Milwaukee Brewers Offense gets Surprise Boost from Dan Vogelbach

The addition of Daniel Vogelbach certainly flew under the radar, but he has given the Milwaukee Brewers’ offense a surprise boost.

Over the last week, we’ve seen the Milwaukee Brewers’ offense explode on two occasions, posting 19 runs against Detroit and recently 18 against St. Louis. But for much of the season, they’ve been one of the worst offensive teams in baseball, ranking near the bottom in runs, batting average, OPS, and quite a few other categories as well.

On September 3rd, we saw the Brewers make the decision to designate Justin Smoak for assignment, and on that same day, they’d pick up Daniel Vogelbach, who somehow was off to a worse start this season than what Smoak was.

During his first three big league seasons from 2016 to 2018, Vogelbach was used sparingly but saw a lot of action last season, appearing in 144 games with Seattle. His .208 average in 2019 isn’t going to turn heads, but he logged a .780 OPS with 30 home runs, a walk rate of over 16 percent, and an OPS+ of 111.

Combine that with the fact that Vogelbach is still under team control for four more seasons, and despite his poor start to the 2020 season, this was a very David Stearns-esque pickup.

As I just mentioned, Vogelbach was off to a poor start this season. And I mean not good at all. He would appear in 18 games with Seattle before being DFA’d, and then after joining Toronto, he would be DFA’d after only two games with them. In 69 at-bats, he would slash .088/.246/.211 with only two home runs.

However, that hasn’t been the case in Milwaukee. In fact, it’s been quite the opposite. In just eight games, Vogelbach has become a fan favorite, and he’s off to a red-hot start. In 30 plate appearances, he’s slashing .462/.533/.654, and for those without a calculator, that totals an OPS of 1.187. Not to mention that on Tuesday night, we got to see our first “Vogeybomb.”

Even with his incredibly slow start to the season, Vogelbach’s walk rate is still over 16 percent, his strikeout rate is down compared to 2019, while his hard-hit rate is up, and he’s been a welcomed addition to this Milwaukee Brewers team when they really needed one.

After blowing out the Cardinals 18-3, a game in which Voegelbach went 3-4 at the plate, Manager Craig Counsell had this to say when asked about the big left-hander (via Milwaukee Journal Sentinel):

"“He’s just had really good at-bats from the day he put the uniform on for us. I especially think a left-handed bat is something that we’ve kind of needed this year – somebody just to drive in runs, be in the middle of the lineup. He’s doing exactly what we’d hoped he’d do.Obviously, he got off to a really poor start this year, but he’s a good hitter. He’s going to collect hits.”"

With the way Vogelbach has been swinging the bat, he has cemented himself in this Brewers’ lineup for the time being as the DH. As Counsell mentioned, the Brewers were in need of a productive left-handed bat in the lineup, and Vogelbach was in need of an opportunity, and so far, it’s worked out beautifully for both parties.

All stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, Baseball Savant, and Fangraphs