Milwaukee Brewers: 5 Keys To Success For The Crew In 2019

4. Jhoulys Chacin Needs To Repeat A Career Year

At age 30, Jhoulys Chacin put up his best numbers over a whole season since his rookie year in 2010 in Colorado. His 3.50 ERA was solid and he was the only Brewers starter to not miss a scheduled start over the entire season, making all 35 of them.

Now he’s gotta do it again.

Last year, Chase Anderson and Zach Davies, who were supposedly the Crew’s two best healthy pitchers going into last year struggled mightily and Chacin was left to pick up the slack. Now Anderson is in the bullpen and Davies is the No. 5 starter.

With Jimmy Nelson beginning the season on a Triple-A rehab assignment, Chacin is the Crew’s only established, quality big league starter. When Nelson returns, who knows what kind of pitcher he’ll be. All signs look positive for now, but the regular season is a whole lot different than simulated games and Cactus League play. The Brewers need Chacin to do it again.

Heading into the second year of a two-year deal, Chacin will be a free agent at the end of the season. He’s provided immense value so far, and with his $6.75 million salary, he’s making the most money on this entire pitching staff. They’ll need him to pitch like it.

While he posted a 3.50 ERA last year, his 4.07 FIP and 4.47 xFIP point to regression this year. He’s going to need to outperform his peripheral stats and indicators for another season if the Brewers are going to continue their success. The rotation overperformed at times last year, and Chacin is going to need to beat out the predictive metrics this year once again.

3. The Rest Of The Lineup Protects Christian Yelich

For pretty much the entire second half of the 2018 season, Christian Yelich carried the Milwaukee Brewers on his back. That hot streak at the plate also carried him to a runaway NL MVP award as well as the team to a division title.

Depending on Yelich to post Herculean numbers over a three month stretch again is a little much. Hopefully he doesn’t have to carry the team like he did last year for as long as he did, but he’s the centerpiece of this Brewers offense, and him posting something similar to his .326/.402/.598 slash line from last year would go a long ways towards winning this division again.

Yelich has launched himself into superstardom and he’s now the unquestioned Face of the Franchise for the Brewers. He’s the leader of this offense, and he’s going to have to continue his upward trajectory. Luckily, Yelich is just 27 years old and the odds of him continuing to succeed are pretty good.

Will we ever see a stretch run as great as what Yelich had in August and September last year? Perhaps not, but we can appreciate his greatness every day of the season, especially now knowing what he’s capable of doing.

Opposing pitchers also know what he’s capable of doing now. They’ll look to pitch around him more often than before and will nibble around the edges of the strike zone. The offense around Yelich needs to be productive and intimidating enough to force pitchers to pitch to Yelich. If Jesus Aguilar plays more like he did in the first half of 2018 than the second half, the Brewers will have one heck of a three-hole hitter.

Travis Shaw is likely to have a better 2019 season after he bounces back from a terrible BABIP year in 2018. With the addition of Yasmani Grandal and the return of Mike Moustakas, as well as a healthy Ryan Braun, this lineup should provide plenty of protection for Yelich.

They can’t depend on Yelich to provide all the production on offense this year. That’s what happened in the postseason, and the lack of offense once Yelich went in a slump is what ended the Crew’s chance of making the World Series. With Yelich continuing his high levels of production, and solid protection around him, this offense can outslug anybody.

2. Jimmy Nelson returns healthy, picks up where he left off

The return of Jimmy Nelson would really solidify this rotation. Jhoulys Chacin, as stated above, is coming off a career year and needs to outperform his underlying metrics for a second straight season. Three other starting pitchers are entering their first year entrenched in an MLB level rotation. And then there’s Zach Davies at the tail end.

If Nelson makes it back and pitches like he did in 2017, this rotation goes from a young, inexperienced group to a potentially dominant rotation to be feared.

Nelson gives this rotation depth. Without him, the rotation is about six deep, and the sixth man is Chase Anderson, who has struggled with the long ball recently. Nelson gives the rotation an extra arm at its disposal, and a pretty darn good arm at that.

If Nelson pitches at or near where he left off in 2017, he’d be the equivalent of signing a free agent ace, only without the high contract. He’s a No. 1 or No. 2 starter at his best. The Milwaukee Brewers really missed him last season and he could’ve made a real difference not only in the regular season, but in the postseason as well. With only Chacin and Wade Miley as trusted starters in the postseason, Craig Counsell had to try unconventional strategies in order to get outs and get wins. A third trusted starter during those games would’ve made things a whole lot easier.

Bottom line, Nelson returning to dominance would be a big boost to this rotation and a key to their success this season. Counsell admitted the strategy used in September and October last year is not sustainable over a whole season. They need starters to go deep into games and Nelson is the last Brewers pitcher to throw a complete game. He’s a bulldog on the mound and the rest of the team feeds off that mentality.

Especially with the bullpen in the shape that it’s in right now with all the injuries, having another starting pitcher that can go deep into games is crucial to keeping everyone fresh.

1. The Young Starting Pitchers Step Up To The Challenge

The biggest key to success for the Milwaukee Brewers in 2019 is the heart of their starting rotation: 22 year old Freddy Peralta, 24 year old Corbin Burnes, and 26 year old Brandon Woodruff. The Brewers are trusting that these three pitchers will react well to being rotation regulars and can continue their upward trajectory after spending most of last season either in the minors or in the bullpen.

There aren’t many teams that consider themselves World Series contenders that are also starting three pitchers that will be in their first full season in the big league rotation.

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These three were all highly touted prospects, and come with great pedigrees. But prospect scouting reports and hype can sometimes just go out the window once a player makes it to the big leagues.

If all three of them falter in their first season, the rotation’s weaknesses will be glaring, and there aren’t enough in-house replacements to make up for it. The Nelson return would be even more crucial and the need for another starting pitcher at the July deadline would grow bigger. Critics would go after GM David Stearns for not adding someone in free agency or a trade during the winter.

The likelihood of all three failing this season though, luckily is quite small. If healthy, these three have all shown the ability to succeed at the big league level.

Peralta, Burnes, and Woodruff will make up the core of the Brewers starting rotation moving into the future, and sometimes you just have to let the kids play and see what they can do. If they all step up, meet the challenge, and succeed, this rotation is going to be scary come October. They all gained valuable experience last year, and are now locked and loaded for 2019.

The rotation is going to have to pick up some of the slack they left behind last year and perform better. The bulk of that load is falling on these youngsters. If they succeed, this team will be unstoppable.

The Milwaukee Brewers have a lot of faith in these pitchers and the rest of this team to perform like they did last year. If their faith is rewarded with success, I think the fans will be rewarded with a parade at the end of this season.