Jack Stern

Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images After his pitch framing fell to career lows last season, improved receiving was a focus for Danny Jansen heading into 2025. Baseball Savant, which uses Statcast pitch tracking to capture framing data, ranked him in the 21st percentile of catchers with -4 runs. "The goal is to try to improve on the balls at the bottom of the zone," he said. "I feel like the last couple years, I've been pretty good on the top of the zone and to my left a little bit, but struggled at the bottom." The numbers back it up. Jansen notched 1 framing run around the third-base edge and a palatable -1 run around the top, but -4 runs around the bottom. Catching with one knee on the ground has become the standard stance across baseball in recent years, but Jansen was one of the few to remain in the traditional squat with both knees up. Looking to get closer to the ground for the low pitch, he made the switch to a knee-down stance midway through this year's spring training with the Tampa Bay Rays. "I was a bit stubborn before giving it a shot with the one knee stuff," he said, "but just looking at how the game's kind of changed and how it's going, I think it was a good choice to go down to it." Public metrics saw no improvement in his receiving, though. When the Brewers acquired Jansen the week of the trade deadline, he was at -9 framing runs on the year, including -6 around the bottom of the zone. Here's how he looked behind the plate at that time: jansen_rays_frame_june.mp4 Jansen's glove was too noisy as it hovered around the zone. He would briefly lower it mid-pitch, trying to work underneath and through the ball, only to bring that glove up and over the low pitch as he caught it. Those issues prevented him from properly presenting the pitch to the umpire. "He was trying to catch the ball at the bottom the same way he would catch it at the top," said Brewers Major League field coordinator Nestor Corredor, who works extensively with catchers as one of his many duties on the staff. "Instead of going over, we want to go underneath." Before Jansen arrived in Milwaukee, Corredor and the rest of the catching brass studied video to identify his strengths, weaknesses, and potential tweaks to his setup and mechanics. They saw potential for a better receiver. "We noticed that he always had good hands, but he doesn't know how to use them," Corredor said. "That was the baseline." Early in the year with the Rays, Jansen tried dropping his glove all the way to the ground mid-pitch so that he could work underneath the ball more naturally. It didn't work. Corredor suggested he go back to the glove drop, but with a new wrinkle. "He said, 'Hey, you want to try this?'" Jansen recalled. "Never really forcing my hand, but just more of a trial, just to kind of see what we got." "He was like, 'Well, I did that in Tampa. It didn't work,'" Corredor said. "I said, 'How did you do it?' So he showed me. I said, 'Well, listen, let's try [starting] from the bottom. Start with a bit of a new routine, try to get the glove down, and then work through the baseball and see what happens.'" Many of the Brewers' recent framing success stories, including Omar Narvaez, William Contreras, and Eric Haase, stood under six feet tall with more compact body types, so they could maintain good control of their catching arm while sitting still behind the plate. Eliminating unnecessary movement in their setups made their receiving more precise and created a more natural-looking presentation. For Jansen, who is listed at 6-foot-1 and 240 pounds, the Brewers had to take a different approach. They believed his wider frame gave him more room to make pitches look like strikes and that trying to keep still was counterproductive. Rather than eliminating movement, they decided that constant, controlled, and rhythmic motion would best help Jansen use his hands effectively throughout the zone, not just at the top. "I think the catching group here, we did a good job because we didn't take him away from his strengths," Corredor said. "We tried working around his strengths." With the Rays, Jansen stopped moving when his glove hit the ground. His hand then stabbed over the top of the ball as it came back up, resulting in poorly presented low pitches like this one: jansen_rays_frame.mp4 With the Brewers, he has started dropping the glove and swiping it across the dirt before bringing it back up. The rhythmic motion is supposed to help Jansen receive and present the ball more naturally, as he did with this Nick Mears fastball to the same location: jansen_frame_brewers.mp4 "I've definitely attempted going to the ground with my glove, and I think that for me, just figuring out with some work that I kind of have to have some rhythm on the ground," Jansen said. "So [the glove swipe is] really just to kind of keep moving instead of being still." The sample size is still too small to tell if it's working, as Jansen has only caught 10 games since the trade. In that time, his overall strike rate around the edges of the zone has bumped from 38.2% to 41.2%, but his percentage on takes around the bottom is nearly identical. He and the Brewers think he's trending in the right direction, though. "I felt like there was some progress right off the bat, so I'm just trying to ride that out," Jansen said. "With him, it was easier because he was open-minded to change, and he was all-in to try and do something new," Corredor said. "So that's been the key. Now, the more comfortable he gets, the better he gets." View full article

Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-Imagn Images The second half of August has been a grind for the Brewers. Amid a stretch of 19 games in 18 days, they’ve looked recently like a team running on fumes. Their defense hasn’t been nearly as sharp as it usually is. Their bullpen is stretched thin. On top of it all, the luck-based regression that loomed as nearly everything went right during a 14-game winning streak has started to hit. “Guys are tired and banged up,” Pat Murphy said on Tuesday night. For the second straight night, the Brewers jumped out to an early 6-0 lead against the Arizona Diamondbacks Tuesday, only for shaky defense and pitching to cede much of that breathing room and create late-inning drama. An Andrew Vaughn misplay in the fourth inning contributed to an eventual Gabriel Moreno three-run home run off Jacob Misiorowski. Tobias Myers and Jared Koenig, thrust into multi-inning duty with Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, and Nick Mears off-limits, combined to allow five runs without much help in the field. And yet, as they have throughout most of the year, the Brewers made it out with a win by refusing to quit. Andruw Monasterio, filling in at shortstop for the injured Joey Ortiz, made a clunky-looking but pivotal diving stop in the top of the ninth to help Shelby Miller through a scoreless inning. William Contreras led off the bottom half with a single, and Christian Yelich and Vaughn worked walks to load the bases. That set the stage for Isaac Collins, who misplayed a Corbin Carroll would-be flyout into a double with Koenig on the mound an inning prior, to drive in the winning run with a walk-off sacrifice fly. “I thought we showed tremendous poise and resiliency,” Murphy said. “I'm going to hand it to the guys, man, the at-bats in the last inning.” “Resiliency is the best way to describe it,” Collins said. “We're on a stretch here of [19] games in [18] days, whatever it is. So to be able to get a win like tonight in the middle of that stretch is just a testament to the type of guys we have here.” Those guys have been a mix of younger players who have grown from experience and outcasts who have taken advantage of opportunities. Murphy noted pregame on Tuesday that Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, who continued his August power binge with another home run, are transitioning from inexperienced players to veterans, an observation he revisited hours later. “You look at the guys that do have some veteran status in Frelick, Yelich, Contreras, Turang—those guys have stepped up, and the other guys are scrapping. They're doing whatever.” It’s not the first time a Murphy team has refused to back down from challenges. It was a theme last year. Now it’s helped the Brewers go 7-6 so far in this stretch, and a palatable 5-6 since their franchise-record 14 straight wins ending on August 16. “I can't tell you how proud I am of the way they compete,” Murphy said. “That's all they can do. They can't make plays that they can't make. They can't be expected to never make a mistake.” “There’s no quit at all. They don't take plays off,” Miller said. “It's like that every day. I think the guys come in ready to play, so it's a fun group to be a part of, for sure.” The Brewers are not out of the woods yet. A marathon August continues. After a close loss Wednesday night, they have one more game against the Diamondbacks and three games in Toronto against the Blue Jays, who boast the second-best record in the American League. Until a much-needed off day, all they can do is remain resilient. View full article

Image courtesy of © Katie Stratman-Imagn Images When the Brewers brought the winning run to the plate with two outs against San Francisco Giants reliever Ryan Walker on Sunday, Pat Murphy pinch-hit left-handed-hitting Anthony Seigler for Caleb Durbin—who had hit a go-ahead home run earlier in the game and has three walk-off plate appearances this year. Seigler took four pitches outside the strike zone, but a high strike call on the first pitch contributed to an eventual strikeout. That dropped his season slash to .208/.317/.208. Yet, he has continued to receive key plate appearances against right-handed pitchers. While not in a straight platoon with Durbin at third base, Seigler has taken more of what were once his starts against righties. The box score results have not been pretty, but it's been a small sample of 64 plate appearances, and the Brewers have been impressed by the process of his at-bats. "I don't know about you," Murphy said at the start of the weekend, "but I look up at the board and I see his—what do you call it?—his [slash] line, and I'm like, 'Is that right?' Because it seems like it's been a lot more successful than his line is." The metrics agree. Seigler's .335 xwOBA and 102 DRC+ are both a few ticks above the league averages, suggesting his plate appearances have been much better process-wise than his results. He is swinging at the right pitches and hitting plenty of solid line drives, skills that are typically conducive to big-league success. His run value on swings is negative in the graphic below because of his poor results, but Seigler's swing decisions have been excellent. He is selective, but not passive. According to Statcast, he has chased just 16.3% of pitches outside the zone, while offering at pitches over the heart of the plate at an above-average rate. That discernment has fueled a strong 12.5% walk rate, against an 18.8% strikeout rate. While he has not shown much pop, Seigler's combination of a league-average hard hit rate, above-average contact rate, and elite sweet spot rate (batted balls hit with a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees) should lead to more success than he has experienced so far. "We think that he's given us enough results, meaning we know what he's capable of," Murphy said. "He's capable of consistent contact. He's capable of ball-striking it. And the most important thing he's capable of is that he's not intimidated by the moment, and that's what always impressed me the most. Here's a guy that's never been in the big leagues, and he acts like he's been here. His presence at the dish, he acts like he's been here. "It's just one of those things where I think he's proven to me that he's got a spot here." Several of this season's role players, including Isaac Collins and Brice Turang, owe much of their success to swing decisions and hitting the ball at the right trajectory. Seigler features those same attributes. That's why he has usurped Durbin in certain spots against right-handers—including on Sunday against Walker, whose deceptive crossfire delivery has held righties to a .567 OPS this year. "Seigler's got a knack for getting on base in big situations," Murphy said after the game. "Durbin is not a good matchup for that guy. The few weaknesses Durbin has, that's not a good matchup." It may raise eyebrows, but the Brewers have valid reasons for believing in Seigler. If the results do not improve over time or his at-bats worsen, they will have to reevaluate. That time has not yet arrived, though. Nor should it do so for at least a few more weeks. "I think he and Durbin kind of give us a nice combination there, and we want to stick to that," Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images Shelby Miller's tenure with the Brewers is off to an inconsistent start, at least in the box score. After allowing a solo home run to Chicago Cubs rookie Owen Caissie at Wrigley Field on Tuesday, the 34-year-old has allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings and has been scored on in two of five appearances. It initially appeared that Miller would provide some needed relief for the Brewers' existing late-inning arms, who shouldered heavily workloads through July. Instead, Pat Murphy has used him mostly in low-leverage situations, preferring to give Miller what he deemed "a little softer landing" after returning from a forearm strain and joining a new team at the trade deadline. It sounds like that process of working him in remains ongoing. "He's only [had five] outings since early July, so he hasn't pitched a lot," Murphy said on Tuesday. "He didn't know exactly what his role is right now, and it's hard for him—new team, all that kind of stuff." It might be tempting to draw parallels between Miller's first five outings and the Brewers' poor track record with trade deadline bullpen acquisitions since Drew Pomeranz in 2019. It's too early to assume he will join that list, though. On a pitch-to-pitch basis, Miller has not been dissimilar from the guy who served as the Arizona Diamondbacks' closer before the deadline, posting a 1.96 ERA and 3.12 SIERA. While the home run pitch in his latest outing was an important mistake—William Contreras called for another splitter, Miller said, but he shook to a fastball and missed his spot—he struck out the other three hitters he faced, inducing 7 whiffs out of 11 swings. "I think that's the only bad pitch I threw in that inning, and some damage was done," Miller reflected. "Other than that, I was on the corners below the zone and made some pretty good pitches." "I thought he threw the ball good," Murphy said. "He'd like to have that one pitch back, but credit the hitter. The hitter did a hell of a job. He hit a ball 110 miles an hour to left center." Most of the damage against Miller came in a three-run blowup in Milwaukee last week, in which his command faltered. His fastball, splitter, and sweeper are coming in at their usual velocities and shapes, and his arsenal is still getting plenty of the swings it's supposed to. For the most part, hitters have not looked all that comfortable against him. Team Chase% Whiff% FB StuffPro FS StuffPro SW StuffPro ARI 35.8% 30.9% -1.1 -1.0 0.0 MIL 30.5% 39.0% -1.1 -0.6 -0.5 "The one in Milwaukee, I was more sporadic, not throwing a lot of strikes," Miller said. "But outside of that outing, I've been feeling really good, and the stuff's been there." Those deeper metrics are descriptive, not predictive. If Miller's inconsistent early results snowball into consistently worse command and sequencing, he will face lasting consequences. At this moment, however, it's not time to panic. He is much closer to where he should be than the surface-level numbers suggest. "Sometimes it takes time to get right," Miller said. "But I feel like I'm really close, and the stuff's definitely there." View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images As the Brewers embarked on a five-game series at Wrigley Field against the Chicago Cubs amid a stretch of 19 games in 18 days, the second-longest-tenured member of their pitching staff kicked things off on the right note. Freddy Peralta logged six scoreless innings in the series opener on Monday afternoon. “Just the way he pitched, the way he started, the way he wasn’t willing to give in,” Pat Murphy said. “He just navigated.” The only real blemish in Peralta’s outing was a 30-pitch fourth inning in which he issued three straight walks to load the bases. Even as an eighth-year veteran, he has never consistently cleaned up the non-competitive misses and resulting inefficiency that have kept him from fully reaching his ceiling. His 17.36 pitches per inning this year is still the fifth-worst among qualified starters. However, focusing on that remaining flaw in Peralta’s game unfairly downplays how valuable he’s been. Since the start of 2023, he ranks 13th among 97 qualified pitchers in RA9-WAR. It also overlooks just how much he has evolved throughout his career to become the pitcher he is now. Heavily reliant on a deceptive fastball as a rookie, Peralta has since added over 4 mph of average velocity to his heater and used it less—while developing his secondary pitches. Perhaps the greatest testimony to Peralta’s arsenal development is his changeup. It was virtually nonexistent through his first three seasons. Since he became a full-time starter in 2021, it has gradually emerged as his most consistent secondary pitch. He’s added more consistent arm-side fade to it during that time, maxing out at an average of 16.6 inches this year. “I was going to say, ‘It's a lie. It's not going to be true,’” Peralta said when asked postgame on Monday whether he believed years ago that his changeup would become a linchpin of his pitch mix. “But, you know, it’s part of the game, part of the growth that I can have as a pitcher, and the learning.” Peralta threw his changeup a season-high 32% of the time on Monday, including in a key matchup against Cubs rookie Owen Caissie that helped him escape that fourth-inning jam. He threw five changeups in a seven-pitch at-bat. It induced three whiffs for a strikeout, after which Peralta coaxed an inning-ending lineout to escape the frame unscathed. “We only spoke a little bit about him, and then I just told [catcher Danny Jansen] that I want to be myself with him and read his swing and see what I have working, because I had no idea how I was going to feel facing him in the moment,” Peralta said. “But I told him the changeup and the fastball, the combination was working good.” It was not the first time Peralta had to feel things out in the moment, and developing a four-pitch mix has given him a greater capacity to do so. Instead of being forced to stick to a specific game plan, he has shown an ability to tweak his mix in real time based on scouting reports, the way his pitches are playing, and how his stuff feels out of his hand. His last two starts have exemplified it. Before going heavy on changeups on Monday, Peralta threw his slider 32% of the time in his previous outing, his highest rate in a start since April 25, 2024. That was a departure from using his curveball as his preferred breaking pitch, which had been the case for most of this year. “It’s way different,” he said, comparing his ability to feel his way through certain outings and situations to early in his career. “I'm not going to say that I can expect better results, but I know for sure that it’s way different whenever I'm in those situations. I feel that I have more tools. I feel that I have ways to go, and I don't have to think only of my fastball.” Peralta currently sports a career-low 2.78 ERA, but his peripherals (3.70 FIP, 3.83 SIERA) show that this is not the most dominant he has ever been. This is, however, the most mature and adaptable version of him yet. Deep counts and jams will always be part of the experience, but he is now weathering them with some extra veteran guile. He’s been available and effective, the two most important attributes of a starting pitcher. It's not out of the question that he could win 20 games this year, and while that statistic carries much less weight than it used to, it would be a fitting testament to the mutual importance of team and ace pitcher to one another. Peralta's maturation has mirrored the team's transcendence. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images From the get-go, Tobias Myers found himself playing catch-up in his sophomore season. An oblique strain sidelined the right-hander in spring training; when he made his season debut in late April, he looked little like the pitcher who posted a 3.00 ERA in 138 innings with capable back-of-the-rotation peripherals a year ago, plus five scoreless innings in his postseason debut. In his first six games (five starts), Myers limped to a 4.95 ERA and 5.22 SIERA, with a 15.6% strikeout rate and 10.4% walk rate. "When the oblique happened in spring, and then I wanted to get back as quick as I can, I was just kind of fighting feel for pitches still at that point," he said. Myers was fighting the feel for his secondary pitches, in particular. When his cutter started backing up on him in camp instead of cutting slightly to the glove side, he began overcompensating with his release, adding more break but losing velocity. In 2024, his cutter averaged 89.2 mph, with 12.5 inches of induced vertical break and 3.3 inches of glove-side cut. In his first six outings of 2025, those figures were 87.2, 11.5, and 4.4, respectively. "I wasn't getting the right cut on it," Myers recalled. "So I was just in between throwing it like a heater and backspinning it, and then it's not cutting, and then I try to over-cut it, and then it's 86-87 [mph]." Just as impactful was the disappearance of Myers's changeup as a trusted weapon in his arsenal. It was a dominant pitch in his rookie season, holding opponents to a .163 wOBA while inducing whiffs on 44.4% of swings. He lost his feel for it this spring, though, and threw just 12 changeups throughout those first six appearances. When Pat Murphy pulled Myers after two ugly innings against the Chicago White Sox on April 30, part of his rationale was that he did not throw a single changeup and failed to mix speeds. Nothing changed in subsequent outings, though, because Myers was unable to throw his existing circle change grip with the same conviction as his fastball. "The goal is to have every pitch that I can just throw 100 percent [intensity], and I was always just in between with the circle change," he said. "It felt like when I put 100 percent, I'd spike it. Then I'd try to overcorrect that, and then I'm leaving my arm [behind], getting arm-side [misses], arm's late, body's moving too quick." The issues with his secondaries left Myers even more dependent on his fastball. Its usage rate jumped from 40.5% a year ago to 48.6% in those first handful of appearances. It was less effective with increased exposure, yielding a .384 wOBA in those first six games, compared to a .318 mark as a rookie. "When the cutter and the slider velo were down a little bit—when the slider was consistently like 83-ish, and the cutter was down to 87—when I'm in between there, I feel like I kind of have nothing to throw with up there other than a fastball," he explained. "And then at that time, I was still throwing the old changeup probably five percent [of the time]. It was kind of like just pitching with a fastball there." On May 18, the Brewers optioned Myers to Nashville for what became a nearly two-month stay in Triple-A. During that time in a lower-pressure environment, he experimented with new changeup grips to reincorporate more offspeed pitches into his outings. He tried a kick-changeup, a relatively new variant of the pitch that has recently gained traction throughout baseball, but it didn't take after some initial success. "The metrics were the same, but execution was like 11 out of 12 [success rate]," he said. "Then the next two weeks, it was gone. Like, I could not throw it." Myers then switched to a hybrid split-change grip. That was when things began progressing in the right direction. "I started playing with a splitter before my July 4 start, and it was like night and day the way it felt out of my hand," he said. "It just felt pretty much like a fastball, and then the location was coming out a lot better than the circle change." Myers returned to the big leagues after that outing, where pitching coach Chris Hook helped him tweak the grip to achieve more consistent arm-side fade. Trade deadline acquisition Shelby Miller, who revived his career two seasons ago by adding a splitter, has also become a sounding board as he fine-tunes the pitch. "I didn't want to go directly to a deep splitter and just rip that in the middle of the season, so I kind of wanted to start slow," Myers said of the grip. "So it's really not much of a split. I'm kind of running the index finger on one of the seams, and then the middle finger's right outside the other seam." When the Brewers recalled him for a spot start against the New York Mets last weekend, Myers leaned heavily on the split-change against a lineup stacked with left-handed hitters. He threw it 15 times, surpassing the number of changeups he had thrown in his previous outings combined. He threw eight more to close out the team's 12th straight win on Wednesday, including the pitch that notched a strikeout for the final out. screen-20250814-012437~2.mp4 "It just keeps feeling better and better every day," he said. "I keep feeling more comfortable with it, so I'm going to keep throwing it as much as I can." So far, the pitch's total break has been almost identical to Myers's old changeup, but it has flashed some late drop because it spins less (1576 rpm versus 1801) at a firmer velocity (83.6 mph versus 80.1). Myers is still tweaking it in hopes of adding more consistent depth, but most importantly, he trusts it and can throw it with the same conviction as his fastball. "I think just having the mentality of throwing everything like a heater is where I want to be, and I think the splitter definitely plays off of that," he said. "Like, just heater mentality. I just trust the grip, and I just throw it as hard as I can, like a heater." Myers thinks he and Hook have also made progress with the cutter, although his comfort level with that pitch has not yet matched the trust in his split-change. "I don't want to go up there using it like I was last year if I don't feel the same with it," he said. "So I think once I get that back and I'll be able to steal some strikes [to lefties] on the back half with the back-door cutter, and I got the splitter off that, [four-seam] up, I think we'll have a good amount of weapons to play with." View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images The Brewers look like an unstoppable machine right now. Winners of 11 straight – their second such streak this year, making them the 13th team all-time to do it multiple times in a season – Milwaukee owns the best record in baseball by 5 1/2 games and leads the NL Central by 7 1/2 games. They keep winning by doing so many things well. They pitch. They play defense. They reach base and then take extra bases on balls in play. The Brewers have allowed the second-fewest runs in baseball and rank fifth in fielding run value, third in on-base percentage, and first in baserunning runs above average. All of those attributes were on display as the Brewers clobbered the Pittsburgh Pirates in a 14-0 blowout on Tuesday night. So, too, was more pop than they had shown at arguably any point in the year – the offense combined to hit a season-high five home runs. If there's been a knock to make against an otherwise well-oiled unit, it's a lack of home run power. The Brewers are 20th in isolated power and 18th in home runs. That has changed this month, as the Crew have hit a league-leading 23 home runs in August. While not the leading reason for their string of offensive outbursts, putting more balls over the fence has played a role. The contributions have come throughout the lineup. Brice Turang and Sal Frelick have doubled their combined power output from a year ago. Andrew Vaughn and Christian Yelich are supplying thump in the middle of the order. With restored bat speed, William Contreras is scalding the ball again and has gone deep four times this month. While Turang acknowledged that he has made some adjustments to transfer his raw power into games, the Brewers maintain that, on the whole, the long ball is not a significant piece of their identity. "I don't think we're going to fool anybody with a bunch of slug, but usually homers are thrown," Pat Murphy said. "That's the way it is, you know? You don't create slug on balls on the edge or something like that. Homers are thrown, and it's taking advantage of it when [they are] thrown." "Homers are bonuses," Frelick said. "When we stick to our approach and put good at-bats together, that's when those home run pitches show up. So I think [the recent home runs are] a product of that." To their credit, the Brewers are doing more damage against home run pitches this month. Their slugging percentage and hard-hit rate on pitches labeled by Statcast as over the heart of the plate are higher in August than in any previous month this year. Month SLG HardHit% April .466 50.8% May .477 46.0% June .520 50.0% July .520 51.4% August .803 57.1% Even if the power surge is not by design, it's a development worth monitoring. While the Brewers' strengths in other areas mean they need not be an elite home run team to win, the reality remains that decent slugging ability is typically a prerequisite for making noise in October. In recent postseasons, teams that hit the most home runs in a game have boasted winning percentages approaching .800; only six of the last 25 World Series winners finished in the bottom half of the league in regular-season home runs, and none since the 2015 Royals. Winning requires scoring more runs than the opponent, and home runs are the most efficient means of scoring. They're also the only outcome that cannot be affected by defense or batted ball luck in a small sample. Given the profiles of most of their hitters, the Brewers should not be trying to hit home runs. Their existing approach is the most productive for the players they have. They do, however, need the ability to drive a mistake pitch when the opportunity presents itself. If they can do that on top of the many existing strengths that separate them from other teams, look out. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images A relentless offense has been the story of late in Milwaukee, as the Brewers clawed their way back from a 5-0 deficit to complete a sweep against the New York Mets on Sunday and extend their winning streak to nine games. But before Isaac Collins capped another dramatic win with his walk-off home run, it was DL Hall who put them in a position to finish the comeback. After Quinn Priester labored through 4 ⅓ innings, Hall delivered 11 outs of scoreless long relief. Not only did that quiet a Mets lineup that had scored in each of the first five frames, but it also provided much-needed rest for the Brewers' high-leverage relievers amid a stretch of 30 games in 31 days. "Just thinking about the bullpen, trying to help those guys out and give our leverage guys as many days off as I can," he said postgame. "Obviously, we had a few guys down today, so I just wanted to help the team, provide some length, and save some arms." The southpaw has been more productive in his second season with the Brewers, after a rough campaign a year ago. With the addition of a cutter and a two-seamer to his arsenal, Hall has completed his transformation from a power pitcher with an 80-grade fastball to a kitchen-sink guy who mixes seven pitches to help his unremarkable stuff play up. His four-seam usage has plummeted from over 50% early in his career to about 30% this season, giving way to a more balanced pitch mix. Some pretty clear red flags show that Hall remains a work in progress. He is not getting and staying ahead in counts or getting many swings and misses, resulting in a 1.53 strikeout-to-walk ratio that ranks in the 5th percentile of pitchers to throw at least 30 innings this year. He's unlikely to maintain his 2.83 ERA without shoring up his location, but the good news is that he's on the right track in deploying his arsenal. Because Hall is better shielding his four-seamer by mixing speeds and shapes, its whiff rate has jumped from 12.6% last season to a more palatable 20.9% this year. Mets hitters whiffed on four of eight swings against it on Sunday. Mixing and matching has also helped him avoid barrels; while hitters have rarely looked overpowered by his stuff, they've often looked caught in between, leading to weak contact. He has held opponents to a meager 29.5% hard-hit rate, according to Statcast. So far, Hall's season has been a reminder that a player's results can be unsustainable without being strictly good luck. His microscopic .170 BABIP means he's due for some major regression at some point—batted balls never go for hits at such a low rate, in the long run—but he has also created some of that good fortune for himself. He's been forced to reinvent himself without significant big-league experience. The next step is tightening his command to pair with his more mature approach. View full article

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images Shelby Miller looked game-ready in what will likely be his lone rehab appearance on Tuesday night in Nashville. The Brewers’ trade deadline acquisition struck out the side in order on 17 pitches, averaging 95.5 mph with his fastball and inducing four swings and misses. Optioning Easton McGee on Thursday morning was almost certainly a precursor to Miller joining the Milwaukee bullpen for Friday night’s series opener against the New York Mets. More than anything, Miller’s presence should ease the strain on his new teammates. Pat Murphy has ridden his best relievers hard this year – sometimes controversially so, but often out of necessity. Abner Uribe, Jared Koenig, and Grant Anderson have each exceeded 50 appearances this year, and Nick Mears is not far behind at 48. Miller, whose stint on the injured list lasted about a month, has only pitched in 37 regular-season games. As a veteran rental, Murphy should have free rein to push the envelope with his workload down the stretch. The usage of Koenig and Mears should change the most. Both have worked valuable innings in crucial situations, but have attacked the strike zone far less for several weeks, which is often a symptom of fatigue. Month Koenig Zone% Mears Zone% April 54.4% 56.8% May 61.6% 57.2% June 60.6% 61.7% July 51.4% 48.7% August 48.4% 44.8% Most of Koenig’s underlying metrics say he’s been just as good as last season despite a higher ERA, but that’s because left-handed hitters have had an even harder time barreling him up this year. Right-handers, meanwhile, have made much better contact, not to the severe extent the results indicate, but enough to know there are better suitors for those matchups. Split wOBA xwOBA DRA- vs. LHB .239 .188 70 vs. RHB .372 .336 96 While it looks in the box scores like Mears has been equally effective against both sides, left-handers have had far better swings against him. Split wOBA xwOBA DRA- Whiff% vs. LHB .248 .351 115 17.2% vs. RHB .245 .297 85 30.6% Part of the issue is that Mears’s fastball has become a worse pitch this year and has lost its ability to blow opponents away. He’s been able to mitigate the issue against right-handers by throwing his devastating slider nearly as often as his heater. Against lefties, his window for low glove-side sliders shrinks, and he lacks another offspeed pitch breaking away from the hitter, forcing him to keep leaning heavily on his fastball. Season Velocity Perceived Velocity Stuff+ wOBA xwOBA Whiff% Exit Velocity RHB Usage LHB Usage 2023 96.7 97.9 108 .319 .321 20.0% 89.8 58.5% 62.4% 2024 95.2 95.8 96 .338 .406 12.9% 94.0 51.2% 62.5% Miller, meanwhile, is platoon-proof mainly due to his wipeout splitter and the sweeper he mixes in against same-handed opponents. Since the start of 2023, lefties (.204 wOBA) have fared worse against him than righties (.296). Not only should his arrival mean less work for Koenig and Mears overall, but it should also push them into the specialist roles they are best suited for down the stretch. The veteran likely will not be the only reinforcement available in the coming weeks. Rob Zastryzny just embarked on a new rehab assignment, Robert Gasser is on pace to be built up by the end of the month, and the Brewers could nudge one of their MLB-caliber starters in Nashville to the bullpen if a need arises. That should create a dream scenario for Murphy – the luxury of managing to win tonight without placing disproportionate strain on any one arm. View full article

Image courtesy of © Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images There's been a surprising spectacle during home batting practices this year at American Family Field: Brice Turang regularly launching home runs off the Loge Level bleachers in right field. Most hitters drive the ball more in batting practice than they do in games, but Turang's pregame swings are more attention-grabbing. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds and owning a career .338 slugging percentage, the Brewers' second baseman unleashes perhaps the most impressive left-handed power on the roster behind Christian Yelich. It's the exact opposite of Turang's established in-game profile of a slap hitter who frequently punches line drives and ground balls up the middle or to the opposite field. According to Statcast, his 5% pull air rate this season is the third-lowest among qualified hitters. And yet, when he steps into the box for batting practice, Turang regularly turns into a bona fide slugger with legitimate pull-side power. Float the possibility of hitting more home runs, and Turang will quickly downplay it. His goal, he maintains, is usually to hit a low line drive back up the middle. But between changes to his stance and swing and his batting practice approach, he has looked for a while like someone with at least one eye on attaining more power. After his rookie season, Turang added 20 pounds of muscle but adopted a simplified, contact-oriented approach, which raised his floor as a hitter enough to pair nicely with his elite defense. This year, he has made all of the adjustments typical of a hitter looking to drive the ball more authoritatively. For starters, his batting stance is taller, narrower, and more open. He has also raised his hands and reintroduced the leg kick he shelved last year. Finally, he's swinging harder than ever. From 2024 to 2025, Turang has added 4 mph of bat speed on average, by far the highest increase among qualified hitters. All those changes have him hitting the ball much harder; his hard-hit rate has increased from 29.7% to an above-average 45.3%, which is also the greatest jump in baseball. This version of Turang is more capable of damage. Beyond his batting practice swings, he's shown glimpses of what can happen on the rare occasions he pulls the ball in the air. Turang's average home run distance of 417 feet ranks fourth among hitters with at least five homers this year. How much power do the Brewers think Turang has lying dormant beneath his in-game production? "I think there's a lot," hitting coach Connor Dawson said. Transferring it into games is among their long-term goals for Turang's development. As he continues to spray singles and doubles in the gaps in competitive settings, he and the hitting staff are working in the background on pulling more balls in the air to maximize his raw power. "I think that's kind of the progression for him," Dawson said. "He's a hitter first, and he needs to be able to use the entire field and spray line drives around. But I think it's definitely something that's on the verge, is finding some more air pull, and I think it's something that's in there, too." Pulling the ball in the air requires a hitter to make contact with a pitch farther out in front of the plate. That's easier said than done for Turang, who is accustomed to letting the ball get deep and hitting it farther back. Waiting back as part of an all-fields approach allows him to adjust mid-pitch to different speeds and locations and still be on time, all while working within the confines of his natural movement patterns. "This is how his body moves and how he establishes, 'How can I read it all and still get to a number of different pitches and be on time?'" Pat Murphy said last month. Turang can employ a contact point farther in front of the plate against batting-practice pitches that are mostly coming in at similar speeds. Artificially forcing it in competition leaves him unable to wait back on offspeed pitches. "He can do it in batting practice, but how come he can't translate it into a game?" Murphy asked rhetorically. "Timing. Because the mechanism he uses to get down and get a swing off doesn't allow him to get there on 94 [mph]. So, how do we get him there on 94? 'Brice, just get your foot down earlier.' That's not it." An unproductive July illustrated how hitting the ball farther in front hurts Turang if he is not getting there the proper way. His contact point relative to his body nudged forward about three inches, and he pulled 30.8% of his batted balls, yet his .560 OPS was his worst of any month this season. Turang has continued to ambush fastballs, but with the earlier contact point, he's been pulling off slower pitches for rollover groundouts and swings and misses. Month Pitch Type wOBA xwOBA Whiff% Pull% Launch Angle March-June Fastballs .375 .374 17.1% 12.7% 11 March-June Breaking .244 .303 18.9% 36.2% 8 March-June Offspeed .293 .277 31.7% 24.0% 2 July Fastballs .396 .363 17.9% 11.1% 13 July Breaking .101 .241 35.4% 56.5% -4 July Offspeed .000 .090 33.3% 50.0% -12 Intentionally or not, Turang has gotten away from doing what he does best in games. Developing new skills cannot come at the expense of existing strengths. "This is the tricky part of development," Dawson said. "Especially for us, we're trying to win and develop, and you have to lean on your strengths while you're in-game. And right now, his strengths are spraying the ball around on a line." Dawson sees Turang's bat speed gains as progress toward more repeatable air pull. Instead of catching the ball in front by cheating to it, swinging faster gets his barrel there more organically without having to change his thought process. "There is this little progression there of some things are starting to click," he said. "I do think as he continues to increase bat speed, it will be much, much easier, because he'll have to stray less away from his approach because he's just swinging the bat faster." There are still growing pains, though, which Turang has experienced throughout the season. His bat speed hasn't just increased overall, but has steadily climbed each month. "I think the hardest part for a guy like that who makes a jump in bat speed is when they had less bat speed, they had this approach that made them successful, and generally it was deeper [contact point], opposite field, more middle, lower line drives," Dawson said. "And as guys gain bat speed, especially at a pretty rapid pace, it's not so easy to go, 'Okay, now I gotta push it out in front,' you know? So it's all got to blend together, and that doesn't happen at the snap of a finger." Turang has already made incredible strides since his underwhelming debut season. With the tools for a unique and dynamic blend of defense, speed, and some raw power, his ceiling now looks even higher. It will just take some more time to unlock that pop. "It's definitely something I think you've seen in BP," Dawson said, "but it's also something that's going to be a little bit slower progression. It's not linear." "There'll be a lot more homers in there," Murphy said. "I think that's coming from Brice over time, but he has to figure that out." View full article

Image courtesy of © Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images The 2025 MLB trade deadline has come and gone. Amid a flurry of activity throughout the league, the Brewers, owners of baseball’s best record at 64-44, emerged from deadline week with veteran backup catcher Danny Jansen, reliever Shelby Miller, an injured Jordon Montgomery, and speedy 28-year-old outfielder Brandon Lockridge. They parted with starter Nestor Cortes, infield prospects Jadher Areinamo and Jorge Quintana, cash, and potentially a player to be named. The Brewers are slightly better now than they were at the start of the week, with no hits to their long-term outlook. By those measures, they had a respectable deadline. It’s also worth remembering that in-season swaps made weeks before the deadline still count and have been among their most successful moves. Willy Adames, Rowdy Tellez, and Aaron Civale all became integral contributors to past rosters, as have Quinn Priester and Andrew Vaughn this year. A modestly active deadline was unsurprising and even justifiable. The Brewers can credit their stinginess for helping them remain contenders every year. Maintaining prospect depth and avoiding serious long-term financial commitments has made it easier to replace struggling, injured, or departing players. It also affords them the flexibility to retool the roster in-season when things aren’t working, a trick they pulled off successfully this year at third base and throughout the pitching staff. When they do splurge, it’s for controllable talent like Priester. The asking prices at this year’s deadline were mostly incompatible with Matt Arnold’s established approach. That’s what makes the Miller dea—taking on some of Montgomery’s salary to avoid paying with prospects—a creative and laudable solution to the roadblocks the club faced in supplementing their colledtion of high-leverage relievers. Still, it feels as though the Brewers could have done more. While Jansen fortifies the catching depth behind William Contreras and has some untapped power, the light-hitting Lockridge’s baserunning and defense feel redundant on a scrappy roster that could have used reinforcements in other areas. Hitting home runs is the best way to hedge against playoff randomness, but the Brewers do not hit nearly enough of them. They still rank 27th in isolated power and 23rd in homers. Even in a hot July, they remained below average in the power department. In a potential playoff series, the viability of their singles-and-steals offense remains heavily at the whims of batted-ball luck and defensive faux pas by opponents. The infield depth has been tenuous all year. Joey Ortiz has the third-worst wRC+ among qualified hitters, and an injury in the infield would press Andruw Monasterio or an unproven Anthony Seigler into a starting role. Oliver Dunn and Tyler Black are the next men up in Nashville. Milwaukee made no serious upgrades in those areas, though. Instead, they’ve doubled down on their incumbent players, the brand of baseball they play, and their approach to building a roster, believing their established formula will get them to October and win postseason games. Perhaps it will. As badly as he has struggled, the front office remains high on Ortiz’s skill set and his glove at shortstop, even as defensive metrics have given him mixed reviews. There wasn’t much of a shortstop market, either, with only Carlos Correa moving to Houston, the lone team for which he would waive his no-trade clause—and Correa made a permanent move to third base, as part of that trade. Speaking of the hot corner, average offense and excellent defense have Caleb Durbin on pace for 4.2 bWAR over a 162-game span. Seigler’s at-bats in a small sample have been much better than his .185/.233/.185 slash line suggests; he’s made respectable contact while rarely whiffing or chasing, which translates to an above-average .349 xwOBA and 104 DRC+. In the power department, a red-hot Vaughn has slugged 5 home runs in 16 games since his promotion from Triple-A Nashville, anchoring the middle of the order with some thump. He won’t remain that dominant, but perhaps the Brewers have bought into sustainable improvement from him and Contreras as in-house solutions to their slugging woes. Given the returns on the pitching market, it seemed the Brewers could capitalize on their stable of MLB-caliber starters. Instead, knowing from recent experience how quickly that depth can dry up, they dealt only Cortes (for an underwhelming return) and kept their remaining starters. It was a reasonable strategy, but whether it was the best one for this year’s team and trade market is debatable. The Brewers seem to think it was, and they’re about to learn if they were correct. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images News of another Brewers trade came trickling in after the deadline buzzer, as Milwaukee has acquired reliever Shelby Miller and injured starter Jordan Montgomery from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations. The Brewers wanted to add bullpen help at the deadline but faced steep prices for relievers. That would be a tough pill to swallow for a front office that is typically stingy in holding onto its prospects, so they took a chunk of an injured pitcher's salary to acquire a late-inning arm. The 34-year-old Miller has pitched to a 1.98 ERA and 3.12 FIP with a 28% strikeout rate. He's served as Arizona's closer for much of the season, picking up a career-high 10 saves. A right forearm strain has sidelined him for most of July, but he has recently resumed throwing and is expected to return soon. That injury has limited him to 37 appearances this year, so he should be fresher than Abner Uribe, Nick Mears, Jared Koenig, and Grant Anderson for the stretch run. This will technically be Miller's third stint with the Brewers, as he signed separate minor-league deals with the organization in 2019 and 2020. He pitched for their Triple-A affiliate that first year but opted out during the COVID-19 pandemic the following season. Montgomery signed a one-year deal with the Diamondbacks during the 2024 season and exercised his $22.5 million player option for 2025 after a career-worst season. He has missed the entire campaign after undergoing Tommy John surgery during the season's first full week. He won't pitch for the Brewers and is part of the deal purely for salary reasons, with Steve Gilbert reporting that Milwaukee will cover $2 million of his remaining pay. The move is a creative attempt by Matt Arnold and company to work around the demands throughout the rest of the reliever market while still adding some bullpen help. To clear 40-man roster spots for Miller and Brandon Lockridge, acquired from the San Diego Padres for Nestor Cortes, the Brewers designated relievers Bryan Hudson and Elvis Peguero for assignment. Once mainstays in the big-league bullpen, both pitchers looked like DFA candidates after inconsistent performance with Triple-A Nashville this year. View full article

Image courtesy of © Wm. Glasheen/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images In the waning minutes before the trade deadline, the Brewers have made a deal. Ken Rosenthal first reported that Milwaukee is sending left-hander Nestor Cortes to the San Diego Padres, with Adam McCalvy adding that 28-year-old outfielder Brandon Lockridge is coming back in return. Jeff Sanders later reported that the Brewers are also sending 2024 international signing Jorge Quintana to San Diego. With Cortes ready to return to a full rotation after missing nearly four months with a left flexor strain, trading him or Jose Quintana looked like the cleanest way to alleviate a logjam. The club seemingly decided on a light but very Brewers-like return for the former as the best route. His departure allows them to continue on with a starting five of Freddy Peralta, Quintana, Brandon Woodruff, Jacob Misiorowski, and Quinn Priester. The 28-year-old Lockridge was a fifth-round pick by the New York Yankees in 2018, and his profile fits in well with many existing Brewers hitters. He's best known for his speed, baserunning, and defense and doesn't chase much at the plate. While he's hit the ball hard in the upper minors this year, it has not translated to game power due to a 6.2% pull air rate that ranks in the 6th percentile. He's slashed just .210/.248/.280 (50 wRC+) in 107 big-league plate appearances but has been a consistently above-average hitter in Triple-A thanks to his plate discipline. Lockridge provides added outfield depth as the club awaits word on the severity of Jackson Chourio's hamstring injury. He was on San Diego's 40-man roster, meaning the Brewers must make a corresponding move to clear a spot for him. View full article