The Milwaukee Brewers tinkered around the edges of their ballclub this offseason. Is it enough to compete in the NL Central?
A debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 Milwaukee Brewers.
Opti-me: I thought the Brewers had a good winter when they picked up Kolten Wong for a song. Now they’re signing Jackie Bradley Jr., who’s probably the best defensive center fielder, for two years in another bargain deal. We already had Jose Arcia, maybe the most under-rated defensive shortstop.
A lot of people think there are no strong teams in the NL Central, but I see one. Give Christian Yelich any kind of bounce-back year, bring back Lorenzo Cain, let Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff have even minimal growth from 2020, and top it off with Josh Hader and Devin Williams for the late innings, and we have us a division champion.
Pessi-me: I’ll tell you who may not be that fired up about the Bradley signing…Lorenzo Cain. He’s 35, he took a full year off in 2020 on a Covid opt-out, and a week after he comes back you sign a guy to play his position.
What do you do with Cain now? Move him to right? Then what happens to Avisail Garcia? And by the way, how much has Cain’s game deteriorated since September of 2019? Or is Brewers management wondering the same thing, prompting the Bradley signing.
Opti-me: Statistical maven that you are, I know you know that Cain hit .320 in September of 2019, so your argument that his skills were wearing down, declining, or whatever is kind of silly. Do you have a problem with having a fourth entirely useful outfielder, especially since nobody knows whether Ryan Braun is coming back? An extra hitter isn’t exactly a detriment.
But the real reason for optimism in Milwaukee, other than beer and the best German food outside Bavaria, is the pitching. Burnes was 4-1 with a 2.11 ERA, Woodruff had a 3.05 ERA and the Brewers only scored seven runs in his five defeats.
Between them, they struck out one-third of the guys who tried to hit them last season. Burnes had a 216 ERA+ that would have been fifth best in all of baseball if he’d been allowed to pitch enough innings to qualify.
Pessi-me: This being the season after 2020, nobody in their right mind expects those two guys to pitch close to a normal full workload. Personally, my guess is if you get 45 starts and 350 innings out of the two of them you’ll be doing pretty well. That will leave you about 117 starts and a thousand innings shy of the finish line.
Let me guess; those 117 starts and a thousand innings are coming from Adrian Houser? Josh Lindblom? Brett Anderson? Eric Lauer? Anderson was the pick of that litter last season; 4-4 with a 4.21 ERA.
You Milwaukee Brewers fans keep waiting for Houser to develop into what you have projected for three seasons. But the bloom went off that rose a year or two ago. He’s 27 now, no kid, and we’re looking at a career 7-13 record. Last season, when by the way you could have won the division if he’d been decent, Houser went 1-6 with a 5.30 ERA. What’s Plan B because Plan A isn’t working so far.
Opti-me: We don’t need those guys to pitch to the level of Burnes and Woodruff. They just have to hold the fort until we can get to Williams, Hader, Brent Suter, and the rest of that kick-butt bullpen.
Last year we got a 7-3 record, 13 saves, and 78 innings out of just those three guys alone. In those 78 innings, they gave up 46 hits and just 29 other baserunners for a group WHIP under 1.00. Combine two first-rate starters with a lockdown pen and that takes a lot of pressure off the rest of the staff.
Pessi-me: You talk about that staff as if it was invincible. It’s not. You had a 4.16 ERA last year. That’s basically mid-park. You were 10th in runs allowed per game. So you need to hit.
And you know what…you didn’t do that especially well, either. You were 13th in runs scored per game, 12th in average, and 11th in OPS+. I know what you’re going to say: Those numbers were colored by Yelich’s bad season. Not true. Yelich batted .205, but if he had hit .300 in the same number of at bats the team would have hit .233 and still would have ranked 12th in the league.
So what’s your fix for that? Basically, it’s Wong and Bradley plus a full season from Cain. I know Bradley hit .283 last year but let’s be fair; 2020 was the best offensive season of his career. He’s 31, a known quantity, and if you get .250 out of him you can’t be disappointed. Wong’s .265 average sounds decent, but it added up to an 87 OPS+, which, if you’re wondering, is why the Cardinals made him available.
As for Cain, just don’t be surprised if you find out he’s a solid year into his decline phase. The one saving grace is you are in a weak division where anybody’s a contender. So if you’re really lucky, maybe .500 is good enough. But I wouldn’t count on it.
Opti-me: With Burns and Woodruff leading the way, Williams and Hader dominating the seventh, eighth, and ninth innings, Yelich bouncing back, and Bradley bringing defense, spirit, and attitude, it’s the Milwaukee Brewers by five games – maybe more in the NL Central.