Brewers 2021 Wrap-up
They say baseball is all about pitching, but the 2021 Milwaukee Brewers proved that offense is also a required component for a legitimate World Series contender, as they lost to the Atlanta Braves this week in four games while scoring a sum total of six runs, including two shutouts.
These four games were sadly reminiscent of the four games I attended in 2021, when the Crew scored a grand total of four runs, losing all four games. Three of these games took place after the acquisition of shortstop Willy Adames, whose presence gave the team a needed boost at the end of May. I like a good pitchers duel now and then as much as the next guy, but the team I watched during those four games was not a fun team to watch. The offense was anemic, the baserunning and defense sloppy, and the overall excitement generated was subpar. And while the Brewers surged during the second half of season, their offensive numbers over the entire season were, well, terrible.
Milwaukee ranked 26th in batting average, 24th in slugging percentage, and 20th in OPS. Defense didn’t help either. The Brewers ranked 9th in errors allowed, 28th in double plays, and 21st in fielding percentage.
It was this team that somehow – miraculously – managed to score enough runs throughout the season to lock down the NL Central in easy fashion. Their pitching staff was so good – ranking 3rd in runs allowed per game – and the division in which they played so mediocre, that the Brewers ran away with their first division title in three years. Even offensively, the Brewers managed to score the league-average number of runs per game, but I don’t know of any Brewers fans who felt confident entering the playoffs. Four game later, our concerns have been unsatisfyingly validated. The Brewers’ pitching staff once again had to be nearly perfect for the team to even have a chance of winning, and in the playoffs against a good-hitting Braves team, this was an awfully tall order.
The pitching wasn’t perfect, but it was solid. What was embarrassingly bad was the offense. During the playoff series against a good-pitching Braves team, the Brewers swung and missed at more pitches outside the strike zone than any playoff team has a right to. This is best encapsulated by Avisail Garcia’s third at-bat in game four. After swinging and missing at two sliders down and away, Garcia swung at the next pitch – also a slider – in the exact same location. What made Garcia think that pitcher Huascar Ynoa – after having adequately demonstrated that he needn’t pitch in the zone to get a strike – was actually going to throw in the zone for his third pitch is mind-boggling.
This one at-bat sort of sums up a lot of the Brewers at-bats this season, and it highlights the concerns for next years’ Brewers team (and begs the question: will batting coach Andy Haines be returning next season?). On paper, the Brewers’ pitching and infield seem to be in relatively good shape for 2022, with nearly every player returning. These were the strengths of the team in 2021 (tough first base is still a concern). But the Brewers’ outfield is currently bloated with highly-paid players who are performing absolutely terribly. Garcia was the lone bright spot (though not always), but he likely won’t be returning to the Brewers next season. Instead, the Brewers have returning Jackie Bradley, Jr., who just completed one of the worst offensive seasons in Major League history), an injury-prone and past-his-prime Lorenzo Cain, and Christian Yelich, who’s not even a shadow of his former self, garnering a shocking 1.3 WAR in 2021.
How will the Brewers fortify the outfield with some offensive numbers? There’s only one way that I can think of given that the team salary is already stretched, and that’s to make a deal to trade some of their stellar pitchers on the staff. With the luxury of having three aces in Corbin Burnes, Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta, very capable 4th and 5th starters in Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer, and excellent relievers in Devin Williams (albeit a very, very stupid Devin Williams, who used his pitching hand to punch a wall at the end of the regular season) and Josh Hader, I would not be surprised some of these guys were traded to bolster the offense for 2022. We shall see what David Stearns and company decide to do during what will certainly be a volatile off-season, as players and owners hash out a new collective bargaining agreement.