The Brewers' 2016 Season is Almost Halfway Over. What Have We Learned?

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Photo courtesy Milwaukee Brewers

Welcome to the On Deck Circle, Brewers beat writer Kyle Lobner's weekly preview of the team's week to come and beyond.

One of the worst parts of summer is how quickly it passes. One time as a child, I recall getting very upset about a back-to-school ad that showed up in my dad's daily newspaper in June. It was much too early for me to be ready to deal with the pending mortality of my favorite season.

I'm not planning on burning any poorly-timed newspaper inserts today, but looking at the Brewers' schedule is giving me a similar feeling of dread: On Sunday they played their 70th game, meaning the 2016 season is already almost half over.

Milestone moments in the season, of course, provide an opportunity to look back at what we've seen over the last 3+ months since this team reported to spring training. As luck would have it, the very first edition of The On Deck Circle provided a guide to use when looking back. In that piece I listed four questions facing the Brewers during the spring. Here's what we've learned since then:

Ryan Braun is (mostly) healthy, and back

It's entirely possible that we're going to spend the rest of Ryan Braun's career (or his Brewers career, at least) constantly monitoring the status of his ailing intercostal muscles/thumb/back/etc., but to this point the Brewers' plan to give him frequent rest to keep him available when needed has to be considered a success.

Braun has played in 58 of the Brewers' first 70 games, putting him on pace for 134 appearances this season. That's roughly in line with the playing time he accumulated in each of the last two seasons (135 games in 2014, 140 in 2015), but the difference in his production this season has been significant. His batting average and slugging percentage are up over .300 and .500, respectively, for the first time since he was an NL MVP candidate in 2012, and he's rapidly climbing baseball's all-time hit list. 

Braun has played so well, in fact, that he's starting to come up frequently in trade conversations again despite his contract and injury and suspension history. To this point his season has gone about as well as anyone could have hoped.

Lucroy bounces back, Peralta and Garza don't

While Ryan Braun appears to be benefiting from more time off, Jonathan Lucroy is playing almost every day behind the plate and having a season that in many ways compares favorably to his MVP-caliber season in 2014. Entering play Sunday, Lucroy and Yadier Molina of the Cardinals were the only MLB catchers to start at least 58 games at that position this season. Lucroy's trade value is likely higher than ever at this point.

Meanwhile, Wily Peralta has gone from Opening Day starter to non-tender candidate in a matter of months. Despite having been in the minor leagues for a week and a half now, Peralta still entered play Sunday leading all National League pitchers in hits allowed with 97 and his strikeout rate, which cratered at 5.0 per nine innings in 2015, was only marginally improved at 5.7. He's back in the minors now for the first time on a non-rehab stint since 2012, and his first start back in AAA would suggest that being in Colorado Springs is not going to help him figure things out.

The "incomplete" grade goes to Matt Garza at this point, as Sunday's start was just his second of the season. He was pretty good in that game, though, working six shutout innings for the first time since last July and only the second time since August of 2014. It’s still possible he could become a valuable contributor (or trade candidate) for this team over the remainder of his contract, but it’s going to take more than one strong outing to make that happen.

It is worth noting, though, that despite awful starts from Peralta and Taylor Jungmann and a nearly nonexistent contribution from Garza, this pitching staff still isn't the worst in the National League. A lot of credit is due here to Zach Davies and Junior Guerra, who have stepped in and experienced remarkable success in their 22 combined starts.

Still waiting for top prospects

Shortstop Orlando Arcia is one of the top minor league talents in all of baseball, and he was one of the most notable performers in Brewers camp this spring. He's playing well in AAA and the question is still "when" and not "if" we'll see him in the majors, but Jonathan Villar's All Star-worthy performance continues to delay his ETA.

You have to look a little harder to spot Brett Phillips in the big picture, but not all of that is his fault: Phillips missed most of spring training with an oblique injury and the Brewers sent him to repeat the AA level to open the season. He had a red-hot month of May but overall his offensive numbers are likely down a bit from what you'd expect from a prospect of Phillips' pedigree repeating a level. Kirk Nieuwenhuis' place in the field and the lineup appears safe for now.

Meanwhile, Josh Hader may beat both Arcia and Phillips to the majors. The lefty acquired in the Mike Fiers/Carlos Gomez trade was recently promoted to the AAA level after dominating hitters with Biloxi, posting a 0.95 ERA through eleven appearances in the Southern League. He's striking out better than eleven batters per nine innings in the minors and would look pretty good in any of a variety of roles in Milwaukee right now. 

All quiet on the trade front...for now

As I mentioned in the spring training preview linked above, the Brewers averaged a trade once every 16 1/2 days between July of 2015 and February of 2016. Since then, the pace has slowed a bit.

That's not to say the Brewers haven't made any moves this season, of course: There's been a revolving door in the bullpen that Carlos Torres, Sam Freeman, Michael Kirkman, Jhan Marinez and Neil Ramirez have all walked in through (and three of them walked right back out) over just two and a half months. None of those, however, are the moves we've been waiting for.

With limited exceptions, this is a Brewers team that isn't under any real obligation to trade most of its remaining veterans. The possibility that they could, though, and that some of those players could bring a very significant return, will likely remain the top story around this team in the weeks to come.