With the offday today, now seemed like as good a time as any to take a moment to look at some numbers and see if we can get a feel for what's working/not working in the Brewer bullpen.
As things stand right now, the Brewers have nine pitchers that fit the following criteria:
1) Have pitched at least ten innings out of the bullpen this season, and
2) Are not a current member of the starting rotation.
Those pitchers are:
Carlos Villanueva (35.2 IP)
Jeff Suppan (31 IP)
Todd Coffey (25.1 IP)
Trevor Hoffman (22 IP)
Claudio Vargas (19.2 IP)
John Axford (16 IP)
LaTroy Hawkins (11.2 IP)
Kameron Loe (11 IP)
Zach Braddock (10 IP)
With help from FanGraphs, follow the jump for a look at their numbers!
Everyone likes a big fastball. Let's start with a look at the Brewers' hardest throwers, and how often they use the fastball:
| Pitcher | Velocity | % |
| John Axford | 94.8 mph | 62.4% |
| Todd Coffey | 94.3 mph | 68.3% |
| Zach Braddock | 93.9 mph | 61.5% |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 92.6 mph | 81.1% |
| Carlos Villanueva | 90.1 mph | 29.3% |
| Claudio Vargas | 89.4 mph | 65.0% |
| Kameron Loe | 89.3 mph | 74.2% |
| Jeff Suppan | 87.5 mph | 49.8% |
| Trevor Hoffman | 85.2 mph | 56.1% |
No, that's not a typo. Carlos Villanueva has a 90 mph fastball he's using less than 30% of the time.
Moving on, let's take a quick look at luck. Here are two stats that seem to at least partially display how lucky a pitcher has been on the mound: FIP-ERA and Batting average on balls in play (BABIP):
| Pitcher | ERA | FIP | Diff |
| Kameron Loe | 0.82 | 1.86 | 1.04 |
| Todd Coffey | 3.91 | 4.31 | 0.40 |
| Carlos Villanueva | 4.04 | 3.46 | -0.58 |
| John Axford | 2.81 | 2.07 | -0.74 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 9.00 | 7.49 | -1.51 |
| Jeff Suppan | 6.81 | 5.09 | -1.72 |
| Claudio Vargas | 7.32 | 4.81 | -2.51 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 9.26 | 3.47 | -5.79 |
| Zach Braddock | 7.2 | 1.33 | -5.87 |
| Pitcher | BABIP |
| Kameron Loe | .250 |
| Todd Coffey | .284 |
| Trevor Hoffman | .304 |
| John Axford | .332 |
| Carlos Villanueva | .351 |
| Jeff Suppan | .385 |
| Claudio Vargas | .400 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | .421 |
| Zach Braddock | .515 |
Any pitching coach or analyst will tell you the importance of getting ground balls. But which Brewers do it well?
| Pitcher | GB% |
| Kameron Loe | 53.6% |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 51.6% |
| John Axford | 48.7% |
| Todd Coffey | 47.4% |
| Jeff Suppan | 38.1% |
| Claudio Vargas | 35.9% |
| Carlos Villanueva | 33.7% |
| Zach Braddock | 24.1% |
| Trevor Hoffman | 20% |
Here's a look at strikeouts and walks:
| Pitcher | K/9 |
| Zach Braddock | 13.5 |
| Carlos Villanueva | 11.86 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 11.57 |
| John Axford | 10.69 |
| Claudio Vargas | 8.24 |
| Kameron Loe | 8.18 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 5.73 |
| Todd Coffey | 5.68 |
| Jeff Suppan | 5.45 |
| Pitcher | BB/9 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 4.63 |
| Claudio Vargas | 4.58 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 4.5 |
| John Axford | 3.94 |
| Zach Braddock | 3.6 |
| Todd Coffey | 3.55 |
| Carlos Villanueva | 3.53 |
| Jeff Suppan | 3.4 |
| Kameron Loe | 1.64 |
As ranked by Run value per 100 pitches, here's a look at each Brewer's best pitch:
| Pitcher | Type | R/100 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | Change | +8.08 |
| Kameron Loe | Fastball | +4.87 |
| John Axford | Slider | +4.06 |
| Carlos Villanueva | Curve | +2.78 |
| Claudio Vargas | Change | +2.69 |
| Todd Coffey | Slider | +2.29 |
| Zach Braddock | Slider | +0.36 |
| Jeff Suppan | Curve | -0.62 |
| Trevor Hoffman | Fastball | -1.2 |
And on the other side of the coin, the worst:
| Pitcher | Type | R/100 |
| Trevor Hoffman | Curve | -5.88 |
| Jeff Suppan | Change | -4.33 |
| LaTroy Hawkins | Curve | -3.91 |
| Todd Coffey | Split | -3.68 |
| Carlos Villanueva | Fastball | -3.23 |
| Claudio Vargas | Fastball | -2.11 |
| Kameron Loe | Curve | -1.51 |
| Zach Braddock | Fastball | -1.45 |
| John Axford | Fastball | +0.06 |
Now, the best Brewers at throwing strikes:
| Pitcher | Zone% |
| Carlos Villanueva | 49.2% |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 49.1% |
| Kameron Loe | 48.4% |
| Zach Braddock | 47.1% |
| Trevor Hoffman | 46.7% |
| Claudio Vargas | 45.9% |
| Todd Coffey | 45.3% |
| Jeff Suppan | 44.2% |
| John Axford | 43.4% |
And the Brewers doing the best job of getting their opponents to swing at non-strikes:
| Pitcher | O-Swing% |
| Kameron Loe | 37.5% |
| John Axford | 37% |
| Zach Braddock | 32.3% |
| LaTroy Hawkins | 30.6% |
| Carlos Villanueva | 27.6% |
| Jeff Suppan | 26.2% |
| Todd Coffey | 23.9% |
| Claudio Vargas | 22.6% |
| Trevor Hoffman | 21.2% |
Conclusions:
Before I jump to conclusions here, I should note a giant sample size caveat: Even the largest sample size included here (Carlos Villanueva's 35.2 IP) is much too small to use as a true evaluation. Using ten innings of Zach Braddock or Kameron Loe is not nearly enough to make any relevant statements about their long-term effectiveness.
With that said, I think there are encouraging things here for LaTroy Hawkins, Zach Braddock and John Axford, about what we'd expect from Kameron Loe, and reasons to be concerned about Todd Coffey, who isn't getting strikeouts, isn't fooling anyone into swinging at bad pitches and appears to be getting lucky on balls in play.
What do you think?