Here’s an advertisement I saw while reading an article earlier this morning:

I know how internet advertising works. I know it doesn’t matter that I saw that ad while reading an article that had nothing to do with sports. The internet knows I spend a lot of time on baseball websites. Hence, a baseball ad. But the specific ad itself doesn’t know that I’ve been interested in Eric Thames. That ad was prepped with Thames in the middle of it. It wasn’t prepped before the start of the season — it wouldn’t have made sense to feature Thames, or really any Brewer. This ad is a reflection of how well Thames started the year. It’s a reflection of how quickly he achieved broad recognition. Eric Thames was selected to help promote MLB.tv. Not Mike Trout. Not Bryce Harper. Eric Thames.

Thames’ start was absolutely incredible. He hit the ground sprinting, and I’m sure you remember all the coverage he was given. He was, and still is, a heck of a story. The Brewers are still happy to have him. But it’s worth pointing out that Thames hasn’t been the same. For whatever reason, he’s slipped into a slump.

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In addition to calling up stud center-field prospect Lewis Brinson, Milwaukee also recently summoned talented lefty and KATOH crush Josh Hader. Although Hader’s worked primarily as starter in the minors, the Brewers plan to use him out of the bullpen for the time being. A 19th-round pick out of high school, Hader’s been exceeding expectations for years. He owns a 3.87 FIP and 27% strikeout rate in 541 minor-league innings. In 25 starts between Double-A and Triple-A last year, he pitched to a sparkling 3.07 FIP with a 31% strikeout rate.

Things didn’t go as swimmingly for Hader in Triple-A this year, however. He maintained a solid 22% strikeout rate, but matched it with a 14% walk rate and coughed up an uncharacteristic 14 homers in 52 innings. The end result was a 5.37 ERA and 4.93 xFIP, which doesn’t exactly scream “big-league ready.”

Still, KATOH remains optimistic. My system projects Hader for 5.0 WAR over his first six seasons by the traditional method and 5.7 WAR by KATOH+, which incorporates scouting rankings. That makes him one of the top 10 pitching prospects in the minors, and a mid-top-100 guy overall.

To put some faces to Hader’s statistical profile, let’s generate some statistical comps for the 6-foot-3 lefty. I calculated a weighted Mahalanobis distance between Hader’s Double-A and Triple-A performance and every season since 1991. In the table below, you’ll find the 10 most similar seasons, ranked from most to least similar. The WAR totals refer to each player’s first six seasons in the major leagues. A lower “Mah Dist” reading indicates a closer comp.

Please note that the Mahalanobis analysis is separate from KATOH. KATOH relies on macro-level trends, rather than comps. The fates of a few statistically similar players shouldn’t be used to draw sweeping conclusions about a prospect’s future. For this reason, I recommend using a player’s KATOH forecast to assess his future potential. The comps give us some interesting names that sometimes feel spot-on, but they’re mostly just there for fun.

Despite his relative lack of prospect pedigree, Hader’s stuff is almost certainly of big-league quality. The lefty’s fastball averaged over 94 mph in his debut, and both his slider and changeup project to plus according to Eric Longenhagen. However, scouts have long contended that Hader profiles best as a reliever. To wit:

• Eric Longenhagen, 2017: “Those who consider him a reliever cite the rarity of a delivery like this in starting rotations across baseball, the potential platoon issues Hader might face as a low-slot lefty, and his fringey control.”
• Baseball America Prospect Handbook, 2016: “His reliance on his outstanding fastball combined with just ordinary control make him a possible bullpen candidate.”
• Baseball America Prospect Handbook, 2015: “Durability will always be a question because of Hader’s size and how he slings the ball across his body… His reliance on his fastball profiles him better as a reliever.”
• Baseball America Prospect Handbook, 2014: “It’s one of the most unconventional deliveries a starter could use… Scouts see him as a future lefty reliever where his low arm angle will make life difficult for lefthanders.”

Despite the persistent “future reliever” label, Hader dominated for years as a starter in the minors. But when he finally sputtered in Triple-A, the Brewers seemingly decided to try him in the pen. Given his stuff and minor-league performance, I have little doubt that he’ll be a dominant force there.

Three months ago, few would have predicted the Brewers would be atop the National League Central in June, but here we are. The Cardinals, Cubs, and Pirates have all fallen short of preseason expectations, while Milwaukee has surprisingly kept their record above .500. Regardless of what the standings say, Milwaukee’s roster pales in comparison to the Cubs’ and Cardinals’ on paper, which is why we give the Brewers a mere 3% chance of winning the division.

Milwaukee’s team just got a bit better, however, as they’ve called up top prospect Lewis Brinson to play some outfield. Brinson was having a fine season in Triple-A, slashing .312/.397/.503. He’s hit very well for a center fielder — and exceptionally well for a good defensive center fielder who’s only 23.

Brinson’s come a long way since his early days as a professional, especially in the strikeout department. He struck out an alarming 38% of the time in Low-A back in 2013, but has hacked several percentage points off that mark since. His 22% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year is still a bit high, but not alarmingly so. He’s made this improvement without giving up much in other categories, either. His 20 extra-base hits, seven steals, healthy walk rate, and center-field defense more than outweigh the remaining strikeout risk.

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There’s not a soul out there that thought the 2017 Brewers would be as good as the 2017 Cubs. There’s not a soul out there that thinks the 2017 Brewers will be as good as the 2017 Cubs. And yet, the 2017 Brewers have been as good as the 2017 Cubs, at least by wins and losses, which are ultimately the only numbers that matter. The Cubs have three more wins than defeats. The Brewers can say the same of themselves. The Cubs have been billed as an active dynasty. The Brewers have been rebuilding. I’ll be damned. We’ll all be damned.

One key to understanding what’s going on: Before the start of the season, we ran our annual positional power rankings, and the Brewers rotation slotted in at 25th place. By actual WAR to this point, that same Brewers rotation ranks in seventh place. A certain amount of credit ought to go to Chase Anderson, who’s exceeding expectations. But he’s not exceeding them quite as much as Jimmy Nelson. In Nelson, it looks like the Brewers might have an ace.

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Corbin Burnes is carving up hitters. Recently promoted to Milwaukee’s Double-A affiliate, the Biloxi Shuckers, the 22-year-old right-hander boasts a 0.99 ERA, and he’s allowed just 37 hits in 63-and-two-thirds innings. The bulk of that dominance has come with the high-A Carolina Mudcats, with whom he spent the months of April and May.

Drafted by the Brewers last June out of St. Mary’s (California) College, Burnes is looking every bit a steal as a fourth-round selection. Plus stuff is a big reason, as is a take-no-prisoners attitude. Unlike a lot of young pitchers, Burnes doesn’t shy away from the power-pitcher label.

“I definitely consider myself a power pitcher,” Burnes told me before making what is thus far his lone Double-A start (which was truncated by weather). “I’ve got a power fastball and a pretty hard slider. The goal for us is to get a guy out in three pitches or less, but I’m not trying to feed the middle of the plate and let them hit it. For the most part, I’m out there trying to miss bats.”

He’s been missing a fair number of them. In 99.1 professional innings, the confident right-hander has punched out 101 batters. And when he has induced contact, he hasn’t been burdened by barrels. Burnes’s batting-average against as a pro is a flyweight .178.

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On Tuesday, I wrote about the surprisingly strong early play of the Arizona Diamondbacks, and whether it was time to talk about them as potential contenders, at least for a Wild Card spot. Of course, Arizona isn’t the only expected also-ran to be playing well. It’s May 25th, and the Milwaukee Brewers are in first place. But despite thinking the second-place Diamondbacks may have put themselves in a position where going for it could make sense, I don’t think the Brewers have yet played themselves into being a buyer.

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When you look up and see that the Athletics are in the midst of a two-game mid-week series against the Marlins in late May, you might suspect that the major-league baseball schedule is simply an exercise in randomness. At this point in the campaign, that’s actually sort of the case. The combination of interleague play and the random vagaries of an early-season schedule conspire to mean that your favorite team hasn’t had the same schedule as your least favorite team. Let’s try to put a number on that disparity.

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The Brewers’ Jared Hughes is the type of pitcher who’s endangered.

When Hughes was one of the more effective relievers in baseball for the Pirates from 2013 to -15, he relied on one pitch — a sinker — that he threw time after time in the lower part of the strike zone. Over the last year-plus, however, two important trends in the game have conspired against Hughes. For starters, the strike zone shrunk for the first time in the PITCHf/x era last season, according to Jon Rogele’s research. Worse, it shrunk in one particular area, down, where Hughes likes to pitch. Jeff Sullivan found that the zone continued to contract in spring training. The other trend is that more and more hitters have gone in search of fly balls, adjusting their swing planes to become more effective at lifting pitches down in the zone.

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Let’s do some quick review! One stat we have on our pages shows up as IFFB%. This measures the rate of infield pop-ups per fly ball hit. You know this measure — this is the one where Joey Votto is a freak.

Another stat we have on our pages shows up as HR/FB. This measures the rate of home runs per fly ball hit. You also know this measure — this is the one where Aaron Judge is a freak. (And, seemingly, everybody else.)

Both of these numbers make sense to look at for individuals, and for teams. Let’s think about teams. In fact, let’s think about one specific team, that being the Milwaukee Brewers. This season, the Brewers have hit pop-ups on 6.2% of their fly balls. That’s the lowest rate for any team. Also, this season, the Brewers have hit home runs on 20.6% of their fly balls. That’s the highest rate for any team. The Brewers currently rank as the best by each measure. That means they rank No. 1.

We have this batted-ball data going back to 2002, which gives us 15 full individual seasons, and one partial one. Combining everything, here is a table of the 10 best offensive teams by average rank in these two stats.

In short, the Brewers are trying to be the first team in a decade and a half or so to be better than anyone else in terms of pop-ups and homers. The 2004 Yankees came tantalizingly close to dual No. 1s, but they were narrowly edged out in pop-ups by the Tigers. I’m sure the Yankees didn’t mind, and it’s not like this is the end goal of the whole Brewers organization, but this is, overall, a positive reflection of the lineup through to this point. Although they’ve swung and missed, this is how you make the most of fly balls.

As it happens, these Brewers are actually tied with the 2015 Giants for what would be the lowest pop-up rate in the whole window. And no team has previously reached even 17% home runs per fly ball; the Brewers are close to 21%. So, technically, they rank No. 1 in each category this season, and they also rank No. 1 in each category over all 15+ seasons. This is a remarkable partial achievement!

In closing, this year’s team with the worst average rank is the Red Sox, who are 27th by pop-ups and 29th by homers. No team has ever finished last in both categories. The closest was the 2014 Royals, who were worst in homers and second-worst in pop-ups. The 2014 Royals lost the World Series in seven games. Don’t accuse me of overselling.

PITTSBURGH – Baseball players are often late risers, working second-shift hours. As such, Eric Thames typically began his days in Changwon, South Korea, around 11 a.m. local time. He went through a series of stretching exercises in his apartment and then departed for lunch.

His home was about a mile from the ballpark in Changwon, a southeastern port city positioned on an inlet that flows to the East China Sea. For lunch, there were five of six American-style style restaurants nearby. There was a burger joint, Italian and Mexican restaurants. Web sites created by American expats documented all the options. He would eat alone, reading his Kindle or iPhone, skimming through articles. He would then walk, or travel by Onewheel skateboard, to Massan Stadium, the home of the NC Dinos. He would arrive early, and hit early, alone, for 30 or 40 minutes. Afterward, he would read more in the clubhouse as he tried to fill in the hours before first pitch.

During most of his time with the Dinos — owned by NCSoft, a South Korean video-game developer — Thames had only two American teammates and both had brought their families along with them. After home games, or on the road, Thames would often retire to his apartment or hotel room. For three years of his life, and of his professional career, Thames was often alone.

“I was so bored over there,” Thames told FanGraphs. “The language barrier was really tough. For me, it was a lot of time by myself. I didn’t speak any [Korean]. All the other American [players] had families and stuff, so they are with their kids. So I’m just online reading stuff, and I’m bored, and I’m pissed because I’m 0-for-15. ‘Let’s figure out what’s going on here.’ So I started looking up video.”

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