Milwaukee Brewers 2016 Season Review
The Ugly Stuff
Defense – The Brewers finished in the bottom 5 in defensive ratings for infield and outfield on the season. Even Jonathan Lucroy before being traded was grading out below his normal excellent grades.
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Moving Villar to third and bringing up Arcia will definitely help the left side of the infield. If Keon Broxton can give enough offensively to stay in the everyday lineup, he’s definitely the best center fielder on the major league roster, and moving him into center allows Domingo Santana to play right field, where his athleticism and strong arm will play up.
All that said, the team was still very inconsistent as mentioned before, so they’d need to focus on being consistent on the defensive side.
Strikeouts – No one in baseball struck out more than the Brewers this year, and they return most of those free swingers to the team in 2017. Some of the notable K rates: Keon Broxton 36.1 percent, Kirk Nieuwenhuis 33.9 percent, Domingo Santana 32.4 percent, Chris Carter 32.0 percent, Jonathan Villar 25.6 percent, Martin Maldonado 22.1 percent, Hernan Perez 21.9 percent, Orlando Arcia 21.8 percent, Scooter Gennett 21.0 percent, Ramon Flores 20.1 percent.
The Brewers do walk at a high rate as well, which is excellent, but strikeouts at that high of a rate will stifle offense in a hurry.
Taylor Jungmann – Jungmann has long been one of the “long-term” guys for the Brewers, since being drafted in 2011. He finally flashed in 2015 some of the promise the team had been waiting on all those years, throwing 119 1/3 innings with a 3.77 ERA and 1.28 WHIP along with a 47/107 BB/K ratio.
His 2016 was something to forget, however, as he made just eight appearances, throwing 26 2/3 innings with a 7.76 ERA, 1.76 WHIP, and a 17/18 BB/K ratio at the major league level. He couldn’t even get things straightened out in AAA, posting a 9.87 ERA and a 35/24 BB/K ratio over 31 innings at AAA. At 27 in December, he’s really beyond getting time from the team at this point.