Photo by Stacy Revere - Getty Images
Christian Yelich
There’s still time this winter for the Brewers to make additions that would alter their lineup and pitching staff, but at the moment it looks like their biggest improvements for 2024 will have to come from within.
In the early months of the offseason the Brewers haven’t come up often in rumors: The organization has either kept their cards close to their vest or they haven’t been involved in many of the winter’s biggest transactions to date. If that trend continues, then their chances of competing in 2024 may depend on improvements from players who are already within the organization. If they’re not going to add external options, then they need more from their internal ones.
The Brewers’ success in 2023 was at least in part driven by players who had significantly better seasons than they had the year before. Here are five players that FanGraphs estimates were worth at least .8 wins above replacement more this year than in the year prior:
Even on a list of 2023 highlights, William Contreras sticks out from the crowd. He was highly valuable as a part-time catcher on the 2022 Braves, but his production took off in regular playing time in Milwaukee. In his age 25 season Contreras was arguably the most valuable catcher in the sport, ranking first among backstops in FanGraphs’ version of Wins Above Replacement and coming in fifth in Baseball Reference’s version. Either way, his massive step forward clearly solidified a position that has been a question mark in Milwaukee for a long time.
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It’s hard to believe anyone will take the kind of step forward in 2024 that Contreras took in 2023, but as the roster is currently constructed there are a few players who appear poised to get an opportunity to do more than they’ve done in the majors before:
Brice Turang
In 2023 Turang became one of just a handful of Brewers to make his MLB debut on Opening Day, but his offensive highlight reel was pretty limited. He had five hits and reached base eight times in his first four games as a Brewer but batted just .211 with a .276 on-base and .284 slugging in the 133 games that came after that. Despite his offensive struggles, however, Turang was a steady enough defender that he was a net positive contributor for the Brewers, and he still appears to be the most likely candidate to play most days at second base.
There are at least a couple of reasons to believe Turang could improve significantly in a second look at the MLB level. First, Turang only turned 24 years old in November. His 448 plate appearances at the MLB level in 2023 were the 17th most for any player in their age 23 season or below, so he’s still well ahead of the traditional MLB aging curve.
The second thing to know about Turang is that he’s shown a capacity to grow into a new level of baseball. Turang spent time at the AAA level in 2021 before returning to spend the whole season there in 2022, and his numbers in his second opportunity at that level were much better than his performance from the first time. There’s a very real possibility that Turang will get an opportunity to show he’s learned from his mistakes at the MLB level and grow into a productive big leaguer.
Jake Bauers
One of the Brewers’ under-the-radar acquisitions from this winter, the 28-year-old Bauers currently seems like the most likely player to see time at first base, if only by default: Carlos Santana became a free agent this offseason and the Brewers opted not to retain Rowdy Tellez, so the position is open at this point.
Bauers was a top 100 prospect in all of baseball before the 2017 and 2018 seasons according to both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline, but he’s also been traded four times in his career and has struggled to stick at the MLB level with four previous franchises. He’s a career .257 hitter with a .363 on-base and .438 slugging across 293 games at the AAA level, though, so clearly there’s some production there to unlock.
Bauers bats left-handed and 32 of his career 39 home runs have come against right-handed pitching. Even if he doesn’t come to spring training as the favorite to play regularly at first base, he could get a chance in Milwaukee as a lefty hitting specialist and have the opportunity to earn more playing time if he produces there.
Trevor Megill
The Brewers acquired Megill, a hard-throwing 29-year-old reliever, from the Twins in late April and didn’t wait long to get their first look at him in the majors: He pitched in the big leagues for the first time on May 17 and made 31 appearances for the Crew across a few stints in Milwaukee, eventually working into higher leverage spots as the season went along. Megill posted a 3.63 ERA but Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP), a stat designed to filter out outlying factors and evaluate a pitcher based on the things under their control, estimates he should have been closer to 2.13. He struck out 13.5 batters per nine innings.
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Megill throws hard, with Baseball Savant listing his 99.1 mph average fastball velocity in the 99th percentile among MLB pitchers. They also note that he did a better job of handling hitters as the season went along, with his expected outcomes improving steadily in August and September. Megill was probably already better than his numbers suggested in 2023, and in 2024 he’ll have a full training camp with the Brewers to set the stage for a season where he could build on that.
