At Least They Can Defend

 

The single most fascinating thing about the 2023 Milwaukee Brewers is this: they cannot hit, and they are still well within the race for the NL Central because that's likely their only drawback. 

There are only four Brewers with anything resembling a positive hitting WAR category: Christian Yelich, who's just having a great season all-around, William Contreras, who's also been fantastic at the plate this year, and rookies Andruw Monasterio and Sal Frelick. Literally everybody else has a negative batting figure. LITERALLY EVERY OTHER HITTER. Willy Adames, Jesse Winker, Carlos Santana, Brian Anderson, Mark Canha, NONE OF THEM ARE HITTING. It's genuinely appalling. The only competitive team with worse batting numbers than the Brewers is, well, the Yankees.

The trend that's even more interesting is that they brought up all these young position players, and while they're not doing anything at the plate, they're all really good defensively. Joey Wiemer is the biggest example of this, being a phenomenal defensive outfielder and sitting on a 1.5 WAR on the strength of his defense alone pretty much, while also hitting .212 with 40 RBIs and 13 home runs. Blake Perkins, similarly, has a 9 defensive WAR, and is hitting .217. Brice Turang is the more notorious of these guys, as his lack of hitting results led to him sitting in the minors for a bit, but since Urias struggled and Owen Miller became better used off the bench, second base became his again thanks to his defensive abilities. It just makes it more ironic that one of the few rookies to start hitting well, namely Garrett Mitchell, got hurt for a long period of time.

This is what has made Monasterio and Frelick so refreshing. Frelick not only can make huge diving plays, but he's also pretty impressive at the plate, with 10 hits and 11 RBIs in his first 15 games. Monasterio is hitting .275 with 36 hits and 10 RBIs in 46 games. Guys like these are decent antitheses to the barrage of non hitting rookies, but hopefully it's a way of turning the tide. I am firm in my belief that some of these guys, like Turang and Wiemer, are just waiting for the moment where they really nail MLB pitching, and it just hasn't happened yet. Which is fair, it takes some people a while. All of this happening now, and threatening to sink a Brewers team that could have the division on the strength of its stars and pitching alone, is just an unlucky syncing up of learning curves. 

The Brewers may still be able to snag the division if these pieces, and some of the new ones, are allowed to slowly get to what they should be doing, and if this team can have room to get hot. Because if not, the Cubs are the one with the momentum right now, and the Reds can outhit these guys three ways to Sunday. If it comes down to their bats, and they're still like this in a month, the Brewers may end up missing the postseason yet again.

Coming Tonight: A homegrown outfield bat from The Team That Wouldn't Die