Questions (and some answers) from the first three weeks of the Brewers’ season

The Milwaukee Brewers are off to a good start, at 11-6 and leading the NL Central at the end of play on Wednesday, despite dropping their first series of the year this week against San Diego. Their offense, even after a couple of down days, has looked far better than almost anyone expected. What can we glean from the team’s first three weeks?

Is William Contreras one of the best hitters in the league?

It sure looks like it. He ranks among the best in baseball in average exit velocity (fifth), hard hit percentage (second), and wOBA (eighth). As recently as a couple of days ago, he was by far the NL’s leading hitter (a crown that now belongs to Orlando Arcia, of all people), and he is also fourth in the NL in OPS+ (191, behind—as long as we’re bringing up “former Brewers who were kind of disappointing”—Jesse Winker, among others). Maybe he can’t keep this pace up for the whole season, but also… why not? He’s only 26, and his Statcast numbers in previous seasons, while not quite at this level, are good—he was in the top 10% in xSLG and wOBA in 2022 and he’s been in the top 10% in max exit velocity in every season in which he had any real playing time. His defensive numbers are behind where they were last season and that’s somewhat concerning, but with the bat, he’s been one of the best in the league.

It still boggles the mind that the Brewers were able to get Contreras the way they did. Atlanta treated him as a throw-in in their quest to acquire Sean Murphy—Murphy is a good player but he’s three years older and way more expensive than Contreras, and at this point, just over a year after the trade, Contreras looks like the better player. (It’s also worth pointing out that Milwaukee got Joel Payamps in that same trade and sent out only Esteury Ruiz. Arguably one of the most one-sided trades of the last several years.)

How real is Christian Yelich’s revival, and will his back ruin it?

It looks pretty real, and yes, maybe. Yelich has been hitting the ball fairly hard over the last few years, but he’s been hitting it mostly straight into the ground. This year, he’s corrected his launch angle—it’s up to 11.7, which would be the highest of his career (it was 11.3 in his slash-line-Triple-Crown-winning 2019 season, when he hit a career-high 44 home runs) after never being above 3.8 since 2020. He’s also striking out less—his 17.4 K% would be the lowest of his career, and his 13% walk rate is in line with the very good mark he’s put up since becoming an MVP candidate in 2018. His power numbers look amazing: Yelich is in the 95th percentile or better in almost all of Statcast’s markers for expected offensive success. And from a less “advanced” standpoint, Yelich hit his fifth home run over a month earlier than he did last season.

But the back is concerning and has already prompted an early-season IL stint. The narrative around Yelich’s bizarre downturn after the 2019 season was, mostly, that his back wasn’t healthy, and back injuries notoriously mess with a batter’s timing and core strength. If all we got was two weeks of a glimpse of what Yelich really could have been had he been healthy for the last five years, only to see him slip back into where he was with the balky back (a good player, but not really a star), that’s sort of cruel on the part of the Baseball Gods.

But who knows? Maybe Yelich is back after his IL stint and picks up right where he left off.

How good is Jackson Chourio right now?

I’m on the record with what I felt we might see from Jackson Chourio this season: something that resembled Bobby Witt Jr.’s rookie season, when he hit 20 homers and stole 30 bases but also had an OBP under .300 and didn’t even reach 1.0 WAR. My expectation was that Chourio would show flashes, get enough opportunities to put up some impressive counting stats (20 homers, 30 steals doesn’t seem unreasonable), but he might hit only .240, he would probably strike out a ton, he probably wouldn’t walk much, and he probably wouldn’t be a tremendously “valuable” player when you got into the advanced metrics of it all.

So where is he at, after a few weeks? Well, I think my assessment is pretty good, so far, actually! Chourio’s defense is fine—I know he has occasionally looked a little iffy on his routes, but his defensive pedigree in the minor leagues is strong, and he is fast enough to cover a ton of ground. He is second in the majors among right fielders (to noted defensive whiz Juan Soto) in the defensive component of Fangraphs’ WAR. Offensively, Chourio is striking out 30% of the time and walking only 6%, his expected batting average is only .195, and he’s hitting .230 with a .273 OBP. But he has three homers, three stolen bases, and 11 RBI (which puts him on pace, roughly, for about a 30/30 season with 100 RBI).

The underlying stats suggest that Chourio has even been a little fortunate so far, and his rate starts are bad. But he’s also the league’s youngest player, and he by no means looks lost out there. We should be encouraged, even if the results aren’t always going to be great, and based on his minor league career, we have good reason to think he’ll get better as the season, and his career, goes along.

Can Brice Turang keep hitting?

The biggest surprise of the Brewers’ hot offensive start is, without question, Brice Turang. Turang, who was arguably the worst offensive player in the league who had more than 400 plate appearances during the 2023 season, is hitting .327 with a 130 OPS+ through 16 games and 60 plate appearances and leads the majors with nine steals, without having been caught. He’s been one of Milwaukee’s best hitters so far.

Statcast is skeptical. Despite his success, Turang is still in the bottom 12% of the league in barrel percentage and in the bottom 8% in hard-hit percentage. He’s not hitting the ball hard, he’s not walking much, his expected batting average is nearly 100 points lower than his actual batting average.

But if you’re looking for reasons for encouragement, you can find them. Turang has been among the best in the league in terms of swings and misses, and he is one of the fastest players in the league. What our eyes see is a player who has adjusted his approach to one where he wants to make more contact, go to the opposite field (his hit Wednesday resembled a tennis player’s backhand drop shot), and use his speed to get on base and as a weapon once he’s there. He’s not going to hit many home runs with this approach (he has one so far, but double-digit homers would be truly shocking with his current approach), but if he can leverage his speed as an offensive weapon, it could help him keep his batting average high. If he can bump his walk rate up a little (6.7% this year, 8.5% last year), he could, conceivably, hold an OPS+ in the 80-90 range, even if he slugs under .400. With how good Turang’s defense is, that could make him a tremendously useful player—I know it’s a number that fluctuates throughout the season, but Turang is already halfway to his bWAR total from last season (and way ahead of last year’s fWAR total).

What’s good and what’s bad in the starting rotation?

Freddy Peralta has stepped into the ace role with aplomb. Through three starts he’s 2-0 with a 166 ERA+, his FIP is lower than his ERA, and he is among league leaders in WHIP (0.679), K/9 (13.2), and K:BB (13.0)—he’s struck out 26 and walked two in 17 2/3 innings. You’d like to see him get to the seventh inning occasionally, but he’s been great so far.

Colin Rea has been kind of a better version of what most expected of him. He’s been steady: three starts of five-plus innings, in none of which he has allowed more than three runs. Statcast is EXTREMELY skeptical of Rea’s results, so they may not hold, but still, it’s been a good start.

Joe Ross has had mixed results but has looked like a guy who can help. He’s had two good starts, he’s the only Brewers starter to pitch in the seventh inning this season, and while he got knocked around a bit on Monday, he was the victim of some bad luck. Jakob Junis made one decent start and was then forced into an early IL stint—it doesn’t seem serious, but the jury’s still out on him.

On the concerning side, we have two young starters for the club. Aaron Ashby got shelled in his one start, and while his defense did him no favors, he did not look very good; he’s back in the minors for now. DL Hall’s fastball, one of the great weapons in his minor-league arsenal, does not look right; its velocity is down, and it is getting absolutely crushed. Hall’s development is pretty important to the Brewers’ long-term plans, so this is definitely something to keep an eye on moving forward and is arguably the most concerning aspect of the team’s young season.

Can the bullpen keep it together until Devin Williams gets back?

This is a tricky question. The Brewers do appear to have a good bullpen, but it could be one of those situations where cutting the head off the snake requires everyone else to bump up a level into a role that they’re not as comfortable with.

Joel Payamps looks like the best reliever in the bullpen at the moment, even given his unsightly 4.91 ERA—he had one terrible outing, but has allowed only one baserunner (one hit, no walks) in seven innings outside of that one disastrous appearance against Minnesota. Bryan Hudson has been excellent: just one run on five hits in 9 ¹⁄₃ innings. Trevor Megill and J.B. Bukauskas both looked good before hitting the injured list (neither should be out for a tremendously long time). Elvis Peguero, Bryse Wilson, and Thyago Vieira have all been fine.

There are some concerns, though. Hoby Milner has looked utterly hittable, and he was a major piece last season. Abner Uribe has not inspired tremendous confidence: he started the season by allowing runs in half of his first six appearances, including an especially painful blown lead in Sunday’s game against Baltimore. He impressively wriggled his way off the hook on Wednesday, but you don’t love the leadoff triple he allowed in a big spot.

The lack of innings by the starting rotation is going to put a lot of pressure on this group. They’ve been okay so far, but Williams’ return will be a major boost, and it would really help if the starting rotation could establish a level of consistency to take some of that pressure off.

Any other notes about the Brewers’ young position players?

Quickly: Sal Frelick’s results haven’t been great—he’s getting some hits (.308 with a .375 OBP) but he’s not driving the ball (.338 SLG)—but I like what I see from him. He looks comfortable at the plate, has good command of the strike zone, and I just think he’s going to be a good hitter.

Joey Ortiz looks good—he’s doing the things we expected defensively, but he’s also hitting, with a 138 OPS+ that is even better than Turang’s surprising number. He’s taking more walks, and while he hasn’t hit for much power yet, he’s not chasing, he’s not swinging and missing, and he’s getting some hits.

I’m not sure what Blake Perkins’ ultimate role on this team is, and he’s not exactly a “young” player, but he looks great in the outfield, he’s got a couple steals, and he’s swung a surprisingly potent bat so far, including the game-winning hit on Wednesday. We’ll see what happens when Garrett Mitchell returns in six weeks, but Perkins has performed.