Brewers Have Withstood Brutal Start, Pitching Depth Has Them In NL Mix

The Milwaukee Brewers’ regular season couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start. They got clubbed in a four-game set at Yankee Stadium getting outscored 47-15 in the process. I wrote about it here – it was even more terrible than the numbers suggest. The club, who was already missing the likes of Brandon Woodruff, DL Hall and Robert Gasser to injury, and had lost depth pieces like Frankie Montas, Colin Rea, Joe Ross and Bryse Wilson since just last season, saw its makeshift Opening Day rotation torn asunder by the Bronx Bombers.

Even worse, newcomer Nestor Cortes lasted only two starts before joining the walking wounded. Well, what if I told you in advance that Gasser, Hall and Woodruff would combine for all of 8 1/3 innings through Sunday’s game. Could you have possibly imagined that the Brew Crew would be sitting four games over .500 and in the thick of the NL playoff race?

But the situation is even better than that. They just might have three largely untapped starting pitchers at the ready. Logan Henderson was brilliant in his first four major league starts, going 3-0, 1.71, with a 29/6 K/BB over 21 innings. Jacob Misiorowski is carving up Triple-A hitters while hitting triple digits with his fastball. And Woodruff……well his story deserves a little detail.

He suffered a severe shoulder injury late in 2023, and missed the entire 2024 season. He has now twice been on the verge of rejoining the MLB rotation before fate intervened, first in the form of ankle tendinitis and most recently by a line drive to his pitching elbow last Tuesday. He’ll need yet another rehab assignment once the swelling goes down – the club hopes it will be a short one.

Without those guys, somehow, someway, the Brewers have posted the 2nd best ERA among NL rotations through Saturday, at 3.41. Now, it hasn’t exactly been all sunshine and rainbows, as their starters have averaged less than five innings per start, and their 8.2 K/9 IP sits exactly at the NL average.

Righty staff ace Freddy Peralta was the single known quantity in the Brewer rotation entering the season, and he hasn’t disappointed. Jose Quintana was a late free agent sign, and after a late entry into the rotation, has been more than reliable. Aaron Civale and Tobias Myers have both missed time with injuries, but have at least shown signs of being stabilizing forces. They spent significant prospect capital to bring aboard Quinn Priester aboard from the Red Sox, a gutsy call that appears to have been vindicated.

But perhaps the best starter of them all has been previously unheralded 26-year-old righty Chad Patrick.

Patrick was the Diamondbacks’ 4th round draft pick in 2021 out of Purdue. His minor league performance wasn’t particularly notable. Each season I prepare a list of top minor league starting pitching prospects based on statistical performance and age relative to league and level. Patrick never made my list. In 2023, he was traded twice – first by the D’backs to the Athletics for Jace Peterson and then by the A’s to the Brewers for Abraham Toro. Just a guy, pretty much, but at least a guy that clubs were interested in acquiring for complementary major leaguers.

Patrick lacks a functional breaking ball. It’s almost all four-seamers, sinkers and especially cutters. But the Brewers have proven successful at building perfectly acceptable big league starters out of ordinary raw materials. See Rea, Colin, 2024.

And quite honestly, while Patrick’s success has clearly been a pleasant surprise from the Brewers’ perspective, the underlying data doesn’t suggest that he’s been particularly lucky.

Patrick’s K and BB rates are pretty squarely in the league average range, with the latter a bit better than average. This means that the distance between him and a league average pitcher is pretty much dependent on his contact management performance, and despite pretty pedestrian raw stuff, he’s done very well on that front.

Overall, Patrick’s average exit speed allowed of 88.9 degrees isn’t eyecatching, sitting in the league average range. While he’s allowed his liners and grounders to be hit harder than average, his average fly ball exit speed allowed of 88.7 mph is over a full standard deviation lower than league average. And that’s a good thing, because he allows a lot of fly balls. But with that 39.9% fly ball rate (over a standard deviation higher than league average) comes a whopping 7.1% pop up rate (over two higher). His 20.9 degree average launch angle allowed is higher than that of any 2024 ERA-title qualifier.

Now perhaps there is a little bit of good fortune baked into his 58 Adjusted Fly Ball Contact Score (100 equals league average, the lower the better), but that could very well be offset by expected downward regression in his outrageously high 26.3% liner rate (over two standard deviations higher than league average). Put it all together, and Patrick has posted a 94 Adjusted Contact Score to date, with his 86 “Tru” ERA- (my batted ball-based proxy for ERA- and FIP-) not far off the pace of his 71 and 81 marks in those mainstream measures.

The Brewers know what they are doing. They often let their stars, like Corbin Burnes, Willy Adames and Devin Williams, walk right before their fortunes take a downturn. Their offense is good enough, and they rightly believe in their ability to prevent runs with a pairing of exceptional team defense and affordable arms who pitch to the apex of their ability in their formative years. Chad Patrick is one of their latest success stories. As usual, they’ll be in the NL playoff mix throughout the summer and fall.