Brewers: Comparing Hitters Crew Could’ve Acquired At Trade Deadline

The Milwaukee Brewers have struggled since the trade deadline and fans have maligned the efforts of President of Baseball Operations David Stearns’ to improve the roster heading into the final two months of the season.

We are all well aware of the highly publicized Josh Hader trade that sent the Brewers’ closer to the San Diego Padres, leaving questions on who should close games for the Brewers.

However, there has been much more ill will towards Stearns regarding trading for offensive help. That said, would the Brewers really be better off having acquired any of the players they could have brought to the team? Let’s look at five players the Brewers had discussions about bringing to the team and how they’re faring in August.

Milwaukee Brewers potential offensive acquisitions: Player A

Player A is a player the Milwaukee Brewers made calls on, player A is struggling mightily post-deadline, batting .170/.303/.270. Player A is 17 for 100 as of Sunday and is sporting a OPS+ of just 69 (100 is average). Player A has a hard hit percentage of 27.7 percent in the month of August after hitting the ball hard in 36.3 percent of his at bats in July.

It wouldn’t shock anyone to say player A wouldn’t be of much help to the Brewers’ offense.

Milwaukee Brewers potential offensive acquisitions: Player B

Player B is having a better August post trade deadline than player A. Player B is slashing .254/.331/.404, better numbers across the board, but not really numbers that inspire a season turnaround in offense. Player B is 29 for 114 and would represent a decent batting average among Brewers hitters. Player B has a WRC+ of 114 and a 35.5 hard hit percentage.

Player B could be potentially helpful to the Brewers but not necessarily a player that would move the needle as far as postseason contention is concerned.

Milwaukee Brewers potential offensive acquisitions: Player C

Player C is comparable to player B and comes down to preference on what you want your acquisitions to be doing. Player C is slashing .185/.313/.426 post-deadline.

Player C’s value does show through more with his 111 WRC+ despite only batting 10 for 54. Player C also has very up and down hard hit percentage numbers. Player C is high on hard hit percentage in August and was in June and March/April, but was low in May and July, could that set him up for a below average September in the hard hit ball department?

Player C could have been potentially helpful and his numbers would fit in with the Crew’s low average, high slugging numbers but with high on base percentage.

Milwaukee Brewers potential offensive acquisitions: Player D

Player D is another the Brewers called on and ultimately did not acquire, potentially dodging a bullet, player D is slashing .220/.262/.410 since the deadline.

Player D is currently slugging lower than player C and has a lower batting average than all players in this list besides player A. However player A has a higher on base percentage. Player D was 22 for 102 in August and has a WRC+ of just 69. Player D has lost a lot of velocity off the bat as well, hitting the ball hard in just 23.1 percent of at bats despite hard hit percentages of 36.5 percent in July, 39.0 in June, 31.9 in May and an impressive 47.4 percent in May.

Player D certainly would not be helping the Brewers’ offense post trade deadline.

Milwaukee Brewers potential offensive acquisitions: Player E

The last player the Brewers had the opportunity to add to the roster is player E. Player E slashed .269/.321/.635 in August, player E has the highest batting average of the five players, the third highest on base percentage and by over 100 points has the highest slugging percentage. Player E has a WRC+ of 177, also the highest of all five players. Also as far as August is concerned, player E hit the ball the hardest of all five players at 45.5 percent.

So to recap the five players examined:

Player A: .170/.303/.270

Player B: .254/.331/.404

Player C: .185/.313/.426

Player D: .220/.262/.410

Player E: .269/.321/.635

Now these players all could have been added to the Brewers in August, out of these five players, the one most would likely prefer to be on the team is player E.

Now to reveal the names of the players:

Player A is Josh Bell

Player B is Andrew Benintendi

Player C is Joey Gallo

Player D is Brandon Drury

Getting to player E I admit I was a bit misleading, because player E was addable to the Brewers, but in a different way, player E is Keston Hiura.

These numbers just go to show that sure, we know the Brewers lacked offense coming out of the trade deadline, however the numbers show that trading for players does not guarantee instant success. In fact, the numbers show that it’s quite possible that had they acquired one of the players they were interested in that they would be worse off.

The numbers also show that Keston Hiura has been more valuable to the Brewers since the Deadline than any of the other four players the Crew attempted to acquire would have been.