Article: Brewers Notes: New Projected Standings, Aaron Ashby's Shoulder, Craig Counsell's Status, More

[Matthew Trueblood]

Between the chaos of the NBA Trade Deadline and Super Bowl week, it was easy to miss some nuggets of news and information about the Milwaukee Brewers. Here's a Monday morning catch-up.

Image courtesy of © Mike De Sisti / The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

On Friday, FanGraphs released its first look at the projected National League standings for 2023, according to the ZiPS projection system. These are always interesting gauges of where teams are as spring camps open, but this year, they seem to have special significance, as we try to sort through the implications of the newly balanced schedule and the changing rule set. 

For Brewers fans, though, it might be a good self-care choice to ignore these, or at least to take a wait-and-see approach. The system projects the Crew not only to finish a distant second to the Cardinals in the NL Central (91 wins to 83), but to miss the playoffs for the second year in a row. Dan Szymborski, the proprietor of ZiPS, wrote in the post revealing the projected standings that his system "doesn't like Milwaukee's depth anywhere near [as] much as St. Louis'," and cites that as the biggest reason for the gap. 

Obviously, that's a subject on which there could be plenty of debate. A tweet from MLB.com's Mike Petriello near the end of last week reaffirmed what we all know, which is that the Brewers actually do an excellent job of avoiding massive failures and fielding sub-replacement players.

I know "have good players and not bad ones" is not an earth-shattering take, but look at how much non-competitive plate appearances the Angels gave out last year -- despite having Trout, Ohtani, & Ward.

--> https://t.co/QGDJGHI0hX pic.twitter.com/nbeJndEWo3

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) February 9, 2023

More concerning than the direct comparison with the Cardinals, then, perhaps, is the fact that there are four other teams in line ahead of the Crew for the three NL Wild Card spots. The 88-win Giants and 85-win Phillies join the Mets, Braves, Dodgers, and Padres, all of whom are projected to win over 90 games. This is a known obstacle for the Brewers, but it's a sobering reminder of how much they need to keep pace with St. Louis. With the schedule advantage based on division strength more muted this year, it will be harder to claim a Wild Card berth.

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The easy headline about Aaron Ashby came last Wednesday, when GM Matt Arnold acknowledged that Ashby would be delayed at the start of spring training due to shoulder fatigue, just months after his season was truncated by shoulder inflammation. That was unwelcome news, but not quite a gut punch, since it left open the possibility that the team was just being careful with the young southpaw in whom they made a (modest) long-term investment.

On Thursday, though, Adam McCalvy of MLB.com brought the hammer down, with more (and much more discouraging) specifics from manager Craig Counsell.

One piece of new info: Doesn't sound as if Brewers expect Aaron Ashby (shoulder) to be ready for Opening Day. "It’s a remnant from last year that manifested itself as he ramped up throwing again," Craig Counsell said today. "We had to take a pretty big step back as far as rest.”

— Adam McCalvy (@AdamMcCalvy) February 9, 2023

This is a time of year in which we often welcome thoughts of June, with its sunshine and the end of the school year and the final banishment of the cold wetness of spring in the Upper Midwest. I read the tweet above, and I thought immediately of June, but in a bad way. It doesn't feel like Ashby will be available any sooner than May. It's more realistic to focus on June, and at that point, it's very much worth asking whether he would best help the team by preparing for and focusing on working out of the bullpen. Suddenly, the stakes of the Wade Miley contract feel higher, as do the chances that Bryse Wilson or Robert Gasser make a meaningful number of starts for the Crew in 2023.

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It's not the news we're waiting for (yet), but it does sound like Craig Counsell envisions an extension that would keep him on the top step of the Brewers dugout beyond the end of his contract, which expires at the end of 2023. 

Todd Rosiak of the Journal-Sentinel spoke to Counsell, who gave a long quote in which he said he and Mark Attanasio have already had conversations about him staying on beyond 2023, and that he feels both happy and motivated. At this stage, I wouldn't read any negativity or danger into the fact that an extension isn't yet done. If that remains the case on March 1, we'll have to revisit the topic, but I'm operating under the assumption that Attanasio and Arnold both find Counsell (as I do) to be one of the five or six best managers in baseball. As long as he wants to be back, he's likely to be, though the leash will grow short and the seat warm if the team doesn't return to the playoffs this year.

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Finally, with spring training set to begin this week, there was a late flurry of cleanup activity on the free-agent market. The Cubs scooped up Michael Fulmer, a right-handed reliever. The Dodgers grabbed David Peralta, a left-handed DH who can fake an outfield corner spot when needed. Neither of those are high-impact moves, and either player would have been redundant for the Brewers, so the only impact involved is that the Cubs (projected by ZiPS to finish five games behind the Brewers as of Friday morning) edge a bit closer to them, and that the Dodgers get marginally safer from being caught if they end up battling Milwaukee for a Wild Card spot. 

When Andrew Chafin signed with the Diamondbacks, though, I did wince a little. First of all, the Diamondbacks, too, are in the sub-contender zone, but even closer on the Brewers' heels than are the Cubs. The ZiPS standings had them at 81 wins before the Chafin deal. They're one of those teams who could pose an especially unexpected and frustrating problem if the standings tend toward chaos come August and September. Chafin is a great fit for their thin bullpen. (As an aside, it's nice that he gets a second stint with the team who drafted him in 2011 and developed him patiently over the ensuing years.)

Secondly, though, Chafin would have helped the Brewers' bullpen, and they'd been one rumored landing spot for him. The relief corps leans extremely right-handed, with only Hoby Milner seemingly safely locked in from the left side. Ashby's injury enters into this conversation. So does the fact that Chafin would have offered a really good change of look and stuff profile from Milner and Ashby, and from the Brewers' staff as a whole. There are still ways Arnold can supplement Counsell's set of options, but Chafin was a very good one, now gone by the boards.

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That's a lot to chew on. As ever, I welcome your thoughts, on the projected standings; the trickle-down effects of Ashby's apparent unavailability early on; Counsell as this team's long-term leader; and the need (or not!) to further bolster the roster by scouring the free-agent scrapheap.

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[Frisbee Slider]

I am curious how ZiPS sees us three wins worse than last year. I think it is conceivable our offense and pitching is equal or greater than it was last year.

[Frisbee Slider]

Replacing Renfroe’s 2.7 WAR with a rookie or injured Winker could explain it?

[Jake McKibbin]

8 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

I am curious how ZiPS sees us three wins worse than last year. I think it is conceivable our offense and pitching is equal or greater than it was last year.

I'd agree... closing situation is a difference, but hitting looks far better lined up, and the brewers pitchers are probably somewhere between the 21 & 22 numbers

I could very easily make the argument the cards overperformed last year

I do find there's a natural bias to the prior years division champs too in how people talk about them too

[Matthew Trueblood]

18 minutes ago, Frisbee Slider said:

I am curious how ZiPS sees us three wins worse than last year. I think it is conceivable our offense and pitching is equal or greater than it was last year.

I tend to agree. We can go further into it after Baseball Prospectus releases their PECOTA projections throughout this week, but I see a couple of ways in which the Crew might systematically outperform projection systems’ estimations of them. Their depth is better than Dan’s numbers think—I’ll say that flatly—but I also *think* that they use that depth in a way that augments it, and that most projections can’t quite capture.

[Matthew Trueblood]

12 minutes ago, jakedood said:

I'd agree... closing situation is a difference, but hitting looks far better lined up, and the brewers pitchers are probably somewhere between the 21 & 22 numbers

I could very easily make the argument the cards overperformed last year

I do find there's a natural bias to the prior years division champs too in how people talk about them too

Maybe in how people talk about them, yeah. The projections themselves should actually resist that bias pretty well, though.

I still agree about St. Louis specifically. And if you think some of their stars were playing a bit above their true level last year, then the primacy of the most recent numbers even in a projection model will slant things slightly. Can’t wait to see what PECOTA thinks, starting tomorrow.

[BlightyBrew]

Mod edit: Stop posting that meme. We get it. You think the owner is cheap. It's gotten very old very quickly. Consider this a warning.

[Jake McKibbin]

9 minutes ago, Matthew Trueblood said:

I tend to agree. We can go further into it after Baseball Prospectus releases their PECOTA projections throughout this week, but I see a couple of ways in which the Crew might systematically outperform projection systems’ estimations of them. Their depth is better than Dan’s numbers think—I’ll say that flatly—but I also *think* that they use that depth in a way that augments it, and that most projections can’t quite capture.

PECOTA does usually seem to rate the Brewers a little higher doesn't it?

Be interesting to see between them which often turns out more accurately

[homer]

Once again, if you report a post please do not reply to that post Thank you. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

I agree about the Diamondbacks. I think they have a really good shot at being a disruptive force in the NL Wild Card race.

I don't have a real problem with an 83 win projection - as a 50th percentile projection, it's fine - but I'm surprised ZiPS likes the Cardinals that much more. While they're obviously a formidable team, I fee like a drop-off from Arenado and Goldschmidt is pretty likely and the Cards derived a ton of value from them last season while they still "only" won 93 games.

[Jake McKibbin]

Also, how does it predict the Giants to have so many wins? I've got to say I find that quite surprising

[sveumrules]

One possibility is maybe the evened out schedule?

Brewers will have fewer games against the Reds, Pirates and to a lesser extent Cubs.

Giants will have fewer games against the Padres and Dodgers.

[Brock Beauchamp]

23 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

One possibility is maybe the evened out schedule?

Brewers will have fewer games against the Reds, Pirates and to a lesser extent Cubs.

Giants will have fewer games against the Padres and Dodgers.

I just don't see this impacting more than a couple of games. Instead of facing good/bad teams, the aggregate opponent will be .500. When we're talking about changing about 20 games of the schedule, the net gain/loss there just won't be substantial most of the time. Instead of going 11-9, a team goes 9-11. That sort of thing.

[nate82]

10 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I just don't see this impacting more than a couple of games. Instead of facing good/bad teams, the aggregate opponent will be .500. When we're talking about changing about 20 games of the schedule, the net gain/loss there just won't be substantial most of the time. Instead of going 11-9, a team goes 9-11. That sort of thing.

You are looking at it incorrectly.  It is not the net gain/loss but the probability of the outcomes.

[Brock Beauchamp]

29 minutes ago, nate82 said:

You are looking at it incorrectly.  It is not the net gain/loss but the probability of the outcomes.

That’s a fair point given we’re discussing the NL Central. A loss of a couple of games does outsized damage to any Central team (in either league) seeing an easy path to the postseason that isn’t winning the division. 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I just don't see this impacting more than a couple of games. Instead of facing good/bad teams, the aggregate opponent will be .500. When we're talking about changing about 20 games of the schedule, the net gain/loss there just won't be substantial most of the time. Instead of going 11-9, a team goes 9-11. That sort of thing.

Obviously just a one year sample, but the Brewers went 42-34 against the NLC last year at 9-10 (STL, CHC), 11-8 (PIT) and 13-6 (CIN). Beat up on the PIT and CHC like they should have and there are the two wins that would have gotten them into the playoffs instead of PHI.

Giants went 33-43 against the NLW at 4-15 (LAD), 6-13 (SDP), 9-10 (ARI) and 14-5 (COL).

Only playing 52 games each instead of 76 against those respective slates of opponents will have an impact.