The hit parade never took place last season
Brewers hitting coach Haines eyes better days ahead
Andy Haines has had nearly three months to analyze and digest what went wrong with the Milwaukee Brewers’ offense during the pandemicshortened 2020 season, and more importantly, what he can do to stop a repeat of those struggles next year.
The team’s energetic hitting coach took the failure of his charges personally, even during a 60-game season in which COVID-19 protocols and the absence of fans in the stands left many out of sorts, for lack of a better description. Rather than look for excuses, Haines searched for answers but often was left with more questions.
“When you get home, reality sets in and that’s just not our expectation,” Haines said of an offense that ranked 26th among the 30 big-league clubs in scoring runs. “Our expectations are way higher internally than anybody’s on the outside. That’s not a cliché.
“We have higher expectations than to just play in the wild-card (series), regardless of how we got there. It’s to perform at a high level. We didn’t have fans this year, but you still want to put on a great show every night. That means offense, scoring runs, everything.
“When I got home, it was a sickening feeling because we didn’t accomplish that. I spent a lot of time reflecting on it. You don’t say ‘we did our best’ and leave it at that. You process it accordingly, but then you have to put it behind you and start thinking about what’s next. It doesn’t help to wallow in 2020.”
The Brewers did make the postseason for a third consecutive year, a first in franchise history. But they did so with a losing record (29-31), joining the Houston Astros (same record) as the only clubs ever to play in the postseason after finishing below .500. And they did so only because MLB expanded the playoff field from 10 to 16 teams to compensate for a greatly reduced schedule.
By the end of that shortened season, the Brewers’ offense was mostly broken. Milwaukee scored only 18 runs while going 3-5 on the final trip to Cincinnati and St. Louis, advancing to the playoffs only because neither Philadelphia nor San Francisco could win just one game over the final weekend. The Brewers bowed meekly to eventual champion Los Angeles, scoring only two runs in a two-game sweep at Dodger Stadium.
It was no secret why the offense was
so feeble. Christian Yelich, one of the most dynamic performers in the majors over the previous two seasons, staggered to a 1-for-27 start and never recovered. The team's second-best offensive player, Keston Hiura, couldn't stop swinging at bad pitches, leading the National League with 85 strikeouts in 246 plate appearances. Lorenzo Cain, a leader on and off the field, opted out of the season after one week over concerns about the spreading virus. Longtime stalwart Ryan Braun spent too much time in the trainer's room.
A group of veteran role players signed to fill vacancies created by a mass exodus of free agents contributed far too little to make a difference. Who knows how all of that would have shaken out over a 162-game season? But, over 60 games, the Brewers' offense often was sad to watch, with the exceptions of an 18-run explosion in Detroit and a 19-run outburst against St. Louis at home.
Today's offensive game is all about launch angles and exit velocities, leading to a reliance on home runs to score, often accompanied by mind-numbing strikeout figures. The Brewers had the latter but not the former, ranking 25th with a .389 slugging percentage. Their failure to put the ball in play limited scoring opportunities and often left them playing from behind in a fruitless, frustrating game of catch-up.
If not for a solid pitching staff, the Brewers would have finished far below .500 and out of the playoff field, no matter how many invites went out. The offense was so bad that some wondered about the job security of Haines and new assistant Jacob Cruz, even with the built-in excuse of COVID-19 protocols making it more difficult for hitters to prepare as accustomed.
It would have been easy for president of baseball operations David Stearns to point a finger directly at Haines for the team's horrid offense and try someone else. Instead, Stearns accepted responsibility for bringing in players who didn't work out and kept Haines and Cruz on the staff.
The Brewers' brain trust believed one factor in play was the unbalanced schedule created to limit travel during the pandemic. Teams played 40 of their 60 games within their division, and the NL Central was loaded with quality pitchers who dominated to the point that all five teams struggled to score runs, with many proven hitters looking lost.
Brewers second baseman Keston Hiura led the National League in strikeouts in 2020.
'You own it'
With only two seasons under his belt with Milwaukee, Haines certainly took nothing for granted as he waited – only a few days, as it turned out – to learn his fate. He has confidence in his ability to coach hitters and views manager Craig Counsell and Stearns as fair and analytical in their judgments, and therefore was prepared to live with their decision, either way.
“My approach has always been to keep your head down until the last pitch is thrown and take your best shot,” Haines said. “Then, you figure out what happened and why. That being said, when the last pitch was thrown in L.A., there is an emotional toll that hits you. You know it's done, and your expectations were higher than that. So, you own it.
“I said, ‘This is not good enough, so we'll find out (if my job is safe) and live with it.' I do have a lot of trust in David, his guys and ‘Couns' to evaluate me fairly. That doesn't mean a free pass by any means. But I have the confidence that I'll be evaluated fairly and not emotionally.
“Let's be honest. Sometimes there are things that happen out of your control and you're a scapegoat, and that's how it goes. We had an honest conversation. They said they believed in me as a coach. They acknowledged some things they thought I did well, but they made it clear our expectations are higher, that we need to score more runs.
“Right away, it went to how do we push this forward and help these players perform at a high level? How do we get better? That's the way it went.”
Of course, it wouldn't hurt to add some better hitters. Stearns decided to give catcher Omar Narváez, who had a brutal season at the plate (.562 OPS), what amounted to a COVID pass, tendering another contract, albeit at a lower salary. But, even with the team's finances battered by a year with no gate revenue, the Brewers must find a way to add some offensive firepower this winter.
Even if they do so, there is no guarantee anything will be different when spring training begins in terms of protocols and restrictions that made it more difficult for hitters to prepare on a daily basis. Even with a vaccine rollout underway, the word is that MLB is preparing to delay the opening of camps as well as the season, perhaps necessitating a shorter schedule.
If the environment is basically the same, at least at the outset, Haines' job will get no easier. The tools he once took for granted in coaching hitters, including expansive use of the video room to review plate appearances, again could be absent from daily preparation.
Beyond the lack of adrenaline created by stands packed with screaming fans, players often found themselves on an island off the field, with social distancing and other restrictions preventing the interaction and bonding with teammates that so often gets them through the tough times.
“Usually, one of the best things about being involved with a team is the camaraderie within the group,” Haines said. “We basically did not have that this year. The other things we had to do were more important, and rightfully so. But that isolation kind of wears on you.
“You miss having more human connection; something as simple as hugging a guy when he does something good. That stuff is real.
“In normal times, we are so fortunate with the things we have available to us to make us better at our jobs. Your focus is on getting high performance in a major-league game that day. Our day revolves around that, but this year was much different. We had so many more things at play during the day other than baseball. It was real-life stuff going on.”
Yelich struggles out of gate
Yelich, in particular, seemed to struggle in that cocoon-like environment. It didn't help that he had gone so long without playing after breaking his right kneecap on a foul ball with three weeks remaining in the 2019 season. The twotime defending NL batting champ was brought along slowly in spring camp, only to have it shut down by the pandemic just when the time came to ramp up at-bats.
Then came a three-month shutdown, with COVID-19 restrictions preventing Yelich from getting in much baseball activity back home in Los Angeles. He couldn't find his swing during a rushed three-week summer camp, got off to the horrible start to the season and never looked right at the plate for any extended period of time, finishing with a .205 batting average, .786 OPS, 12 home runs, 22 RBI and 76 strikeouts in 200 at-bats (career-high 30.8% whiff rate).
When Yelich did hit the ball hard, it often was right at a defender. His .259 batting average on balls in play was nearly 100 points lower than the previous season despite a hard-hit percentage (balls with at least 95-mph exit velocity) of 55.6%, best of his career, though with more groundballs than in previous years.
Add it all up and it was what Stearns called a “perfect storm” of obstacles in Yelich's path to success. Going back to their days together in Miami's farm system, Haines and Yelich have had a close bond, but the anxious coach often found himself helpless to get one of the game's best players on track. And, with only 60 games on the schedule, time quickly ran short to make it happen.
“In baseball, time can either help you or hurt you,” Haines said. “If it had been a regular season, we would have had 100 more games. With really talented players, the more time they have, the better. It's going to work out for them.
“So, (the 60-game schedule) did not favor some of the star hitters who got off to a slow start. They didn't have the luxury of time. With 100 more games, Yeli was going to get it going. He might not have had the epic stat line he had the previous two years, but we all know his time was coming.”
Haines, who lives in Spring Hill, Tennessee, not far from Nashville, has talked to Yelich a couple of times on the phone since season's end while also exchanging texts.
He has tried to give his star pupil some space to decompress and clear his mind, but the time is coming to start getting ready for 2021, even with the uncertain start time.
Yelich, who knows how to find motivation when he needs it, certainly will be determined to prove his 2020 showing was a pandemic fluke. And Haines said doubters better step aside.
“I would say, if anyone wants to bet against him, I'll take those bets,” Haines said. “That's how confident I am in him. Everyone with the Brewers believes in him, and we know he'll show up with a little extra fire in his belly, so you better watch out.
“I'm sure he learned some things from 2020, but there comes a point where you move forward and think about what's next. With everyone I've talked to and texted with, I do sense this renewed optimism and excitement of putting a really hard year behind us and seeing what we can accomplish.”
Some of that enthusiasm could be tempered if the start of spring training is pushed back while MLB waits for the vaccine rollout to reach players, staffs and fans. If COVID-19 protocols remain in place, at least at the outset, baseball life again will become a series of adjustments.
So, did Haines and the other Brewers coaches learn anything from their experience in 2020 that might help players perform better this time around?
“We've talked a lot about that,” Haines said. “We're going to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. That's sort of a coaching motto. I want my mind revolving around our hitters getting better. We can't just say we didn't play well because of these protocols. If that's the environment again, we have to figure out how we can thrive in it.
“Right now, I don't have any blackand-white answers. I know there are a lot of people behind the scenes doing a lot of work to make sure we have clear plans. I know the players will do their part, and it's up to the coaches to be there to support them in every way we can. We're going to be on a mission in 2021.”