Milwaukee Brewers MVP, Best Newcomer, and other season awards

MEDAL RESULT | Most Valuable Hitter

Jedd Gyorko

Daniel Vogelbach

Ryan Braun

Jedd Gyorko takes home the first gold medal of the awards and the United States sweeps the podium in Most Valuable Hitter. Unfortunately, the only options for countries were ones on earth, so I couldn’t really get a correct one for Vogelbach as he’s clearly from another planet.

Gyorko wins gold as the most consistent and easily best hitter for the Brewers. Sure, it’s a little sad that our best hitter had a batting average of .248. However, he did slug .504 to bring his OPS to .838 for an OPS+ of 128, well above league-average of 100. He also finished third on the team in home runs with nine, even though he was sixth in plate appearances. He also led all Brewer hitters in total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) with 0.6.

The second place in WAR for Milwaukee hitters was Daniel Vogelbach at 0.5. Yeah, seriously, the guy that played 19 games made more of an impact than literally any other hitter. This seems like a good time to mention that numbers three and four were Manny Pina and Jacob Nottingham who also had abbreviated seasons, though WAR does factor in their defensive contributions behind the plate is where they were both very good.

Vogelbach slashed .328/.418/.569 in a Milwaukee Brewers’ uniform this season. Those are almost 2018/19 Christian Yelich numbers. For comparison, Vogelbach’s OPS was .987, and Yelich’s over that two-year span was 1.046. No one is expecting him to replicate those numbers in 2021, but if he can consistently get back to what he did last season with the Mariners, David Stearns may have gone dumpster diving and found a diamond as his first baseman of the future.

Finally, Ryan Braun takes the bronze to round out the podium. You could argue that Yelich deserves it more, but he’s already lined up for his own award later, and maybe leaving him off this award will motivate him to be better next season when he definitely reads this. Also, it might be Braun’s final season, so I can’t just not write about one of the greatest players in franchise history.

Braun was one of the few Milwaukee Brewers’ hitters with an OPS+ over 100. Granted, it was barely over at 101, but he was an above-average hitter this season. This was due in large part to his power hitting. He hit just .233 and only got on base at a .281 rate, but he slugged .488, just 10 points under what it was in 2015 when he made his last All-Star game.

He hit eight home runs, seven doubles, and…a triple? If you remember the Ryan Braun triple that apparently happened on September 5th in a 4-3 loss against the Cleveland Indians, please leave a comment below. If this was indeed Braun’s last season in Milwaukee, he’ll be leaving on a good note having one more solid season and his fifth postseason appearance, a Milwaukee Brewers’ franchise record.