No team in baseball is generating offense quite like the Brewers.
Look no further than Joey Ortiz's performance on Wednesday (3-for-3, walk and stolen base, triple shy of cycle), which couldn't have been more on-brand. The Crew has scored 514 runs (fifth-most in the Majors) while hitting just 94 homers (fewest). They also sport the highest ground-ball rate (47.3%) and opposite-field rate (26.2%), while maintaining the second-lowest gap between their OBP (.336) and SLG (.397).
Here are five stats that define the Brewers’ scrappy (but elite) offense.
No. 1 on pitch 1
Brewers batters have swung at just 27.3% of first pitches, the second-lowest rate in the Majors. But they’re doing remarkable damage with those few first-pitch swings, batting .377 (first) and slugging .631 (second).
There are a handful of 0-0 mashers leading the way. Andrew Vaughn has a minuscule 18.8% swing rate, going 9-for-16 (.563) with six extra-base hits, Jackson Chourio is 19-for-37 (.514) with a 1.000 SLG, and five of Jake Bauers’ team-leading 18 homers have come on first pitches.
The Brewers’ lack of aggressiveness itself isn’t much of a surprise, as their 43.7% overall swing rate is also lowest in the Majors. It’s the impact they’re making on first pitches while sticking to such a patient approach that’s somewhat staggering, especially considering their low-slugging tendencies later in counts.
A baserunning dynasty
They might not be as flashy as Jacob Misiorowski’s fastballs, but Brewers baserunners are also traveling at impressively high speeds this season. The Crew’s average sprint speed is 27.9 feet per second, ranking second-best in the Majors – familiar territory for a club which has finished back-to-back seasons atop the league’s baserunning runs leaderboard.
The Brewers currently rank tied for fourth with six baserunning runs, but even if they don’t three-peat as the overall leaders, the depth of speed throughout their roster is still unparalleled. A league-high 10 Brewers have stolen at least five bases this year, and nine of the 79 fastest players by sprint speed are on Milwaukee: Garrett Mitchell, David Hamilton, Brandon Lockridge, Ortiz, Cooper Pratt, Chourio, Blake Perkins, Sal Frelick and Brice Turang.
It’s safe to say their baserunning dynasty is alive and well.
Power when it counts
Hall of Fame manager Earl Weaver famously emphasized three keys to winning ballgames: pitching, defense and three-run homers. You’d think the latter would be hard for the contact-hitting Crew to come by, but more than half (53.2%) of those homers have come with runners on base, marking the highest rate in the Majors.
That number is aided by the bat of 30-year-old breakout slugger Bauers, who leads baseball with seven three-run homers. William Contreras is doing his part too, as eight of his 10 homers have come with runners on base – including a majestic walk-off on Sunday.
The Brewers may have the least power in baseball, but they’re finding it at just the right moments.
ABS: Use sparingly
Brewers batters have tapped their heads on just 2.8% of challengeable pitches this season. That’s the lowest rate in baseball by a healthy margin. But according to Statcast, the Brewers have actually had 378 “reasonable opportunities” to challenge, tied for second-most.
To make things more puzzling, their most frequent ABS-user has been their worst, and their most cautious one has been their best. Gary Sánchez has the 10th-fewest overturns vs. expected in MLB, a result of his high 17.3% challenge clip and underwhelming 41% success rate, while Turang has the 12th-most despite challenging just two pitches all season. How is Turang’s value so high when his usage is so low? He’s correctly opting not to challenge close calls that another batter might wrongly burn a challenge on, a tendency he’s demonstrated in pivotal moments from his second at-bat of the season (30.8% challenge probability) to Sunday’s epic ninth inning.
Restraint like Turang’s permeates the Brewers’ roster, and ultimately leaves them with a funny-looking positive net overturn vs. expected, but they could be saving those challenges for someone to use responsibly – not just banking them or blowing them on a Sánchez misfire. Seventy-two percent of their challenges have been on reasonable opportunities, so they’re picking their moments well. With a bit more aggressiveness and a bit better luck, they should be able to squeeze even more value out of baseball’s newest feature.
Cardinal directions
Only four teams in baseball history have posted the fewest regular-season homers in MLB and gone on to win the World Series. One of those teams was the 1982 Cardinals, who defeated none other than the Milwaukee Brewers in the franchise’s sole Fall Classic appearance to date.
It would be all too poetic if, 44 years later, the Brewers finally avenged that loss by following in the footsteps of the ’82 Cardinals to join an exclusive club of lowest-power champions.