At some point today I’ll probably reach for theremote or my phone and absentmindedly attempt to check what time the Brewersplay tonight. It hasn’t sunk in yet, and probably won’t for a while, that the2016 season is over and baseball won’t return to Miller Park for another 182days.
Around this time of year I usually make myself feela little better by counting down to spring training instead. We don’t have anofficial date yet for pitchers and catchers to report to Maryvale Baseball Parkin Phoenix, but we do know that it’ll be a little earlier than usual in 2017due to the World Baseball Classic. In 2013, the Classic’s last season, theBrewers reported to camp on February 12. Using that date as an estimate, springis about 132 days away.
The Brewers have a lot of questions to answerbetween now and then, and we’ll look into some of those in the final On DeckCircle of 2016 next week. This week, however, I want to take one final lookback at this season.
I listened to the pregame for Sunday’s season finaleon WTMJ, catching the final interview between Jeff Levering and Craig Counsell.As has been the case in many of these season wrap-up interviews, theinterviewer congratulated their subject on a “great” 2016 season. This year hasbeen more fun and more successful than I think many people expected in March,but I’m having a hard time calling it “great.” I think Counsell summed it upnicely here:
With that said, the fact that the Brewers went 73-89this season (five games better than 2015) and are still being seen in asemi-positive light speaks volumes about how low the expectations were for thisteam entering the first full season of a full-on rebuild. Several excitingindividual performances also helped ease the impact of a down year.
Jonathan Villar has to be first and foremost in thatconversation, serving as an effective leadoff hitter and base stealer andshowing some versatility down the stretch that may make him a very valuablepart of this team in the years to come. Villar’s two hits on Sunday mean hefinished the 2016 season having reached base 248 times, just shy of thegoal of 250 I set for him in June.
In that piece I also discussed Chris Carter’schances at 40 home runs, and a hot month of September pushed him to and overthat mark. Carter’s enormous strikeout numbers (206, easily a franchise record)and relatively low batting average (.222) will likely always make him apolarizing talent, but his power numbers made him a uniquely valuable figure ina Brewers organization that is otherwise trending toward players with a morespeed-focused skill set.
While Villar and Carter both came from outside theorganization, the Brewers found help from within in the bullpen in the form ofTyler Thornburg. The luster on Thornburg’s career year wore off a bit duringthe season’s final week as he racked up three consecutive blown saves, but evenwith the struggles he’s established himself as capable of handling the closerrole and working through opposing teams’ best hitters with the game on theline.
Thornburg got to face save situations late in theseason at least partially because Carlos Torres and Jhan Marinez, a pair ofscrap-heap acquisitions, did a pretty remarkable job in middle relief. Thosetwo combined with Jacob Barnes, Tyler Cravy and Rob Scahill to pitch 214 1/3innings as Brewers this season with a 2.86 ERA. All five of those pitcherscould return for 2017.
Meanwhile in the starting rotation, the Brewers gotsignificant contributions from a pair of pitchers who were not in the OpeningDay rotation, Junior Guerra and Zach Davies. Statistics like this don’t alwayspaint a perfect picture, but this one is somewhat telling: The Brewers were29-19 in games started by those two this season, and 44-70 in all others.
And finally, the 2016 season may be most notable forthe resurgence of Ryan Braun. Braun should be a near-lock for the MilwaukeeBBWAA’s annual team MVP award, and finished among the MLB leaders in bothbatting average (.305) and slugging (.538), posting his best marks in bothcategories since his MVP-candidate 2012 season. Whether it was excellentplanning or good fortune, the Brewers’ plan to get Braun regular rest to keephim healthy and effective worked beautifully in 2016, as he was able to stayoff the disabled list and seemed to avoid many of the nagging woes that haveplagued him in years past.
How many, if any, of these bright spots can wepencil in for continued success in 2017? At this point there’s no way to tell.For now, however, they combined to make a rough year significantly less painfulthan it could have been. There’s certainly some value in that.
