This weekend at Wrigley Field will have plenty of headlines about a certain manager matchup – which now has a funny twist with Rickie Weeks managing game one before Pat Murphy returns from suspension in game two.
This notebook is not about that, but rather, about some of the notable stats and performances I’m tracking one month into the season. We’ve got notes coming about Bryan Hudson, Colin Rea, Willy Adames, and the team’s elite speed this season.
I’ll be with you for the weekend on the North Side with Brewers Extra Innings after the games on Saturday and Sunday. Let’s jump into the numbers.
Bryan Hudson’s incredible start
The surface level stats are simply absurd for Hudson so far: 0.52 ERA, .125 opponent’s average, just 1 run allowed on an ill-fated diving attempt by Sal Frelick that resulted in an Elly De La Cruz inside-the-park home run.
When we look under the hood of Hudson’s success, we become even more confused. At six feet, eight inches, he’s heard every comment you’ve got about his height. And yet, his average fastball velocity is 91.8 MPH, just an 18th percentile mark in baseball.
Scouts have long been divided on how much of a benefit height is for pitchers: one hand says it should produce velocity easily, but the other hand fears repeatable mechanics with longer limbs than most. Randy Johnson is the perfect picture of this with other worldly velocity, but thrice led baseball in walks before he reigned this in en route to a Hall of Fame career.
Well if Hudson has a “meh” radar gun reading, he must get a lot of chase or swing & miss, right? Also wrong. Both of those rates sit slightly below league average at 27% and 24% resepectively. What is leading to his success?
A recently quantified benefit of height is “extension” measuring how far a pitcher’s stride is from the mound. While everyone starts 60 feet, 6 inches away, not everyone finishes there. Hudson sits in the 98th percentile for extension at 7.4 feet toward the hitter.
Using this data we can estimate perceived velocity, which gives his 92 MPH fastball a modest boost to 94 MPH. When you think about physics and the limits of the human body when it comes to hitting a baseball, the predicament hitters are in is pretty clear: he throws modestly hard, but his extension cuts down on the amount of time the batter has to decide whether or not to hit.
Maybe the pitch that benefits on of all this is not his fastball, but rather his sweeper – which he is yet to allow a hit on this season: 0-for-16 with 8 strikeouts. He doesn’t carry an absurdly high whiff rate on the pitch (38% is comfortably above league average), he induces extremely uncomfortable swings against it.
Opponents are averaging just -2º launch angle, and righties are even worse against it: 0-for-11 with -12º launch. He dominates the bottom of the zone and the shadow of the “glove side” with the breaker, making it equally effective vs righties and lefties.
Colin Rea is finally being trusted
When I predicted in Spring Training that Colin Rea would be the most important pitcher on the Brewers, a few folks hit my mentions asking if I was crazy. I truly believed he was held back last season, not given an opportunity to show what his entire repertoire was capable of.
To be fair to Craig Counsell, the ideal win didn’t require length from Rea in 2023. The Brewers had the best bullpen in the National League, two thoroughbreds for most of the season with Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta. And key contributions from injured arms like Wade Miley & Brandon Woodruff, Rea’s job last year was to get 18 outs and get out of the way.
One of the evolutions of baseball is the lack of opportunity a starting pitcher has facing a lineup a third time through. So far this season, opponents’ batting average jumps 21 points and OPS jumps 52 points from facing a pitcher a third time.
To be fair to the Brewers’ brass, Rea had struggled a second time through the order last season. He yielded an .855 OPS on that second look and only faced an order a third time for 79 PA last season.
Yet in those 79 PA, opponents only managed a .176 AVG and .444 OPS … so why not allow his deep arsenal go to work? As stated above, it just wasn’t required given the “out-getters” waiting in the bullpen.
This season, he’s already nearly halfway to last year’s total the third time through and having just as much success. Opponents are 4-for-33 (.121) with 0 extra-base hits against him. Part of the reason he may not have more chances on the third try is keeping an eye on his walks (three so far this year).
Rea has five different pitches he throws at least 8% of the time, and nothing more than 28%. The variety explains why opponents are just 2-for-28 (.071) against his four-seam fastball that averages 92 MPH. That’s the best opponents’ batting average on a four-seamer in all of baseball (min. 30 PA).
And his sweeper is extremely effective too, opponents are hitless against his big breaker too, 0-for-15.
Now in 2024, the Brewers are 11-1 in games started by Freddy Peralta or Colin Rea. I’m glad I spoke up in March.
Tyler Black and the Brewers’ Need for Speed
A wild week of umpire controversies overshadowed Tyler Black’s MLB debut with a pair of hits in his first game Tuesday. It was a game he wasn’t even starting too! He became just the second Brewer to get a pair of hits in his first game coming off the bench … the other was Steve Bowling in 1976. Bowling only played 14 games with the Brewers, I imagine Black will get a longer leash.
One of Black’s best tools is his speed, with 55 stolen bases in 2023 across Biloxi and Nashville. But it’s not just stealing, but his baserunning. This bloop double on Wednesday caught my eye as a perfect example of what great baserunners do to sniff out extra base hits: they are earned out of the box.
He’s thinking “two” right out of the box, and StatCast confirms with a 28.7 feet per second peak rounding first base. Anything over 27.0 is considered above league average and he hit the after-burners once he hit first. His splits for the final 90 feet was 3.42 seconds – and that’s even with a slide slowing him down to the base.
When measuring 1st-2nd base speed splits among doubles and triples this season for the Crew, this time rates as fourth-fastest. Brice Turang occupies the 2nd and 3rd spots, but it’s Oliver Dunn at the top of the table who’s triple against the Mariners peaked at 3.36 from first to second
This lead me to check where the Brewers sit as a team when it comes to speed compared to the rest of baseball. Their average sprint speed on competitive runs sits at 27.7 ft/sec – which is good for third in the game and only 0.1 back of the Phillies and Reds in a tie for first.
But the Crew’s average home to first time of 4.36 is the best in baseball. And keep in mind, Garrett Mitchell hasn’t been active all season and Christian Yelich hasn’t been active for the last two weeks. More speed is on the horizon.
Willy Adames pulling with power
Anytime I sit down to research Willy Adames’s numbers, I love the variety they can provide. One of the best power hitting shortstops in the game? Sure.
| Rank | Name | Home Runs |
| 1 | Willy Adames | 86 |
| 2 | Corey Seager | 84 |
| 3 | Francisco Lindor | 82 |
| 4 | Dansby Swanson/Trea Turner | 77 |
And even one of the best with the glove too.
| Rank | Name | DRS | OAA |
| 1 | Miguel Rojas | 33 | 15 |
| 2 | Dansby Swanson | 20 | 45 |
| 3 | Willy Adames | 18 | 21 |
Or how about his ability to use all fields?
More on that last one, Adames has made a slight tweak to his approach in the first month: he is pulling the ball in the air as often as he can.
He currently has a 49% pull rate – which would be the highest rate of his career for a full season. Willy also has a 37% fly ball rate – which, you guessed it – is also the highest rate of his career.
Why is this important? It’s the “easiest” way to produce in the modern game. The league hits .470 and slugs 1.644 on “pulled, fly balls.” That excludes pop outs and ground outs of course, and it’s part of the reason I put “easiest” in quotes: it’s hard to pull fly balls against Major League pitching!
As mentioned above, Willy’s ability to spray the ball all over the field makes him a dynamic hitter, but pulling the ball with authority makes him a dangerous one.
Here’s a 15-day rolling average chart courtesy of FanGraphs from Willy’s 2023 season. The dotted line you see his is season average of 45% pull rate and notice the relationship between his wRC+ and pull rate throughout the season.
The tides sway back and forth with each other, but it is important to note wRC+ includes walks and performance outside of just pulling the ball. And let’s also remember, he just had his fifth career multi-homer game on Wednesday without pulling either one.
Adames is hitting .432 on balls in play to the pull side with a .494 wOBA … which could be better if it wasn’t for Baltimore’s left field wall.
That’s all for this edition of the notebook. See you guys at Wrigley, unless I allegedly throw at someone in a 3-0 count.
