Milwaukee Brewers: 2017 Season Review and Offseason Preview
The Milwaukee Brewers rode a low payroll team to within one game of a playoff spot and have prospects coming in 2018.
Coming off 68-win season in 2015 and a 73-win season last year, the Milwaukee Brewers were expected to continue their climb to relevancy, but not expected to challenge the Cubs, Cardinals, or Pirates in the NL Central. Sports Illustrated predicted they would win 70 games, or 25 fewer than the Cubs. Fangraphs had them as a 71-win team and Baseball Prospectus was the most optimistic, predicting they would win 78 games, which was still 14 games back of the Cubs.
Instead of being an also-ran, the Brewers surprised many by leading their division deep into July. It wasn’t so much that the Brewers were having a great season. They just got to a little above .500 and took advantage of a very slow start by the Cubs. Even as the Brewers continued to lead the Central, many people expected the Cubs would figure things out and surpass the boys from Milwaukee down the stretch, which they did.
Still, the Brew Crew was as close as 2.5 games back of the Cubs on September 13 and also in play for a wild card spot. Brewers fans were hoping to down some celebratory suds if the team could make the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Unfortunately, they went 9-7 over their final 16 games and finished six games behind the Cubs in the Central and a single game behind the Rockies in the wild card race.
Despite failing to snag a playoff spot, it was a successful season for a Brewers team that had their most wins since their 2011 playoff year. Their farm system was one of the best in baseball and graduated some good prospects to the big leagues. That may cause them to drop a bit in the rankings, but there is still plenty of talent there.
After winning 13 more games this year than last, the Brewers would like to build on their success in 2018. Oftentimes, though, a team will take a big step forward, then a small step back. The Houston Astros went from 51 wins to 70 wins to 86 wins from 2013 to 2015 and looked like they were ready to jump into the 90-win realm last year. Instead, they dropped back to 84 wins, then made the leap to 101 victories this season. The Brewers wouldn’t mind following that pattern.
Let’s look at what went right, what went wrong, and the top offseason needs for the Milwaukee Brewers.
What Went Right
The Milwaukee Brewers made a very good trade last December when they sent relief pitcher Tyler Thornburg to the Red Sox for Travis Shaw and two minor leaguers, Maricio Dubon and Josh Pennington. Thornburg didn’t pitch at all in 2017 and is currently on the 60-Day DL after having surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome (we hope he has a full recovery). Shaw had a great year. He hit .273/.349/.513, with 31 home runs and 101 RBI, and led the team’s position players in Wins Above Replacement.
About a week before the Brewers traded for Shaw, they signed free agent Eric Thames to a 3-year, $16 million contract, with a player option for a fourth year (at $7.5 million). Thames last played in the major leagues in 2012. From 2014-2016, he hit a combined 124 home runs in the Korean Baseball Organization with a .349/.451/.721 batting line. As impressive as that was, it was hard to know what the 30-year-old would do in the states.
Thames was a beast in the first two-and-a-half months of the season. Through June 17, he hit .269/.402/.616, with 50 runs scored, 20 homers, and 38 RBI in 63 games. He slowed way down from that point on, hitting .229/.321/.435, with 33 runs, 11 homers, and 25 RBI in his final 75 games. He also dealt with nagging injuries during the year that kept him out of games and seemed to affect his hitting as the season wore on. He was a good value overall for his low price, but the Brewers have to wonder what they’ll get from him going forward.
Another bright spot on offense was Domingo Santana. The young right fielder hit .278/.375/.505 and launched 30 long balls. He scored 88 runs and drove in 85 runs, while also stealing 15 bases. He doesn’t rate well on defense according to Fangraphs, but the bat looks good.
The Brewers had productive seasons from other young players, including shortstop Orlando Arcia, who was a top-10 overall prospect before the 2016 season. Arcia didn’t hit at all in 2016, when he came up for 55 games. He improved this year, but was still below league average as a hitter. He’ll be 23 years old next year, so there’s reason to believe he’ll continue to improve.
Closer Corey Knebel (39 saves, 1.78 ERA) upped his strikeout rate from around 27 percent the three previous years to nearly 41 percent last year. Their 23-year-old outfield prospect, Brett Phillips, hit .276/.351/.448 in 98 plate appearances, but it came with a .408 BABIP, which is unlikely to be repeated.
Starting pitcher Jimmy Nelson had a breakout season. He came into this year with a 4.38 ERA in 436 career innings and was coming off a season in which he led the NL in losses, walks, and HBP. This year, he was 12-6 with a 3.49 ERA and struck out 199 batters in 175.3 innings.
Unfortunately, Nelson suffered a labrum tear on a dive back to first base as a base runner in a game in early September. You have to wonder if the Brewers would have made up their one-game deficit to the Rockies in the wild card race if they had their best starting pitcher down the stretch. Nelson missed most of September and is likely to miss a portion of next season. The injury was to his non-throwing shoulder, which is good, but it will still take months to come back from.
The Brewers also received a good year from Chase Anderson (12-4, 2.74 ERA in 25 starts) and a solid season from Zach Davies (17-9, 3.90 ERA). Lefty Brent Suter spent time in the majors and minors before coming up for good in July. He finished the year 3-2 with a 3.42 ERA in 81.7 innings.
What Went Wrong
Probably the biggest disappointments for the Milwaukee Brewers this year was Jonathan Villar. In 2016, Villar was a 3-to-4 WAR player who hit .285/.369/.457, with 92 runs, 19 homers, 63 RBI, and a league-leading 62 stolen bases. He walked almost 12 percent of the time and had a .373 BABIP. This year, he hit .241/.293/.372 and didn’t come close to the run production or steals he had in 2016. He walked around 7 percent of the time and his BABIP dropped to .330. He also struck out at a higher rate than any previous season.
If Villar wasn’t the biggest disappointment for the Brewers, then perhaps it was center fielder Keon Broxton. After hitting .242/.354/.430 and being a 2-WAR player in just 75 games in 2016, he slumped to .220/.299/.420 and was worth just 0.7 WAR in 143 games.
Broxton had strikeout issues both years. His career strikeout rate is 37 percent. In 2016, he walked nearly 15 percent of the time, which mitigated some of the strikeouts. This year, he walked less than 9 percent of the time. He also saw his BABIP drop from .373 to .323. Broxton made some great catches during the season, but he regressed significantly from last season.
Left fielder Ryan Braun was more productive than Villar and Broxton, but the $20 million player was limited to 104 games and worth just 1.5 WAR. He also had his worst season at the dish, hitting .268/.336/.487. He has three more years and $60 million left on his contract (with a $15M mutual option for 2021).
Starting pitcher Matt Garza continued his descent into “spring training invite” status. He had an ERA near 5.00 and barely averaged five innings per start. Over the last three years, Garza is 18-31 with a 5.10 ERA. When the Brewers front office looks back at this season, they’ll look at how close they came to the playoffs and the 22 starts they gave to Matt Garza and stare vacantly off into the distance wondering what might have been.
Another starting pitcher who was a big disappointment was Junior Guerra. He was the toast of the town last year, when he was 9-3, with a 2.81 ERA in 121.7 innings. This year, he was 1-4, with a 5.12 ERA in 70.3 innings. His walk rate went from around nine percent to almost 14 percent.
Top Offseason Needs
The Brewers entered this season with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Ryan Braun is the big-ticket item here and he has a few more years left on a hefty contract that runs through his age-36 season, with a mutual option for his age-37 season. Coming off an injury-marred year, he’ll be tough to trade so the team will likely continue to fill around him with younger, cheaper players. This is how their lineup looks for 2018 based on their current roster:
C Manny Pina, pre-arbitration
1B Eric Thames, $5 million
2B Jonathan Villar, arbitration
SS Orlando Arcia, pre-arbitration
3B Travis Shaw, pre-arbitration
LF Ryan Braun, $20 million
CF Keon Broxton, pre-arbitration
RF Domingo Santana, pre-arbitration
They have affordable players throughout the lineup, but some were much more productive than others this season. Catcher Manny Pina was a nice find, but he’s spent more than a decade trying to get regular big league playing time. He’ll be 31 years old next year. His .279/.327/.424 season in 107 games has fluke written all over it. On the bright side, even if his bat takes a step back, he has a good glove behind the dish.
Shaw, Santana, and Thames were productive players and Broxton still has that potential that he flashed in 2016. With Braun locked in to one outfield spot and Santana locked into another, Broxton is in danger of being supplanted by one of the Brewers up-and-coming outfielders.
Prospect Brett Phillips got a 37-game taste of major league play last season and held his own. The team’s top prospect, Lewis Brinson, struggled in a small sample size of 55 plate appearances. He’s been a top-30 prospect prior to each of the last two seasons and hit .331/.400/.562 in Triple-A this year. He’s close.
With the season Jonathan Villar had, second base is now a question mark. If Villar doesn’t figure it out, the team has a few young infield prospects in Mauricia Dubon, Isan Diaz and Keston Hiura. They’re all young, though. Dubon will be 23 and only has 58 games at the Triple-A level. Diaz will be 22 and Hiura will be 21 next year and neither have played above A ball yet. Veteran second baseman Neil Walker hit well for the Brewers after they picked him up in an August trade, but he’s a free agent and made $17.2 million last year. That’s too pricey for Milwaukee.
When it comes to pitching, the Brewers will likely need to bring in some arms to compete in the NL Central. Jimmy Nelson is a question mark because of his shoulder injury, so the two main cogs in the rotation will be Chase Anderson and Zach Davies. Brent Suter and Brandon Woodruff should get good looks for the rotation based on what they did this year. None of these four are top-tier starters, though, so the Brewers will have to go outside the organization to find an ace if they want one.
Down in the minor leagues, Corbin Burnes pitched well at two levels in 2017, combining for a 1.67 ERA in 26 starts at Double-A and Triple-A. Luis Ortiz, who was the number 79 prospect in baseball in the pre-season according to Baseball America, put up a 4.01 ERA in 94.3 innings at Double-A Biloxi.
Next: Blue Jays 2017 Season Review
The Milwaukee Brewers have a good foundation to build on and made a big leap forward this year. As mentioned above, sometimes a team will fall back after taking that leap and that wouldn’t be surprising here as more young players are incorporated into the lineup and rotation. That being said, their future looks bright.