Stearns’ Offensive Talent Evaluation

[Lathund]

A list of his recent free agent targets and their strikeout percentages:

 

Shaw 27%

Vogelbach 31%

Garcia 26%

Smoak 27%

Bradley Jr. 29%

 

 

Did you just make those numbers up? Because those numbers don't match their career strikeout rates, nor their 2021 rates (except Garcia, if you don't round up), 2020 rates (except Shaw, again without rounding up), season prior to signing rate, or any kind of 3- or 4-year average that I can see. These numbers are all, without exception, higher than their actual career strikeout rates. And it also conveniently leaves out the recent major FA signing with a 15% strikeout rate.

 

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/travis-shaw/11982/stats?position=3B

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/avisail-garcia/5760/stats?position=OF

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/daniel-vogelbach/14130/stats?position=1B/DH

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/jackie-bradley-jr/12984/stats?position=OF

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/justin-smoak/9054/stats?position=1B

[RollieTime]

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats.

 

I honestly didn’t even think of Wong. But that one signing of a low strikeout guy doesn’t change the fact that he has not made striking out less a priority in his tenure. The numbers speak for themselves. They have struck out the 3rd most or worse in 4 out of his 6 years here while never finishing better than 26th in strikeouts.

 

It’s not like the low strikeout guys are that expensive. My offseason plans have focused on players like that and they tend to be relatively cheap. It’s actually quite surprising he has never made that a priority to see if building a roster full of low strikeout guys is a market inefficiency in this era. I feel like it is and I was hoping the last few years he would have signed players moving towards that.

[Lathund]

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats.

 

That's not their career strikeout rates, check the links I posted for their actual numbers. Strikeout rate is K/PA, not K/AB.

[monty57]

I don’t think people realize how dire it actually looks right now. Some prospects will flame out that look promising right now. The big league roster doesn’t exactly have much valuable pieces if we had to tear it down. The drafting of bats has been poor. Burnes and Woodruff would bring a good haul, but what’s Hader’s value? People seem to think we can’t get a ton for him. Williams would bring quite a bit I imagine. Yelich’s contract and recent injuries greatly reduces his value. Cain won’t bring back anything. Hiura’s value is basically rock bottom. A complete tear down would basically put this roster at a 50 win roster at best with little in the immediate pipeline to rely on to pull us out of a rebuild.

 

I will give credit and say we have great depth at catcher in the minors, but we basically have holes all over the offense throughout the minors. We are teetering on a lengthy rebuild and are riding a very fine line with it currently. The little bit we had has been traded away in recent years with little on the big league roster worth much to anyone.

 

This outlook is very scary indeed.

 

We have three straight playoff appearances, and have one of the best records in the NL at the time of this post. We can argue whether we should have won as many games as we have over the past 3+ seasons, but here we are. If we assume that we have won games because we do have some talent on the roster, than we should look at how long we will retain that talent. The only free agents we're losing after this season are Brett Anderson, Travis Shaw, Brad Boxberger, Manny Pina, and Jordan Zimmerman, with Garcia's option likely not being picked up and Bradley possibly opting out of his contract. Everyone we're losing should be easily replaceable, so we are highly unlikely to "tear it down" this season or next season.

 

So, when is a "tear down" possible? I'd say the closest possible timeframe would be after 2023 or 2024, because all of Woodruff, Burnes, Houser and Peralta (and Lauer if that matters) will be free agents after 2024, and Hader is a FA after 2023. I would guess that if the Brewers really wanted to "tear it down" and start trading away players at the 2023 deadline and/or offseason before 2024, they could rebuild their farm pretty quickly by trading away the aforementioned talent. Plus, the only eight figure contract we have on the books past 2022 is Yelich, so we should have plenty of financial flexibility for whatever path Stearns wants to take.

 

I wish we had a better farm system, as small market teams need that, and of course I wish we had even more talent than we have... who doesn't? However, I don't think the future is quite as dark as you believe it to be. We should have really good pitching for at least three more years after this one, and that's a strong base on which to build some playoff runs.

[clancyphile]

Shaw isn't hitting great. He's getting RBI's because guys have been on base and he's been opportunistic

 

In other words, he's lucky/clutch. Which, IMO, makes him less of a worry than some others. Would I like the batting average to be about 20 points higher? Yes. Would I like a half-dozen fewer whiffs over the course of 123 plate appearances? Of course. But his hits score runs, and scoring runs is the name of the game. The big question is, how do we get him to hit as well when it's NOT a clutch situation? Maybe some work with the folks who sorted Burnes out is in order.

 

Peterson doesn't hit for average, but he walks a ton. Ditto for Urias. Vogelbach walks and hits for power, but can't hit the Uecker line. He'll do, but if he keeps up with those struggles, maybe it is time to give Cooper Hummel or some other guys in the minors a shot.

 

The good news: Tyrone Taylor is playing well, and probably deserves a longer look. Garcia has rebounded from a tough 2020, although I'd like to see his doubles on the same pace as they were that year.

 

Then again, only four players have more than 100 PAs this year... maybe it's better to be a little more patient.

[Simba2020]

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats.

 

That's not their career strikeout rates, check the links I posted for their actual numbers. Strikeout rate is K/PA, not K/AB.

I know how strikeout rates are determined, but I prefer strikeouts per at bats myself as well.

[Simba2020]

I think Stearns was trying to be ahead of the curve by looking for high-OBP / contact hitters. They should be hurt much less by a dead ball than the "launch angle" guys will be. Pair that with good pitching and defense, and you can win on a low budget. Of course, they don't help anything when they're watching the games while riding out an IL stint.

 

I don’t think this is true. The one frustrating thing is that people have talked about him looking for hitters with better approaches that strikeout less when in reality he has basically never put reducing strikeouts as a priority of the offense. In terms of team strikeouts:

 

2016 Dead last

2017 Dead last

2018 25th

2019 26th

2020 29th

2021 28th

 

A list of his recent free agent targets and their strikeout percentages:

 

Shaw 27%

Vogelbach 31%

Garcia 26%

Smoak 27%

Bradley Jr. 29%

 

Then we have Hiura at 37% to go along with that group.

 

I’ve listed players I would have liked to see targeted the last few offseasons and they would have been been significant additions at very reasonable contracts.

 

Wilmer Flores prior to 2019 and went on to hit .317, Jose Iglesias prior to 2019 and went on to hit .288 at SS. I know both of these were cheap and I think both were around $3 million. Their strikeout percentages are 14% and 13% respectively. Other players I mentioned were Michael Brantley (long shot, but we had the money. Just was allocated elsewhere) both times he was a free agent and Tommy La Stella recently. Maikel Franco and his 17% K rate would look pretty good in this lineup.

 

It’s actually pretty frustrating when there are very good pieces available and the deals don’t get done. I know it takes two to tango, but if you offer an extra million to a guy like Jose Iglesias or Wilmer Flores, I imagine they would have found themselves in Milwaukee. Stearns certainly hasn’t gone the route of reducing strikeouts though and the results his entire tenure to this point show that.

And don't forget that Stearns came from Houston where in his tenure as Assistant GM, the Astros were 29th in strikeouts in 2013 and 2014 and dead last in 2015. Definitely seems like strikeout levels are not even remotely a priority for him.

[areacodes]

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats.

 

That's not their career strikeout rates, check the links I posted for their actual numbers. Strikeout rate is K/PA, not K/AB.

I know how strikeout rates are determined, but I prefer strikeouts per at bats myself as well.

 

Why? Why remove the times a player reached base without a hit (and sacrifices) when calculating their strikeout rate? What benefit does that have?

[RollieTime]

I don’t think people realize how dire it actually looks right now. Some prospects will flame out that look promising right now. The big league roster doesn’t exactly have much valuable pieces if we had to tear it down. The drafting of bats has been poor. Burnes and Woodruff would bring a good haul, but what’s Hader’s value? People seem to think we can’t get a ton for him. Williams would bring quite a bit I imagine. Yelich’s contract and recent injuries greatly reduces his value. Cain won’t bring back anything. Hiura’s value is basically rock bottom. A complete tear down would basically put this roster at a 50 win roster at best with little in the immediate pipeline to rely on to pull us out of a rebuild.

 

I will give credit and say we have great depth at catcher in the minors, but we basically have holes all over the offense throughout the minors. We are teetering on a lengthy rebuild and are riding a very fine line with it currently. The little bit we had has been traded away in recent years with little on the big league roster worth much to anyone.

 

This outlook is very scary indeed.

 

We have three straight playoff appearances, and have one of the best records in the NL at the time of this post. We can argue whether we should have won as many games as we have over the past 3+ seasons, but here we are. If we assume that we have won games because we do have some talent on the roster, than we should look at how long we will retain that talent. The only free agents we're losing after this season are Brett Anderson, Travis Shaw, Brad Boxberger, Manny Pina, and Jordan Zimmerman, with Garcia's option likely not being picked up and Bradley possibly opting out of his contract. Everyone we're losing should be easily replaceable, so we are highly unlikely to "tear it down" this season or next season.

 

So, when is a "tear down" possible? I'd say the closest possible timeframe would be after 2023 or 2024, because all of Woodruff, Burnes, Houser and Peralta (and Lauer if that matters) will be free agents after 2024, and Hader is a FA after 2023. I would guess that if the Brewers really wanted to "tear it down" and start trading away players at the 2023 deadline and/or offseason before 2024, they could rebuild their farm pretty quickly by trading away the aforementioned talent. Plus, the only eight figure contract we have on the books past 2022 is Yelich, so we should have plenty of financial flexibility for whatever path Stearns wants to take.

 

I wish we had a better farm system, as small market teams need that, and of course I wish we had even more talent than we have... who doesn't? However, I don't think the future is quite as dark as you believe it to be. We should have really good pitching for at least three more years after this one, and that's a strong base on which to build some playoff runs.

 

Our record is as good as it is because of possessing the reliever of the year the last 3 seasons. Granted is extremely valuable and they would bring back quite a few good prospects. But they are a huge reason for our success. Otherwise this roster is constructed with a lot of question marks and players that wouldn’t fetch much in a trade which was my point. Outside of our starting pitching of course. The reference to a lengthy rebuild was if we were to tear it down right now, it would be quite lengthy because of the lack of talent in the upper minors, paired with a big void on the big league roster.

 

I am with you though on that we won’t be trading Woodruff or Burnes until they have 2 years of team control or less at the very earliest. By then, hopefully Mitchell, Feliciano, Henry, Lutz, and maybe even Perez are the next wave of bats, paired with Ashby, File, Bettinger, Small, and Kelly on the pitching side all knocking on the door or contributing at the big league level.

[DHonks]

There’s a great article about this on the Athletic with regards to the Indians. It basically explains it while good scouting and statistical analysis can greatly improve a pitcher, there is no link right now for developing hitters. In fact given the pitching revolution, it’s suppressing hitting statistics and making it even harder. I didn’t realize how bad the Indians are developing hitters, and how good they are at developing pitchers

[adambr2]

I can't think of any hitter we've developed the last 10 years that even comes close to Francisco Lindor or Jose Ramirez. Maybe Trent Grisham but we traded him away anyway.

 

Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were our last great bats developed. That is a long, long drought.

[Outlander]

I never post numbers here unless they are factual. Those are their career strikeout rates. Strikeouts divided by their at bats.

 

That's not their career strikeout rates, check the links I posted for their actual numbers. Strikeout rate is K/PA, not K/AB.

I know how strikeout rates are determined, but I prefer strikeouts per at bats myself as well.

That is fine if that is your preference but strikeout rate is defined. Somebody can't just say they are using factual information if they really are not calculating the stat correctly.

[Jopal78]

I can't think of any hitter we've developed the last 10 years that even comes close to Francisco Lindor or Jose Ramirez. Maybe Trent Grisham but we traded him away anyway.

 

Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were our last great bats developed. That is a long, long drought.

 

To be fair, Lindor was the 8th overall pick in the loaded 2011 draft. The Brewers simply haven’t had too many Top 10 picks since Braun (LaPorta #7, Ray #5 and Hiura #9). When you’re drafting in the mid-teens or twenties like the Brewers have been recently, the odds of finding a generational talent type are substantially less than in the top 10.

 

Same deal with Ramirez he was signed in the Dominican Republic as a 17 year old. Historically, the Brewers haven’t had a very large presence in signing amateur players from Latin America, although as I understand it, under Stearns they have increased that presence.

[brewers888]

Stearns is the anti Melvin; he values pitching and defense with no clue how to put together a good offense.

[roadcrew3]

Stearns is the anti Melvin; he values pitching and defense with no clue how to put together a good offense.

 

I think he tried his own version of Moneyball by bringing in players who have decent splits vs either RHP or LHP with the idea that they weren't every day players so were cheaper but the team could play them full-time in a platoon and the sum would be above average production. Players like Sogard, Gyorko, Holt, Smoak, Morrison, Thames all represent this mold but the production hasn't matched the concept.

[SomewhereInTime]

Stearns is the anti Melvin; he values pitching and defense with no clue how to put together a good offense.

 

Yup and it's lead to the most successful run of Brewer baseball I've seen in my lifetime, three postseason appearances, one NLCS appearance, one division title, and three winning seasons in the last four years. Pitching and defense wins games. You wanna guess how the Brewers faired the last time they lead the league in runs scored?

[Warning Track Power]

Stearns is the anti Melvin; he values pitching and defense with no clue how to put together a good offense.

 

I think he tried his own version of Moneyball by bringing in players who have decent splits vs either RHP or LHP with the idea that they weren't every day players so were cheaper but the team could play them full-time in a platoon and the sum would be above average production. Players like Sogard, Gyorko, Holt, Smoak, Morrison, Thames all represent this mold but the production hasn't matched the concept.

I wish his own version of Moneyball for offensive players valued OBP, situational awareness and players that put the ball in play. Guys like Wong, JBJ, Cain, Urias should all be focused more on situational hitting than they currently are. Last night in the 10th inning where Cain struck out on 3 pitches with 1st and 2nd with 1 out, was a perfect example of this team's lack of situational awareness. The last two swinging strikes were balls at the letters with uppercut swings. A single would have won the game.