Milwaukee Brewers: Scorching home run pace cause for concern?

The Milwaukee Brewers have been hitting balls out of the park left and right for the first two months of the season. While everyone loves the long ball it could be a detriment to their offense in the long-term.

Christian Yelich is having the start that every Milwaukee Brewers fan dreamed of following his 2018 MVP season and leading the league in homers. Yasmani Grandal has come just as advertised, adding another power bat in the lineup from the catcher position with 12 home runs. Mike Moustakas has also found the power stroke at the plate, contributing 15 home runs. Even the pitchers have been getting into the home run act, with Jhoulys Chacin and Aaron Wilkerson each hitting one out of the park.

At this point in the season, they are tied for fourth in the MLB and tied for first in the National League in home runs at 92. Five of the other six teams in the top seven in home runs are having successful seasons with records well over .500. The only exception is the Seattle Mariners who are second in Major League Baseball with 100 home runs but a record of 24-34.

The question facing the Milwaukee Brewers and the other top home run hitting teams is whether this pace is sustainable and if they can produce enough offense without the long ball?

Even with hitting the most home runs in the National League, the Brewers still are sitting at sixth in their league in total runs scored, seventh in hits, and twelfth in doubles. Their team batting average sits at a pedestrian .248 which ranks them 10th in the National League. The Milwaukee Brewers are simply not hitting very well outside of the times they hit the ball out of the park.

Another worrying stat is that the Milwaukee Brewers are seventh in the MLB and second in the National League in strikeout percentage at 24.9 percent. This is not surprising, as more strikeouts are often correlated to more home runs, but the strange part is that of those top seven teams in strikeout percentage, only one team, the aforementioned bad Mariners, are in the list of top seven home run hitting teams. In fact, the Dodgers, Astros, and Twins who are all top seven in home runs are in the bottom five in strikeout percentage.

This discrepancy between these two lists makes the Brewers an outlier. They are one of only two teams on both lists and the only one with a winning record. This could point to a downward trend later in the season for the Brewers if they cannot keep up the home run pace that they have been on.

Strikeouts hurt a team, especially with runners on base. Contrary to what it has seemed like lately, the Brewers are actually hitting better with runners in scoring position this season. As a team, they are hitting .263 with an OPS of .833 in those situations, compared to their season totals of .248 and .768 in those categories.

However, their strikeout rate jumps slightly to 25.6 percent with runners in scoring position. This will need to change as the ball needs to be put in play with men on to advance them.

The Milwaukee Brewers still do have hope for the rest of the season. They have put themselves in a good position after two months, within striking distance of the division leader, right where you want to be in this stage of the season. Baseball Reference gives them an 83.9 percent chance to make the playoffs, and 8.6 percent to win the World Series, so they are very much in the race.

The biggest reason I believe that they will continue to play winning baseball is that Jesus Aguilar and Travis Shaw will hit more home runs. They have both been underwhelming this year, but last year both showed their ability to hit 30 homers in a season.

Neither will get to that mark this season, but they will hit more. Even if Yelich, Moustakas, and Grandal’s paces slow down, the Milwaukee Brewers will still be in good hands knowing that two power bats have yet to come alive.