Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 440: J.P. Breen Explains the Brewers

Episode Date: May 1, 2014

Ben and Sam talk to J.P. Breen about the Milwaukee Brewers, owners of the best record in baseball.

The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes For flames and love live such a little while I won't forget, but I won't be lonely But I won't be lonely. I'll remember April. And I'll smile. Good morning and welcome to episode 440 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by the BaseballReference.com Play Index. I am Ben Lindberg, joined as always by Sam Miller.

And we spoke recently about the teams that have changed their playoff odds percentages the most this year. The Brewers were at the top of that list, but we did not linger on them. We didn't dwell on them, and some people were surprised that we didn't talk about them more. So we decided to devote an entire show to them and to talk about the brewers today with us. We have JP Breen who founded the brewers blog Disciples of Euchre. Hey JP. How are you all doing? I appreciate you having me on the show. Sure. Sam and I have a history of saying negative things about the Brewers, I think. Really? We've talked a couple of times, I think, in listener email shows when we've been asked the Brewers, but because they seemed like a team that weren't really poised to contend immediately and also just have the disadvantage of being in one

of the smallest markets or the smallest market in baseball and not having a highly rated farm system. And you put all of that together and we docked them for that. And yet the Brewers have been the team of April. They are 20 and 8. They have the best record in baseball, and we want to find out why. So, JP, what were you expecting for this team heading into the season? It's a good question, and I think one of the most interesting things about the Brewers coming into the 2014 season was there was a wide range of what you could expect to happen and it was all dependent upon health it was all dependent upon if ryan braun was going to return and be the ryan braun

of 2011 and 2012 if aramis ramirez was going to be able to play regularly or if his knees were going to essentially fall off and there were a lot of different things that were possible. I had them pegged at about 84 wins. I said 84, 85, depending on, I guess, when I was asked over the offseason. But I had them at about 84 wins. And I said, you know, obviously, they were capable of more if everything turned out well, if you know, the bullpen pitched well, which they've been tremendous. And if everything went right, they remained healthy and all that good stuff but they could have easily won you know 70 or 75 games as well if everything happened just like it happened a year ago but i kind of split the middle on it and said about 84

so it seems likely that they're going to win more than that but uh at this point but uh that doesn't necessarily mean that they are a better team than you thought they were. They could still win at an 84-win clip the rest of the season, and if they do, they'll contend for the playoffs, but do you think that they're still basically an 84-win true talent team, or has this month shifted the way that you actually think of their true talent level? I think that's actually a really good way of putting it in terms of a lot of questions that I've gotten on Twitter and email and things as far as do the expectations move? But really, in terms of what we're expecting throughout the rest of the season, I think probably 84

win in terms of that win percentage is probably right on. The bullpen is not pitching at a sustainable level right now. I mean, I think that that's relatively obvious in terms of K-Rod being perfect. And I don't think that K-Rod has been, he's been seen as a target for regression. And I think that's a little unfair because he's obviously going to give up runs I mean that that's obvious but he's actually pitched great it's not a situation in which he's giving up a lot of hard hit balls and they just keep finding gloves I mean he's legitimately been phenomenal um and you can't expect his fastball his fastball command to be there all year um but they're still going to have injury issues. Ryan Braun's still dealing with an oblique injury.

He's still got the thumb issue. Aramis Ramirez seems to get dinged up all the time. Loesch isn't going to pitch as well as he's been pitching. Peralta's not going to be a sub-3 ERA guy all year. And so there is some quote-unquote regression coming. But I still think that, yeah, about 83, 84, 85 wins somewhere in that clip is probably where I put them still. I mean, I guess I can throw that back to you guys. Do you guys still see them as roughly a 500 team, if not a little bit under?

I know that's kind of what Pocota had for the Brewers coming into the season. Or has their hot start convinced you all that they're a little bit better? Well, they definitely have the hallmarks of an overperforming team. I mean, it's obvious to say they're overperforming. They're on pace for something like 116 wins, but they have the good record in one-run games and the good pitching performances in high-leverage situations and the run differential

of a team that's a couple games worse. And as you mentioned, the incredible bullpen performance. All those things sort of say to me that this is a team that has some serious regression in store, not just regression to a 95 win level, but yeah, probably a low to mid 80s level. But at this point, with these wins banked already, if they play at that level the rest of the year, they're in pretty good shape. Second highest playoff odds in baseball. No, third highest playoff odds in baseball right now.

So what has gone right for this team? Other than the bullpen, what has gone right for this team? Other than the bullpen, what has gone right for this team that you weren't necessarily expecting? Well, I think health outside of a couple of weird things that have happened lately in terms of Segura getting blindsided by a practice swing from Braun. And that could have been terrible. I mean, getting hit in the face by a. And that could have been terrible. I mean, getting hit in the face by a bat, that could have been awful.

And the fact that he's only going to miss maybe a half dozen games. He actually played earlier today just for the last couple of innings and got a double. That was a scary, scary situation in which he was getting helped into the clubhouse by three different people after getting hit in the face. But in terms of what's gone well, I think one of the biggest things that happened last year, and I think I kind of fell into this situation too and not necessarily looking at the larger picture, the Milwaukee Brewers outside of the month of May in 2013 were actually two games over 500. And that was with Ryan Braun being injured and suspended for the vast majority of the year. That was without Aramis Ramirez for about 400

played appearances. That was with Marco Estrada on the deal for a lot of the year. That was with Giovanni Gallardo underperforming for a lot of the year. So the team last year and the core, the vast majority of the team is still in place, was playing at about 82 to 84 wins last year and the core the vast majority of the team is still in place was playing at about 80 82 to 84 wins last year and so you take a step forward to 2014 willie peralta is another year more mature and he finally looks like he's ready to take up and be a mid-rotation starter for for the long haul this year. That's a big step forward for the rotation. The fact that they now have Tyler Thornburg in the bullpen, they have Brandon Kinsler in the bullpen for the entire year, and then you add somebody like

Matt Garza. So the back end of the rotation, the back to mid-end, depending on where you want to put him, is now, you know, it's deeper and you're going to have somebody that can go out and put together a quality starts almost any night, depending on if he has his stuff or not. And so I think it is a situation they've added a couple of pieces. Guys have gotten older, right? So people like Peralta and, and Gomez continues to be able to, to sustain what he was doing last year. But it's, it's more to me, a situation in which sustain what he was doing last year. But it's more, to me, a situation in which the core that was there last year performed better throughout the vast majority of the year than I think people paid attention to because they only won six games in May.

But the other, what is that, four or five months of the year, they were actually playing pretty well. And then they added a couple of pieces. And then you got a couple of guys that weren't there because of health issues or suspension issues. And you do have a team that I think has a little bit more staying power than a lot of people looked at coming into the year, just because they looked at the winning totals last year. And I think that as much as, you know, the games in May obviously count, it's a little bit misleading in terms of what they were playing, how they were playing the vast majority of the year.

And is it safe to say or fair to say that the offense is the weak point, or is it just that the pitching has overperformed to this extent? I mean, before Wednesday's game, they had a team ERA plus of 140 and a team OPS plus of 99. They've basically been a league average offense after adjusting for the park. And there's some star power here, right? There's Braun and there's Gomez, who maybe is not widely recognized as a star, but should be. And there's Lucroix. There's some depth here, but you've also got the first baseman who have hit probably better than you could have expected so far. Maybe a couple other weak points. Segura has sort of picked up where he left off in the second half

last year. So is this a good offense? Is it an above average offense? Is it a strength or is it the weakness or the closest thing that this team has to one? In all honesty, I think that the team largely is just a little bit above average in terms of starting pitching and in terms of offense and i think you're going to see people like willie peralta he's going to still be able to struggle with his command from time to time i think iardo's far out pitching what he's going to be able to do the rest of the year. But the offense has holes, and the offense has issues. It's got specifically on-base percentage issues.

They don't see a lot of pitches. You don't see them walking a ton. And outside of, I guess, maybe Segura, everybody's been performing quite well in terms of what you would have expected. But the one thing that you can see with the offense is everybody is capable of carrying the team for an extended period of time, for like a week, if somebody gets hot. Because you've got power up and down the entire lineup. So you've got whether you're looking at Gomez, whether you're looking at Mark Reynolds, whether you're looking at Chris Davis who has a few home runs already,

whether you're looking at Luke Roy, which you're exactly right. I mean Luke Roy not only has one of the best contracts in baseball but is very underrated in terms of his overall game. But those are all guys that can go an extended period of time and just roll over the ball to shortstop for two weeks straight and then also walk once for an entire month. So it's not a situation in which the offense is going to be quote-unquote consistent, if you want to be able to say that.

But they have some issues that can be exploited, especially if you've got a tough right-hander up there on the mound because they don't have a lot of left-handed, well, they definitely don't have left-handed power, but they don't have left-handed bats in general. They can get shut down, and they can get shut down for games at a time, as you can see what they did against the Braves for the first series of the year. So one of the things that's interesting about them playing so well and being kind of a breakout team right now is that they, three years ago, and really even since three

years ago, pretty much consistently since then, they've had what's been a consensus terrible farm system. Normally you expect breakouts from teams that have young talent that gels and develops all at once. But the Brewers had the worst farm system in baseball by consensus in 2011. And yet they're getting contributions from a number of guys who, if I'm not mistaken, were in the system in 2010-2011, including Thornburg and Henderson and Jeanette and Peralta and Lucroy and Davis. So do you get the sense that this is a skill that the Brewers as an organization have,

getting talent out of sort of low prestige kind of guys? Or is this just, I guess maybe the flip side of looking at this is that these are a bunch of guys who are low ceiling mid, mid to late twenties guys who maybe are playing over their heads. So is this a, I guess, something to be optimistic about or pessimistic about? In terms of it being a skill, that would be, that would be fantastic for the organization, but I don't think it's necessarily a, that would be fantastic for the organization,

but I don't think it's necessarily a skill that they can cultivate for the upcoming seasons. I think you're spot on with your ladder analysis in terms of saying they have a lot of players in the system, and I think they still have players in the system right now that are big leaguers. And I think a lot of the time when people like right so Jason Parks who does a phenomenal job and a lot of the people over at Baseball Perspectives y'all have really I mean even though even though you've had a lot of departures in terms of going to big league clubs and having you know more going and

and obviously people go a lot of kind of, I don't want to say defections, but promotions maybe to big league clubs in terms of scouting. What you do have is the scouting reports and the scouting, the ranking systems are based on ceiling in a lot of respects. And when you look at the Brewers organization, they don't have a lot of high ceiling guys. And even the guys that they are getting contributions from right now, they're not stars. The closest person you can say to a star right now is probably Jonathan Lucroy, but the vast majority of people like Chris Davis, I mean,

Chris Davis is like somebody that you're going to expect to hit 240 and 20 home runs. And while that's useful, and especially at the league minimum, that's not anybody that you're going to build your organization around. And so what they've been able to do is they're getting guys that are on the latter end of their prime, whether you're looking at, I guess you probably can't say that Aramis Ramirez is in his prime anymore, but he's still certainly productive. And you're getting somebody like Kyle Loesch who's still going to be productive, but you're getting Braun who's getting the later part of his, his, uh, kind of prime and you're getting

Gomez that was able to hit his prime at the right time for this little run. But what the organization is doing from its farm system is they're getting people to come on and to be productive. They're not, they're not stars. You're not going to see the next Archie Bradley coming through. You're not going to see the next Dylan Bundy coming through. You're not going to have Yasiel Puig coming through. You're not going to see next Dylan Bundy coming through. You're not going to have Yasiel Puig coming through. But what you're doing is you're having guys come in that can be a league average guys or just be productive number four starters. And what that's allowing

them to do is actually go out and get established guys to round out their roster and then keep that core that is kind of in its tail end from what they were trying to do in 2011 and right now what it's doing it's just all clicking everything is working and there is outside of a couple of freak injuries everything has been almost perfect for the the brewers so far this season and you can't take the wins away from them. And what you can hope is that they're not going to go through an extended kind of valley that they did last year, which put them behind the eight ball going into June. And they were never able to recover because you can't necessarily recover from a six win month and hope to come around. And so I don't necessarily think it's a skill by any stretch.

But even if you look at what their farm system is right now, they've got Jimmy Nelson in AAA right now who seems to look like another solid number four starter. to be the top guy who's coming up for prospect list and he's not going to be somebody that you're going to go out and grab for your fantasy team but he can come in and give you you know a four era through and through 180 innings and at the league minimum that's great and so you're going to have guys like that coming through a little bit uh a little bit um over the next couple of years and what they're hoping is that they can have some star guys that they can have kind of hanging on, and they can just round out the team with some league average guys coming on through the farm so they don't have to pay for them in free agency. And I mentioned Tyler Thornburg is one of the homegrown guys that's been contributing.

He actually is a prospect, was a prospect, so some ceiling there. But as a minor league starting pitcher, he's been so good as a reliever uh has that has that cost the brewers to be uh stuck in in bullpen dominance now for the rest of his career or is there still i mean to see the first guy that they call in case of a say a sprained thumb suffered while batting. Potentially, if that were ever to happen. I really don't know what their plan is for Tyler Thornburg. I really think that they believe he's a starter. And I know a couple of people that I talked to in the organization last year really viewed him as a long-term starting pitcher.

But like you said said if you get somebody that's really finding success in the bullpen can you really take them out especially when their bullpen has a been so good but really it's been overworked because they're playing a man down essentially in the bullpen because uh they've been uh trying to essentially hide uh way chung wong in in the bullpen because they really like him from the Rule 5 draft, and they're hoping that they can sneak along with him the entire year and then send him to the minors next year. It's looking like they might not succeed in that, right?

I mean, he's been just about the only Brewers reliever who hasn't been extremely effective so far. Is he worth basically wasting a roster spot on for a team that is now a contender well i think that's the contingent part at the end that that changed is i think that the organization coming into this year had desires on contending but i think that they viewed themselves probably correctly as as a fringe contender and what they were hoping to be able to do is if things didn't go well, it wasn't going to harm anything

to have him continuing to hang on in the bullpen. But now that you are going to be in prime contention and you are five and a half games ahead in the NL Central, everybody in your entire roster, all 25 guys have to be able to come in and contribute. And you can't have somebody in there that you're afraid to put in with a four or five run lead which has proven to be the case this year because you're going to be a arm down in the bullpen and so if you have a couple of extra

inning games like they have in the past couple of well in the cardinal series here or if you are just consistently ahead in the in kind of one two three run games where you're going to be using the same high high leverage relievers at the end you're going to overwork people and you don't have the luxury to be able to try to be cute with the roster construction even though he's he's a nice arm and i actually talked to i talked to a scout in spring who really liked him and said that they thought he could eventually be a a big league arm he's just i mean he's not ready yet and he's 22 years old trying to make a jump from rookie ball i mean that's not that's not a that's not criticizing him for saying he's not ready for the big leagues it's just a situation in which

the brewers found an arm they really liked and they think he can be a starter in the long term and the Pirates are a contender while they're a rival team in the NL Central and I can't imagine that the Pirates want the Brewers to have him so I ultimately think you're right I don't think he's going to be able to stay on the team and I think you might actually see them part ways this week because I think they're starting to get very very nervous about their bullpen being overworked um but it's I actually thought it was an interesting plan I thought it was very very interesting that they were going to try to keep somebody for a long term and just hide him in the bullpen as long as they could they could hide him. But unfortunately, things don't always work out like that. But I think the organization would trade being an actual contender this year

instead of a fringe contender and perhaps lose out on a Rule 5 pick. And there is some talent, though, in this bullpen. It's not just a bunch of guys who have low BABIPs or something. There's peripherals to go with it and talent and some recently converted starters who are always my picks for breakout relievers. And Will Smith and Zach Duke have been carrying my effectively wild reliever league team. And so, I mean, these guys, even if they don't keep up the sequencing and the pitching well with runners in scoring position and everything, this is a bullpen that is, you know, true talent-wise probably stronger than Brewers' recent bullpens, right? Because that's been an area of weakness for the team in 2012 and to some extent last year, too. Yeah, you're exactly right.

It's been a situation in which the brewers haven't had a bullpen that they'd like to to be able to have in the last couple of years but um zach duke has zach duke was really interesting when they brought him in on a minor league deal because he didn't perform very well against lefties in 2013 but his peripherals in terms of his strike out to walk ratio was fantastic against lefties and it was a really nice move for the brewers to be able to get somebody like that bring him in and allow him to essentially pitch to what he should have pitched to and you know and a lack of a better term for last year but i was just pulling up some numbers and and k rod is striking

out almost 13 batters per nine innings. Tyler Thornburg is striking out 10.5. Zach Duke is striking out 11.5. Will Smith is up to over 13 at the moment, and he's actually striking out about 50% of lefties that he's facing this year. And Jim Henderson is striking out 13.5. Jim Henderson striking out 13 and a half Rob Wooten, who is, well, he was up and then he got sent back down and he's one of the top candidates to come back up here. If they need to bring up an extra arm, he's striking out about 10 and a half and it's a super small sample size.

And so I don't think that those are things that are going to be able to carry throughout an entire season, but you're right. There's talent there. There's velocity. When you're looking at somebody like Jim Henderson, Will Smith has just a nasty slider that he's been able to take advantage of tyler thornburg has three pitches that he can miss bats with and throw for strikes and friends and francisco rodriguez i mean his his command has been great um but his change up has been off the charts and so there's regression that's going to happen just because you're not going to be able to give up no runs for an entire year but it's like you said there there's talent it's not

just a babbitt issue it's a situation in which everybody's just clicking on all cylinders but they're missing bats they're limiting their walks the best that they can. And, well, their strand rate has been astronomical right now. I'm crediting the whole thing to Jonathan Lucroy and Martin Maldonado's receiving skills. I'm just going to say that that's it. They are, according to our numbers at BP, they are second in the league, second to San Diego in framing runs so far this year. being second to San Diego in framing runs so far this year. And I was challenged a little bit in terms of, I said I thought Jonathan Lucroy's contract was potentially the best contract in all of baseball.

That wasn't just like, you know, somebody's making the league minimum because they haven't hit arbitration yet. And somebody was saying that I think that they thought Sal Perez could really give him a run for his money in terms of best catching contract. But I think that Jonathan, I think Luke Croy is going to be an easy four, four and a half win player this year. And I don't think that that really takes into consideration the framing, which I mean,

I don't have the numbers and I'm not privy to those types of things, but I know watching the game you can tell that he's a master behind the plate in terms of his framing skills. You are privy to them. You can find them at Baseball Perspectives. No, I mean I'm not privy to the construction of them. Right, right. The end result. Yes.

Is this a team that can add talent this season? Is their payroll maxed out? Is there somewhere that they can upgrade, obviously? Does anyone want Ricky Weeks? Well, they definitely have some places they can upgrade. I mean, first base, I'm sure they'd love to upgrade. And I'm sure they'd love to upgrade, whether it's left field. And I know Chris Davis they really like, but if they could get somebody more kind of entrenched there, I'm sure they wouldn't turn it down.

But the question is, do they have the money for it? Yes. I know that Marc Antanasio doesn't ever have a flat budget, and he's willing to stretch things if he thinks that he can make the uh postseason and i know brewers fans in general have been uh well some not not everybody but there have been some that have been pretty critical of what mark out to nasio has done because essentially uh there's been a lot of pressure from ownership to contend every single season. And what that has done in a lot of ways is it's stunted what needs to be done in the farm system. And whether or not you can still get big leaguers from your farm system is another question,

but there's not a lot of high ceiling talent. And the question is what happens when Aramis Ramirez is gone, when Giovanni Gallardo is gone, when Loesch is gone. And right now the organization doesn't have a plan for that. I mean, I'm sure that internally they have some ideas of what they would like to do, but in the farm system, there are no answers there. There are no long-term answers for an upcoming core. But Mark Atanasio says he wants to get people in the seats. He wants to be able to have a chance to compete every single season. And when that means opening up his wallet to be able to make sure that he gets that extra player, whether that's Kyle Loesch last year after they said that they were tapped out

and then they went and signed him to a three-year deal, he's willing to do that. Now, I think the farm system talent is going to limit what they could bring in i think in terms of what the brewers would do you're probably looking more like a bench guy maybe a jerry harrison type like they did a couple of years ago uh in terms of uh utility guy that they could bring in to kind of be, I don't know, maybe a little bit of a kick in the butt towards the postseason run if they can. I don't think they're going to be able to bring in anything high priced unless they're willing to trade from their current big league roster, but I can't imagine they would do that. So this is probably getting way ahead of things,

but the Brewers seem to sort of have the opposite of the classic dangerous in October rotation. They're not the team that people are like, oh, well, if they get there, they're going to be dangerous in October, right? They don't have a bunch of aces. They don't have a bunch of strikeout guys and former Cy Young winners and all that sort of stuff. But then you look at Kyle Loesch, and since 2011, so that's four years now, Kyle Loesch has the 13th best ERA plus in baseball. Felix Hernandez is 14th, and David Price is 15th, and Zach Granke is 17th. So we're talking about serious company.

Having watched Kyle Loesch for a year and a half, and furthermore having seen him suddenly start striking out a batter per inning this year, do you think that he's vastly underrated? Is he a legit ace? Or is there something fundamentally less than about him despite that ERA plus? He is underrated in terms of of how good he has been i don't think he's an ace um i think if you wanted to say he's the ace of the brewer's staff sure i think you could you could argue that he is the best pitcher the best starter that

the brewers have at the moment but i don't think he's, you know, a proper ace or a one. The most interesting thing about Kyle Loesch this year has been exactly what you were talking about. The fact that he's starting to strike guys out this year. And I mean, his, his FIP is great. I mean, it's 2.99 this year. His ERA is 2.7 and he's, he's one of those weird quote unquote-unquote, sinker ball guys. And he does have a sinker, but he doesn't actually get a lot of ground balls,

which has been one of the more interesting things about Kyle Loesch is you always see the scouting reports that come on on FS Wisconsin or whatever network anybody's watching the Brewers on. They always talk about how he's a sinker baller, but he's not that traditional guy. He's got a pretty good changeup, and he's got a really nice slider this year. But Kyle Loesch is somebody who's really learned how to pitch. He works both sides of the plate very well.

He moves a guy's eye level in terms of moving up and down. He works pretty quickly, and you can see him working on his sequence the first, the second, and the third time through the order, and he's somebody who has a plan, and he knows what he wants to do, and he's not just pitching to the guy for that at-bat. He's trying to set them up for the second and third time

he's going to see him in that game as well. And I think that also has to do with just getting older and working on his craft as he's seen his stuff in terms of just pure velocity kind of decline as he's gotten older but I think he's a solid I think he's a very very solid number two

but I don't think I'd put him in terms of kind of that ace mode just because I think I don't know, maybe I've just been kind of colored by what Jason always says about being an ace and that you just have to be a stud. You have to be one of the top 10 or 15 guys in the entire league. And I don't think I'd put Kyle Loesch there, even though his ERA says it,

but I don't think in terms of raw stuff and in terms of just raw talent, I don't think I'd put him up there. I want to see the Mike Fiers spot starter plan that Sam and I once advocated. Just bring him up for one start here and there so that no one has time to get adjusted

to his delivery and he'll be great. Then send him back down again. Do you see him throw seven shutout innings and strike out 11 in AAA? Yes, dominating again. All right, so final thing, just to put you on the spot, where will this team end up? Is this a playoff team?

Is it a division title team, a wildcard team? Neither? What do you think? Oh, man, I can't just say playoff contender and leave it at that. Get more granular, more specific. I still think that the Cardinals are going to win the NL Central, but I'll say that the Brewers take one of the two wildcard spots. All right.

Well, thank you for explaining this phenomenon to us, and we hope that you enjoy the rest of the season as much as you've enjoyed this month. I appreciate you having me on the show and getting to talk a little bit of baseball since I don't get to write as much anymore. Yeah, but you still tweet and people can find you on Twitter talking brewers and other things at JP underscore Breen, B-R-E-E-N. And that is the end of the show today. Please support our sponsor, Baseball Reference. Go to baseballreference.com, subscribe to the Play Index using the coupon code BP to get the discounted price of $30 on a one-year subscription. And we will be back with one more show tomorrow.