Overbay Traded to Toronto!
Brewers Breakdown
What a difference a year makes
Nate Roth
As just one of the thousands (millions?) of fans of the Milwaukee Brewers, it's clear to me that the team has turned a corner this season and have become a competitive ballclub. I couldn't really put a finger on the exact reason why the team is all of a sudden right in the thick of things, a chance to be out of last place in the NL Central since 2001, and an small chance (however remote it may be) of being a Wild Card team.
I decided to look at the bread and butter stats of the past few seasons, beginning with the 2002 version of the Brew Crew that lost 106 games (the final year of the Taylor/Lopes era). What I hope to discover is a stat that can be pointed to as the real reason why the Brewers have a chance to be a .500 or better club this season. Select 2005 stats are projected from the stats available Sunday.
2002/2003/2004/2005
Batting Average
.253 / .256 / .248 / .256
Even though the Brewers seem to have more solid hitters this season, the overall team batting average remains static. The horrible last half of the 2004 season most likely skewed those numbers, but it's essentially the same team, batting average wise.
On Base Average
.320 / .329 / .321 / .328
Same as batting average, the Brewers are in the same area as they have been since that terrible, terrible season.
Slugging Percentage
.390 / .419 / .387 / .417
Slugging is up from last season, but virtually unchanged since the 2003 Brewers who lost 93 games. Reasons? Richie Sexson and his monster season, Geoff Jenkins putting up superb numbers in only 124 games, and a few guys who just swung for the fences each time up in limited plate appearances (see Brooks Kieschnick, Keith Ginter).
Home Runs
139 / 196 / 135 / 176 (projected)
A nice surprise with the 2005 Brewers is the amount of homers, and they aren't all coming from Carlos Lee. Six Brewers have more than ten homers this season with Brady Clark and Damian Miller very close to double figures.
Runs
627 / 714 / 634 / 718 (projected)
You can't win games without scoring runs, can you? Despite the August swoon and a few other periods in which the team bats have gone silent, the team has been scoring more runs than in the previous few years. Ideally, the Brewers would like to be more consistent, if not to stave off fans from pulling out their hair.
Strikeouts
1125 / 1221 / 1312 / 1174 (projected)
One of the main gripes of fans has been the sheer amount of strikeouts the team has committed in recent memory. Again, there has not been a significant reduction of K's per game to warrant that as the main reason why the team is playing solid baseball.
Walks Allowed
666 / 575 / 476 / 553 (projected)
The Brewers are on pace to reverse the trend of allowing fewer walks each season, but amazingly they haven't been hurting the crew as much (thanks to magician-like qualities of Victor Santos and Doug Davis to get out of jams). Imagine allowing 200 fewer runners on base each season? That in and of itself is worth a few wins here and there.
Home Runs Allowed
139 / 196 / 135 / 176 (projected)
This has been a sore spot with the Brewers all season, but with fewer runners, the fewer damage one can do with a home run.
Earned Run Average
4.73 / 5.02 / 4.24 / 4.02
Clearly, the ERA of the Brewers has lead to them not sucking it up, imagine if the Brewers were in the top echelon of hitting at the moment. Aside from Ben Sheets, the Brewers have put together a great staff from castoffs and minor leaguers under the tutelage of Mike Maddux. Rarely, though, does this part of the team ever get any press, it's always about the hitting or the struggling defense.
Without getting too in depth and using the stats at my disposal, nothing shines through as much of an example as to why the Brewers are winning more games more than ERA. What fans hear about is the promising hitters coming through the ranks, but the Brewers have been silently winning on the improvement and the strength of their pitching, whether it be waiver wire cast offs or selling high on a player. Consistency up and down the lineup is also good, so much of the talent was concentrated in a handful of players in previous seasons that the rest of the team suffered (see Sexson in 2002).
The Brewers have always been an organization where hitting comes first, the pitching throughout the 35 years of the organization hasn't been all that stellar. I think it's time that fans embrace this concept of outstanding pitching, because the real reason the Brewers are better is right there in front of our face.