2021 to 2022 Brewers, What Happened?

[sveumrules]

Fred Willard (RIP) is one of my all time favorites & this hour long loop of him repeating his “Hey! Wha Happen?!?” catch phrase from A Mighty Wind might be one of my favorite things on the internet…

With that as an inspiration & jumping off point I thought I’d try to figure out What Happened to the make the 2022 Brewers lose nine more games than their 2021 predecessors.

To do so, I broke the roster down into four categories - returning hitters, returning pitchers, outgoing/incoming hitters and outgoing/incoming pitchers.

tl,dr version is that twelve returning pitchers combined for -11.4 rWAR compared to 2021, six incoming pitchers combined for -2.4 rWAR compared to the six outgoing pitchers they replaced, ten returning position players combined for +2.5 WAR compared to 2021, and six incoming position players combined for +3.3 WAR compared to the six outgoing position players they replaced.

Will post each category separately below to break things up a little bit.

[sveumrules]

RETURNING PITCHERS (12)
(Total: +20 IP | -11.6 WAR)

Hader (-24 IP | -3.2 WAR)
21: 58 IP | 29 ERA- | 3.4 WAR
22: 34 IP | 105 ERA- | 0.2 WAR

Houser (-40 IP | -3.2 WAR)
21: 142 IP | 77 ERA- | 2.8 WAR
22: 102 IP | 117 ERA- | -0.4 WAR

Peralta (-66 IP | -2.8 WAR)
21: 144 IP | 67 ERA- | 4.5 WAR
22: 78 IP | 88 ERA- | 1.7 WAR

Woodruff (-26 IP | -2.4 WAR)
21: 179 IP | 61 ERA- | 6.3 WAR
22: 153 IP | 75 ERA- | 3.9 WAR

Burnes (+35 IP | -0.9 WAR)
21: 167 IP | 58 ERA- | 6.2 WAR
22: 202 IP | 73 ERA- | 5.3 WAR

Suter (-7 IP | -0.4 WAR)
21: 73 IP | 73 ERA- | 0.6 WAR
22: 66 IP | 93 ERA- | 0.2 WAR

Cousins (-17 IP | -0.4 WAR)
21: 30 IP | 64 ERA- | 0.7 WAR
22: 13 IP | 67 ERA- | 0.3 WAR

Lauer (+40 IP | -0.2 WAR)
21: 118 IP | 76 ERA- | 2.8 WAR
22: 158 IP | 91 ERA- | 2.6 WAR

Ashby (+76 IP | +0.3 WAR)
21: 31 IP | 108 ERA- | -0.2 WAR
22: 107 IP | 110 ERA- | 0.1 WAR

Boxberger (—- IP | +0.4 WAR)
21: 64 IP | 80 ERA- | 1.0 WAR
22: 64 IP | 73 ERA- | 1.4 WAR

Devin (+6 IP | +0.6 WAR)
21: 54 IP | 60 ERA- | 1.6 WAR
22: 60 IP | 48 ERA- | 2.2 WAR

Milner (+43 IP | +0.6 WAR)
21: 21 IP | 129 ERA- | -0.2 WAR
22: 64 IP | 93 ERA- | 0.4 WAR

[sveumrules]

OUTGOING PITCHERS (6)
(Total: 197 IP | 1.6 WAR)

Anderson
21: 96 IP | 101 ERA- | 0.8 WAR
Strickland
21: 36 IP | 41 ERA- | 0.9 WAR
Norris
21: 20 IP | 158 ERA- | -0.4 WAR
Richards
21: 19 IP | 76 ERA- | 0.3 WAR
JPFYRSN
21: 19 IP | 78 ERA- | 0.2 WAR
Rasmussen
21: 17 IP | 101 ERA- | -0.2 WAR

INCOMING PITCHERS (6)
(Total: 220 IP | -0.8 WAR)

Alexander 
22: 71 IP | 134 ERA- | -0.3 WAR
Gott
22: 45 IP | 102 ERA- | -0.2 WAR
Strzelecki
22: 35 IP | 70 ERA- | 0.5 WAR
L Perdomo
22: 23 IP | 94 ERA- | 0.2 WAR
Bush
22: 23 IP | 106 ERA- | -0.4 WAR
Rogers
22: 23 IP | 135 ERA- | -0.6 WAR

Difference: +23 IP | -2.4 WAR

[sveumrules]

RETURNING HITTERS (10)
(Total: +682 PA | +2.5 WAR)

Lorenzo (-130 PA | -2.0 WAR)
21: 286 PA | 98 wRC+ | 1.5 WAR
22: 156 PA | 32 wRC+ | -0.5 WAR

Narvaez (-149 PA | -1.8 WAR)
21: 445 PA | 100 wRC+ | 2.9 WAR
22: 296 PA | 71 wRC+ | 1.1 WAR

Kolten (+5 PA | —- WAR)
21: 492 PA | 110 wRC+ | 2.5 WAR
22: 497 PA | 116 wRC+ | 2.5 WAR

Urias (-98 PA | +0.2 WAR)
21: 570 PA | 112 wRC+ | 2.1 WAR
22: 472 PA | 110 wRC+ | 2.3 WAR

Rowdy (+425 PA | +0.5 WAR)
21: 174 PA | 113 wRC+ | 0.3 WAR
22: 599 PA | 110 wRC+ | 0.8 WAR

Tyrone (+134 PA | +0.8 WAR)
21: 271 PA | 107 wRC+ | 1.3 WAR
22: 405 PA | 102 wRC+ | 2.1 WAR

Yelich (+196 PA | +0.8 WAR)
21: 475 PA | 102 wRC+ | 1.5 WAR
22: 671 PA | 111 wRC+ | 2.3 WAR

OBJace (+26 PA | +1.2 WAR)
21: 302 PA | 98 wRC+ | 1.0 WAR
22: 328 PA | 96 wRC+ | 2.2 WAR

Adames (+204 PA | +1.3 WAR)
21: 413 PA | 136 wRC+ | 3.4 WAR
22: 617 PA | 109 wRC+ | 4.7 WAR

Keston (+69 PA | +1.5 WAR)
21: 197 PA | 53 wRC+ | -0.7 WAR
22: 266 PA | 115 wRC+ | 0.8 WAR

[sveumrules]

OUTGOING HITTERS (6)
(Total: 1810 PA | 2.8 WAR)

Avisail
21: 515 PA | 116 wRC+ | 2.8 WAR
JBJ
21: 428 PA | 37 wRC+ | -1.6 WAR
Vogelbach
21: 258 PA | 102 wRC+ | -0.1 WAR
Manny
21: 208 PA | 96 wRC+ | 1.5 WAR
Shaw
21: 202 PA | 68 wRC+ | -0.4 WAR
Escobar
21: 199 PA | 115 wRC+ | 0.6 WAR

INCOMING HITTERS (6)
(Total: 1736 PA | 6.1 WAR)

McCutchen
22: 580 PA | 98 wRC+ | 0.3 WAR
Renfroe
22: 523 PA | 124 wRC+ | 2.5 WAR
Caratini
22: 314 PA | 84 wRC+ | 1.2 WAR
Brosseau
22: 160 PA | 118 wRC+ | 0.6 WAR
Davis
22: 91 PA | 77 wRC+ | 0.5 WAR
Mitchell
22: 68 PA | 136 wRC+ | 1.0 WAR

Difference: -74 PA | +3.3 WAR

[wiguy94]

Lauer +40 IP and and less WAR is a tough one. Hopefully he has a much better year next year.

[sveumrules]

2 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Lauer +40 IP and and less WAR is a tough one. Hopefully he has a much better year next year.

Yeah, Lauer was solid all year and the 3rd best starter behind Burnes/Woody but he never had that dominant streak like in 2021 where he posted a 1.78 ERA over a 13 start stretch.

[Brewcrew82]

1 hour ago, sveumrules said:

Yeah, Lauer was solid all year and the 3rd best starter behind Burnes/Woody but he never had that dominant streak like in 2021 where he posted a 1.78 ERA over a 13 start stretch.

He was dominant for a 9 start stretch in April/May. The killer was what he then proceeded to do in June. Otherwise, he was really solid on the year. 

[Robocaller]

so you're saying that the reason the brewers did worse is because the hitters struck out too often (and particularly with RISP)? Because that's all I heard in game threads.