Article: What Constitutes Success for the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers?

[monty57]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

To be fair, 2022 baseball was the least entertaining baseball I've seen in my lifetime.

Yep. The move to 3T0 baseball around the league has sucked a lot of the joy out of watching baseball. Banning the shift just makes it more likely teams continue to put "all or nothing" guys out on the field.

Runs may be around the same as before, but it's a lot of nothing for most of the game, then a couple of walks and a home run for all the scoring in the game.

To me, it gets really frustrating watching a runner sit in scoring position while the next few batters swing out of their socks and strike out. Just make contact and you've got a good chance for a run.

This is one reason I'm excited to see some of our prospects. We have a lot of high-contact guys coming up, which should be fun to watch.

[Jopal78]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

They’ve definitely lost a quantity of relievers, but what about their quality?

Suter (66 IP | 93 ERA- | +0.38 WPA)
Bxbrgr (64 IP | 73 ERA- | +1.04 WPA)
Gott (45 IP | 102 ERA- | -0.65 WPA)
Hader (34 IP | 105 ERA- | +0.76 WPA)
Gustave (28 IP | 95 ERA- | -0.29 WPA)
Perdomo (23 IP | 94 ERA- | +0.37 WPA)
Rogers (23 IP | 135 ERA- | -1.02 WPA)
Kelley (23 IP | 150 ERA- | -0.57 WPA)

Thats 308 IP that (outside of Boxberger) was mediocre to bad with a net Win Probability Added of essentially zero.

Then again, take a look at the new relievers  on the 40 man roster, whom they're presumably counting on in '24

Javy Guerra (18 IP | 76 ERA+| +.60 WPA)

Janson Junk (8 IP | 65 ERA+| -0.20vWPA)

Joel Payamps (55IP | 125 ERA+| -2.3 WPA)

Bryse Wilson (115.2 IP | 75 ERA+| -2.3 WPA)

Tyson Miller (10.2 IP | 37 ERA+| -0.7 WPA)

Elvis Peguero (17.1 IP | 61 ERA+| -0.5 WPA)

Of those above, four of them have barely pitched in the major leagues, so it is truly a mystery what the Brewers ultimately have in them. The other two who have pitched significant MLB innings performed quite poorly in '23 by these metrics.

To keep their starting pitching staff together, they've apparently decided to go cheap in the bullpen this year with almost all pre-arbitration eligible arms outside of Williams, Bush and whomever loses the rotation battle.  To me, its another example of the theme of the '23 Brewers- taking a gamble that everything will break their way and they'll be in the post season chase, alternatively if it blows up in their face it makes it all the easier to break this group up in July. 

 

[Brewcrew82]

8 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Then again, take a look at the new relievers  on the 40 man roster, whom they're presumably counting on in '24

Javy Guerra (18 IP | 76 ERA+| +.60 WPA)

Janson Junk (8 IP | 65 ERA+| -0.20vWPA)

Joel Payamps (55IP | 125 ERA+| -2.3 WPA)

Bryse Wilson (115.2 IP | 75 ERA+| -2.3 WPA)

Tyson Miller (10.2 IP | 37 ERA+| -0.7 WPA)

Elvis Peguero (17.1 IP | 61 ERA+| -0.5 WPA)

Of those above, four of them have barely pitched in the major leagues, so it is truly a mystery what the Brewers ultimately have in them. The other two who have pitched significant MLB innings performed quite poorly in '23 by these metrics.

To keep their starting pitching staff together, they've apparently decided to go cheap in the bullpen this year with almost all pre-arbitration eligible arms outside of Williams, Bush and whomever loses the rotation battle.  To me, its another example of the theme of the '23 Brewers- taking a gamble that everything will break their way and they'll be in the post season chase, alternatively if it blows up in their face it makes it all the easier to break this group up in July. 

 

Why would “everything need to break their way to stay in the postseason chase” when they’ve played a total of 3 meaningless games over the past 6 seasons? 

[Jopal78]

15 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Why would “everything need to break their way to stay in the postseason chase” when they’ve played a total of 3 meaningless games over the past 6 seasons? 

Less talent on paper than in prior years, fewer games against the Reds, Pirates, than in years past, as noted above relying on a slew of inexperienced arms in the bullpen and counting on a number of players to bounce back instead of merely producing close to  what they did last year?

 

[Brewcrew82]

12 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

Less talent on paper than in prior years, fewer games against the Reds, Pirates, than in years past, and counting on a number of players to bounce back instead of repeating close to  what they did last year?

 

Less talent on paper than in prior years? Who did we lose besides Hader?

And then we made pretty significant upgrades at C and DH.

Saying we need “everything” to break our way just to stay in postseason contention, despite the past 6 years of hard evidence, is just being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic…

[MVP2110]

Worth noting that PECOTA projections came out this morning and they have the Brewers as a slight favorite over St. Louis in the NL Central. (87.6 for MIL, 87.5 for STL) and they put the Brewers overall chance of making the playoffs at 64%. That seems to track for what I'd expect. 

I think a bottom level of a successful season would be making it past the Wildcard Round and atleast holding their own in the NLDS even if they eventually lose. 

[Jopal78]

4 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Less talent on paper than in prior years? Who did we lose besides Hader?

 

And then we made pretty significant upgrades at C and DH.

Saying we need “everything” to break our way just to stay in postseason contention, despite the past 6 years of hard evidence, is just being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic…

It’s not being pessimistic it’s being realistic your refusal to even consider the notion is blinding your logic.

For example, key contributors no longer with the Brewers: Hader, Boxberger, Gott, Renfroe, Wong, Suter, et al.

Further,  they’ve made an upgrade at DH if and only if Winker is healthy and plays, significantly better than he did last year with Seattle, where he was terrible. (I mean there is a reason a player with a 888 career OPS was available for Kolten Wong, right?)

I hope you’re right,  97 wins in going wire to wire in first place sounds great to me and. Although I doubt any of the pundits are going to pick the Brewers for the playoffs based upon the talent  on the roster but then again, that’s why they play the games.

[Brewcrew82]

6 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

It’s not being pessimistic it’s being realistic your refusal to even consider the notion is blinding your logic.

For example, key contributors no longer with the Brewers: Hader, Boxberger, Gott, Renfroe, Wong, Suter, et al.

Further,  they’ve made an upgrade at DH if and only if Winker is healthy and plays, significantly better than he did last year with Seattle, where he was terrible. (I mean there is a reason a player with a 888 career OPS was available for Kolten Wong, right?)

I hope you’re right,  97 wins in going wire to wire in first place sounds great to me and. Although I doubt any of the pundits are going to pick the Brewers for the playoffs based upon the talent  on the roster but then again, that’s why they play the games.

It totally is being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.

Your statement was that “everything” needs to go right just for the Brewers to stay in contention. That’s not borne out whatsoever by the results of the past 6 seasons, in which the Brewers have been in contention in each of them, playing a total of 3 meaningless games. Nor is it borne out by the projections for this season (PECOTA, ZIPS). 

Also, you’re wrong about Winker. Even in by far the worst season of his career last year, he was still a significant upgrade over McCutchen (108 wRC+ vs. 98 wRC+).

Seems to me like you’re the one being blinded here…

[brewerfan82]

39 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

I hope you’re right,  97 wins in going wire to wire in first place sounds great to me and. Although I doubt any of the pundits are going to pick the Brewers for the playoffs based upon the talent  on the roster but then again, that’s why they play the games.

I haven't seen any posted pundit predictions, but the projection systems seem to think they'll be in the mix:

• Clay Davenport - 1st place NL Central (90-72) https://claydavenport.com/projections/PROJHOME.shtml
• PECOTA - 1st place in NL Central (87.6-74.4, 64% chance of playoffs) https://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/
• ZiPS - 2nd place in NL Central (83-79, 39.7% chance of playoffs) https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2023-start-of-spring-zips-projected-standings-national-league/ (and Dan Szymborski notes "The Brewers come the closest, and they have a very high “perfect health” upside. ZiPS just doesn’t like Milwaukee’s depth anywhere near at much as St. Louis’")
• Bleacher Report "Way-too-Early Predictions" from November - 2nd place in NL Central (87-75) https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10054283-way-too-early-predictions-for-the-2023-mlb-playoffs-and-world-series

Maybe it's a semantics thing? But I think a lot of people think the Brewers will be competing for the division and/or a wild card spot and I would guess there's close to a 50/50 chance of any given pundit putting them down for a playoff spot in their predictions.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Brewcrew82 said:

It totally is being pessimistic for the sake of being pessimistic.

Your statement was that “everything” needs to go right just for the Brewers to stay in contention. That’s not borne out whatsoever by the results of the past 6 seasons, in which the Brewers have been in contention in each of them, playing a total of 3 meaningless games. Nor is it borne out by the projections for this season (PECOTA, ZIPS). 

Also, you’re wrong about Winker. Even in by far the worst season of his career last year, he was still a significant upgrade over McCutchen (108 wRC+ vs. 98 wRC+).

Seems to me like you’re the one being blinded here…

There’s a statistic out there to make any point you want to make. So you may as well go ahead and lay them on me, but McCutchen have the superior OPS superior war on baseball reference, and winker is coming off, not one but two operations. 
 

He could be healthy and back to the player, and he was with the Reds certainly a possibility, but whether you choose to see it or not, there is a risk that he remains terrible due to injury or ineffectiveness.

In the bullpen they’re going with cheap inexperienced pitchers for the most part nobody has a crystal ball and yes, maybe they’ll mostly be killers, but there’s also a real risk that all those players are ineffective and the bullpen sinks their season. 
 

The Brewers have some nice starting pitchers, some good but not great hitters, and play in a weaker division. Is that a recipe for the postseason could be, but they’re certainly gonna need to have some luck in my opinion 

[sveumrules]

4 hours ago, Jopal78 said:

There’s a statistic out there to make any point you want to make. So you may as well go ahead and lay them on me, but McCutchen have the superior OPS superior war on baseball reference, and winker is coming off, not one but two operations. 

Raw OPS does not adjust for park factors. It is harder to hit in Seattle than it is in Milwaukee, that is why Winker comes out ahead of Cutch in both OPS+ and wRC+ despite Andrew having a .012 edge in raw OPS.

The main reason McCutchen has the edge in WAR is because he posted +4 fielding runs in his limited OF time, 434 innings.

The Mariners for some reason decided to play Winker in the field for 972 innings last year where he posted -16 fielding runs.

Assuming the Brewers play Winker minimally on the grass it will be a notable boost to his WAR.

[Playing Catch]

Glad to be looking forward to spring!

1- I forgot about the balanced schedule. That will hopefully make the boring 3TO baseball a little less so, with some fresher opponents, but also make it more difficult for the Central divisions to earn wild cards.

2- Success is finishing ahead of the Cards and the Cubs.