5 things we learned about how a Brewers hitting coach views the offense (and last year's struggles)

PHOENIX – Pat Murphy kept it simple.

“We’ll score more runs,” the first-year Milwaukee Brewers manager said from the comforts of the armchair in his office.

Why?

“We’ll touch home plate more.”

So, there you have it. The Brewers offense, which was not up to par a year ago as it ranked in the bottom half of baseball in nearly every important category, including runs(17th), OPS (23rd) and slugging percentage (25th) will perform better in 2024. The skipper swears by it.

To find out more about the offense and learn why the unit has the manager so optimistic (and to discuss some of the 2023 offense’s struggles), the Journal Sentinel sought out Brewers hitting coach Connor Dawson for a chat.

Here are five things we took away from it.

1) There’s a chance to be chaotic

Dawson, who is entering his third year as co-hitting coach alongside Ozzie Timmons, thought the Brewers offense had different identities at different times last year. Early on, they had a lineup that was largely reliant on home runs. Later on, they became contact-oriented. Later in the season, after trading for Carlos Santana and Mark Canha, they were a team that tried to control the strike zone and wear pitchers down.

Dawson believes the Brewers’ identity will, again, be a multitude of identities. But rather than morphing throughout the year, Dawson hopes the Brewers will be able to win in a variety of ways.

“It’s exciting to think about all the ways this team can score,” Dawson said. “I think we have a nice balance of some guys who can bop it, we can run, we have some contact guys mixed in. I think it could be a little bit chaotic for defenses, which is kind of exciting for me.”

The core of the Brewers offense – Rhys Hoskins, William Contreras, Willy Adames and Christian Yelich, can certainly bop it. Nobody would be surprised if each hit more than 20 homers, whereas a year ago the Brewers had one player go deep at least 20 times, which was tied for the lowest number in baseball.

There are speed-oriented players. Garrett Mitchell, Jackson Chourio, Brice Turang, Sal Frelick and Joey Wiemer can all blaze the basepaths.

There are the contact hitters, too, with Sal Frelick chief among them.

2) The Brewers could have been more aggressive

What stood out most to Dawson about the offense from its struggles last year?

“I do think we could’ve swung the bats a bit more here and there in some spots,” Dawson said. “Could have been more aggressive.”

Making out what, exactly, went wrong for Milwaukee on offense last year is a bit of a complex puzzle, but being too passive at times certainly ranks among the chief issues.

The line between patience and passiveness is thin, but the Brewers seemed to be on the wrong side too often. They ranked 28th in MLB in both overall swing rate and swing rate at pitches in the strike zone.

And that wasn’t the only number that showed the Brewers’ passiveness. A deep dive into the plate discipline numbers showed the Brewers had significant room for more swings.

This will be an interesting trend to follow this year. The Brewers return nearly all their low-swing rate hitters except for Rowdy Tellez (Canha, Santana, Brian Anderson and Jesse Winker were all among the team’s highest in-zone hackers) while adding hitters in Hoskins, Gary Sanchez and Jake Bauers who are all on the more patient end of the swinging spectrum.

3) The Brewers like the foundation of their offense

Sure, the Brewers could have been more aggressive after getting themselves into situations where they were likely to get good pitches to hit.

But don’t overlook the fact that they did the hard part – getting themselves into those situations – Dawson said.

“That’s the big piece of it all. You have to get a good pitch to hit first,” Dawson said. “If you catch yourself chasing out of the zone, you’re not going to hit anybody. That base, to me, is a strength that we can leverage.”

And how can they leverage that better? After all, controlling the zone and drawing walks was a strength last year and the offense still underperformed.

Dawson’s answer: By adding some pop.

“I think we have a couple pieces, like Hoskins, in place that helps us leverage that even more moving forward,” he said.

4) Big expectations for the sophomores

Murphy has gone on the record predicting a “quantum leap” for Turang. Dawson foresees similar success for the Brewers’ other second-year position players, including Mitchell, Frelick and Wiemer.

“The thing about being in the big leagues is it’s a league that revolves around winning. It’s a league that’s going to figure out how to get you out,” Dawson said. “Then it’s going to do that until you adjust. These guys moved relatively quickly through the minor leagues, so they never got to experience that sort of interaction with other teams. Getting that full year not only for us, but also for them to understand what it takes to be a Major League Baseball player is so valuable. There’s no number you can put on that.”

5) Jackson Chourio is ‘a stud’

Consider Dawson impressed by Jackson Chourio during his first big-league camp

“He’s a stud. He wants to be really good,” Dawson said.

The Brewers’ staff is always watching to see if the league is able to outmatch a player in by doing one specific action repeatedly. So far, they haven’t seen that from Chourio’s game.

“It is a tricky balance when these guys come up because they’ve been good everywhere,” Dawson said. “In a way, why do you want to change that? That’s the biggest thing for us with him: staying patient. Letting the game tell us where adjustments may need to be made.

“So far this spring, the game is telling us that things are working out really well. It’s a tricky balance but it’s no different than any other player. The game is the one that tells us what to change. And if the game doesn’t tell us to change, let’s maintain.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: 5 things we learned about how a Brewers hitting coach views the 2024 offense