You thought Oakland’s slide was bad? The Brewers spent 159 days in first place this year. They missed the playoffs. Completely. Couldn’t even hang onto the second wildcard spot. Anytime you go down in history compared to the 2007 Mets, it was a rough year.
Preseason Prediction: Braun hits more like he did in 2009 or 2010, but whether that’s because he’s off whatever he was taking or it’s because of simple regression — he is 30 now — is anyone’s guess. Without Braun performing at an MVP level, the Brewers are a solid team, but on the outer fringes of the playoff race — better than quite a few teams, competitive in just about every game they play, but not at the level of the teams that will spend the year leading the wildcard standings. It’d be pretty safe to peg them for the 80-83 win range. (Jaymes Langrehr, March 11th)
What Went Right: Well, hey, they hit that prediction. Just not in the way that they probably would’ve liked.
Nobody got suspended for being involved in a synthetic testosterone drug ring this year, so the Brewers had that going for them. The Brewers’ long run in first place was largely thanks to a hot start — at the end of April, they were 20-8, with many of those wins coming against the Pirates and Cardinals. Their division lead grew to as large as 6.5 games as late as July 1st.
Carlos Gomez proved last season wasn’t a one-year fluke, although his Puig-ian penchant for celebration and Garza-like temper got the Brewers into a few…altercations. Jonathan Lucroy hit so well for much of the year that he was getting a small amount of MVP hype. The second base platoon of Scooter Gennett and Rickie Weeks also gave the Brewers some of the best production in the league at that position, even if it meant paying Weeks $10 million for less than 300 plate appearances.
On the pitching side of things, Matt Garza turned in a solid first season (although he eventually — predictably — landed on the DL), Wily Peralta took another step forward, and Yovani Gallardo started to learn how to pitch more like a finesse guy. In the bullpen, Francisco Rodriguez set himself up for a nice offseason payday by piling up more than 40 saves, although he surrendered a ton of home runs in the process.
What Went Wrong: Even the 2007 Mets think this was bad. The difference is that the Brewers’ collapse was a slow-motion slide, not a sudden implosion. They could’ve ran away with the division, but failed to bury Pittsburgh and St. Louis when they had the chance. A 9-16 month of July let the rest of the division back into the race, and a 9-game losing streak to end August and start September coughed up the division lead. The fall was much more than that, though — from August 20th to September 9th, the Brewers lost 16 of 19 games. Even in the rare wins over the past month, the offense has been non-existant.
A lot of the offseason will be spent figuring out what the hell happened, but most of the blame will end up falling on a lineup that simply made too many outs. Jean Segura suffered through a sophomore slump as one of the worst offensive players in baseball. Mark Reynolds and Lyle Overbay provided an upgrade over the production the Brewers got at first base last year, but still hit like Mark Reynolds and Lyle Overbay.
Then there’s Braun, who struggled all year to stay on the field. Even before his suspension last year, Braun was struggling with a nerve issue in his right hand that was sapping him of his power. Even with the extended vacation, the issue was still there this season. Various day-to-day ailments — the thumb, an oblique strain, and a variety of soreness — kept knocking him out of the lineup and sapped him of much of his productivity. A strong argument could be made that it wasn’t necessarily Braun’s pure power that struggled without the extra help — it was his inability to play through ailments he otherwise would have without much problem. The thumb injury is so bad that Braun became an opposite-field hitter for much of the season, avoiding pulling the ball because it hurt so much. And there’s a chance the pain will never go away. By the way, his $100 million extension doesn’t start until next year. So there’s that.
Most Surprising Player: We’ll go with Lucroy here, who before this season was always one of those “good-but-not-great” guys who never really struck you as one of the best in the league at his position. That changed this year, with his first All-Star appearance, an extended run at the batting title before slumping with the rest of the Brewers offense, and even setting a major league record (it’s an obscure one, but he passed Pudge Rodriguez for most doubles in a single season by a catcher). Lucroy has replaced Braun as the Face of the Franchise, and his bat was so valuable to the Brewers this year that they started throwing him at first base on his “off” days instead of truly resting him. It’s easy to miss because he plays in Milwaukee and on a team that quickly fell from relevance, but he started this week with an OPS in the mid-.800s as an everyday catcher.
Most Disappointing Player: It’d be easy to pick on Braun here, but nobody really knew what to expect from him heading into this season, anyway. Instead, we’ll go with Segura, whose bat was so bad that even Yuniesky Betancourt could have been an upgrade this year.
Segura was at least still an above-average defender at shortstop this year, but his bat was so bad that he’s going to finish the year with a WAR below zero. To his credit, he did increase his walk rate over last year and cut down on the strikeouts, but slugging in the low .300s all year, he never showed the kind of pop he did last season. Last year’s 12 home runs were probably a bit flukey, but the gap power wasn’t even there this year and he’s still hitting the ball on the ground nearly 60% of the time.
In all fairness to Segura, he did go through a very hard year off the field, with his infant son dying in the Dominican in July. He’s still only 24 and was rushed to the majors, but this was a very rough year, both on and off the field.
The Future: This is where it gets very depressing for the Brewers — barring some big changes in the offseason, this year may have been their best chance at making it to the postseason in the near future. They have an okay core with Lucroy and Gomez, but compared to the rest of the division, the roster looks thoroughly average.
It doesn’t help that the Cardinals and Pirates have started to debut some of their highly-touted minor league talent to reinforce their hold on the top of the division, and the Cubs have called up Javier Baez and Jorge Soler and should be calling up Kris Bryant sometime next year. If the Cubs find pitching, the Brewers could be left to fight with the Reds to avoid last place.
The success earlier this year doesn’t change the fact that the Brewers’ farm system still lacks the kind of impact talent needed to make a small-market team a contender, and owner Mark Attanasio is unlikely to allow a total blowup-and-rebuild. At best, the Brewers seem like a team that will fight tooth and nail to finish with 83 wins every year. If you follow the NBA, you’ve seen how that’s worked out for the Milwaukee Bucks.
