Milwaukee Brewers 2017 New Year’s Resolutions
By Tim Muma
There are few things in baseball that can be more infuriating than watching your team get thrown out by 10 feet at home plate. The Milwaukee Brewers have made an art of it recently.
Manager Craig Counsell and others will keep telling you that aggressive base running creates more runs and problems for the defense than it does outs.
However, how many times do we hear Brian Anderson proclaim that it took a perfect throw to nab a runner at home? Usually, just a mediocre toss was good enough against the Brewers.
That was especially true when they’d run the idiotic “contact play” where the runner from 3rd – with less than two outs – breaks for home immediately on a ground ball.
The Brewers consistently show arrogance and ignorance trying to do this with the infield in on the grass. In amateur baseball it’s a worthwhile gamble. With Big League talent, it’s foolish.
A runner reaching base only scored 27 percent of the time for the Brewers – dead last in baseball.
The result? Last season, the Brewers led all of MLB with 27 outs at home plate. The Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs were 2nd with 23.
So you might be thinking that’s not bad company as Chicago was 3rd in runs scored and Texas was 8th. It apparently worked for them to have a few guys cut down at the plate.
Well, two other statistics show why it was fine for those clubs, but a big failure for Milwaukee.
A runner reaching base only scored 27 percent of the time for the Brewers – dead last in baseball. Texas was tied for the 3rd-best percentage (32 percent) and Chicago was 8th (31 percent).
The other two clubs were also more successful in taking extra bases as a whole. While the Brewers were 14th in extra bases taken (40 percent), the Rangers and Cubs each ranked 4th at 43 percent.
Thus, Milwaukee was up-and-down when it came to effective, aggressive base running, making it more likely they’d get thrown out.
There isn’t much of a problem trying to force the issue at home plate with two outs on a ball in the outfield; however, a bit more intelligence and conservative strategy with less than two outs will go a long way.