For a World Series Team, the 1982 Brewers had Historically Bad Pitching

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Pete Vuckovich, ace of the 1982 Brewers and one of the few bright spots on one of the worst pitching staffs to ever take a team to the World Series.

The 2018 Milwaukee Brewers are on pace to have one of the best overall pitching performances in franchise history. The team’s adjusted ERA (which adjusts ERA for ballpark and era, 100 is league-average) on the year is 115, just below the best season output in franchise history. The 2018 Brewers are allowing just 1.246 walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP), also just a few points off the team record. Their 7.7 hits per 9 inning rate would be more than a half hit lower than their previous season best. By many measures, this Brewers pitching staff is a special one and, within a weak National League, gives the Brewers a reasonable shot to win their first pennant since 1982.

It should be no surprise that the Brewers' last two playoff teams, 2008 and 2011, also rank among the best pitching seasons in franchise history. But what about that storied 1982 team? The ’82 Brewers are generally regarded as the best club in franchise history – winners of 95 games and the American League Pennant, a team that finished just a few innings shy of a world title. How does that staff compare with Craig Counsell’s bunch?

Well, it’s really no contest. In fact, using adjusted ERA, the ’82 staff compares most closely with the staff of the 1993 Brewers – losers of 93 games. In fact, the ’82 bunch would easily rank in the bottom half of Brewers’ single-season pitching staffs and might have been one of the least-effective group of hurlers to ever lead a team to the World Series.

First, let’s take a look at the staff in question. In 1982, 15 different men took the bump for the Brewers (compared with 25 already this season). Dismissing Chuck Porter and Doug Jones, who each threw less than four innings, that leaves just 13 pitchers to account for over 99% of the team’s innings. Even on a team that usually carried just 10 pitchers, this was not a staff with many moving pieces. The bulk of the starts went to Mike Caldwell, Pete "Vuke" Vuckovich, Moose Haas, Bob McClure and Randy Lerch. Only Caldwell and Vuke registered an ERA better than the AL average and only Haas had a respectable strikeout-to-walk rate (2.67). Overall, the ’82 Brewers had 117 games started by pitchers who would finish the year with below-average adjusted ERAs. Lerch was particularly bad, running up an ERA of nearly 5.00 and walking 20 more batters than he struck out over 108 innings. He made 20 starts for the team and remained in the rotation until August.

The stud of the rotation was eventual Cy Young Award winning Pete Vuckovich. While he was indeed an effective starter – he had a 114 adjusted ERA and had a 2.8 WAR (wins above replacement), he wasn’t even close to being the American League’s best pitcher. Among qualified AL pitchers, he ranked sixth in ERA and 24th in strikeouts while allowing the second-most walks and permitting the 13th-highest OPS against. But Vuke led the league in wins when it was the sexiest pitching stat around and played for a division-winning club, so he won the honor easily. Today, it is regarded as one of biggest blunders by Cy Young voters in history.

The Brewers had another Cy Young winner in the bullpen, and a much more deserving one at that, in Rollie Fingers. Fingers was very good in ’82, but nearly as dominant as he had been the year before, when he won the Cy and the AL MVP. But behind Fingers, there wasn’t much to get excited about. Jim Slaton provided quality innings as both a long man in the bullpen and a spot starter, but past him there were guys like Dwight Bernard and future meme Jerry Augustine providing a big chunk of late-game innings with mediocre results. In early September, Fingers was lost for the season with an arm injury, leaving the closer’s duties to a committee of players with mostly middle-of-the-road numbers.

Of course, it was no secret in ’82 that the Brewers’ weakness was pitching. Aside from reliever Pete Ladd, who would bounce back and forth between AAA Vancouver and Milwaukee, there was little pitching depth in the organization. Still, the Brewers waited until August to seek help from outside the system. First, they brought in veteran Doc Medich from Texas. Medich had been good in 1981, but had scuffled through ’82. The change of scenery did little to help as Medich ran up a 5.00 ERA in ten starts. Just before the August 31 trade deadline, the Brewers made a much bigger splash, picking up four-time All Star Don Sutton from Houston. The Brewers won five of Sutton’s seven starts down the stretch and he probably proved the difference in giving the Brewers an AL East title by just a single game, allowing them to prevail in the ALCS and reach their lone World Series.

Perhaps no other team that went to the World Series so closely fit the mold of having “just enough” pitching as the ’82 Brewers. Of the 50 teams that won a pennant during the four-division era (1969-1993), the ’82 Crew’s adjusted ERA of 96 ranks dead last. Only three other teams during that time had a lower strikeout to walk ratio, only four other teams struck out fewer batters per nine innings, only two other teams allowed more base runners per nine innings, and only three other teams gave up more runs. Spreading the range to include all pennant winners, 1903-2017, only the 1913 and ’14 Philadelphia A’s had a worse adjusted ERA than the ’82 Brewers.

Of course, for “Harvey’s Wallbangers,” perhaps none of this is that surprising. To make up for their mediocre pitching, Kuenn’s team mashed the ball at a historic level. Using adjusted OPS (which adjusts on base and slugging percentages for park and era), the ’82 Brewers were the fifth most potent offense in baseball history – ranking only behind the 1927, ’30, and ’31 Yankees and last year’s Houston Astros.

In looking through the stat lines of pennant-winners, it becomes clear that it is much easier to win with great pitching making up for lousy hitting (much closer to what the Brewers have been this year) than vice-versa. The 2017 Astros and ’82 Brewers are the only two pennant-winning clubs to have such a wide gulf between adjust ERA and OPS to the benefit of the bats. Both teams carried their pitching struggles into the World Series, but while Astros were able to continue to pound at the plate, the Brewers ran out of gas. Going into the bottom of the sixth inning in game seven in St. Louis, the Brewers led 3-1 and needed just nine more outs to claim a world title. But after a one-out single by Ozzie Smith, the Cards got to Pete Vuckovich, who was pitching through an injury that would cost him nearly all of the next two seasons, and Bob McClure, who had lost his spot in the starting rotation in September, for three runs–a lead they would not give back.