The Brewers and the Impossibly Black Hole

Not a whole lot of people have been paying attention to the Marlins. Now, this is typically the case, but the Marlins have been off the radar for months. People suspected they’d be bad, then they came out and were bad, and that was it, that was confirmation of beliefs. So maybe you didn’t notice, but since May 31, the Marlins have posted the National League’s second-best record. It’s good to have a healthy Giancarlo Stanton. By overall record, the Marlins have managed to catch up to the Astros. And they’ve narrowed the gap between themselves and the Brewers to a slim three games.

Considering how those teams were viewed before the year, this is a bit of a surprise, and it’s mostly because the Brewers have been a disaster. In every case of significant over- and under-performance, there will be a variety of contributing factors, as no one player can make that much of a difference. Baseball is a game of little things adding up, and lots has added up to lead the Brewers to 32-48. But one problem in particular has been bigger than the others. One problem has really allowed the Brewers to sink to the depths.

Instead of going the long way around, let’s tackle this head-on:

Problem

• terrible at first base

Legitimate excuse

• Corey Hart out for season

Legitimate excuse no. 2

• Mat Gamel out for season

Failed solutions

• Yuniesky Betancourt
• Alex Gonzalez

Jury is out

• Juan Francisco

First base, for the Brewers, has been a complete and utter catastrophe, as we slide into the season’s halfway point. It’s not the difference between the team’s current record and a .500 record, but it is the difference between the team’s current record and a better record, and the team has cycled through a few players. In fairness, they weren’t prepared for both Hart and Gamel to miss the season. Those were the first two options on the depth chart, and no one would come away looking good after dealing with that kind of sudden adversity. But what’s done is done, and were the season to end today, the Brewers’ performance would be historical.

Brewers first basemen have batted a combined 321 times, with 270 of those plate appearances going to Betancourt, Gonzalez, and Francisco. I’m going to show you their slash line, although you might consider looking away and having the computer just read the numbers out loud so you don’t turn to stone:

• .189/.231/.319

What you’re looking at is a .549 OPS, which is worse than Chris Getz’s OPS. They have a lower combined OBP than Clint Barmes. If Brewers first basemen were pitchers, they’d be the best-hitting group of pitchers, but the competition would be closer than the Brewers would like. Quietly — somewhat quietly — this position has been pulling the Brewers down toward the seafloor.

This post is only going to look at offense, although it’s worth noting the defensive metrics don’t love the Brewers’ first basemen so far, either. They’re not making up for this hitting somewhere else. By OPS, let’s take a look at the worst positions in baseball so far this season:

Brendan Ryan and the Mariners’ shortstops haven’t hit, nor have the Yankees’ shortstops behind the injured Derek Jeter. We find the Brewers’ first basemen at third-worst. But you’ll notice that last column, under sOPS+. This is a Baseball-Reference measure of OPS relative to the league-wide position average, with 100 being average and something under 100 being worse than that. Let’s re-sort, this time in ascending order of sOPS+:

Now the Brewers take the cake, as their first basemen have been the worst, relative to the position. We also see the Mets’ and the Marlins’ first basemen, who’ve been awful, but no one has been Brewers-awful. Not this year, which compels us to examine the history.

Following is a table of the worst positions from between 1950 and 2012, sorted by sOPS+. Pitchers are excluded, because nobody cares.

In 1978, A’s right fielders posted a combined .550 OPS, as the team sorted through a bunch of different players. The next year, A’s right fielders posted a combined .556 OPS, with Tony Armas greatly out-hitting Larry Murray. That position wound up with a 41 sOPS+ — the same as the Brewers’ current sOPS+ out of first base. That’s the worst team position, by offense, since at least 1950.

What if we were to look only at first basemen? Here’s a table of the worst, sorted by OPS, since 1950 and now including 2013:

And now here’s a table sorted by sOPS+, covering the same amount of time:

In 1994, the average first baseman posted an .851 OPS. Giants first basemen posted a combined .632 OPS, and that’s the worst baseball’s seen in a very long time. Relative to the average, this year’s Brewers have been even worse, and by a considerable margin. The difference between worst and second-worst is the same as the difference between second-worst and ninth-worst, by sOPS+. Here’s the punchline: through half of the season, Brewers first basemen have been the worst-hitting first basemen in more than 60 years. And they haven’t really done anything to make up for it with the glove.

There’s hope in the presumably coming regression. There’s hope in the newly-acquired Juan Francisco, who hits for power, if nothing else. The Brewers might not finish as the worst ever, and since this season is a loss anyhow, it doesn’t make that much of a difference. The priority is shifting to next year and to the years beyond, and this year isn’t all that important. There are valid reasons why the Brewers wound up in a lousy position, and there are valid reasons not to really care anymore. But let it not be forgotten how bad they have been. Let it not be forgotten that the Brewers played a bunch of Alex Gonzalez and Yuniesky Betancourt at first base. Things could’ve conceivably gone worse, but only by so much.