Bernie’s Redbird Review: Why Are The Brewers Better Than The Cardinals? Let Us Count The Reasons.

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

We can find the Cardinals are in the middle of the crowd at baseball’s summer Woodstock festival, otherwise known as the National League wild-card jam. I suppose we can call it a Lollapalooza.

But in today’s writing contest – me against the overmatched keyboard on my laptop – I want to focus on something else.

Question: how in the hell are the Milwaukee Brewers sitting six games above the second-place St. Louis Cardinals as the NL Central’s sovereign power?

Last offseason the Brewers lost celebrity manager Craig Counsell to the hated Cubs and traded rotation ace Corbin Burnes to the Orioles. Their starting-pitching hardship is extreme. They haven’t had elite closer Devin Williams all season because of stress fractures in his back; he’s on schedule to return next month.

So how have the Brewers done better than the Cardinals? Lots of reasons. So let’s get to it …

1. Head-to-head matchups. The Cards and the Crew have met on the diamond seven times this season. Brewers were 6-1 in these early-season games, taking advantage of a piffling, mucked-up St. Louis coterie. If we pretend that these early competitions were never played, rivals are virtually even-steven in games against other opponents: Brewers 51-42 (.548), Cardinals 52-43 (.547).

2. Milwaukee has one of the smartest, most resourceful baseball departments in MLB. And the franchise based in the smallest media market in the majors repeatedly outmaneuvers division challengers. The Brewers continue to outperform the Cardinals and Cubs despite having a substantial disadvantage in payroll spending. Here are the 40-man payroll costs of all three teams:

• Cubs, $233 million
• Cardinals, $211.6 million
• Brewers, $149.4 million

On top of that, the Brewers do a better job of scouting, drafting and developing their young players – international market included.

This season Milwaukee has a 14-6 record when playing STL or Chicago.

3. Milwaukee has a stronger offense than St. Louis, comfortably ranked higher than the Redbirds in runs per game, batting average, onbase percentage, OPS, steals, walk rate, etc. I’ll say a little more about some of these things as you read on…

4. Timely hitting: massive advantage, Milwaukee. The Brewers are hitting .274 with runners in scoring position which ranks fourth in the majors. The Cardinals are .230 with RISP, which ranks 26th. And this is really important: with runners in scoring position the Brewers have a slugging percentage (.459) that’s 122 points higher than STL’s (.337.) Sad.

5. The Brewers are much deeper than the Cardinals. And that’s mitigated the damage caused by injuries. Once again, I don’t know how a small-market team with the 20th-ranked payroll can overcome so many blows, but the Brewers are remarkably resilient here in 2024.

– Days missed by players: Milwaukee 1,093, St. Louis 917.

– Games missed by injured players: Milwaukee 935, St. Louis 790.

6. Starting pitching. Against the odds, the Brewers have a better starting-pitching ERA (4.16) than the Cardinals (4.40.) At one point this season the Brewers had four major-league starting pitchers on the IL at the same time. Here’s the number of days each pitcher has lost to injury so far: Brandon Woodruff 120, Wade Miley 98, DL Hall 96, Jakob Junis 79, Joe Ross 66, Robert Gasser 54.

With all of this chaos, the Brewers have utilized 16 different pitchers as starters; that total includes relievers who made eight “opener” starts. The Cardinals have used nine starters including Matthew Liberatore, who has shifted out of the bullpen to make several spot starts.

The instability is drastic. The Brewers have received the lowest number of innings from starting pitchers than any team in the majors. And they’re 28th in quality starts.

Despite all of that, Milwaukee has a better starting-pitching ERA than St. Louis. The Brewers rank 16th at 4.16, and the Cardinals are 22nd at 4.40.

7. The Brewers have more balance offensively. Compared to the Cardinals, the Brewers Crew have a higher OPS against both left-handed pitching and right-handed pitching. In particular, the Redbirds are especially weak vs. lefty pitching with a .623 OPS that ranks 29th. The Brewers have a .718 OPS against LHP, ranking 15th.

8. Milwaukee plays better defense than St. Louis. The Crew is fourth in the majors with 36 defensive runs saved; the Cardinals are No. 9 with 23 runs saved. In Outs Above Average at Statcast, the Brewers rank fourth and the Cardinals 19th.

9. The Brewers have dangerous speed that they put to use and it gives them an edge. They’re second in the majors with 138 stolen bases and rank first with an 84 percent success rate. The Cardinals are way down on the list in steals (60) and success rate (77%).

10. Walk this way: the Milwaukee offense creates more run-scoring opportunities than St. Louis for two reasons. The higher batting average, which I already mentioned. But the Brewers have more plate discipline and draw more walks than the Cardinals. The Brewers have the third-best walk rate in MLB; the Cardinals are 20th.

11. The Brewers are succeeding with an array of young position players. The Cardinals do pretty well in this area, but only if we count guys a few guys who are in their 20s but older than 24. The Brewers lead the majors in Wins Above Replacement by rookie position players, and are third in WAR among position players age 25 or younger.

12. Run prevention. Always, always important.  Milwaukee has allowed 3.95 runs per game, the sixth-best average in the majors. The Cardinals have allowed 4.45 runs per game; that ranks 18th.

13. Manager Pat Murphy, 65, has exceeded all expectations as the successor to the departed Craig Counsell. The longtime Milwaukee bench coach moved up in rank after Counsell’s defection and has done a terrific job of guiding so many young players and a pitching staff that already has used 32 arms. Oli Marmol has done a good job for the Cardinals this season, and he doesn’t have the benefit of Milwaukee’s baseball operation. To this point Murphy’s work is worthy of Manager of the Year recognition. And Murphy will be tested by the absence of his best player, outfielder Christian Yelich, who will be on the IL for an extended time as he deals with another round of lower-back problems.

14. The Cardinals have an excellent bullpen. But Milwaukee’s bullpen is slightly better. It’s true. The Crew bullpen has outperformed the St. Louis bullpen in ERA, Save Percentage, and Win Probability Added. And they’ve done just about as well as the Cardinals in preserving late-inning leads.

15: All-around resilience. I watch the Brewers on streaming as much as I can, and this is a team that consistently digs in, fights hard, never seems to give an inch. Milwaukee has a winning record on the road, a winning record in one-run games, a winning record in extra-inning affairs. The Brewers have a better record than the Cardinals in games against winning teams, and games against losing teams. And check out this stat on comeback wins: Milwaukee 28, St. Louis 16.

FanGraphs gives the Cardinals a 12.6 percent shot of winning the division. But to make that longshot come through, the Cardinals will have to wrestle the division team away from a team that’s remarkably resourceful and mentally tough. And the St. Louis front-office can’t get outflanked by the Milwaukee front office during the countdown to the end of Tuesday’s trading deadline.

Thanks for reading … as always.

And have a splendid weekend…

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

Please follow Bernie on X @b_miklasz and Threads @miklaszb

For weekly Cards talk, listen to the “Seeing Red” podcast with Will Leitch and Miklasz. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, or where you get your podcasts. Follow @seeingredpod on X for a direct link.

Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions and Cots Contracts unless otherwise noted.