Can the Brewers Top Their 2021 Record This Year?

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Photo: Milwaukee Brewers - Facebook

Craig Counsell

Craig Counsell

One of the questions facing the 2022 Milwaukee Brewers will almost certainly be “Can their top performers repeat this?” The Brewers’ rise in the NL Central in 2021 was largely fueled by breakout performances and players reaching new levels, and their ability to repeat that performance in 2022 may very well depend on those same players’ ability to do it again.

In many cases, however, advanced metrics disagree about just how good those same players actually were in 2021. There are three commonly accepted forms of the Wins Above Replacement statistic: bWAR, as calculated by Baseball Reference, fWAR, as calculated by FanGraphs, and WARP, as calculated by Baseball Prospectus. There’s some variation between the inputs they take into account, and sometimes that leads to significant differences in their output.

Here are some Brewers that generated significant discrepancies between the WAR models with their 2021 performances:

Corbin Burnes

The debate around Corbin Burnes, which had previously shifted from “is he a starter or a reliever?” to “is he a big leaguer?” is now “is he an all-time great pitcher, or just an extremely good one?” FanGraphs valued Burnes at 7.5 WAR in 2021, which is one of the top five individual pitching performances in the last decade. Baseball Reference, meanwhile, has Burnes at 5.6 WAR. That would make him the second-best pitcher on the 2021 Brewers.

The gap between the two numbers highlights the difference in methodology between the two: Baseball Reference calculates value based on runs allowed per nine innings, crediting Burnes with what actually happened regardless of the role luck or his defense played in those outcomes. FanGraphs uses Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), a statistic designed to estimate what should have happened based on his strikeout, walk and home run rates. While Burnes was outstanding in 2021 his FIP numbers suggest that with normal defense and luck he might actually have allowed about a third fewer runs, lowering his ERA from 2.43 to 1.63.

And, of course, with Burnes there’s also the “quantity vs quality” debate. Burnes was dominant when he was on the mound but logged just 167 innings in 2021, barely qualifying for the National League ERA title. As was demonstrated by the debate around the Cy Young Award, there are some that would argue that a pitcher who is somewhat less effective but works more innings generates more value.

Willy Adames

Adames’ arrival in Milwaukee matches nearly perfectly with the Brewers’ turnaround from sub-.500 club to World Series contender, to the point where it’s hard to tell the story of the 2021 Brewers without prominently including him in it. Quantifying the role he played, however, is a harder task: Baseball Reference estimates that Adames’ season was worth 4.2 Wins Above Replacement (3.5 as a Brewer), while Baseball Prospectus has him at just 2.3. It’s the difference between being one of the game’s top ten shortstops or just an above-average regular player.

Again, the difference between the two numbers is a matter of inputs. Baseball Reference’s calculations are based in Weighted Runs Above Average (wRAA), while Baseball Prospectus uses their own Deserved Runs (DRC+) metric which they say that “measures batter contributions, not just results.” The latter has Adames as exactly a league average hitter in 2021, once his early season struggles with the Rays are factored in.

All three systems agree that Adames was better than average defensively, and even in the absence of a significant offensive contribution he would have generated value for the Brewers just based on his playing time at a critical position in the field. The difference between being a good shortstop and a great one, however, will depend on his ability to continue to produce at the plate.

Omar Narvaez

One of the challenges for WAR models has always been quantifying and valuing catcher defense and pitch framing, and Narvaez’s values from 2021 demonstrate the difference between the models in this regard. Baseball Prospectus, which has long included those factors, has him at 2.9 Wins Above Replacement. That would make him the Brewers’ most valuable position player in 2021. Baseball Reference has him at 1.5, which would put him seventh.

Even without factoring in his defensive numbers, at one point in August it looked like Narvaez was in line for one of the best catching performances in Brewers franchise history. His bat cooled down the stretch and he hit just .188 with a .218 on-base and .229 slugging in his final 28 regular season games, but he still deserves significant credit for transforming from a player who was virtually unusable for much of 2020 to a key contributor and first-time All Star in 2021.

Production at the plate aside, BP’s numbers clearly show the difference in Narvaez’s defensive game since he joined the Brewers. As noted in the annual comments section on his player page, Narvaez went from being ranked 31st of 33 qualified catchers in 2019, his last season with the Mariners, to first overall in 2020. Going back a little further, BP rated Narvaez as being 17.6 runs below average defensively across 97 games with the White Sox in 2018. His 14.5 runs above average with the Brewers in 2021 marks an improvement of more than 30 runs in three years’ time.

Narvaez, who turns 30 next week, has one more season before his likely free agency to attempt to put all the pieces together and make the case for a big contract. If he can hit like he did in the first half of 2021 and combine it with his much-improved defense, he could be an extremely valuable commodity next winter.