The struggling Brewers have a tough three weeks ahead of them
The term “tailspin” would be a bit strong to describe the state the Brewers are in right now, but they haven’t been a team that inspires confidence lately. Since July 1, the Brewers are 12-15, and the only series that they’ve won were a two-game sweep of the Twins and a series in which they took two of three from the Cubs despite scoring only five runs across three games; that stretch includes series losses to Pittsburgh, Washington (twice), and Miami. The offense has looked lifeless, and while the pitching has held together admirably this season, the year-long war of attrition they’ve been playing with the pitching staff seems finally to be catching up to them.
Miraculously, the rest of the division has underwhelmed as well, and the Brewers still hold a 5.5-game lead in the NL Central. But the Cardinals and Pirates made more moves than the Brewers did at the trade deadline, and both are lurking. Milwaukee is about to embark on a very difficult stretch of their schedule: the next five series are at Atlanta (who just won two of three in Milwaukee), home versus the Reds, home versus the Dodgers (the second-best record in the NL), home versus the Guardians (best record in the AL), and at St. Louis, for what could be one of the biggest series of the season.
I have four questions about the Brewers as they look to stabilize and hang on to their lead in the division.
Are the Brewers going to get anything from Christian Yelich for the rest of the season?
I hope so, but if I had to put money on it, no. I’m not saying that I don’t think he’ll play again—I suspect he’ll try to come back—but we’ve seen what balky-back Yelich looks like, and it’s not good. From May 30 through July 10, Yelich was on an MVP-level tear: he hit .357/.436/.525 in 38 games, and in early July his power, which had been missing since his trip to the injured list in April, returned to the tune of three homers in six games between July 3 and 9. But leading into the All-Star break he suddenly went cold; he was 1-for-19 in three games before and three games after the break, and then he was placed on the IL. He’s trying to put off surgery until the offseason in an effort to return, but the talk around him has been sort of ominous.
It’s a tough blow for this team. With Yelich in the lineup, they’re 42-31; without him, they’re 20-19. Since he went back on the IL on July 24, they’re 4-6. When he’s been on the field in 2024, Yelich has been probably the best version we’ve seen of him dating back to his near-slash-line triple crown in 2019. But the back has been an issue for years now, and it seems to have reached a point in which it needs to be surgically corrected. I’m not confident that he’ll offer a whole lot even if he does play again this season. He is eligible to come off the injured list at any point, but we haven’t heard much of anything regarding his readiness.
Regardless of what happens with Yelich, who is going to step up on offense?
For the last two months, Jackson Chourio has probably been the Brewers’ best offensive player. That’s great for the future of the franchise and it’s great for Chourio’s outlook, but that a 20-year-old has been the best offensive player on a team with legitimate postseason aspirations is probably not a good thing for the 2024 Brewers.
With Yelich a major question mark, you would expect the offense to be carried by William Contreras. The Brewers jumped out to a big lead in the division thanks to his MVP-level play in the first two months. But the last two months have been a mess. Contreras’s OPS peaked at .980 on May 19. It is now at .782. He is hitting .228/.296/.344 in his last 62 games. Contreras doesn’t appear to be hurt, and while fatigue is likely an issue—he played way too much in the first two months and Pat Murphy should not have let him do so—it’s a bit difficult to explain just what’s wrong with Contreras. Maybe he will see a return to form, but there’s nothing in the numbers to indicate that right now.
The Brewers also got major offensive contributions from three somewhat unexpected sources to begin the year: Brice Turang, Joey Ortiz, and, to a lesser extent, Sal Frelick. Frelick has been okay—he’s hitting .288 in the last month, but he hasn’t homered since May 15. Ortiz and Turang are both mired in miserable slumps: in the last 30 days Turang is hitting .151/.213/.151 and Ortiz is at .148/.232/.197. Again, maybe someone out of this group can get hot—Ortiz had some good signs on Sunday but couldn’t get the ball to fall—and you’d expect both of them to turn it around to an extent. Still, both are young players, and fatigue could, again, be an issue.
There is no help coming from the outside; while I was hoping the Brewers would add a left-handed bat at the deadline, no deal came together. I can’t really fault the Brewers for that, as it was a bad buyer’s market and there wasn’t really anyone good seemingly available. There aren’t really any realistic internal options—I’m not sure who Tyler Black or Brewer Hicklen take playing time from, barring injuries. If Milwaukee’s offense is going to find its way, it’ll need to find improvement on the current major-league roster. Some candidates beyond Chourio to help this team:
- Willy Adames is what he is: a streaky hitter who will frustrate you by going 2-for-26 every couple of weeks but then have a week where he gets a big hit seemingly every night. He’s been quietly good in the last month at .296/.374/.543 with four homers. He’s also a free agent at the end of the year, so a big finish would not only help the Brewers, it would maximize Adames’ potential earnings.
- Garrett Mitchell, who is hypothetically much fresher than the rest of the roster, is on a tear. In his last 19 games he’s hitting .353/.400/.529, and he showed something by getting a couple hits off of lefties on Sunday.
- Rhys Hoskins isn’t doing much of anything besides hitting home runs, but he is hitting home runs. He’s got eight homers since July 5, and while he’s hitting just .230 with a .281 OBP in that time, his slugging is at .595 and he’s knocked in 19 runs. If he can take some more walks (just five in 82 plate appearances in that timeframe) and continue homering, he will be doing exactly what the Brewers need from him.
- The Brewers are struggling to find playing time for Eric Haase, but he’s got the highest OPS on the Brewers in the last month (in a laughably small eight-game sample). Gary Sánchez, similarly, hasn’t been getting a ton of work, but is doing what he’s supposed to against left-handed pitching.
Those are the guys who might help, but one or more of the ice-cold hitters (Contreras, Ortiz, Turang) is probably going to need to heat up again if this team is to overcome a stretch run without Yelich. There just isn’t enough talent to overcome that many holes in the lineup if Yelich is out.
Will we ever see an optimized version of the bullpen?
It’s the nature of pitching these days, I suppose, but just as we were getting rehab outings from Devin Williams, Bryan Hudson looked tired and got placed on the IL. Just as Williams and Jared Koenig finally returned to the major league squad, Trevor Megill also went on the IL. I suppose it’s better to have Williams and Koenig rather than, you know, none of them, but sheesh.
Hudson should be back soon—he pitched a scoreless inning with Triple-A Nashville on Sunday in his first rehab appearance, and he has only been out since July 23 so I wouldn’t expect a long rehab assignment. Megill played catch on Saturday, but the team isn’t yet sure when he’ll be back. Even J.B. Bukauskas, who has been out since mid-April, is near a potential return, as he’s thrown two scoreless innings in the last week with Nashville. DL Hall is also out there: he’s made an astonishing 11 rehab appearances dating all the way back to May 23. Hypothetically he could be activated sometime.
Hall’s return would be interesting; it seems like Joe Ross may be best suited for long relief at this point, and if Hall is able to contribute to the starting rotation, that’s what I’d like to see. There’s a bit of a numbers game here, too, if all of these guys get healthy at once. But we’ve also seen that having everyone healthy at once is just not something that happens to pitching staffs in 2024.
Regardless, I’d say an idealized version of the Brewers bullpen in 2024 would look like this:
- Devin Williams, Trevor Megill, and Bryan Hudson as high-leverage guys
- Jared Koenig, Joel Payamps, Elvis Peguero, and Nick Mears as medium-leverage guys
- Joe Ross as the long reliever
That leaves a couple guys on the outside (Hoby Milner and Bryse Wilson, notably, but Bukauskas, and maybe Hall, as well). Bukauskas and Milner do both have minor league options remaining, but Wilson does not. There’s a wildcard option, too: I am becoming more and more open to the idea of seeing Jacob Misiorowski in a bullpen role down the stretch. Maybe the team has no intention of using him that way, but he’s been good for a month now, he’s got the stuff to make a real difference, and it’s a developmental path the Brewers have used with their top pitching prospects in the past.
But what I know about pitching in 2024 tells me that we may just not have to worry about anyone being left on the outside, because someone always gets hurt.
Will the Brewers get anything besides innings from their two new starters?
The Brewers rotation appears, on paper, to be set: Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale, and Frankie Montas are all healthy, and they’re all starters. Joe Ross started in his return last week, but unless they opt to go with a six-man rotation, he will likely be moved to the bullpen. Hall, mentioned above, could conceivably factor in here somehow—he’s been starting at Triple-A Nashville—but I’m not sure who he replaces, unless someone gets hurt. He’s probably the only realistic option to replace anyone in the current rotation or to fill a void if someone else gets hurt.
Rea and Myers have been excellent stabilizers this season, and despite a frustrating year, Peralta is still an above-average starting pitcher who could certainly set a career high in innings. But Civale has been hit pretty hard with the Brewers. In five outings (25 innings) he’s got an ERA of 5.40 and a FIP of 5.69. His walks are up, and his WHIP is 1.520. It hasn’t been pretty. Montas was okay in his first start as a Brewer—three runs in five innings—but it was a little scary, and his numbers in Cincinnati haven’t inspired confidence. Both have scary-looking Statcast pages.
The Brewers acquired Civale and Montas for a reason. Maybe that reason was simply that they desperately needed starting pitchers who could eat innings, but for a team that’s hoping not just to make it to the postseason but to do something there, they’ll need more. The vision is probably using that hypothetically fully-stocked bullpen to cover four innings per game, but the rotation—a weakness all season—is in a precarious position.
Wrapping up
We’ll see what happens over the next three weeks. On August 23, we should have a pretty good idea of where the Brewers stack up, for better or for worse. They’ve given themselves enough of a cushion in a weak enough division that they can withstand a few weeks of uninspiring baseball during the dog days of summer. But they need to figure out a way to inject some energy before things go sideways, and find the fun, exciting baseball that got them out to this lead in the first few months of the season.