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Results and Week 2 of the Brewers Opening Day Roster Prediction Survey




The results are in. It is very early in camp and the opening day roster is just a snapshot in time, but who makes the opening day roster has ripple effects throughout the season. For many players, they are either with the team out of opening day or they are out of the organization. Without further ado, here are the results:

Garrett Mitchell made the roster in every response and will thus be changed to a lock for round 2. The rest of the bench as predicted would be: Mike Brosseau, Keston Hiura, Tyler Naquin, and Abraham Toro. Toro narrowly edged out Luke Voit by a single vote (every vote matters).

As for the pitchers, Matt Bush, Peter Strzlecki and Hoby Milner all received 71/75 votes. The final three spots were allotted to Javy Guerra, Jake Cousins and Bryse Wilson. This means Joel Payamps (out of options) and Gus Varalnd (Rule V pick) would leave the organization before the season began.

The final question asked if people wanted to bring 14 hitters and only 12 pitchers. From the 75 responses, only 9 think this is a good idea. Of the 9, it seems like they were doing so mostly to include all three of Hiura, Naquin and Voit. Anyway, full results and more analysis below:

I have opened up the Week 2 Survey here, https://forms.gle/G9jAWJiFM2RJR3ur6, it will be open until next Monday. If you would like to wait until more Spring Training data comes in, feel free to submit your response later in the week. The only changes for this week were adding Garrett Mitchell as a lock and removing the three position players who received zero votes.

Full Results:

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Analysis:

Both sides of the roster competition are intriguing to me for different reason. For the position players, there are a number of MLB experienced players who could all make the roster, but don't fit the standard positions you would want to "Build A Bench." Generally, a bench is made up of a backup C, backup SS, backup OF, wildcard. The Brewers have backup catcher locked up in Caratini, but still have four spots open because of the Tyrone Taylor sized hole in right field. The final four spots per the crowd go to Brosseau, Naquin, Toro, Hiura.

Presumably, that would make Naquin the starting RF. Tyler Naquin is not very good, a 93 wRC+ last year projected to be even worse this year 89. The backup outfielder is either Abraham Toro, who has 1 game of RF under his belt, or Keston Hiura, 6 games in left. You could argue that the backup OF is actually Brian Anderson as Toro or Brosseau would go play 3rd base. And that works, but you need to do the same with shortstop as none of the four listed can play shortstop. Thus, you instead need Luis Urias to backup Adames and have someone fill in at second. Furthermore, the position player group chosen by the crowd does not have anyone who can play backup CF.

Given these challenges, I wonder if the crowd is ignoring the shortstop and centerfield positions too much. Perhaps Blake Perkins, Skye Bolt, or even Sal Frelick have real shots at breaking camp on the Brewers. Owen Miller, who has been crushing the ball in Arizona, or Brice Turang could also have more hope than this survey indicates as they have the ability to play short (356 SS games in the minor for Miller and being Turang's natural position).

For the pitchers, there are 6 spots for 8 pitchers. You have to chose between optioning down better pitchers or losing good enough pitchers from the organization as a whole. Most respondents likely believe Peter Strzlecki and Jake Cousins are two of the top 13 pitchers. However, bringing both of them means losing at least 2 of Wilson, Guerra, Payamps and Varland. So far, the crowd has said that is a worthwhile trade, but we will see if that changes as the Spring continues.

The other interesting note with the pitchers was having 20 pitchers receive votes. Some of them I find to be kind of silly and there is no way they make the roster, but others do look like players who have an outside chance at making the roster.