After a one-year hiatus due to the oddity and non-celebratory feeling of a season truncated by a raging pandemic, we’re bringing back the Elegy series in a streamlined format for a 2021 wrapup. Think of this as a quick winter preview for each team, discussing the questions that faced each team ahead of the year, how they were answered, and what’s next. Do you like or hate the new format? Let me know in the comments below! We’ve already tackled the AL Central; now on to its Senior Circuit counterpart.

Milwaukee Brewers (95–67)

The Big Question
Could Christian Yelich bounce back from a weak 2020 season? His .326/.402/.598 breakout season in 2018 netted him an MVP award, and he may have won back-to-back trophies if not for a fractured kneecap that ended his ’19 season prematurely. And while 2020 was a disappointment, you could at least chalk some of it up to a low BABIP.

The Brew Crew didn’t look like a 95-win team coming into the season, but in a weak division and with possible upside from players like Yelich and the contact-challenged Keston Hiura, you had to like their chances as much as anybody. Helping matters was a pitching staff that took a big step forward during the shortened season. Corbin Burnes provided an ample demonstration of why you shouldn’t freak out about homers allowed for otherwise effective pitchers, and Brandon Woodruff had an entire season at bonafide ace status. Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Analyst, Integrative Sports Performance

Description:
The Milwaukee Brewers Integrative Sports Performance department is looking to fill one (1) analyst position based in Phoenix, AZ for the 2022 Major League baseball season. The Integrative Sports Performance department is part of the larger Brewers Player Personnel Operations and work in conjunction with Strength & Conditioning, Player Development, Research & Development, and Medical to better serve our athletes. We desire candidates who exhibit a passion for player development through strong interpersonal skills and effective application of knowledge. Read the rest of this entry »

We have a hard time making ourselves feel it when probability offers good news. Going into Saturday’s NLCS Game 6, our ZiPS postseason game-by-game odds gave the Braves a 71.4% chance of advancing to the World Series. They had largely outplayed the Dodgers. Max Muncy and Justin Turner were still sidelined, and Joe Kelly had just joined them. Max Scherzer had been scratched with arm fatigue, leaving Walker Buehler to start on short rest. Game 7 might mean a bullpen game for Los Angeles, if there were a Game 7 at all. The Dodgers were up against it; the Braves, at worst, had another shot.

That is what we knew; feeling it was another matter. After all, the Dodgers had won 18 more regular-season games than the Braves, and in a harder division. They were riding a seven-game win streak in postseason elimination games, including an 11–2 drubbing in Game 5 to stay alive. Atlanta had dealt with injuries of its own, and this series had so far followed 2020’s pattern, causing an itchy bit of worry in the back of Braves fans’ minds as they remembered going up three-games-to-one in last year’s NLCS only to have Los Angeles claw its way back in Game 5 and take the next two. Ian Anderson, the Braves’ Game 6 starter, had only managed three innings in Game 2; Atlanta won, but he’d walked three and allowed two runs, and then there were all those bad first innings to think of. What if Eddie Rosario’s bat cooled? What if Chris Taylor’s didn’t? Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I reviewed the managerial decisions from the two teams that lost in the ALDS. With the NLDS now over, it’s time to do the same thing for the Brewers and Giants. As a reminder, I’m judging teams based on expectations, not results. Pinch hit for your MVP candidate with a pitcher? Not that it would ever happen, but you’d get an F for that. Bring in your best pitcher in a big spot, only to have him give up a three-run homer? That’s still an A, results notwithstanding.

These grades don’t cover everything that a manager does. Deploying your best players in the biggest spots and hiding their weaknesses where possible is a big part of a manager’s role, but it’s definitely not the only part. As an example, Kevin Cash and the entire Rays staff deserve a permanent A for their work in getting their pitchers and hitters ready for flexible roles all season long. Likewise, Dave Roberts and the Dodgers coaching staff benched a former MVP and seem to have kept the clubhouse roughly in order, always a tough task. None of that will be reflected in these rankings, but it’s absolutely important managerial work — it’s simply work I don’t have much insight into. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Read the rest of this entry »

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 »