Please note, this posting contains three positions.

The Milwaukee Brewers are looking to add talented people to their Baseball Research and Development department. The R&D team is involved in every aspect of the organization, including acquisition, player development and scouting and works closely with those departments to build processes and tools for decision making.

The Brewers are looking for people who ask important questions and have the ability to start to answer them. They primarily use R and SQL, with some Python mixed in, but they’ll help you learn their tools if you’re more comfortable with a different set. Having existing knowledge of baseball and sabermetrics is helpful, but not required.

R&D team members generally work 40 to 45 hour weeks, although many choose to stay and attend home games during the season. There can be some weekend support and there are certain times of year (draft, trade deadline) where there may be additional needs. Some travel to spring training or minor league affiliates may be required for full-time positions. All positions will start in Milwaukee, but may have the potential for remote down the road. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Intern – International Scouting

Summary:
The Intern – International Scouting will assist the Milwaukee Brewers player acquisition in the foreign amateur and professional spaces in an office-based role. This position will include both talent evaluation of players and support of the day-to-day functions of the International Scouting department.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following:
Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Other duties may be assigned:

• Learn about and support evaluative methods and efforts within the International Scouting department
• Assist decision-making systems and processes
• Support operational, compliance, and administrative tasks to ensure high-functioning departmental workflow
• Manage video library as compiled by the International Scouting staff
• Fulfill any additional needs of Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Operations as requested

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There isn’t much missing from Freddie Freeman’s sterling career. He’s won an MVP, hit for the cycle, racked up 42 WAR, captured a pair of Silver Sluggers, and has already made five All-Star teams. That’s not quite enough for Cooperstown on its own, but he’s probably only a few more star caliber seasons away from a pretty good Hall of Fame case, and given that he’s only 32, he’s got time to pad his resume. With apologies to a criminally under-photographed snowmobile ride with Chipper Jones, the only thing missing from Freeman’s career has been an iconic moment.

No longer. In the eighth inning of a 4-4 tie in Tuesday’s NLDS Game 4, Freeman stepped to the plate against Josh Hader. Hader, of course, is the sport’s best relief pitcher and an absolute terror against lefties. He hadn’t given up a homer to a lefty all year, hadn’t surrendered a run since July, and hadn’t given the two previous hitters much of a chance to hit his nasty fastball/slider combo. On his first pitch to Freeman though, his bender caught too much plate and one chance was all that Freeman needed:

Milwaukee mustered a leadoff single in the ninth, but never got any closer to tying the game. Freeman’s late dinger ultimately clinched the series, and ensured the Braves wouldn’t rue a day that could have been defined by risky gambles and opportunities missed. Read the rest of this entry »

Freddy Peralta was cruising. He had thrown four shutout innings, allowing three hits (and only three batted balls over 100 mph), walking one and striking out five on just 57 pitches. Ian Anderson was arguably even better: five scoreless frames, three hits allowed, and six strikeouts. But with a chance to put something on the board in a scoreless game during a series where runs have been scarce, both managers pulled their starters, who both seemingly had plenty left in the tank, to take a shot at creating instant offense. It didn’t work out for the Brewers, but it worked out wonderfully for the Braves, and that combination of outcomes is why Atlanta now has a 2–1 series lead thanks to a 3–0 victory on Monday afternoon at home.

The game might not have had many runs, but it certain had plenty of drama in the first four innings. Atlanta blew a golden opportunity in the second inning when, with runners on first and third with one out, Travis d’Arnaud lofted a fly ball to left field. Neither deep nor shallow, it was still enough to serve as a sacrifice fly to give the Braves an early lead. But nobody told Adam Duvall on first, or, to be fair in sharing the blame, Austin Riley on third. Once Christian Yelich caught the ball, Riley broke for home — not lollygagging it by any stretch, but not full effort either. That proved to be critical, as Duvall, for reasons only he possibly understands (or maybe even now doesn’t), tried to go from first to second. Yelich threw Duvall out before Riley touched home, and the game remained scoreless.

The Brewers, meanwhile, didn’t come close to getting on the board until the pivotal fifth inning, when an Omar Narváez double — only Milwaukee’s third extra-base hit of the series — gave the team runners at second and third to begin the top of the frame. Dansby Swanson made an exceptional play (one of two on the afternoon) on a blistering ground ball off the bat of Lorenzo Cain for the first out, and with Peralta due to hit, the game had its first inflection point. Craig Counsell’s decision was to pull his effective starter for pinch-hitter Daniel Vogelbach.

Vogelbach, though, grounded into a fielder’s choice that resulted in an out at home. Kolten Wong then smacked a hard line drive with an expected batting average of .700, but right at first baseman Freddie Freeman. For the 20th time in 21 innings (and now 25 of 26), the Brewers put up another zero.

The removal of Peralta didn’t work on a run-scoring level, and it failed on a run-prevention one as well, as the first man out of the bullpen, Adrian Houser, simply didn’t have it. Two quick singles put Brian Snitker in a similar situation as Counsell in the top half of the frame, and the decision was the same: pull the starter, replacing Anderson with Joc Pederson. But after getting a swing and a miss on an elevated fastball, Houser went back to the well with the same pitch, and Pederson didn’t miss it, mashing a three-run home run (one which gave Atlanta the highest-scoring inning of the series). The Braves cruised from there as a quartet of relievers finished the job, each delivering a scoreless inning.

Counsell’s strategy was defensible. His bullpen has been strong all year, and lifting Peralta would leave him available in relief for one or two innings if a Game 5 became necessary. More importantly, Milwaukee needed to score runs, as its offense has gone AWOL in the postseason — though it’s not as if the Brewers were all that present in the regular season, either. While they finished sixth in the NL in runs scored, they also ranked just 11th in OPS and wRC+, and even that mediocre performance needed in-season boosts from Willy Adames, Eduardo Escobar and Rowdy Tellez to avoid a worse finish.

The problems are myriad. Yelich never got going. Cain isn’t a star anymore. Jackie Bradley Jr. was a disaster at the plate, and Keston Hiura generated more questions than answers as the team’s first baseman of the future. With one of the best rotations in the game and arguably the best manager of bullpens in all of baseball, the Brewers didn’t need all that many runs to be a very good team, but they certainly needed some runs, and that just hasn’t happened in the playoffs. Tellez’ dramatic home run in the seventh inning of Game 1 off of Charlie Morton remains the only time in 26 innings that the Brewers have crossed the plate. Here is the back of the baseball card for Milwaukee after today’s loss:

Obviously, that should generate more than two runs, but a miserable 0-for-16 with runners in scoring position adds insult to the offensive injuries.

There is no one player to blame for this kind of full-team failure; every Brewer regular has at least one hit, but Adames, with four, is the only one with more than two. The Braves have not only prevented hits — Swanson and Riley in particular have done terrific work on the left side of the infield — but also prevented balls in play at all for some of Milwaukee’s biggest names: Adames, Yelich, Escobar and Avisaíl García have combined for 23 whiffs in 44 plate appearances.

For much of the 2021 season, the talk around the Milwaukee Brewers was how well they were positioned for a postseason run thanks to arguably the best 1-2-3 rotation combo in the business. Those starters have done their job against Atlanta, allowing just three runs on ten hits over an aggregate of 16 innings, good for a 1.69 ERA. What wasn’t talked about enough was a fringy offense, and it’s the latter that has the Brewers on the brink of elimination without any of that magical starting trio available in anything but emergency relief use in Game 4 on Tuesday afternoon.

In wrapping up Game 1 of the ALDS between the Rays and the Red Sox, I noted that however inventive or even correct the pitching strategies of Alex Cora were, none of it mattered at all if his team couldn’t score. Boston’s bats have come to life in a big way, though; now Milwaukee can just hope for the same. We can debate all day as to whether or not Counsell should have pulled Peralta, but in the end, nine more goose eggs on the scoreboard made the argument irrelevant.

For both the Braves and Brewers, postseason success shares a similar blueprint: length from the starters, timely hits from the lineup, hope for the best with the bullpen (albeit at different times). Milwaukee executed that to perfection in Game 1 of this NLDS; in Game 2, it was Atlanta’s turn, with the Braves drawing the series even with a 3–0 win.

The difference on Saturday was Max Fried, who out-dueled Brandon Woodruff with six shutout innings, striking out nine against just three hits and zero walks. The lefty needed only 81 pitches to record his 18 outs before giving way to three relievers, who dodged plenty of trouble but managed to secure the final three frames with no damage. Like Corbin Burnes in Game 1, Fried didn’t so much beat opposing batters as brush them aside; Willy Adames was the lone Brewer to make it as far as second base against him on a sixth-inning double. Most of his outing was whiffs and soft contact, with Adames’ double the only ball in play he allowed to crack the 100 mph exit velocity mark. At-bats and innings were over in flashes.

The explanation for Fried’s success is simple: He threw strikes. Of his 81 pitches, 58 were in the zone, a 71.6% rate, which he pounded with his four-seamer — humming in at 95 mph on average — before busting out his slider and curve to finish things. Not normally a big swing-and-miss pitcher, he racked up a dozen whiffs on the day, six on the slider, to go with a CSW (called strikes + whiffs) rate of 40%; of his nine strikeouts, seven were swinging. By the time the middle innings rolled around, he’d found a groove: The final 10 Brewers hitters he faced all started their at-bats with a strike, and just two of them reached base. Read the rest of this entry »

The National League Division Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers got off to a low-scoring start on Friday afternoon, with Corbin Burnes dueling Charlie Morton for six innings. Offense was nearly nowhere to be found, as the teams combined for just nine hits against 18 strikeouts. The three runs came on two hits: a two-run shot by Rowdy Tellez in the bottom of the seventh and a solo follow-up by Joc Pederson the next half-inning:

That wasn’t the only big moment of the night by Tellez, as the husky first baseman made a solid throw to nail Jorge Soler at the plate for the back end of an Ozzie Albies double play ball in the first inning. That run turned out to be the difference. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite reaching the playoffs in dramatically different ways, the Brewers (95–67, NL Central champions) and Braves (88–73, NL East champions) look rather alike. Our power rankings give Atlanta the slight edge, but our projections land slightly on the side of Milwaukee. And while the Brewers may have the advantage in record, the Braves had a better run differential. To make matters even tighter, they split their season series, 3–3. Still, our staff predictions, where 26 of 28 folks chose the Brewers, would suggest that this is the most lopsided of the first-round matchups, but I don’t think that captures how close this series is on paper.

The Brewers won the NL Central with elite starting pitching that helped make up for their poor offense, which scored just enough runs to make those starts stand up. The Braves have a more well-rounded team that is strong on offense, pitching and defense, but is perhaps not elite anywhere.

Milwaukee coasted into the playoffs, with a 52–27 stretch in the heart of the season giving them a 99.9% chance to win the division on September 1. Going 14–15 in that final month may have made fans uneasy heading into October, but Craig Counsell was able to use his team’s large lead to go a bit easier on a pitching staff that will be asked to do the heaviest lifting going forward.

Of more concern for the Brewers is the injury to Devin Williams, who broke his hand while celebrating the division clinch and will miss the postseason. He was their best right-handed option out of the pen, and his loss will put added pressure on Brad Boxberger, Hunter Strickland and Jake Cousins, all of whom move up a rung on the ladder and none of whom are sure bets. Boxberger had a great season but pitched poorly in September, with 10 earned runs and three homers allowed in 8.2 innings. Strickland has been stellar since joining the Brewers in mid-June, but that came with a .198 BABIP. Cousins has the most electric stuff of the trio but is fresh off a biceps injury that kept him out of Milwaukee’s final week of games.

Unlike the Brewers, the Braves have been playing meaningful games all September, sweeping a big series against the Phillies at the end of the month and surviving just enough shaky outings from volatile closer Will Smith to clinch their fourth straight division crown. That latest title did not come easy. Atlanta lost its best player, Ronald Acuña Jr., to a torn ACL on July 10th, and went without one of their best pitchers all season when Mike Soroka suffered a setback in his recovery from an Achilles tear. Add some poor play to the mix, and the Braves had just a 10.4% chance to win the NL East on the day of the trade deadline. But thanks to a number of small moves made at the deadline, like bringing in Eddie Rosario, Adam Duvall, and Jorge Soler, the team took off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday afternoon, Corbin Burnes made several uncharacteristic missteps. He walked Max Muncy on five pitches, only the 34th walk he’d issued all year. The next batter, Justin Turner, deposited a 3-1 cutter into the left field stands for a three-run home run, only the seventh Burnes had allowed all season.

He pitched another inning without incident, then — back in the lead in the ERA race after briefly falling behind Max Scherzer — came out of the game for good, his regular season now complete. That ineffective outing might worry Brewers fans for the playoffs, but it also emphasized how spectacular the rest of his year has been. Surrendering a walk and a home run? It happens to everyone — batters hit 5,944 homers this season, third-most in history, and walked roughly 9% of the time they came to the plate. But it doesn’t happen to Burnes — and that’s why he deserves to win the NL Cy Young this year.

There’s no single criteria for the most outstanding pitcher in the National League, but in my eyes, Burnes has claims on several axes, and no real warts. More than that, his 2021 season is a towering achievement, one that we’ll hear about in 20 years when we talk about the best pitching seasons in history. Read the rest of this entry »

The Brewers clinched the NL Central title on Sunday, becoming the third team to wrap up their division after the Rays and White Sox. The occasion was certainly cause for celebration, but one key player took things too far. Devin Williams, the team’s top setup man, fractured his right hand — his pitching hand, that is — punching a wall and will require surgery that could keep him out through at least the National League Championship Series and perhaps longer.

Renowned for his Airbender changeup, one of the game’s most effective and unhittable pitches, Williams won NL Rookie of the Year honors and Trevor Hoffman National League Reliever of the Year honors in 2020 while posting a 0.33 ERA and 0.86 FIP in 27 innings. A bout of right shoulder soreness, later diagnosed as a rotator cuff strain, kept him off the Brewers’ roster during last year’s Wild Card Series, during which the team was swept in two games by the Dodgers.

Though he did not require surgery, Williams was brought along slowly in the spring, and scuffled early in the season. He missed 10 days in July due to right elbow discomfort and was limited to five appearances in September due to a right calf injury but still posted a 2.50 ERA and 2.81 FIP in 54 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

Noah Campbell, UTIL, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Carolina Age: 22 Org Rank: NR FV: 30
Line: 0-for-4, BB, 1 IP, SV, played all nine positions

Notes
Campbell has played mostly 1B/3B/LF this year but also has had a handful of games at either middle infield spot; yesterday was the fourth time this season he has pitched but his first action in center field. A likely org guy more than a prospect, Campbell is wrapping up a nice first pro season, slashing .270/.388/.387 with 20 steals and one big, rare feather in his cap because of yesterday’s game.

JP Sears, LHP, New York Yankees
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Somerset Age: 25 Org Rank: NR FV: 35
Line: 6 IP, 3 H, 0 BB, 1 R, 7 K

Notes
Sears was drafted by Seattle in 2017 and traded to New York later that year as part of the package (with Juan Then) for Nick Rumbelow. He began the year as a swingman, pitching multiple innings out of the Double-A bullpen and making an occasional spot start. By July, Sears grabbed hold of a rotation spot and held it amid a promotion to Triple-A, where he has a 3.05 ERA and a 51-to-9 K-to-BB ratio in 41 innings. Sears is throwing a little harder this season, averaging just a shade over 93 mph on his fastball after sitting 90-92 and topping out at 93 in 2019. He works with flat fastball angle at the top of the zone, his slider has utility as a backfoot offering to righties, and Sears’ changeup is passable. He’s a perfectly fine spot starter candidate, the sort the Yankees rarely rely on but often find a trade outlet for. Read the rest of this entry »