The Brewers always seem to have a good bullpen. They have an anchor at the top – either Josh Hader or Devin Williams – and a smattering of other arms behind them that complement what the team is doing. Historically, they’ve used those bullpen arms to back up the weaker members of their rotation as needed, while getting big chunks of innings from their top starters.
In 2024, things have gone differently – but not in the way you’d expect. Hader is gone. Williams is hurt. Abner Uribe, who began the season in a high leverage role, is in Triple-A after a disastrous start. Joel Payamps, who got some save opportunities after Uribe faltered, has been demoted to middle relief work. Naturally, Milwaukee has the fifth-best bullpen in baseball by WAR, the second-best by RA9-WAR, and the best by win probability added. They’ve thrown the most innings in baseball, to boot.
Even stranger, this might be their best bullpen unit in a while. You probably think of the Brewers as having a perennial top five relief corps without looking into the numbers. I know I did. But here are their finishes in a variety of metrics over the past five years:
| Year | WAR | RA9-WAR | FIP | ERA | WPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 11 | 16 | 13 | 18 | 6 |
| 2020 | 7 | 10 | 7 | 11 | 7 |
| 2021 | 16 | 13 | 18 | 14 | 5 |
| 2022 | 19 | 14 | 20 | 17 | 16 |
| 2023 | 12 | 1 | 9 | 2 | 1 |
| 2024 | 5 | 2 | 16 | 6 | 1 |
Other than 2022, these are good finishes, especially in WPA. And despite some high-profile blowups – again, the guy who got the save in their first game of the season is now in the minors – they’re outdoing them more or less across the board. A deeper investigation is in order.
One thing that Milwaukee used to count on was dominant performances from high-velocity, high-strikeout relievers. I have good news on that front: They’re still counting on it. Their new closer, Trevor Megill, sits 98-99 and tops out above 100 mph. He’s purely fastball/breaking ball, but they’re both elite pitches. Pitch modeling grades? Stuff+ gives them a 141 and 176 where 100 is average, respectively, and PitchingBot has them at 70 and 69 on the 20-80 scale. Actual effectiveness? His fastball misses bats at an elite rate and has racked up nearly two runs per 100 pitches of excess value, while his slider/curveball (it’s some combination of the two) is garnering swinging strikes on 30.2% of pitches.
In other words, nothing looks fluky here. It’s not like Megill is completely out of nowhere, either; he compiled a 3.63 ERA, 2.13 FIP, and 3.14 xFIP for Milwaukee last year. He’s striking out a third of the batters he faces and walking almost no one. Maybe he won’t keep this form up forever – reliever performance is volatile and Megill is on the back side of the aging curve – but this is hardly a smoke and mirrors situation. He’s top 10 in strikeout rate among relievers who have thrown 50 or more innings since the start of 2023. He’s top five in K-BB%, second in FIP, top five in SIERA; look, I could quote a bunch of names of things, but the point is that he’s been nothing short of spectacular.
His chief lieutenants don’t have the same eye-popping stuff that makes Megill’s status seem so secure. Bryan Hudson is the current setup man, and he’s everything that Megill is not. He lives in the lower 90s and makes a living mixing and matching fastballs, cutters, and sliders. His fastball mostly works via deception.
At 6-foot-8, he’s throwing from an unconventional angle. To be more specific, it’s an unconventionally low angle: That odd release point – it’s one of the most extreme first-base-side releases in the majors, even with Hudson starting in the middle of the rubber – gives hitters fits. He also gets a good deal of rise despite the sidearm release, which is how he’s missing bats despite uninspiring velocity. Both of his secondaries – a sweeping slider and a tight cutter – play off that arm slot.
Elvis Peguero, who also handles high leverage situations for the Crew, is nothing like either Megill or Hudson. He throws his slider more than half the time and batters still can’t figure it out. He walks a ton of batters and strikes out fewer than you’d expect for a slider-first reliever, but his slider has consistently generated weak contact. If you’re a nervous fingernail chewer, Peguero will have you gnawing away, but he gets the job done more often than not.
