Brewers Must Manage Players’ Health through Season’s End

Expand

Photo Credit: Scott Paulus

It's a good position to be in, to be sure, but in the month ahead the Brewers find themselves with an unusual challenge: They’ve almost certainly done enough to ensure they’ll make their fourth consecutive postseason appearance, and now they’re left with the task of managing health and effectiveness into October.

It was no secret coming into the season that the Brewers, like nearly every team, would have a challenge for 2021 balancing their desire to win against the risk of overworking their young pitchers. Brandon Woodruff, Corbin Burnes and Freddy Peralta all entered the 2021 season never having pitched more than 120 innings in a season and pitched much less than that during the abbreviated 2020 campaign. While teams have learned a lot in recent years about what contributes to injury risk for pitchers and some longstanding guidelines have been turned on their head, it's still commonly accepted that a major increase in pitcher workload is a red flag for future injury.

Given that, it would make sense in principle for the Brewers to throttle down some of their young starters down the stretch. Even with his recent injury, for example, Peralta has already thrown over 120 innings for the first time since doing so in a season split between the minors and majors in 2018. Burnes’ 133 innings are the most he’s thrown since his 2017 season in the minors, and Woodruff is over 150 for the first time since 2016, also in a minor league season.

Little to Prove or Pursue

There’s also the fact that the circumstances around the Brewers leave them with little to pursue or prove this month. While they still have some work to do to close out the Reds and Cardinals and clinch the NL Central, gaining ground beyond that may not be a top priority. They have an opportunity to finish the season with the National League’s best record but passing the Giants to get there may come at a significant cost: The NL’s best team will face the winner of the Wild Card game in the Divisional Series round, and if the current standings hold that game projects to include the Dodgers. While the Dodgers haven’t been able to catch the Giants in the NL West, they likely are the best team in baseball on paper and could send Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler and Clayton Kershaw to the mound in a short series. No team will be eager to face them this October, and if the Brewers finish with the NL’s second-best record they'll avoid doing so until the NLCS at the earliest.

However, Woodruff, Burnes and Peralta are major contributors to the Brewers’ success this season and it seems nearly impossible for this team to make an extended playoff run without the trio playing a big role in October. Shutting them down or throttling them back creates a major risk that they won't be at their best when it’s time to ramp back up in a postseason series. In a best-of-five division series, even one game where a starter struggles to regain their prior form could be devastating to the Brewers' hopes of advancing.

While everyone involved will note that winning a World Series has to be the top priority, there’s also two sides of this issue to balance for players individually. On the positive side, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes' performances this season have put both in the conversation to be the first Brewer ever to win a National League Cy Young Award. As of Monday morning, FanGraphs had Burnes and Woodruff second and fourth among NL pitchers in Wins Above Replacement, respectively. While both pitchers would almost certainly say that the team’s success is more important than that individual honor, coasting to the finish line and impairing their chances of winning the award might cost them millions in potential earnings down the road. Burnes and Woodruff are both expected to be eligible for arbitration this winter, pending any changes in the new collective bargaining agreement.

On the other hand, it would be disastrous for both team and individual if any of the Brewers’ top pitchers got injured due to overuse this season. Some of the most frequently second-guessed managerial decisions in the history of the sport are about balancing that risk: In 2003 the Cubs opted not to shut down young aces Mark Prior and Kerry Wood down the stretch, and within a few years both suffered career-altering injuries. Meanwhile, the Nationals heavily impaired their possibility of winning a World Series in September of 2012 when they put the brakes on a sensational season for Stephen Strasburg. They won 98 games during the regular season but were eliminated from the postseason in the Division Series.

In the end, Craig Counsell and David Stearns have decisions to make in the month ahead and a near impossibility to please everyone with them. As the oft-cited adage goes, “flags fly forever” and it would almost certainly be understandable if the Brewers pressed their luck with their young pitchers to pursue their first-ever World Series win. At the same time, overreaching in the weeks ahead could have a devastating consequence to their ability to maintain this level of success in the years to come.