Jared Koenig’s regular season was a productive follow-up to last year’s breakout. The crossfire left-hander appeared in 72 games, second-most among Brewers relievers, posting a 2.86 ERA with peripherals that matched or bested his rookie campaign.
In one facet, though, it was a tale of two seasons. Koenig carried pronounced platoon splits through July that had him looking most suited for a specialist role down the stretch and into October. Lefties slashed .213/.259/.293, but righties tagged him for a .312/.385/.505 line.
He flipped the script once the calendar turned to August, fueling two months of late-season dominance. Koenig allowed just three earned runs across 22 innings the rest of the way, with righties hitting just .140/.232/.260 against him.
The turnaround followed from a new approach. In the first half, Koenig attacked righties as he does lefties, pairing his deceptive sinker and cutter combo over the heart of the plate to produce uncomfortable takes and late swings. They slugged .525 against the cutter through July, though, so he’s since relegated it to a show-me pitch and featured his changeup more.
Koenig also appears to have lowered his sights. He’s still attacking righties aggressively in the zone with his sinker, but around the knees, instead of at the letters.
That sinker-changeup pairing near the bottom of the zone has been far more effective. Righties went from slugging .475 with a 9.7% barrel rate against Koenig’s sinker through July to slugging .172 with a 5.6% barrel rate the rest of the season. His changeup, meanwhile, generated whiffs on 44.4% of swings over the final two months.
The return to his most dominant form came at just the right time, for a Milwaukee bullpen that lost Shelby Miller and Trevor Megill to injuries late in the year. Their absences forced Koenig to pitch even further toward the back ends of games, where he and Abner Uribe helped carry the relief corps to a 2.91 ERA in September, the fourth-best in baseball.
With Miller out for the year and Megill’s role in question without his best velocity, Koenig and Uribe will remain Pat Murphy’s most trusted short relievers. By quashing his platoon problem, Koenig is back to being Murphy’s Swiss Army knife. The Brewers are likely to lean heavily on their bullpen in the postseason, and he could be tasked with some of the biggest outs.