Few Prizes in Store for Brewers This Year

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Photo courtesy of the Milwaukee Beewers Baseball Club

In 2020, the Brewers' best non-pitcher according to advanced metrics was Jedd Gyorko, who only played in a little more than two thirds of the team’s games and just had his 2021 option declined over the weekend.

On Monday night Major League Baseball will name the finalists for the Baseball Writers Association of America’s 2020 postseason awards. The winners will be announced next week, but the Brewers likely won’t need to clear much space on their respective mantels. 

Brewers position players are, to put it mildly, unlikely to receive serious award consideration. Christian Yelich saw his numbers take a significant downturn in 2020 after winning the MVP Award in 2018 and finishing second in 2019. According to the advanced metrics the Brewers’ best non-pitcher in 2020 was Jedd Gyorko, who only played in a little more than two thirds of the team’s games and just had his 2021 option declined over the weekend.

Brewers pitchers, however, offer a possible glimmer of hope. Devin Williams has already been named the National League’s top reliever and could be a fringe candidate for the Cy Young Award for a season where he struck out 53 batters and allowed one earned run in 27 innings. Corbin Burnes likely also belongs in this conversation following a year where he had one of the best bounce backs in Brewers franchise history, carrying a 2.11 earned run average in 59 ⅔ innings. Baseball Reference estimates Burnes was worth 2.1 wins above replacement in a 60-game season in 2020, and only three Brewers pitchers exceeded that mark in 162 games in 2019.

No Brewer has won his league’s Cy Young Award since Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich did it in back-to-back years in 1981 and 1982, respectively. There’s an outside chance Wiliams or Burnes will end that drought this season but it’s more likely they’ll join this list of Milwaukee pitchers who should have received consideration but came up short:

Warren Spahn, 1961

While the MVP Awards were given out to one player in each league, there was only one Cy Young Award for its first eleven years from 1956-66. Spahn won that award in 1957, but in 1961 an American Leaguer edged him out. Spahn pitched more than 260 innings that season and led the National League with a 3.02 ERA, 21 complete games, four shutouts and 1.142 walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP). From July through September he had a streak of ten consecutive complete game victories.

Spahn received six of the 17 first place votes for the award, but Yankees ace Whitey Ford received nine and won the honor. Ford had a great season in his own right, of course, leading baseball with 39 starts and posting a 3.21 ERA. The flashy number on his resume, however, was his 25-4 win-loss record as compared to Spahn’s 21-13.

In the end, Ford won the award at least in part due to his teammates. The 1961 Yankees had one of the best offensive teams of all time and scored 5.74 runs per start for Ford, while Spahn’s teammates provided him just 4.38 runs. Examples like this are a big part of the reason pitchers are no longer evaluated by win-loss record.

Moose Haas, 1980

About two decades later, something similar happened to Moose Haas. The Cy Young Award winner in 1980 was Orioles pitcher Steve Stone, who posted a 25-7 win-loss record partly due to his 3.23 ERA but aided by 5.7 runs per game from his offense. Baseball Reference estimates Stone was worth four wins above replacement that season.

Moose Haas, meanwhile, pitched more innings and had a lower ERA (3.10). He only had a 16-15 record, however, at least in part due to the fact that the Brewers scored just 3.6 runs when he was on the mound. His value for the season was estimated at 4.5 wins above replacement, half a win better than Stone, but that fact went unnoticed by voters: Six American League pitchers received Cy Young votes that season but Haas was not one of them.

In the end, however, another pitcher has an even better case than Stone or Haas: Oakland hurtler Mike Norris pitched 30 more innings and had an ERA almost three-quarters of a run lower than Stone (2.53). He was worth about six wins, but finished second in the voting

Teddy Higuera, 1985, 1986 and 1988

The Brewers’ Mexican pitching phenomenon’s career is a story of near misses. He burst onto the scene in his first MLB season in 1985, logging more than 200 innings in his first opportunity at that level. Despite that performance, however, he was only second in his league’s Rookie of the Year voting. The winner was White Sox shortstop Ozzie Guillen, who was named first on 16 of 28 ballots despite having a .291 on-base percentage.

Higuera was even better in 1986 but found himself as an award runner-up again, as Red Sox ace Roger Clemens collected all 28 first place votes for the AL Cy Young. Baseball Reference estimates that Clemens was worth 8.8 wins above replacement that year, which is both an amazing figure and more than half a win less than Higuera’s 9.4.

Higuera’s biggest snub, however, may have come later: In 1988 Higuera pitched over 225 innings with a career-best 2.45 ERA and league-best 0.999 WHIP. Those numbers, however, weren’t even enough to get him a single third place vote for the AL Cy Young. Six pitchers were named on ballots that season but Higuera was not one of them.

Ben Sheets, 2004

Sheets continued the long tradition of dominant pitching performances overshadowed by bad teams when he had what might have been the best season on the mound in Brewers franchise history in 2004. In a high-offense era, Sheets had a 2.70 ERA in 237 innings and his 8.25 strikeouts per walk were the most in all of baseball. 

ERA+ is a statistic that puts ERA numbers in context across eras, comparing a pitcher’s performance to his peers. 100 is a league average performance, with better numbers above that mark and lower below. Sheets’ 162 ERA+ that season was tied for the second best in Brewers history (matching Higuera’s aforementioned 1988 campaign). 

Sheets’ breakout season, however, was overshadowed for a pair of reasons. First, it came for a bad team: The Brewers went 67-94 despite his dominant season and scored just 3.54 runs on average in his starts, meaning he went 12-14 for the season. Additionally, Sheets had his enormous year in a season where Astros pitcher Roger Clemens was one of the game’s top narratives and Randy Johnson was having one of the best seasons of a generation. Sheets was left off of 31 of the 32 voters’ Cy Young ballots and received a third place vote on the other.

To read more Brewers On Deck Circle columns by Kyle Lobner, click here.