Milwaukee Brewers 2017 New Year’s Resolutions
By Tim Muma
While Milwaukee Brewers fans were happy to see a more disciplined approach at the dish, the club may have shifted too far the other way in 2016.
Many who have watched this club the past decade can point to the propensity to be extremely aggressive in the box.
In fact, from 2011-2015 the Brewers owned the highest swing percentage in all of baseball (47.8 percent). Swing percentage is the amount of swings divided by pitches seen.
Last season Milwaukee swung at the 5th-fewest amount of pitches – just 45.1 percent. The philosophical change was evident throughout the year, but was it too much?
Seeing more pitches is generally a positive. One can get into a better count, get a gauge for the pitcher’s stuff, and build up his pitch count to get to tire him out and get to the bullpen.
It’s not just a Brewers’ thing, as MLB teams in 2016 set an all-time record with an average of 3.87 pitches per plate appearance. The key, really, is finding the balance of patience and selective swinging.
It led to a 20.3 line drive percentage – ranked 21st in all of baseball. More aggressiveness would do this team some good.
The good news for the Brewers was that they had the 3rd-lowest percentage of swings at pitches outside of the strike zone (28.4 percent). Thus, it means they were chasing fewer bad pitches. This was a big reason the team ranked 3rd in walks in 2016, averaging 3.5 per game.
However, they also took a ton of pitches in the strike zone. Milwaukee ranked 23rd out of 30 clubs in swing percentage in the zone. Thus, the rest of the offensive numbers didn’t match up.
Despite the walks, the Brewers were tied for 12th (with three other teams) in OBP with a .322 mark. They also hit just .244 as a team (27th) and owned a .407 slugging percentage (20th).
Some of this is due to personnel, but it also relates to their indecision in the strike zone. It led to a 20.3 line drive percentage – ranked 21st in all of baseball. More aggressiveness would do this team some good.
Milwaukee finished 2016 with the 3rd-worst contact percentage on pitches in the strike zone (83.5 percent).
After all, the patience didn’t help their strikeout totals. The Brewers set the all-time MLB record for strikeouts in a season 1,543 whiffs, a mark that eclipsed the old franchise record as well – by 144 punch outs.