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  • What Constitutes Success for the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers?


    Matthew Trueblood

    With the report date for pitchers and catchers less than a week away, it's time to turn our attention from offseason matters toward the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers season. In doing so, we have to answer one question first: What does this team need to do to call this year a success?

    Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports

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    Plainly, that's a question every fan has to answer for themselves. That doesn't mean there aren't some wrong answers, but there's a long list of right ones. This is a franchise still in search of its first World Series title, and just its second pennant. This year marks a quarter-century of play in the National League, and no National League pennant has yet belonged to the Brewers. The Bucks have won their championship. The Packers are a source of frequent frustration, but also perennial competitiveness, and they've won two titles in the lifetime of the average Brewers fan. It's fair to argue that this team, with three stars nearing free agency and one erstwhile superstar locked in for the long haul, needs to put an end to one of those droughts in order to be called a success.

    It's no less valid, though, to counter that the model of sustainable competition put in place by David Stearns and carried forward, now, by Matt Arnold depends on defining success more broadly than that. For that matter, Mark Attanasio thinks along the same lines. 

    "I hope to never go through a rebuild here," he said last Opening Day. "At the trade deadline, we'll be looking carefully. We definitely have some flexibility this year." He said all that in the context of trying to get the team over the hump and deeper into October, but come July, they used that flexibility in a different way. 

    While Corbin Burnes, Willy Adames, and Brandon Woodruff catch all the headlines, Eric Lauer is also only two years from free agency. Devin Williams is just three years away. This team has to at least contend this season, but given the way the front office and the owner each think about the challenge of winning consistently in a small market, we have to think through what shape success could take even if one of those players is traded before August begins.

    Certainly, a resurgent power season from Christian Yelich would shift the narrative on his contract in a welcome way. That narrative has already outstripped any real damage the team is suffering from having signed Yelich, though. His demise is much-exaggerated, especially in light of new defensive metrics from Baseball Prospectus that show him to have been almost perfectly average over the last three years. (The previous state of the art in defensive evaluation marked him almost 10 runs worse.)

    Most important, though, especially because of the way this team prefers to operate, is what we see from young players. If Jackson Chourio's development continues at anywhere near the pace and the level that it sustained last year, he'll arrive in the majors during the second half and make an immediate impact. Even failing that perfect an outcome, they should have the playing time and the normal evaluative conditions to get a firmer handle on which of Sal Frelick, Garrett Mitchell, and Joey Wiemer can be long-term regulars in the outfield. The same goes for Luis Urías and Brice Turang on the infield. Walker McKinven will try to prove, once again, the team's prowess at developing catcher defense, which could render William Contreras a superstar if it works yet again.

    I'm willing to give a list of boxes that need to be checked for this year to be a success, even if the championship eludes the club again.

    1. The team should resolve the uncertainty around at least two of Woodruff, Adames, and Burnes. Extensions are ideal, of course, and I'd certainly hope for at least one of those, but failing that, they should exploit the trade market and get back more controllable talent, staying competitive while sowing more of the seeds of long-term contention. Their organizational paradigm won't do well with the challenges that come if two of these guys are just a year from free agency come the fall.
    2. The outfield of the medium-term future needs to be clear. If Tyrone Taylor has his hoped-for breakout, terrific, but it seems more likely that they'll need to see at least two of Mitchell, Frelick, Wiemer, and Chourio have good years in order to feel the kind of confidence I'm talking about. That's a reasonable hope, given the caliber of those young players, but it's far from guaranteed.
    3. Another pitcher emerges. With Aaron Ashby starting spring training behind schedule, and with the myriad questions that encircle the top four starters on staff, the team needs to enjoy another breakout performance, like the ones they've gotten from Woodruff, Burnes, Freddy Peralta, and Lauer in succession over the last four years. Chris Hook has more than adequately replaced Derek Johnson, which seemed so improbable upon his departure, but now he faces another tough test. Given what Hook does well, I would sooner bet on Robert Gasser or Jansen Junk than Ethan Small to make the leap required, but all three are candidates. So, for that matter, is Bryse Wilson, although his opportunities to prove himself as a starter for 2023 will be much more limited. The same goes for Gus Varland.
    4. The team has to make the playoffs. This is a "last but not least" situation, if ever there was one. All four of these criteria are, to me, necessary, but none of them are sufficient without the rest.

    The infallibility of some of the larger-market NL Wild Card contenders has been oversold. The Cardinals are hardly an unbeatable division favorite. The Brewers have to play some home games at Miller Park in the playoffs in order to call their season a success. That said, there are good cases to be made that they can be successful without winning the pennant, or even winning the division. Again, though, this is deeply subjective, and I welcome your thoughts and your lists of criteria for a satisfying Brewers year.

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    2 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

    The offense definitely has potential outcomes both positive and negative in comparison to last year, but I think the upside is much higher this year with Winker, Contreras and some rookies coming up. If things go right we could push for a top 10 offense in all of baseball (finished 11th in wRC+ last year I believe)

    Yeah, ended up 11th in wRC+, 10th in runs scored and 8th in position player WAR last year.

    Mariners, Guardians, Phillies, Padres and Rays all made the playoffs with lower position player WAR.

    Brewers pitchers ended up 14th in rWAR. Only Toronto made the postseason with lower rWAR from their pitchers.

    The offense was much closer to playoff calibre than the pitching was in 2022.

    So in a macro sense, to improve on 2022 this year we’ll need the pitching to bounce back closer to 2021 levels and hope the offense can hold serve or maybe improve slightly.

    Outgoing players (Renfroe, Wong, Omar, Cain, Jace, Cutch) accounted for about 8 WAR so we’ll need Winker, Contreras, Anderson and the various rookies to make that up.

    Something else I found kind of interesting was that Cain (-12.4), Omar (-10.0), Jace (-1.5) and Cutch (-1.2) combined for -25.1 batting runs in their 1,360 PAs, essentially canceling out the good that Renfroe (+14.5) and Wong (+9.6) provided in their 1,019 PAs.

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    Don’t have the time to read the article or comments right now, but a successful 2023 for the Brewers is 1 of 2 scenarios with virtually no variation:

    1.) Brewers narrowly make the postseason via a wild card spot while relying on their starting pitching depth once again with an early elimination from the postseason.

    2.) Brewers are not contending around the trade deadline or, at the very least, clearly have no shot of a division title and decide to capitalize on the most valuable major league assets by selling in order to build the best, deepest young organization and farm system in baseball.  This would set them up for competitive baseball for years and years to come as well as free up salary space.

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    I agree with many of these answers if we are talking about success of the Brewers over the next few years.  But the question is what is success for 2023?  That has to be one thing.  Get to the playoffs and either win it all or at least go deep in the playoffs.  If the Brewers are not going to make it, then I am fine with trading off a star or two before they leave for Free Agency but I would not call that 2023 Success.  That's called failure and trying to make the best of it.

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    On 2/11/2023 at 7:08 AM, ClosetBrewerFan said:

    I agree with many of these answers if we are talking about success of the Brewers over the next few years.  But the question is what is success for 2023?  That has to be one thing.  Get to the playoffs and either win it all or at least go deep in the playoffs.  If the Brewers are not going to make it, then I am fine with trading off a star or two before they leave for Free Agency but I would not call that 2023 Success.  That's called failure and trying to make the best of it.

    People see success differently. If I run a drug company, and the research department finds the cure for cancer in 2023, but it won't be available commercially until 2024 or 2025, I would still consider that a very successful year. 

    In other words, if we use 2023 as a springboard to future success, than that could be viewed as a successful season, even if the major league team didn't play to expectations.

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    The 2022 team was quite possibly the least entertaining Brewers team to watch over the last decade. This was fueled by an oftentimes anemic offense, along with starting pitching injuries that brought the team's record quickly back down to earth after an terrific start. I think that if we see a healthier rotation, along with better performances from the guys occupying the 6th-8th spots on the rotational depth chart as needed, combined with more consistent offensive production, that would constitute a successful year. It will at least be a much more entertaining year. This team became a chore to watch near the end of summer last year. Of course, should that good stuff happen, we are likely looking at 90+ wins and a divisional crown.

    The playoffs are a crapshoot. We can only hope that the team catches fire in August/September and carries it over to the payoffs. 

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    The last time a league's playoff field repeated was the AL in 1998/99 when NYY, BOS, CLE and TEX took all four postseason spots in consecutive years. 

    Even during the post-Expansion/pre-Wild Card era (1969-93) there were only five repeat league playoff fields and that was when you only needed two teams to achieve it.

    I'm not a mathmetologist, but the odds of all six of ATL, NYM, PHI, STL, LAD and SDP repeating as NL playoffs teams next year is probably quite a bit smaller than what it looks like on the surface or feels like in one's gut.
     

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    3 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

    The 2022 team was quite possibly the least entertaining Brewers team to watch over the last decade. This was fueled by an oftentimes anemic offense,

    I still get a chuckle when people say this. We had the 11th best wRC+ in baseball and were one of the most consistent teams at scoring 4+ and 5+ runs per game. Our offense wasn’t anemic. League-wide offense was anemic because the MLB can’t stop messing with baseballs. 

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    5 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

    I still get a chuckle when people say this. We had the 11th best wRC+ in baseball and were one of the most consistent teams at scoring 4+ and 5+ runs per game. Our offense wasn’t anemic. League-wide offense was anemic because the MLB can’t stop messing with baseballs. 

    Granted I did no research to back up my claim. I doubt that I would be the only one who would say that the 2022 team was kind of a chore to follow, though. Perhaps it was a lack of personality in the 2022 squad? I remember a few offensive explosion-type games, but a lot of <3 run games as well. I suppose those offensive explosions do tend to up the average runs per game, but I don't think that saying that the 2022 Brewers offense was regularly inconsistent and often anemic is out of line. 

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    38 minutes ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

    Granted I did no research to back up my claim. I doubt that I would be the only one who would say that the 2022 team was kind of a chore to follow, though. Perhaps it was a lack of personality in the 2022 squad? I remember a few offensive explosion-type games, but a lot of <3 run games as well. I suppose those offensive explosions do tend to up the average runs per game, but I don't think that saying that the 2022 Brewers offense was regularly inconsistent and often anemic is out of line. 

    Brewers ended up 10th in runs scored (725) last year. Padres (705 | 13th), Guardians (698 | 15th), Mariners (690 | 18th) and Rays (666 | 21st) all made the playoffs scoring fewer runs. Even the vaunted Phillies with big money bats like Harper, Schwarber, Castellanos and JTR only scored 22 more runs (747 | 8th) than the Brewers last year. 

    The Brewers offense may have been regularly consistent and often anemic, but multiple teams made the playoffs with offenses that were more irregular and anemic.

    All twelve playoff teams surrendered fewer than the Brewers 688 R (16th).

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    30 minutes ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

    Granted I did no research to back up my claim. I doubt that I would be the only one who would say that the 2022 team was kind of a chore to follow, though. Perhaps it was a lack of personality in the 2022 squad? I remember a few offensive explosion-type games, but a lot of <3 run games as well. I suppose those offensive explosions do tend to up the average runs per game, but I don't think that saying that the 2022 Brewers offense was regularly inconsistent and often anemic is out of line. 

    Top 10 4+ R games

    1. Dodgers 109

    2. Cardinals 100

    3. Braves 99

    4. Blue Jays 98

    ---Red Sox 98

    6. Brewers 97

    7. Mets 95

    8. Phillies 94

    9. Yankees 93

    10. Diamondbacks 91

    ----Gaurdians 91

     

    Top 10 5+ R games

    1. Dodgers 86

    2. Cardinals 83

    3. Mets 81

    4. Braves 80

    5. Yankees 79

    6. Brewers 78

    7. Blue Jays 77

    8. Red Sox 74

    9. Diamondbacks 73

    10. Mariners 71

     

    Top 10 <3 R games

    1. Dodgers 32

    2. Braves 35

    3. Blue Jays 38

    4. Astros 45

    5. Phillies 46

    ---Diamondbacks 46

    7. White Sox 47

    ----Cardinals 47

    8. Red Sox 48

    ---Brewers 48

    ----Mets 48

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    Well I stand corrected. 

    In any case, I have typically not ever been much of an "eye test" guy, but I guess I made that assumption in this case. Perhaps the numbers do not actually back up my claim, but I'll still say that the 2022 team just didn't have the excitement that past teams brought to the table.

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    2 minutes ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

    Well I stand corrected. 

    In any case, I have typically not ever been much of an "eye test" guy, but I guess I made that assumption in this case. Perhaps the numbers do not actually back up my claim, but I'll still say that the 2022 team just didn't have the excitement that past teams brought to the table.

    The issue is people remember the low scoring games the Brewers lost than the other games. The issue without question was the pitching. We allowed 4+ runs 90 (12th most in baseball) times and only held opponents to <3 runs 51 times. (T-14th with 4 other teams)

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    27 minutes ago, Redd Vencher said:

    The issue is people remember the low scoring games the Brewers lost than the other games. The issue without question was the pitching. We allowed 4+ runs 90 (12th most in baseball) times and only held opponents to <3 runs 51 times. (T-14th with 4 other teams)

    I think the bigger issue is that offense was down league wide and most people just didn't pay attention to that when looking at raw OPS/BA numbers. League average OPS last year was .706 which is .022 lower than 2021. Runs per game were at 4.28 which was .25 lower than 2021. Both of these numbers seeing sizable drops despite the introduction of the universal DH is the biggest reason why people think the offense was worse than what it actually was last year.

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    22 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

    I think the bigger issue is that offense was down league wide and most people just didn't pay attention to that when looking at raw OPS/BA numbers. League average OPS last year was .706 which is .022 lower than 2021. Runs per game were at 4.28 which was .25 lower than 2021. Both of these numbers seeing sizable drops despite the introduction of the universal DH is the biggest reason why people think the offense was worse than what it actually was last year.

    That's big part of it as well, but the perception is a team trying to win 2-1 and struggling to overcome when the "slugfest" wins are more common even in the depressed run environment.

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    A more consistent offense {fewer strikeouts} and a better more consistent bullpen. I like the new look bullpen and believe the brewers will have 90+ wins. 

    Getting the young pitchers{minor league} another year of successful pitching is high on my list of priorities.

    Signing Woody to an extension.

    Getting Frelick, Weimer and Turang to the big-league club and having success. I know if they are up, we are probably not having success, but I would love to see them.

     

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    35 minutes ago, brewerralph said:

    A more consistent offense {fewer strikeouts} and a better more consistent bullpen. I like the new look bullpen and believe the brewers will have 90+ wins. 

     

     

    That’s where the rubber is going to meet the road right?

    With Boxberger, Suter, Hader, Gott pitching elsewhere, there are a lot of innings to be covered by guys who are question marks, not to mention the 120 innings or so that Gustave, Perdomo, Kelley and Rogers covered last year. 
     

    Absent a late addition or two, this team could bear a resemblance to the 2012 club where the bullpen did them in despite good starting pitching and good hitting.

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    22 hours ago, Ron Robinsons Beard said:

    The 2022 team was quite possibly the least entertaining Brewers team to watch over the last decade.

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

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    21 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

    That’s where the rubber is going to meet the road right?

    With Boxberger, Suter, Hader, Gott pitching elsewhere, there are a lot of innings to be covered by guys who are question marks, not to mention the 120 innings or so that Gustave, Perdomo, Kelley and Rogers covered last year. 
     

    Absent a late addition or two, this team could bear a resemblance to the 2012 club where the bullpen did them in despite good starting pitching and good hitting.

    Not having Hader’s 4.24 ERA & Roger’s 5.48 ERA should help with the performance of this year‘s bullpen over  last year’s pen.

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    16 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

    With Boxberger, Suter, Hader, Gott pitching elsewhere, there are a lot of innings to be covered by guys who are question marks, not to mention the 120 innings or so that Gustave, Perdomo, Kelley and Rogers covered last year. 

    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.

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    23 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

    That’s where the rubber is going to meet the road right?

    With Boxberger, Suter, Hader, Gott pitching elsewhere, there are a lot of innings to be covered by guys who are question marks, not to mention the 120 innings or so that Gustave, Perdomo, Kelley and Rogers covered last year. 
     

    Absent a late addition or two, this team could bear a resemblance to the 2012 club where the bullpen did them in despite good starting pitching and good hitting.

    Thing is, though, is that none of those guys, save for Hader until June, gave us irreplaceable innings. They ranged from slightly above average (Boxberger) to average (Suter) to well below average (Kelly). 

    Strzelecki, Cousins, etc., guys with promising underlying pitch profiles and underlying metrics, getting more innings will help. Granted, this bullpen will be a lot more unproven, but there’s definite talent here headlined by an elite closer in Devin. The 2012 bullpen didn’t even have that…

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    5 minutes ago, SF70 said:

    Not having Hader’s 4.24 ERA & Roger’s 5.48 ERA should help with the performance of this year‘s bullpen over  last year’s pen.

    Even with just how good Devin Williams was last season, and Hader up to the end of June with his 0 earned runs, Milwaukee were 17th in Bullpen ERA last season, with 3.94. I'd expect even the mashpot this season could put up a number similar to that

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    5 minutes ago, jakedood said:

    Even with just how good Devin Williams was last season, and Hader up to the end of June with his 0 earned runs, Milwaukee were 17th in Bullpen ERA last season, with 3.94. I'd expect even the mashpot this season could put up a number similar to that

    Yep. Huge part of why we missed the playoffs. Contrary to popular opinion, it wasn’t the offense…

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    It really wasn't the offense. Theoretically if Hader held one more game without a blow up, we'd have beaten the Phillies and held the tiebreaker, likely being in the playoffs.

    That and the number of starts Alexander gave us... that Yankees game where we scored 8 runs and didn't win was criminal

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    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.

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