After winning the National League Central title last season and establishing themselves as contenders in the NL for the foreseeable future, the Milwaukee Brewers' start to the 2012 season has seemed, to many, a colossal disappointment.
A 16-20 start through May 16 certainly isn't ideal. And losing three important pieces to the puzzle in the first five weeks of the season wasn't exactly what Brewers fans would have hoped for, either.
Lost in the early-season concern, however, is the fact last year's team — the team that came close enough to smell a World Series berth — started the 2011 season with the exact same record through 36 games.
Those Brewers were second-to-last in the NL Central at that point as well. They lost seven in a row from April 30 to May 6. And right fielder Corey Hart hadn't even played 75 percent of those games.
Yes, it's true there are some parallels between this season and last season. And having gone through those kind of early struggles before, it's accurate to conclude that this year's team is built to deal with a slump through April and May.
But do the two teams' parallel records indicate more than simple coincidence? Is it right to expect this season's Brewers to go on a run similar to last season's?
Well, considering how extraordinary the Brewers' run in last season's final 126 games was, a repeat would be highly improbable. Milwaukee had the best record in Major League Baseball during that span, finishing out the season an outstanding 80-46.
Posting the same record will be difficult for a 2012 team that lacks an elite power bat like Prince Fielder's and has already experienced season-ending injuries to first baseman Mat Gamel, shortstop Alex Gonzalez and No. 5 starting pitcher Chris Narveson.
It's Fielder's absence that, as expected, is the biggest difference between the two seasons. Despite the team's inconsistencies through 36 games last year, Fielder still managed a .289 batting average with seven home runs and 27 RBI. In that period, Fielder's wins probability added (WPA) checked in at 1.722 (or 9.2 wins added over the course of a 162-game season). Fielder actually finished the season with three of the top 100 WPA single-game performances of 2011, according to BaseballReference.com. Those numbers prove the obvious: Fielder is one of the best players in the game. No one besides Ryan Braun on this year's team has the potential for such statistical production.
It's not just Fielder's inclusion that makes an 80-46 spurt less possible this year than last. Adding a productive Hart to the mix after he missed all of April made a notable difference in the final 126 games of 2011. And of course, having Rickie Weeks playing at an All-Star pace — a .260 batting average, 13 homers, and 36 RBI — in the first 36 games of last season certainly helped. Through 36 games in 2012, Weeks' batting average is the lowest of any player in baseball with 100 or more at-bats.
The 2011 Brewers ranked 10th in the NL in run production through 36 games; this year's version ranks eighth. That similar run production through the season's first two months is a big reason both teams struggled. But however ineffective the offense was in either season, it seems that effective pitching is the biggest difference between the two slow starts. This season's Brewers' pitching staff ranks second-worst in the National League in ERA (4.63) — despite showing a serious improvement in the team's past five starts.
Last season, the staff's ERA was almost a full point below that through 36 games (3.87). And that was without ace Zack Greinke, who had just made his second start of the season after coming back from a rib injury.
After the team's 16-20 start, the Brewers' team ERA improved steadily for the rest of the season. If that's the case for this year's team -- and recent results have been encouraging -- there will be some sort of turnaround regardless of the offense.
No degree of improvement is impossible at this point. But the potential of last year's team to hit its way into the playoff race was undeniably different. And the results were also undeniably fortunate for a team that didn't have many brushes with injuries for the remainder of the season.
This season, such good fortune hasn't been there through 36 games. But the expectations for the Brewers' organization have changed. A 16-20 record this season is different from a 16-20 record last season, when the expectations weren't nearly as sky-high. Now, the Brewers are expected to make the kind of turnaround they did last season because, well, that's what good teams do.
And for the next 126 games of the 2012 season, the Brewers will do their best to prove they are just as good as their 2011 counterparts. But, as the stats show, that's going to be one heck of a challenge.
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