The Brewers would rather be playing baseball, of course, but there are some opposing players they won’t miss while the 2020 season is on hold.
Every franchise has that one opposing hitter they just can’t seem to contain. The guy who always comes up in a big spot, sees the ball well off their pitchers and crushes the fans’ hopes. Eno Sarris of The Athletic recently compiled a list of those guys for each National League team and identified longtime Rockies infielder Troy Tulowitzki, former Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa and Pirates infielder Jose Castillo as Brewers fans’ historical nightmare fuel.
All of those players are retired, so their days of terrorizing the Brewers are over. There are also plenty of active players, however, that have had the Brewers’ number, and an abbreviated MLB schedule might give the team a reprieve from seeing some of them. If Major League Baseball decides to cancel the April and May schedule and open play in June, for example, the Brewers might see significantly fewer games against these assorted nemeses:
Phillies (seven games): Jay Bruce
The Brewers were scheduled to visit the Phillies for their home opener April 2-5 and welcome them to Miller Park on April 13-16, so an abbreviated schedule could wipe out their entire season series. There are plenty of players on Philadelphia’s roster the Brewers wouldn’t miss: former Brewer Jean Segura, slugger Rhys Hoskins, catcher J.T. Realmuto and outfielder Odubel Herrera all have better numbers against the Crew than the league as a whole.
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The Phillie the Brewers have most struggled against, however, is longtime former Red Jay Bruce. Bruce made a living against the Brewers during his All Star seasons in Cincinnati, batting .258 with a .344 on-base percentage and .520 slugging across 571 plate appearances against Milwaukee. His 35 home runs against the Brewers are his most against any opponent, and the eight he hit in 2015 were almost a third of his season total.
Mets (six games): Wilson Ramos
As was the case with the Phillies, the Brewers and Mets’ entire season series was scheduled to happen in April. If it isn’t rescheduled the Brewers may not be sad to miss Ramos, a longtime catcher with the Nationals.
Ramos is not exactly an offensive juggernaut under normal circumstances, posting an on-base percentage of just .322 across ten MLB seasons. He’s been noticeably better in 27 games against the Brewers, however, batting .305 with a .359 on-base percentage and .463 slugging. Between 2013 and 2015 he had an on-base plus slugging (OPS) over 1.000 against the Brewers for three consecutive seasons. One of the biggest hits of his career was this blast off Brandon Kintzler in 2013.
Cardinals (six games): Paul Goldschmidt
The Brewers can’t completely avoid their NL Central rivals, of course: They’re scheduled to face the Cardinals 19 times this season. Their already-cancelled March series and an unlikely-to-happen three game set in May, however, might be a welcome reprieve from pitching to Goldschmidt.
The slugging first baseman had terrorized the Brewers for years before joining the NL Central, hitting ten home runs in just 46 games against them across seven seasons with the Diamondbacks. He got a bigger sample against the Brewers in 2019 and kept hitting, putting up a .288 batting average, .373 on base and .644 slugging with eight home runs in 19 games. He’s been an MVP candidate several times and according to Baseball Reference he’s been about 38% better against the Brewers than his other opponents.
Reds (six games): Jesse Winker
Winker has played parts of three MLB seasons in the outfield in Cincinnati and he’s settled in as a solid offensive player with good plate discipline (a .379 career on-base percentage). He’s padded those numbers with some big games against the Brewers.
The Brewers have been Winker’s opponent in about one-eighth of his major league appearances and he’s been excellent against them, going 27-for-87 (.310 average) with 10 walks and 13 extra base hits (.394 on-base and .540 slugging). One of his best performances in 2019 was a three-hit game against Brandon Woodruff.
Cubs (six games): Albert Almora Jr.
The Brewers have done an impressive job of keeping the young stars from their rivals to the south off the board in recent years: Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward, Ian Happ and Willson Contreras all have weaker stat lines against the Brewers than their overall numbers.
The lone exception to that trend is Almora, and even he hasn’t had a cake walk against Milwaukee: He’s a .265 hitter with a .295 on-base and .432 slugging against the Brewers, which Baseball Reference rates as just 2% better than his performance against all teams. He did have an assortment of big hits against the Brewers in 2019, though, including this tenth inning home run off Freddy Peralta.
In the end, of course, there probably isn’t a major difference in how these guys prepare to face the Brewers or a single reason why they’ve been more successful against Milwaukee than other teams. Nonetheless, it seems likely the Brewers will see them less often this season and that’s not entirely a bad thing.
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