Brewers offensive woes in September could be cause for concern in October

The Brewers strategy of roster construction this season has been a marked improvement from previous seasons. While other Brewers teams tried to utilize elite pitching and scrape by with enough offense, the 2024 season has been a flip, focusing on the offense to do the heavy lifting, while the pitching allows fewer runs. That has worked well to a point, as the Brewers cruised to the NL Central title; however, the offense has been in a significant slump since the calendar flipped to September.

From Opening Day through August 31st, the Brewers had a collective 108 wRC+, tied with Philadelphia for the 9th best in all of MLB. Since September 1st, the Brewers have had the 25th ranked offense with an 76 wRC+. In that time, the team has struck out more, walked less, swung at more pitches out of the zone, and made less contact.

This trend could have disastrous consequences should it continue into October and could result in yet another first round exit, something the Brewers have failed to advance past since 2018.

The most noticeable drop off is BABIP dropping 79 points and going from nearly leading the league, to dead last. Since an abornally high BABIP can be associated with 'luck' and given the Brewers relying on the contact play, it may be a regression to the mean.

Also noticable, the offense is scoring one less run per game since the clock turned to September. This fall off has occured as the pitching has allowed 4.53 runs per game in September, compared to 3.90 runs they had allowed for the majority of the season.

This has happened even as players such as William Contreras and Jackson Chourio have picked up their production since September 1st, and Garrett Mitchell has taken off with a 134 wRC+ in 54 PA in the month of September.

Despite that, Willy Adames has cooled off significantly in the month of September, slashing .179/.236/.433 with a 79 wRC+ in 72 PA. Perhaps playing everyday until this past week has finally caught up with Adames.

Entering play on Sunday, the Brewers seem more likely to host the 6th seed in the WIld Card round, which as of right now is the New York Mets. While the Atlanta Braves are two games back, and the Diamondbacks hold a 1 game advantage. Any of those teams coming to Milwaukee would provide a storyline, from David Stearns new team, to the two teams that knocked the Brewers out in 2021 and 2023 respectively. And all three of those teams have had better offenses than the Brewers in the month of September.

Hopefully the Brewers offense can revert to its previous form once the postseason starts. If they cannot, it could very well be another quick trip to the Postseason in Milwaukee.