generated whiffs on 44.4% of swings over the final two months. The return to his most dominant form came at just the right time, for a Milwaukee bullpen that lost Shelby Miller and Trevor Megill to injuries late in the year. Their absences forced Koenig to pitch even further toward the back ends of games, where he and Abner Uribe helped carry the relief corps to a 2.91 ERA in September, the fourth-best in baseball. With Miller out for the year and Megill’s role in question without his best velocity, Koenig and Uribe will remain Pat Murphy’s most trusted short relievers. By quashing his platoon problem, Koenig is back to being Murphy’s Swiss Army knife. The Brewers are likely to lean heavily on their bullpen in the postseason, and he could be tasked with some of the biggest outs. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images The best regular season in Brewers franchise history featured plenty of twists and turns, but once this year's team found its identity, its formula for winning remained consistent, including roles throughout the roster. Outside of an injured Rhys Hoskins ceding his role to Andrew Vaughn, Pat Murphy's preferred starters stayed in the lineup when healthy, and his high-leverage relievers remained consistent. Now the Brewers turn their attention to the postseason, which is often regarded as a different game than the regular season because each pitch carries added magnitude in smaller samples. It's still the same sport at its core, though. Teams typically don't abandon the brand of baseball that got them into the dance. That will be especially true for this group, whose relentless, pitch-by-pitch approach Murphy believes could give them an advantage over other clubs. "You're not looking to win a batting title in the postseason, you're looking to win pitches," Murphy said during the final series of the regular season. "So all the things we do all year kind of match up with how you've got to go about this. And I think that's going to be—even though nobody believes it—I think that's going to be a big plus for us, because we're playing this type of baseball all year." The short-term nature of the playoffs does change the calculus of roster construction and in-game decisions, which is worth noting as Brewers decision-makers select 26 players for the NLDS; arrange lineups and pitching plans; and make moves during games. Patience and a big-picture view are key during the regular season. Over 162 games, players receive opportunities in all kinds of situations against myriad opponents. Maneuvering matchups and situations to gain an edge each night is still a key part of the game, but for the most part, things tend to even out, so teams proactively rest some players and proactively involve others, even when doing so might not optimize the effort to win that game. It's a different story in the postseason. The smaller sample size makes the outcome of each pitch more impactful to a team's fate, elevating the importance of strategy and the game within the game to an extreme. Instead of playing the probabilities that will bring you out on top at the end of 162, you must play the ones that will bring you out on top that night. Specific situations—having the perfect pitcher to match up against a certain hitter, the right pinch-hitter against a certain pitcher, or the right pinch-runner for a particular game state—that are less consequential in a regular-season game could be the difference between advancing and going home. Players on hot or cold streaks may not have time for things to even out. "You're not playing for the psyche of the player, the longevity of the season, what you need out of them to help," Murphy said. "You're thinking [about] this seven-game series or this five-game series." That means players who filled a certain role throughout the regular season are sometimes used differently in October. If a regular position player does not match up well against an opponent, he may be relegated to a hyperspecific part-time role for a series. Conversely, other players might get more opportunities in the lineup or out of the bullpen in key spots. "We're going to play the way we play, but we're going to be open-minded and flexible, because we are in a win tonight mode like never before," Murphy said. "That doesn't get you tomorrow, necessarily, so winning tonight could mean you've got to be a little more flexible. Yeah, you played left field for us all year, but you might just pinch-hit. But I need that one at-bat to be the same as when you were playing, and not get in your own head, because this is about the team." Left field could be among the positions to look different from much of the regular season. Isaac Collins held it down for most of the season and emerged as a Rookie of the Year candidate. But his recent defensive downturn, Jake Bauers's 1.018 OPS in September, and the need for Blake Perkins's glove sliding Jackson Chourio from center field to left all ate into his playing time down the stretch. On the bench, the Brewers must decide whether Hoskins can deliver a game-changing swing off the bench, after he went 1-for-10 in a limited pinch-hitting role. If not, there's no room for him on the roster at all. In the bullpen, Nick Mears's reliance on his slider could limit him to specific right-on-right matchups, rather than the general high-leverage role he filled for much of the year. Trevor Megill may not jump back into the ninth inning after a month-long absence. Will Grant Anderson's upshoot four-seam fastball and right-handed sweeper be effective against Padres or Cubs hitters, or would Tobias Myers stack up better for the most likely matchups? Chad Patrick's trio of fastballs looked great in limited relief work, making him a sneaky choice to get high-leverage outings despite his lack of bullpen experience. These are the kinds of discussions the Brewers must resolve by the morning of October 4, when NLDS rosters are due before Game 1. They already started feeling things out after clinching the division, including giving Bauers more starts in left and using Patrick for three outs in the late innings with a two-run lead on Sunday. This team's on-field identity will not change. They will still try to beat opponents with constant action on the bases, forcing them to play clean baseball, and playing strong defense. Things will look a bit different on the management side, as the front office and coaching staff must adapt their roster usage to best fit the context of each plate appearance, game, and series. The rule of thumb in October is to expect surprises, and there will inevitably be several in the coming days. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Jacob Misiorowski’s rookie campaign has been a tale of two seasons. The flame-throwing right-hander took baseball by storm during his first seven starts, but he has pitched to a 6.23 ERA in his last seven, while averaging just over four innings per outing. In St. Louis, Pat Murphy poured cold water on Misiorowski starting postseason games, and he was available out of the bullpen in San Diego. The 23-year-old won’t be a reliable playoff piece in any role, until he corrects the issues that have plagued his second half—but fortunately, those are not as serious as his results might look. Nor are they unusual for a young pitcher. While not in his dominant form from June and July, he has since been much closer to it than his ERA suggests. Split ERA FIP SIERA DRA K% BB% Zone% Strike% First 7 GS 2.70 3.15 3.04 3.37 36.4% 10.9% 57.2% 67.8% Last 7 GS 6.23 4.10 3.95 3.89 28.2% 10.7% 56.3% 64.7% Misiorowski hasn’t been hit all that hard during this stretch, and process-based metrics say he has still pitched like an above-average starter. His strikeout rate is down, but it's still just under 30%. It might be easy to point to worse control as the problem, but his walk and zone rates are nearly identical to the first half of his season. Those percentages do not capture sequencing, though. Misiorowski is still throwing enough strikes, but not at the right times. Through his first seven outings, he threw 25% of his total pitches while behind in the count, and 20% of plate appearances against him ended in such counts. In his last seven, those percentages have risen to 31% and 34%, respectively. One of the takeaways from Misiorowski’s first several outings was how well he controlled the game, but it has since looked as though the game is too often controlling him. It’s given opposing hitters—who were already likely to adopt a patient approach, given his occasional wildness—more room to wait him out, working their way into favorable counts before taking better swings when he comes back into the zone. Misiorowski’s results have remained strong when he works ahead, even during this rough patch. When he falls behind, though, hitters have taken much greater advantage. Simplifying things could restore him to a more effective state. Murphy opined in St. Louis that Misiorowski ought to refocus on his triple-digit fastball over his cutter-like slider, which has remained his go-to secondary pitch despite yielding a .387 wOBA and -2 run value and getting hit especially hard the last two months. A relief role would allow him to let that heater work in the zone for an inning or two, without worrying about pacing himself or sequencing pitches to disrupt hitters’ timing across multiple trips through the order. Whether he appears in that capacity next week is unclear. Misiorowski pitched as a reliever in Triple-A down the stretch a year ago, but has worked exclusively as a starter this year, with the Brewers seemingly intent on keeping him on a consistent schedule to ease the transition to the big leagues. Throwing him into the bullpen to sink or swim in a playoff series would be a substantial disruption to that routine. Perhaps the club will omit Misiorowski from its NLDS roster and work with him on that transition behind the scenes for future rounds. Whatever his role ultimately becomes, he remains capable of recording big outs in key situations this year. Misiorowski is closer to his best self than he looks, and everything can fall back into place—if he gets back on the attack with his best stuff. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jeff Curry-Imagn Images With a Chicago Cubs loss against the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday afternoon, the Brewers clinched their third straight NL Central title and their fourth in five seasons. Milwaukee will play in the postseason for the seventh time in eight years. Since 2017, its 761 regular-season wins trail only the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League. The shape of that success has varied throughout the years, typically to maximize which players, coaches, and executives are most available to a team in baseball's smallest market. In 2018, the Brewers fell one win shy of a pennant with a patchwork rotation and a great bullpen, and by contorting their defensive positioning with shifts to pack their lineup with as many power hitters as possible. In 2021, excellent starting pitching carried them to their next division championship. The last two seasons, they've fashioned their run-prevention around elite defense and their offense around taking extra bases to compete with teams who slug more than they do. Losing key figures has not stopped the train, either. Over time, the Brewers lost president of baseball operations David Stearns and manager Craig Counsell; traded away elite players on expiring contracts; and let others depart in free agency. After all that, this year's team is two wins away from setting a new franchise record for single-season excellence. Given the circumstances early in the year, it's perhaps the most impressive entry in this era of Milwaukee baseball. The Brewers traveled to New York with an entire starting rotation on the injured list and set a dubious MLB record, becoming the first team in history to be outscored by 32 runs through its first four games. By May 17, they had suffered eight blowout losses of at least seven runs in their first 46 games and were four games under .500. Manager Pat Murphy was benching starters and calling repeated postgame team meetings to address fundamentally unsound performances. With nearly a third of the season in the books, the Brewers did not resemble a contending team. They quickly turned things around, to carry the best record in baseball into the final week of the regular season and control their own destiny for the top seed in the postseason. Activations of previously injured players, in-season acquisitions, and promotions phased out the pitchers responsible for the early-season blowouts. On offense, Isaac Collins, Brice Turang, and Sal Frelick enjoyed breakouts, and Andrew Vaughn turned his season around in place of an injured Rhys Hoskins. The mistakes gave way to some of the tightest fundamental play in the league. The Brewers haven't looked back since. With another playoff appearance, the club continues to check off the first step in its blueprint for winning its first World Series. They're getting yet another bite at the apple. Next up comes the challenge of advancing in the postseason. For all their regular-season success, the Brewers have not won a playoff series since 2018, which has understandably become a contentious shortcoming for a fanbase now expecting more from a perennial contender. October baseball is chaotic, and bypassing the three-game Wild Card round and heading straight to the five-game NLDS could help the Brewers in that regard. The reality, however, remains that they must perform better under the bright lights than they have in recent years. Perhaps this will be the year the baseball gods smile on the Brewers and reward the front office's approach. Legitimate questions remain about whether this team can scrap its way to postseason wins, particularly if the offense fails to hit for enough power in a small sample. For now, though, this group deserves credit for overcoming the many obstacles thrown its way to continue the golden age of Milwaukee baseball. Regular-season success may not guarantee a title, but that shouldn't make it any less impressive. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images The Brewers retained all of their young pitching depth at the trade deadline, and that depth has since been tested a few times. The staff will have to absorb another blow right before the postseason, as Brandon Woodruff hit the injured list on Sunday with what Brewers manager Pat Murphy characterized as a moderate right lat strain. Woodruff told media that he sustained the injury during his bullpen session on Saturday. He’ll be evaluated by a doctor in St. Louis and receive an opinion from Dr. Keith Meister, who performed his shoulder surgery in October 2023. Woodruff will be eligible to return from the injured list for the NLDS, but a moderate lat strain typically requires at least a month to heal and often takes longer. He spoke of his season in the past tense on Sunday, hinting that he’s aware his comeback season could be over. At the very least, it ends what was a productive regular season for Woodruff when healthy enough to take the mound. Despite losing a few ticks of velocity after surgery, he authored a 3.20 ERA with a 3.18 FIP, 2.91 SIERA, 80 DRA-, and 32.3% strikeout rate in 12 starts. He did not work deep into starts as consistently as he once did, but those peripherals rivaled his prime seasons. It’s the Brewers’ second injury to a veteran starter in the last week. Jose Quintana hit the shelf with a calf strain last Wednesday and is working to return for the NLDS. Trevor Megill has also plateaued in his efforts to return from a flexor strain, and it’s currently up in the air whether he’ll be back to pitch during the club’s final home series next weekend before the playoffs. The club will secure a first-round bye to the Division Series upon clinching the NL Central, which could happen on Sunday with a win or a Chicago Cubs loss. While the Brewers have yet to announce their rotation for that series, it seemed that Freddy Peralta, Woodruff, and Quinn Priester would start the first three playoff games. If Woodruff’s absence extends well into October, it could bump Priester up to Game 2. Milwaukee has a few options to backfill his innings now and in the postseason. Chad Patrick slid back into the rotation for Quintana and could be a candidate to start Game 3. It could be Quintana if he's ready to pitch by then. Robert Gasser began converting to a multi-inning relief role in Triple-A Nashville, but the Brewers recalled him to start on Sunday and could stretch him back out. Jacob Misiorowski could get a playoff start, but Murphy said Woodruff’s injury won’t impact his role as the club mulls moving him to the bullpen. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images The Brewers' three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels was not all that remarkable. It was, perhaps, even expected. The Angels are a bad team, and the Brewers did what good teams should do against bad opponents. There are takeaways to be gleaned from how they did it, though—particularly on the run-prevention side. The Angels have a poor offense, ranking 23rd in baseball with a 92 wRC+, but they're especially feeble against pitches with lift and glove-side break. Their -16 run value against cutters is the worst in the league, and their -15 run value against sweepers is fourth-worst. While no one said it outright, it sure looked like the Brewers' gameplans centered on that weakness, and their last two starters exploited it best. Brandon Woodruff, whose new cutter had largely been an auxiliary pitch to support his two existing fastballs after losing some velocity post-shoulder surgery, threw cutters at a season-high 45% rate on Wednesday. Angels hitters whiffed on eight of 16 swings against it. "I'm not going in and saying I'm going to throw 30 cutters," said Woodruff, who claimed that leaning on the pitch so heavily was not part of his original game plan that night, "but if it's working and it's playing right, I can use it to help out the other fastballs." Sinkerballer Quinn Priester followed suit the next night, throwing his cutter a season-high 40% of the time en route to his third outing of the season with double-digit strikeouts. Four of his 10 strikeouts came on cutters, which yielded six whiffs out of 16 swings. "It's just something that's keeping the guys off the sinker, and when it's working and guys aren't making the adjustment, we can kind of keep rolling with it," Priester said. It wasn't just those two starters attacking the Angels with glove-side movement. Chad Patrick and Erick Fedde, former starters who are not typical high-leverage pitchers, received opportunities in the late innings with four-run leads during the series. Patrick struck out the side on Tuesday with his usual cutter-dominant mix, while Fedde threw a cutter or sweeper for 20 of his 24 pitches across two scoreless frames the following night. Carefully orchestrating matchups to win each moment becomes even more crucial in the postseason. When the Brewers face much better lineups in more meaningful situations in October, they could deploy more specialized pitch mixes as they did this week. In last year's Wild Card series against the New York Mets, they threw several pitchers with riding fastballs from high arm angles. That might mean rostering certain pitchers over others and using them in key situations because of how their mix profiles against a lineup rather than their regular-season performance. Starters with deep arsenals might sequence differently. Identifying something that works and maximizing it to the extreme could become a more immediately obvious theme for Milwaukee in a couple of weeks. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images All season long, Brewers personnel have been quick to praise Joey Ortiz's defense. While some in the front office still think highly of his offensive potential, it's his glove that has earned him a long leash as the starting shortstop, despite a 69 wRC+ that ranks second-to-last among qualified hitters. Public defensive metrics have been more divided in their evaluation. Through July, Statcast's Fielding Run Value graded Ortiz as +6 runs above average on the season, which ranked sixth among qualified shortstops. Defensive Runs Saved, meanwhile, had him bottoming out at -7 runs, and Baseball Prospectus had him at -1.9 Defensive Runs Prevented. Since the start of August, though, Ortiz has been undeniably fantastic in the field. All three metrics agree that he's been one of baseball's better defensive shortstops over the last six weeks. He quickly worked his way back to an effectively neutral -1 DRS and 0 DRP and is up to an FRV of +10 runs. Brewers infield coach Matt Erickson said some metrics dinged Ortiz early in the year because he was not completing more challenging plays. The club's internal model classifies plays by out probability based on the lateral range required of an infielder to complete them. Those with an out probability between 30% and 70% are considered "50/50 plays," and Ortiz rarely recorded outs on the most difficult opportunities. "Like 12 of those 15 [plays] were from 30 to 40 percent, where he was diving, making plays, getting up, dropping the exchange, ruled a hit," Erickson said. "Diving one way, making a throw, guy just beats it. So of the 50/50 plays that he was getting, they were on the extreme, tougher end, but he wasn't converting many of those. Now, over the course of the second half, he's gotten more opportunities, and he's made a bunch more 50/50 plays, which has brought that number back up." Erickson did not cite specific plays, but there are plenty from the first half that fit the description. Here's an attempt on May 3 where Ortiz dove to knock down a grounder in the hole, but the transfer was neither clean nor quick enough for his throw to beat Chicago Cubs catcher Carson Kelly. ortiz_dive.mp4 Two weeks later, Ortiz laid out the other way for an impressive stop up the middle, but he couldn't collect the ball to make a throw. ortiz_dive2.mp4 Of the public defensive tools, Baseball Prospectus's models best illustrate Ortiz's in-season evolution as a defender. They separately track how many batted balls above or below average an infielder reaches (Attempt Range) and how well he executes that range to record outs (Range Outs Made). Split Attempt Range Range Outs Made Reaches on Fielded GBs March-July 1.0 -2.6 28 Aug-Sept 9.7 2.6 3 Off the bat, the two metrics, plus the number of batters who reached base on ground balls he fielded, support the notion that Ortiz was getting to enough balls in the first half, but not recording the out. They also reveal that he turned things around not just by completing more of those plays, but mostly by significantly improving his range. Ortiz moves gracefully and naturally on the dirt, with exceptional coordination. His movements aren't very quick or explosive, though. On many plays in the first half, including in the clips above, he looked smooth but slow. The Brewers' model says his initial burst toward ground balls off the bat is among the worst in their infield, so improving in that area became a focus to help him make more rangy plays. "Over the course of the year, he's done things like worked on his lateral range," Erickson said. "He's changed his prep stuff a few different times. He's tried to be more efficient with that. That's a number that is as slow as anybody on our team in the infield, but it's improving over time, so I think that's helped him make more plays and get to more balls." He has also seen Ortiz's anticipation improve over time, in his first season as a big-league shortstop. The best infielders use experience and the information surrounding them to deduce where and how a ball will be hit, giving themselves a head start on properly approaching it and saving precious milliseconds on difficult bang-bang plays. "You can see his engagement getting better," Erickson said. "His physical skills are what they are, but his mental engagement—using the PitchCom, anticipating what pitch is being thrown, knowing his pitchers a little bit more now with experience, and knowing where balls come off the bat, whether they're right-handed or left-handed [hitters]—anticipating some of that, I think, is what he's really improved on, which is helping him make more plays." Ortiz's glove was his calling card as a prospect, and he flashed the ingredients of an elite defensive shortstop as soon as he debuted with the Brewers, but his fielding value did not match his reputation early in the year. It does now. As Milwaukee sets its eyes on a deep postseason run, Ortiz will remain pivotal to keeping runs off the board. "When you look at him play shortstop, there's absolute trust from the coaching staff and his teammates that he's a quality shortstop and he's going to make plays," Erickson said. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images With 13 games remaining in the regular season, the Brewers find themselves in an excellent position in the standings. They boast the best record by two games and hold a 6.5-game lead over the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central. Milwaukee became the first team in baseball to clinch a playoff berth this weekend, and FanGraphs' playoff odds give the team a 97.8% chance of notching a first-round bye to the NLDS. Pat Murphy doesn't want to hear any of that, particularly when the Brewers still have some work ahead of them. They returned home after a three-game sweep at the hands of the Texas Rangers. Those games and a hard-fought extra-innings win against the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday reinforced that having the math on their side doesn't mean punching that Division Series ticket will be easy. "When we start looking ahead or planning or coasting, we have an uphill battle," Murphy said. "Every team on our [remaining] schedule can beat us. That's been proven." "We've done some good things," said Christian Yelich, "but there's definitely things we can do better and clean up and kind of get back on track with where we want to be heading into the postseason." With the Brewers' favorable standing in the playoff race comes the challenge of striking a delicate balance. They would be well-served using the rest of September to keep key players healthy and audition others for potential October roles, but they cannot lose their competitive edge. It's not a switch they can freely toggle off and on based on the situation. It's hard to imagine a Murphy-led team running into that issue. While he acknowledged the Brewers are closely monitoring players' health – a banged-up Sal Frelick has gotten more days off lately, and Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff have had starts pushed back – he doesn't sound like a manager planning to ease off the gas pedal down the stretch, particularly during games. "We've come too far by playing, 'Win tonight,'" he said. "It's been, 'Win tonight,' every time. Now, are we being very mindful of health? Yes. But it's, 'Win tonight.'" Murphy's well-known aggression in pursuit of winning was on display Friday night. Rather than turn to one of his lower-leverage relievers, he still brought Aaron Ashby into a four-run game behind Quinn Priester to keep things under control. Whether that's the best approach nightly, especially with several hard-worked relievers, remains debatable, but Murphy has demonstrated that he has no issue pushing the envelope if his arms say they feel strong enough to keep going. His message to his players as October nears: remember what got you this far, and don't let up. "People all predicted we were going to be .500 or under," Murphy said. "The reason people predicted that is because we've proven we're way better as a team – playing as a team, playing together, acquiring bases, winning the moment, winning the pitch. We're way better like that. We're not built like some of these championship teams are built." They answered that call on Saturday. In what has become typical Brewers fashion, they clawed back against the St. Louis bullpen with a series of disciplined plate appearances and well-placed hits, culminating in Andruw Monasterio's walk-off single. "I want to be in the playoffs, trying to make it to a World Series, trying to win," Monasterio said. "That's the first thought. Our only goal is to win the World Series." "Making the playoffs is huge," said Jacob Misiorowski, "but we want a little bit more." View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Pat Murphy has already explained—multiple times—why the Brewers gave Anthony Seigler starts at third base over Caleb Durbin, who has posted a solid 102 wRC+ with strong defense as a rookie. They like Seigler's swing decisions and penchant for hitting line drives, and they don't believe his results reflect the quality of his plate appearances. Liking Seigler is only half the equation, though. He wouldn't have gotten those starts had the Brewers not felt Durbin profiled poorly in certain right-on-right matchups. Murphy has been more coy when asked about that half of the decision-making. Durbin has a clear platoon split, posting a 119 wRC+ against left-handers compared to a 97 wRC+ against righties. That's still capable production against same-handed pitchers, though. Furthermore, the third base situation has not been a strict platoon. Since Seigler's debut on July 2, Durbin has started there in 26 of the Brewers' 42 games against a right-handed starter, while Seigler started at third in 16, plus a start as the DH. Rather than shielding Durbin from all right-handed pitchers, the Brewers have mostly withheld him from facing ones with low arm slots. Seigler started over him against these pitchers: Game Pitcher Arm Angle 7/02 @ NYM Clay Holmes 43.6 7/02 @ NYM Huascar Brazobán 36.2 7/13 vs. WSN Jake Irvin 27.0 7/21 @ SEA George Kirby 29.3 7/23 @ SEA Luis Castillo 14.9 7/29 vs. CHC Colin Rea 30.5 8/02 @ WSN Jake Irvin 27.0 8/03 @ WSN Brad Lord 19.8 8/04 @ ATL Erick Fedde 35.1 8/06 @ ATL Spencer Strider 42.0 8/09 vs. NYM Reed Garrett 33.9 8/13 vs. PIT Mitch Keller 37.9 8/20 @ CHC Colin Rea 30.5 8/23 vs SFG Logan Webb 22.2 8/26 vs. ARI Brandon Pfaadt 27.1 9/03 vs. PHI Aaron Nola 19.7 Fourteen of those 16 right-handers have an average arm angle lower than 40 degrees. According to Baseball Savant, Durbin has slashed .211/.308/.325 against right-handed pitches from those arm angles. Instead, he's started mostly against righties with arm angles of 40° or higher, against whom he's hitting .251/.327/.382. Since Seigler's debut, the right-handed starters he's faced have had an average arm angle of 28°. In Durbin's starts, it's been 42°. Seigler is likely to return to Triple-A as the corresponding move for Rhys Hoskins's return on Tuesday afternoon, which could mean more opportunities for Durbin against low-slot righties. It seemed that way when he started against Johan Oviedo (26° arm angle) and Mitch Keller (38°) in Pittsburgh. However, Murphy previewed a new wrinkle at third base on Monday night, hitting Isaac Collins for Durbin against Jacob Webb (34°) in the eighth inning in Texas. Collins, a former minor-league utility man who has played almost exclusively in the outfield in the majors, finished the game at third. Collins only played 13 games at the hot corner in the minors. Before Monday, his big-league experience consisted of one-third of an inning in a walk-off loss in St. Louis in April. He's continued doing pregame infield work, though, and Murphy said last month that the club had discussed the possibility of playing him more on the dirt moving forward. More time at third base would also keep Collins in the lineup regularly after Hoskins's return. To open the DH spot to get Hoskins and Andrew Vaughn in the same lineup, Christian Yelich will likely spend more time in left field down the stretch. While the Brewers cannot go on cruise control, their 7.5-game lead for a first-round postseason bye gives them some wiggle room to test new alignments ahead of October. View full article

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images Most hitters across baseball are at least somewhat streaky. It’s a reality of attempting perhaps the hardest task in professional sports nightly throughout a 162-game season. Even so, the Jake Bauers experience is a rollercoaster. In his two seasons with the Brewers, the part-time first baseman has typically bounced between ice-cold slumps and red-hot stretches without many spans of okay offense. Bauers is seemingly emerging from the low point of his performance cycle into one of those hot streaks. Entering the Brewers’ series against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park, he was 3 for his last 41, a stretch that was interrupted by a month-long stay on the injured list. Given more starts lately while Christian Yelich nurses a back flare-up, he has since gone 5-for-8 with a home run. Two of those swings were pivotal in Milwaukee victories – a go-ahead sixth-inning single on Friday night, and a two-run blast to open the scoring on Saturday. Those performances were a reminder of Bauers’s potential when things are clicking and why the Brewers have continued to roster him, even as his overall output has been unremarkable. His 2025 slash line now sits at .205/.324/.363 (95 wRC+), and his .347 xwOBA and 109 DRC+ indicate he’s performed like an above-average hitter process-wise. Swing-and-miss issues – including vulnerabilities to high fastballs and low-and-in breaking balls – remain the greatest wart in the veteran’s profile and partially why he’s so streaky. However, his swing decisions, bat speed, and raw power compensate for the whiffs so long as he keeps his strikeouts from ballooning out of control. Split Chase% Heart Swing% Bat Speed (mph) Barrel% Sweet Spot% xwOBAcon Bauers 19.9% 75.4% 76.6 13.0% 37.0% .450 MLB Average 28.1% 72.0% 71.8 8.6% 34.1% .380 Because he rarely chases outside the strike zone, Bauers’s 14.5% walk rate this season has carried him to an above-average 0.47 walk-to-strikeout ratio despite a 30.6% strikeout rate that borders on just enough balls in play to make his profile work. He swings hard and hits the ball sharply and on a line when he makes contact. It’s a recipe that can carry a lineup for a couple of weeks, just as Bauers did with an .841 OPS through June 1 while much of a struggling Milwaukee offense searched for its footing. It can also be useful off the bench in the right matchups and produce a big swing at a moment’s notice – his pinch-hit go-ahead home run in Game 3 of last year’s Wild Card Series was not as improbable as it may have seemed. There’s a reason why the Brewers are letting Rhys Hoskins’s rehab clock run its course in Triple-A, even as Hoskins has looked ready to return for at least a week. It’s because they still see a role for Bauers, who cannot be optioned to the minor leagues, and do not want to cut ties with any of their depth until roster rules force their hand. Bauers could be the casualty when Hoskins returns later this week, but it would not be surprising if the club optioned Anthony Seigler or even a slumping Andrew Vaughn to keep him around through the regular season and into the playoffs. View full article

Image courtesy of © Curt Hogg / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Craig Yoho’s first big-league season has not aligned with his minor-league dominance. After blazing through the Brewers’ farm system with a 1.34 ERA, 1.75 FIP, and 41.1% strikeout rate in his first 60 1/3 professional innings, the 25-year-old has pitched to an 8.22 ERA, 7.44 FIP, and 13.2% strikeout rate in just 7 2/3 MLB frames. Yoho has bounced between the Brewers and the Triple-A Nashville Sounds throughout the year; his promotion on September 1 was his fourth of the season. Since his inaugural cup of coffee in the majors in April, his focus back in the minors has become more development-oriented. “As you're kind of moving up the ranks, you're so focused on results,” Yoho said. “You feel like you have to pitch perfectly in order to get promotions and get from High-A to Double-A, Double-A to Triple-A. But getting up here, you see what the game’s like, you see what the big-league level is. Now I can go down, and I don't feel like I have to necessarily pitch perfectly. I can start working on things I need to work on.” One of the things Yoho had to work on was making more competitive pitches, an issue that plagued his first few big-league stints. He has thrown a below-average 43.1% of his total offerings in the strike zone, and opposing hitters have chased just 20.2% of his out-of-zone pitches, leading to a 23.7% walk rate. Because his pitches have so much movement, free bases will always be part of a tradeoff for Yoho, who should rack up enough strikeouts to work around them. Devin Williams and Aaron Ashby have found success in Milwaukee with similar high-walk, high-strikeout profiles. However, Yoho’s misses were too frequent, too severe, and easy for hitters to take for balls. Last month in Nashville, he made a series of changes to improve on that front, starting with moving across the pitching rubber. Finding the best starting position has been a game of trial-and-error for Yoho. For most of his professional career, he pitched from the third-base side of the rubber to create the most uncomfortable angle for right-handed hitters. After experimenting with pitching to left-handers from the first-base side, Yoho migrated there full-time in August. “I was so used to being on the third-base side of the rubber that all of a sudden a lefty would be up, I'd be two pitches in, and I'd be on the wrong side of the rubber,” he said. “So just trying to get more comfortable, it was like, ‘Let's just move to the first base side a little bit.’ My toe kind of starts right in the middle of the rubber now, and it's just helped my pitches stay on the plate longer. I actually probably get more visual movement to hitters, rather than kind of working against my movement.” In addition to helping Yoho’s screwball-like changeup (which averages 18 inches of arm-side movement) stay in the strike zone longer as it fades, sliding over also gave him more plate to work with. “It basically just kind of opens up the plate,” he said. “So instead of me trying to throw at an angle and cut the plate, it basically gives me a wider target now to hit. I felt like it's kind of opened up how I can move on the mound, too, just not having to be so perfect.” More recently, Yoho replaced his big curveball, which averaged nearly 20 inches of horizontal break and 10 inches of induced drop, with a new slider he labels a “baby sweeper.” Since debuting this version of his breaking ball, he’s thrown it nearly twice as often (16.5%) as he threw the curveball (9.4%). The curveball popped out of Yoho’s hand at release and separated early from his other pitches. He threw it in the strike zone only 20.1% of the time in Triple-A. The shorter breaking ball looks more like a fastball out of his hand, and he has thrown 42.9% of them in the strike zone. “With the bigger curveball that I threw, there was a pop to it, I guess is the best way to describe it,” Yoho said. “This one tracks more [like a] heater out of hand, which is nice. And with it being a relatively new pitch, I have a pretty good feel for it already, which is awesome. So just that little smaller movement helps with that.” If Yoho’s stuff starts playing at the big-league level, it would be a boon to a beleaguered Brewers’ bullpen that was already short Trevor Megill, DL Hall, and Grant Anderson before losing trade deadline acquisition Shelby Miller to a season-ending UCL injury. “Just give my 100% for that day,” Yoho said of his mentality after a season of ups and downs. “I don't need to try 150%. It's just let my talent that's gotten me here just take control and go compete. Just getting that mindset back is obviously the biggest thing.” View full article