Brewers: Despite Perception, The Brewers Offense Is Fine

The Brewers had perhaps the worst week of the season post-trade deadline. The team went 1-5 in their first six games since trading away Josh Hader, and they did not do anything to address their offense which has not been great, nor has it been terrible.

The Brewers offensive roster does not have the star power of Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, or 2018-2019 Christian Yelich, but the current roster construction has something important: an offense without major holes.

The Brewers offense is not the leading the league in wRC+ or OPS, but the front office has successfully built a team with no true offensive weak spots in it.

No player on the current 26-man roster has a wRC+ below 93, which, while still below league average, is not like last season where Jackie Bradley Jr was seeing significant playing time with a 35 wRC+.

There are currently three players with wRC+ below 100 on the season, and they are Jonathan Davis (93), Omar Narvaez (94) and Tyrone Taylor (95), every other member of the team produces runs at or above league average.

Is that the flashy or sexy? Not particularly, but it gets the job done.

When looking at traditional metrics used to measure offense, the Brewers are tied with Houston for the 3rd most home runs in MLB with 152, 9th in runs scored (509), 7th in both OBP (.321) and SLG (.417), and t-6th in OPS (.738).

Since the All-Star game on July 19th, the Brewers’ team OPS was .834, which is 3rd in the league. The 135 wRC+ the team had in that time was the 2nd highest behind only the New York Mets.

Even during the week from hell, the Brewers offense kept humming along even though it did not seem that way. Since August 1st, the Brewers have the 7th highest wRC+ of 121 in the week.

It is not just the past two weeks that the Brewers offense has been better than expected. In fact by wRC+, the offense is the best in the Stearns era with a wRC+ of 106. It is not only the best offense in the Stearns era, it is the best offense since Mark Attanasio bought the team in 2004 using wRC+ as a guide. You have to go back to 1983 to find a team with a higher wRC+ (109) than the 2022 Milwaukee Brewers.

Perception is often reality, and people’s perception of situations can greatly differ from the actual reality of the facts. Is the Brewers offense elite? No. Will they lead the league in wRC+, OPS+, or even home runs? Also, likely not. Was trading Josh Hader the right move? Tough to say at the moment. Was passing on beefing up the offense the right decision? Again, tough to say; although, there is not the pressing need many may have felt there actually was.

The Brewers roster was largely built with the emphasis on depth, and depth has helped the team to remain competitive and will help the team to survive the rough stretch the team has gone through. While the offense isn’t flashy, it does just enough, and has no true gaping holes in it.

*All stats are accurate as of start of play on Wednesday, August 10th.