Brewers ahead of the Trend? Behind the Trends? Imitating or innovating?

[3and2Fastball]

This is more of a philosophical question, and since Stearns et al aren't on here, it really ends up being a matter of opinion.

 

It is clear that Stearns believes in young, controllable talent, as well as putting a premium on athletic, versatile players.

 

The emphasis on athleticism seems a little bit modeled after the 2015 Kansas City Royals. What I wonder is: is this a new sustainable trend, or already an older model that caught lightning in the bottle once and isn't sustainable?

 

The Cubs certainly have young, athletic, versatile players, but seem built around the power bats more than the Royals were.

 

I've read Stearns in interviews saying that when you have limited resources you have to be out in front of the trends in order to build competitive advantages.

 

Thoughts on that? (hey it is a slow offseason weekday)

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

One area where I do think Stearns and co. might be ahead of the trends is the bullpen.

 

Because relief pitching is so much more valuable in the postseason as compared to the regular season (a debatable point, but one I think is true), contending teams are going to overvalue its acquisition.

 

What's great about this from the Crew's perspective is that they can trade high-quality relief talent (Thornburg, Smith, Jeffress), and then give other RPs a chance to succeed in high-leverage roles, something that inflates their value as well. You do this right, you can collect a lot of prospects without incurring a whole lot of short term risk, at least as I see it.

 

Maybe I'm not up on other teams that are doing this, but it seems like one area where the Crew is innovating. It might as simple as selling assets that have more value to others than they do to the Brewers, but it feels, to me, like an instance of Stearns making a pretty shrewd calculation visavis the market.

[homer]

I think in order to be versatile you probably have to be pretty athletic. I'm guessing he values the positional flexibility rather than the athleticism.

[3and2Fastball]

One area where I do think Stearns and co. might be ahead of the trends is the bullpen.

 

Because relief pitching is so much more valuable in the postseason as compared to the regular season (a debatable point, but one I think is true), contending teams are going to overvalue its acquisition.

.

 

Yes! Agreed. He is doing a great job so far on maximizing return on what may be an overvalued part of the game. I say it "may be" overvalued in the sense that an elite bullpen does seem like an essential part of a Championship run over the last several years. At any rate, for a rebuilding GM, Stearns is doing doing a great job exploiting that trend.

[Thurston Fluff]

Excellent topic for the dead of winter, good call.

Couple thoughts

-I think trends are something that shouldn't be focused on at all. If you follow trends you are taking your eye off the ball (pun intended.) As much as I hate them, the Cardinals have just done their thing. Sometimes they appeared ahead of the trend sometimes the last remnants of some stoic old school train of thought. It wasn't because they were ahead or behind. It was because they believed in what they did and implemented it regardless of who was doing what where. By doing that they have sustained success as well as anyone.

 

-We cannot be the Cubs. They have a huge payroll and can add more if they want. They built a farm as well as anyone could have hoped but still had to buy several key pieces. Pieces that will cost us a lot more in prospects or cash than we can afford. We have to find a different way forward.

 

-While a small market cannot be the Cubs I am not certain Milwaukee has to stay such a small market. Small doesn't mean static. It can be increased and Wisconsin sports fans travel. If they can just get some success going there is untapped markets awaiting.

 

Considering the aforementioned,

I think the best way forward is to avoid block buster trades for a year or two run and just build solid depth. I think more bites at the apple will get us more success overall than boom or bust cycles. If our team is always in the hunt we get more than a chance at one magical year. We get a shot at building our brand throughout the state for the long term, not to mention national respect. That in turn means more revenue to spend which in turn increases better branding and so on.

[NYChez]

Starting off with a versatile roster, when the franchise gets into a position where it's one bat away from contending, that bat acquistion (at whatever the position that the player of maximum value plays) can be inserted into the roster, and the current players can just shift around.

[3and2Fastball]

-While a small market cannot be the Cubs I am not certain Milwaukee has to stay such a small market. Small doesn't mean static. It can be increased and Wisconsin sports fans travel. If they can just get some success going there is untapped markets awaiting.

 

Strongly agree that sustained success can breed success. Green Bay is a smaller market than Milwaukee and Packers fans are fanatics. Different sport, different situation, I know, but your point is well made that Wisconsin fans will follow a consistent winner.

 

What I find fascinating are the trends in Baseball, and I'm looking forward to seeing if Stearns creates trends, follows them, or something in between.

[Eye Black]

Some trends (or maybe "generalizations" is a more apt term) that have stood out for me so far...

 

1) The seemingly high value placed on defensive positional flexibility (as mentioned above).

 

2) Acquisition of left handed batters.

 

3) A "Sum of the Parts" approach. While the current roster is lacking bonafide stars, it does have a lot of useful players. The Brewers used to get knocked for what some deemed a "stars and scrubs" approach to roster building. Stearns and staff appear to be putting together a roster that lacks any true black holes.

 

I found this excerpt from the Brewers 2017 ZiPS Projections on Fangraphs somewhat interesting...

 

Batters

Milwaukee general manager David Stearns has dedicated the first year-plus of his tenure with the Brewers to a pursuit of affordable pieces that might contribute to the club’s next winning season, while trading away the most valuable pieces of its most recent one. The ZiPS projections here reflect the results of that endeavor. On the one hand, no field player is projected to record more than three wins in 2017. (Jonathan Villar, at 2.8 zWAR, is best acquitted by that measure.) On the other hand, 20 positions players receive a forecast of 1.0 WAR or better.

 

For context, consider: three of the National League’s playoff clubs from 2016 have been included thus far in this series of ZiPS posts. By comparison, only 16 of the Cubs’ position players receive a projection of one win or better. Only 13 of Washington‘s do. And only 10 field players for the San Francisco Giants are expected to cross the one-win threshold, per ZiPS. Milwaukee, in other words, has gathered a large collection of players whose median probable outcome is slightly below average. Given the youth of that group, however, and the vagaries of the world, some of those players will develop into average or better players.

As a side note since we are pontificating the philosophical values held by the baseball operations staff, one thing that I would be intrigued to learn more about is what attributes the Brewers valued most highly when they acquired Keon Broxton? Broxton has the potential to be a significant scouting win for the Brewers, and I am curious to what extent they targeted him, and why exactly?

[brewcrewdue80]

Considering we're year 1plus, im going to go with imitating. Behind the trend since Houston, Cubs, Philly, San Diego, Atlanta, Minnesota, Tampa, even Cincy had starts to Rebuilds before Milw committed. Toronto had a year 4years? Back when they claimed everyone! We're still a cpl years before you can even dictate what Stearns trend is. But I just feel it's imitating, but at a whole level. Not to 1 franchise's way. If/when he signs a FA that is significant more will be revealed what his trend is. What if he's a Ted Thompson who never splashes in FA? In that regard, he'll be like Tampa, but Tampa moves players that you wouldnt expect. We didnt do a big July international signing and now the rules are different, what happens this July? If/when does he make a trade, splash of a premium ML player? Talking the type we give a top 3 prospect+ to get this player.

 

How patient will he be to see this rebuild through. Seeing how he handles Gennett, Nelson, Peralta, and Braun. Brinson,Hader.

Ask this again after the Trade deadline. If not after this season.

[MKE81]

Some trends (or maybe "generalizations" is a more apt term) that have stood out for me so far...

 

1) The seemingly high value placed on defensive positional flexibility (as mentioned above).

 

2) Acquisition of left handed batters.

 

3) A "Sum of the Parts" approach. While the current roster is lacking bonafide stars, it does have a lot of useful players. The Brewers used to get knocked for what some deemed a "stars and scrubs" approach to roster building. Stearns and staff appear to be putting together a roster that lacks any true black holes.

 

I found this excerpt from the Brewers 2017 ZiPS Projections on Fangraphs somewhat interesting...

 

Batters

Milwaukee general manager David Stearns has dedicated the first year-plus of his tenure with the Brewers to a pursuit of affordable pieces that might contribute to the club’s next winning season, while trading away the most valuable pieces of its most recent one. The ZiPS projections here reflect the results of that endeavor. On the one hand, no field player is projected to record more than three wins in 2017. (Jonathan Villar, at 2.8 zWAR, is best acquitted by that measure.) On the other hand, 20 positions players receive a forecast of 1.0 WAR or better.

 

For context, consider: three of the National League’s playoff clubs from 2016 have been included thus far in this series of ZiPS posts. By comparison, only 16 of the Cubs’ position players receive a projection of one win or better. Only 13 of Washington‘s do. And only 10 field players for the San Francisco Giants are expected to cross the one-win threshold, per ZiPS. Milwaukee, in other words, has gathered a large collection of players whose median probable outcome is slightly below average. Given the youth of that group, however, and the vagaries of the world, some of those players will develop into average or better players.

As a side note since we are pontificating the philosophical values held by the baseball operations staff, one thing that I would be intrigued to learn more about is what attributes the Brewers valued most highly when they acquired Keon Broxton? Broxton has the potential to be a significant scouting win for the Brewers, and I am curious to what extent they targeted him, and why exactly?

Regarding Broxton I think it's pretty straight forward. The Brewers lacked a true CF (even though he can play all 3 spots) and he was blocked in Pitt. Provides good defense, solid arm, excellent speed tracking balls and stealing/running bases, 20HR pop with an average hit tool at worst plus he's young/cheap/controllable. He possesses the skills to succeed. Same thing with Villar. To a certain extent it's why Shaw and Susac were targeted as well. All these guys are (relatively) young, controllable and blocked, except Shaw but Panda might have taken 3b back this year anyway. They all had good results through the minors and need an opportunity to succeed at this level. And you don't have to give up much to find these types of guys (i.e. Rogers, Sneed). You just need to be in a position to provide an opportunity for them to put it all together

[adambr2]

Some trends (or maybe "generalizations" is a more apt term) that have stood out for me so far...

 

1) The seemingly high value placed on defensive positional flexibility (as mentioned above).

 

2) Acquisition of left handed batters.

 

3) A "Sum of the Parts" approach. While the current roster is lacking bonafide stars, it does have a lot of useful players. The Brewers used to get knocked for what some deemed a "stars and scrubs" approach to roster building. Stearns and staff appear to be putting together a roster that lacks any true black holes.

 

I found this excerpt from the Brewers 2017 ZiPS Projections on Fangraphs somewhat interesting...

 

Batters

Milwaukee general manager David Stearns has dedicated the first year-plus of his tenure with the Brewers to a pursuit of affordable pieces that might contribute to the club’s next winning season, while trading away the most valuable pieces of its most recent one. The ZiPS projections here reflect the results of that endeavor. On the one hand, no field player is projected to record more than three wins in 2017. (Jonathan Villar, at 2.8 zWAR, is best acquitted by that measure.) On the other hand, 20 positions players receive a forecast of 1.0 WAR or better.

 

For context, consider: three of the National League’s playoff clubs from 2016 have been included thus far in this series of ZiPS posts. By comparison, only 16 of the Cubs’ position players receive a projection of one win or better. Only 13 of Washington‘s do. And only 10 field players for the San Francisco Giants are expected to cross the one-win threshold, per ZiPS. Milwaukee, in other words, has gathered a large collection of players whose median probable outcome is slightly below average. Given the youth of that group, however, and the vagaries of the world, some of those players will develop into average or better players.

As a side note since we are pontificating the philosophical values held by the baseball operations staff, one thing that I would be intrigued to learn more about is what attributes the Brewers valued most highly when they acquired Keon Broxton? Broxton has the potential to be a significant scouting win for the Brewers, and I am curious to what extent they targeted him, and why exactly?

 

In regard to the ZiPS projections you mentioned too, I always keep open minded about projections but some of them seem far too pessimistic even for me. I would be shocked if Broxton and Villar combine for 2 WAR as they project. A 1.7 WAR for Braun would be a massive disappointment and turn him into a trade liability.

 

On another note on Broxton the Fans projections have him at a whopping 4.1 vs. the 1 that Steamer has him at. Usually the fans ones are on the optimistic side but not to that major of an extent. Shows how tough Keon is to project this year.

[Thurston Fluff]

Some trends (or maybe "generalizations" is a more apt term) that have stood out for me so far...

 

1) The seemingly high value placed on defensive positional flexibility (as mentioned above).

 

2) Acquisition of left handed batters.

 

3) A "Sum of the Parts" approach. While the current roster is lacking bonafide stars, it does have a lot of useful players. The Brewers used to get knocked for what some deemed a "stars and scrubs" approach to roster building. Stearns and staff appear to be putting together a roster that lacks any true black holes.

 

The acquisition of lefties might just be a product of not having any to start with and wanting to balance the roster out. Or it could be simply because they were the best available and just happened to hit left handed. I'm not so sure it's because they ike left handed hitters better than right handed ones.

 

The sum of the parts approach makes sense to me given our situation. If we can't afford huge contracts it makes sense to have a lot of not terrible options to keep competitive for more than a two year stretch.

[trwi7]

One area where I do think Stearns and co. might be ahead of the trends is the bullpen.

 

Because relief pitching is so much more valuable in the postseason as compared to the regular season (a debatable point, but one I think is true), contending teams are going to overvalue its acquisition.

 

What's great about this from the Crew's perspective is that they can trade high-quality relief talent (Thornburg, Smith, Jeffress), and then give other RPs a chance to succeed in high-leverage roles, something that inflates their value as well. You do this right, you can collect a lot of prospects without incurring a whole lot of short term risk, at least as I see it.

 

I don't see how Stearns is ahead of a trend there. He came into a rebuild and just happened to have high quality, cheap relievers on the roster when he was hired. They pitched well and he traded them, since relievers don't mean a lot to rebuilding teams.

[JohnBriggs12]

Some trends (or maybe "generalizations" is a more apt term) that have stood out for me so far...

 

1) The seemingly high value placed on defensive positional flexibility (as mentioned above).

 

2) Acquisition of left handed batters.

 

3) A "Sum of the Parts" approach. While the current roster is lacking bonafide stars, it does have a lot of useful players. The Brewers used to get knocked for what some deemed a "stars and scrubs" approach to roster building. Stearns and staff appear to be putting together a roster that lacks any true black holes.

 

The acquisition of lefties might just be a product of not having any to start with and wanting to balance the roster out. Or it could be simply because they were the best available and just happened to hit left handed. I'm not so sure it's because they ike left handed hitters better than right handed ones.

 

The sum of the parts approach makes sense to me given our situation. If we can't afford huge contracts it makes sense to have a lot of not terrible options to keep competitive for more than a two year stretch.

 

The Brewers led the NL in HR by RH hitters in 2016 and were last in the league in HR by LH hitters and most of their top level prospects are RH hitters. Stearns realized the need and acquired two LH bats that are controllable for a while. I also think Stearns may have been pleasantly surprised by his current roster and wanted to see how they'd do with a more balanced lineup for 2017. I also think Stearns realized that even for a rebuilding team, blowing leads late is very deflating so he's not just looking at flipping guys in the pen though that remains a possibility for sure.

[MKE81]

i refuse to believe Stearns only targeted Thames, Shaw, Ray, Diaz, Erceg because they swing lefty. When you're adding controllable talent it's a bonus if they're lefty to balance a lineup. If you're strictly targeting lefty hitters for 3b and 1b because you didn't do well in the HR dept then you're closing the door on many other options that could make more sense productivity wise. If they rated several players very similarly at a position I could see them going after the lefty because it's that added bonus and balances out the lineup moving forward. But they focus on talent, not left handed or right handed - simply talent.

 

Similar story with the pen, he's not targeting folks who can be flipped. He's targeting folks who have proven track records of success to solidify the backend. If they get great offers for those guys then so be it. Otherwise you try to win games

[adambr2]

Yeah, plenty of the big pieces Stearns has acquired are righty (Brinson, Broxton, Cordell.you could also count Villar). It's great that we're adding left handed talent, but I don't think we're targeting them specifically at the expense of just looking for the best talent.

[brewcrewdue80]

Wasn't there a notation when signing Thames, that adding a LH bat was important to add to the lineup?

[NievesNoNO]

I don't know that there's any ahead or behind a trend right now.

 

He for sure has targeted athletic, fast, versatile position players. So far, that seems to be paying dividends.

 

I'm not sure it's so much a trend but he has shown a willingness to acquire controllable talent at any age, whereas some GMs rebuilding might solely focus on the young top 100 type talent. He also seems to be taking a quantity over perceived quality approach, where he makes sure he's getting multiple players back in any deal.

 

I really cannot say enough good things about what DS and his staff have done so far. There really seems to be a strategy and plan, which I don't think can be said of all front offices. I'm happy they aren't trapped in the half-committed towards rebuilding or competing approach.

[Thurston Fluff]

I don't know that there's any ahead or behind a trend right now.

I really cannot say enough good things about what DS and his staff have done so far. There really seems to be a strategy and plan, which I don't think can be said of all front offices. I'm happy they aren't trapped in the half-committed towards rebuilding or competing approach.

 

He was brought in to rebuild so there was never question about what direction to go coming in. What he's done so far is not any differnt than what Melvin did when he first got here. What he does when the rebuild is nearing it's end and we start to be competitive is what will be interesting. Does he keep trying to plug holes through the farm, trade the farm for a year or two window, or just sort of plug holes as they come with mediocre free agents and hope to catch lightning in a bottle?

[FVBrewerFan]

Yea, I don't think flipping the relievers has anything to do with trend or not. They were assets available to be traded, and he took advantage. Same thing with acquiring LH bats. But I will admit he realized lack of LH bats throughout the organization, and wanted to address it (not force it) over time.

 

I'm most interested in what he is doing and will do in drafts and player development more than anything. Only one draft, so hard to see trends there. And I really haven't seen much on any changes in player development, but very curious about this.

[MadScientist]

I don't know that there's any ahead or behind a trend right now.

 

He for sure has targeted athletic, fast, versatile position players. So far, that seems to be paying dividends.

 

I'm not sure it's so much a trend but he has shown a willingness to acquire controllable talent at any age, whereas some GMs rebuilding might solely focus on the young top 100 type talent. He also seems to be taking a quantity over perceived quality approach, where he makes sure he's getting multiple players back in any deal.

 

I really cannot say enough good things about what DS and his staff have done so far. There really seems to be a strategy and plan, which I don't think can be said of all front offices. I'm happy they aren't trapped in the half-committed towards rebuilding or competing approach.

 

It's hard to pick out a trend after just one season. Some of the basic parameters of a rebuild are going to be standard practice (at least standard for the current MLB situation), i.e. trading away as MLB talent to stock the minor leagues, and looking for easy flip targets (second tier FA's particularly those looking for a bounce back).

 

The one thing we can do is try to see if he is doing anything different from others. Some of the things that have been mentioned here are 1) almost always getting pitching back in trades and 2) looking for high K/BB pitchers. Part of the reason for always asking for pitching in returns could be the lack of pitching in the minors. The high control pitchers might represent an analysis by Sterns that big arms are overvalued, or more likely to not progress, and you can win with control pitchers.

 

Time will tell, but I don't think Sterns is just following the trends. However he can only be considered ahead of the trend if things work out.

[pete]

Stearns is more opaque than Melvin was, but my sense is that they are supercharging the farm so they don't have to buy expensive FAs. Goodness knows there is a lot of data analysis going on. Are they innovating? Pretty hard to judge.

 

Thinking back on Melvin. I remember him remarking when fans wanted to ditch Hardy because his defense was bad according to zone ratings that they had there own proprietary defensive metrics. That's a while back and it no doubt evolved over time.

 

I also remember when there was a game that had a pregame show feature on the biometric analysis of pitchers. I'm not sure what its called where they use the dots on joints and use a computer to measure movements. IIRC Dr James Andrews and the pitching coach who had a mechanics rep (he used to touch the pitcher's shoulder all the time) took part in the development and Yovani had excellent mechanics.

 

I assume that all teams are somewhere between knee deep and neck deep into "statcast" and other measurements. Lots of people are crunching data and hopefully they're working hard to get good people in scouting and development. Those are hard to judge. Well, its all hard to judge.

 

One thing I thought would be a benefit and they probably have something like it, is to show hitters a video with a tracer route of a pitcher's various pitches. I'm a toddler when it comes to computing, but in the past I've made and worked on some simple Filemaker databases and I know you could set it up so that you could show whatever the hitter wanted or the pitching coach wanted to show: first pitch 2 strike pitches, etc.

[FVBrewerFan]

Good stuff Pete. Reminded me of some else that started with Melvin. Defensive shifts. Brewers were one of the first to use them extensivelyrics.

 

Also, forgot another early Stearns trend- walks. We heard about it in ST, and thene saw it play out. Focus on drawing walKS.

 

There is so much data in all forms, the big challenge now is deciphering what is useful to front office, vs the coaching staff, then down to the players. Fascinating stuff, would love to have all-access pass for a week.

[jerichoholicninja]

I could be wrong but I thought both the shifts and focus on patience came from the coaching staff.