3 things the Milwaukee Brewers can do to improve the offense

The Milwaukee Brewers acquired two bats at the trade deadline but are still struggling to score runs.

Veterans Carlos Santana and Mark Canha were brought in to help boost an offense that has struggled to support the team’s outstanding pitching.

The Brewers are in the league’s bottom five in batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS. They are in the bottom ten in runs scored and on-base percentage.

Acquiring two veterans on the cheap is not going to dramatically alter the lineup’s production. There are a few things the team can do to get a little more offense.

Drop Willy Adames down in the batting order.

Adames is having a disappointing season with a slash line of .203/.288/.380 and a wRC+ of 81. He has 17 home runs on the season, but his last dinger came on July 21st.

He has just three hits in his last 19 at-bats. His splits are terrible as he is hitting .194 against lefties and .206 against right-handed pitching.

Adames still has value with a 1.2 fWAR and the Crew need his glove. He is a 9.7 defensive WAR player. Plus, he brings a lot of intangibles to the lineup. He also has had some bad luck.

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That still does not warrant him batting in the two, three, or four spots in the lineup. He needs to be dropped a little bit further down the order.

He has had 15 at-bats in the five spot and produced five hits. His best OPS comes when he is hitting in the four-hole, but he has just not been producing consistently enough.

His ISO numbers are way down from last season and he has a .237 batted balls in play average.

Willy’s hard-hit percentage is poor and this is his second-worst average exit velocity percentage of his career.

Fangraphs still projects Adames can finish strong, but at this point, he is a near automatic out in a part of the lineup where you need production.

Keeping him on the field is fine since he still plays good defense. He needs to be slotted on the lineup card somewhere between the five and seven spots.

He was given the night off on Monday and Sal Frelick produced quite nicely in the four-hole.

Get Brice Turang and Joey Wiemer to focus on getting on base more.

Turang and Wiemer are going through their rookie struggles. They both have good speed on the base path.

The problem is they both struggle to get on base. They have been consistently hitting in the eight and nine spots in the order.

The message needs to be clear to them–find a way to get on base by any means.

Turang drew a walk in a loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday and proceeded to steal second. That put him in scoring position for Christian Yelich who has been one of the Milwaukee Brewers’ most consistent hitters.

Yelich and William Contreras have been the team’s best hitters. Since they are hitting one-two, it would be nice to have Turang and Wiemer on the base path when they come back up to the plate later in the game.

Be aggressive on the bases (but not stupid).

The Milwaukee Brewers are in the league’s top 10 in stolen bases. They do have some guys that can run.

In the middle of a contentious division race, now is the time to get aggressive.

The Crew should not be dumb and run into outs. They do need to keep putting pressure on the opposing defense.

Also, they need to find ways to get into scoring position.

Stealing bases is one way to do that. First, the Brewers have to do a better job of getting on base as a team.