Milwaukee Brewers: Why The Team Should Start Playing Small Ball

This season the Milwaukee Brewers have surprised quite a few people.  With a record above .500 on May 1st, the rebuilding Brew Crew has proven to be more competitive than most thought in the Spring, but should they make a change in approach?

What if I told you that this team could possibly be better? The Brewers hit a massive amount of home runs in April. In fact, they belted 45 homers 26-game span.

So, why did they only finish 13-13 in April? With all that production there has to be a reason.

With this team being so young, and players trying to prove themselves for the future, a more aggressive approach at the plate is likely to be taken, but the focus on homers needs to start taking a back seat If the Brewers really want to find out what they have in their players.

So many games have slipped away because of one major problem. The Milwaukee Brewers leave a ton of runners on base. This problem can be solved if the Brewers try to take a more subtle approach and cut down on their number of uppercut swings.

The Brewers have been given a lot of grief from teams like the Cardinals over the years. One aspect that the Cards possess is that they do not rely on the long ball, and, until last year, ran the NL Central division.

The Brewers have scored 135 runs in 2017. That is good enough for third in all of Major League Baseball, and they only trail Arizona (141) and Washington (170). Washington has a 17-8 record, while Arizona sits at 16-11.

This team has a lot of speed in Keon Broxton, Hernan Perez, and Jonathan Villar. Last season they combined to steal 119 bases, and that is with only three players in this lineup who should be coming around to score more often than they have.

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With plenty of gap power in Ryan Braun, Eric Thames and Travis Shaw in the 2, 3 and 4 spots in the lineup, the Brewers are primed to score runs. All of them have the talent to drive the ball into the gaps. A change in approach toward getting on-base, stealing bases, and hitting for the gaps would results in a more consistent offense that might bring more wins, and possibly a division title sooner rather than later.