Which Brewers Will be at the All Star Game?

Expand

Photo via Josh Hader - Instagram

Josh Hader pitching

Josh Hader

The Brewers are currently only expected to send two players to next week’s All Star Game, but they might be two of the best ever to fill their respective roles in Milwaukee.

While he’s still only 28 years old, Josh Hader’s status among the best relief pitchers in Brewers’ franchise history is unquestionable. Hader has a 2.23 ERA and 15.4 strikeouts per nine innings across his six-year MLB career and is poised to become the franchise’s all-time saves leader later this season. He’s pitched in more games and logged more innings as a Brewer than Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, and he’s every bit as dominant as Dan Plesac was during his best run. On Sunday Hader became the first Brewers reliever ever to be selected to four All Star Games, and he’s the only Brewers pitcher ever chosen to participate in four consecutive games (the event was cancelled in 2020).

While Hader’s status in franchise history is clear, however, Corbin Burnes’ requires a deeper look. Still only 27 years old, Burnes has already become one of just three pitchers in franchise history to win a Cy Young Award. His 3.09 career ERA is the best ever for a Brewer who made more than 30 starts, and his 2.75 career Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) suggests that even that low ERA might understate his total value. In 2021 he became the first Brewer ever to win an ERA title, edging out probable Hall of Famer Max Scherzer.

In 2022 Burnes is on pace to become the first Brewer ever to lead his league in strikeouts. On Wednesday, in his 58^th career start, Burnes tied Yovani Gallardo for the Brewers’ career lead with 18 10-strikeout games. Gallardo needed 211 tries to reach that same mark. Ben Sheets did it 15 times in his 221 starts as a Brewer.

Midsummer Classic

On Sunday Burnes added another line to his resume, becoming just the 21st Brewer and second starting pitcher to be selected to multiple All Star Games (Ben Sheets, the only other pitcher on that list, was selected four times). Burnes was the only pitcher to work multiple innings for the National League in the 2021 game, becoming one of just four Brewers ever to record more than three outs in a midsummer classic.

The challenges with ranking Burnes among the organization’s all-time greats are largely longevity and historical context. The former will come with time: Burnes still has two more arbitration-eligible seasons as a Brewer in 2023 and 2024 before he’s projected to become eligible for free agency for the first time. If he stays healthy, at a minimum Burnes should have an opportunity to double his career innings load over that time (as of Monday morning he’s at 420).

The second question, however, will always linger. Because of dramatic changes in the way starting pitchers are used Burnes has logged about the same number of innings in 2021 and 2022 to-date as Teddy Higuera did, for example, in a single year in 1987. It’s impossible to know how dominant Higuera could have been if he’d been allowed to “air it out” in shorter outings the way today’s starters do, instead of throwing 80 innings over span of nine starts in August and September of that year. It’s also possible, and perhaps even likely, that a modern workload would have prevented the injury issues that later derailed Higuera’s career.

Burnes, however, is bridging the gap a bit between his 2021 performance and historical norms. After averaging less than six innings per start and just barely qualifying for the ERA title in his 28 outings in 2021, Burnes is pitching somewhat deeper into games in 2022 and has pitched into the seventh inning and beyond in nine of his 17 outings. He’s still not (and shouldn’t be) approaching Higuera’s workload, but the length of his outings resembles those of a modern ace more often than not.

So while the Brewers’ All Star contingent in 2022 projects to be their smallest since Corey Knebel was their lone representative in 2017, the organization will still be well represented by two of the best ever to wear their uniform.