Photo Credit: Scott Paulus
Craig Counsell, who replaced Ron Roenicke after a 7-18 start in 2015.
The September Brewers are at it again.
Ryan Braun’s ninth inning, two out grand slam on Sunday powered the Brewers to a series victory in St. Louis and improved their record to 11-3 since the calendar turned to the season’s final month. This hot stretch has all but resurrected what previously seemed like a long shot at the postseason: At the end of the day on August 31 FanGraphs gave the Brewers an 8.1% chance of reaching the playoffs and a 1.6% chance of winning the NL Central. As of Monday morning, those numbers have rebounded to 36.1% and 5.9%, respectively.
Even those improved projections, however, may be missing something important. In each of the last four seasons the Brewers have been a noticeably better team after September 1:
- In 2016 they were 57-76 (.429 winning percentage) before September 1 and 16-13 (.552) after.
- In 2017 they were 70-64 (.522) before and 16-12 (.571) after.
- In 2018 they were 76-60 (.559) before and 20-7 (.741) after.
- Now, in 2019 they are 69-66 (.511) before and 11-3 (.786) after.
Nearly all baseball statistics can be vulnerable to small sample size fluctuation, causing a “trend” to appear in what is really just a random assortment of luck and other unrelated factors. In this case, however, it’s possible there is some signal in with the noise.
Because the MLB roster rules change (or have changed, at least) on September 1, there is a case to be made that the Brewers are outperforming their competitors while playing a marginally different game of baseball in the season’s final month. In 2018 the difference between their tendencies and conventional baseball wisdom was well publicized in discussions about their “bullpenning” strategy, with short starts often followed by heavy reliance on a variety of relief pitchers. The Brewers used an average of 18.7 players per game in their final 27 scheduled contests in 2018, a franchise record for such a stretch. The previous franchise record was set in 2017 when they used 17.9 players per game.
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The Brewers, who had 506, were one of just three teams with 500+ unique player appearances in their final 27 scheduled games (not counting game #163) in the 2018 regular season. The only team that had more also rode their depth to some significant success: The Dodgers (who also played a 163rd game) had a player start or enter a game 521 times in their last 27 scheduled games and went 18-9 in September en route to a division title and a berth in the World Series. So, at least two teams found noticeable success in the National League down the stretch in 2018 by accumulating a lot of depth and turning it loose in September.
The Brewers’ above average play in September over the last four seasons also coincides with David Stearns’ tenure in Milwaukee. Stearns replaced Doug Melvin, an active and frequent critic of the same September roster rules that Stearns’ teams have ridden to noticeable success. Melvin’s last two seasons at the helm were also the last two times the Brewers were worse in September than they were the rest of the season: They went a combined 22-36 (.379 winning percentage) after September 1 in 2014 and 2015, and 150-174 (.481) in the seasons’ other months.
If Major League Baseball goes through with plans to change the September roster rules in 2020 then Stearns and company will be tasked with finding new ways to give their team an advantage for the stretch run. Instead of having as many as 40 players available on any given day, teams are expected to be limited to 28 after rosters expand for the season’s final month. For now, however, the Brewers’ depth and willingness to get a lot of players into games has given them a significant advantage of their rivals.
