In a season of ups and downs, the offense caught the most flack for under performing. It was expected that Prince Fielder would again hit 50 home runs and Ryan Braun would be right there with him now that he was getting a full season to show what he could do.  Corey Hart was going to be that power/speed combo that would give other teams headaches and Rickie Weeks was going to break out.  Everyone expected Rickie Weeks to break out.

It didn't quite work out that way.  The 2008 Milwaukee Brewers scored 750 runs this season, 51 fewer runs than 2007.  How did this happen when everyone expected this team to take a step forward?  Let's go back to the beginning and see if our  expectations for the season were realistic.

You can find a number of different publications that do preseason statistical projections.  PECOTA is the probably the most popular source and you can find that at Baseball Prospectus.com.  Bill James publishes projections, along with John Sickels at Minor League Ball.com.  I like to reference Baseball Think Factory's ZiPS Projections, mainly because they're free and easy to find.

For easy reference, here are the links to the Baseball Reference and the ZiPS projections:
2008 Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Reference
Milwaukee Brewers 2008 ZiPS Projections 

Prince Fielder
Projection: .282/.380/.571
Actual: .276/.372/.507

Most fans were frustrated by Prince Fielder's power decline this season.  He got off to a slow start, needing two weeks and a Joe Dillon bat to hit his first home run of the season.  Unfortunately that didn't open the flood gates.  His meager power output continued through May before he really started hitting with some authority again in June.

The ZiPS projections were a bit more conservative than fans would have hoped for before the season began.  Dreams of a line-up anchor that could OBP .400 and SLG .600 dance through our heads since he almost did that in 2007.  Still, a .380 OBP and .571 SLG aren't too shabby and these projections tend to be conservative.  Prince came close to his OBP projection, but his power just never came around.  He was projected to get 165 hits, 44 home runs and 35 doubles.  Fielder almost matched the hit total with 162, but fell 10 home runs and 5 doubles short.

Overall, Prince's power decline was somewhat troubling for a team that relies on quick strikes to score runs, but he was far from the problem that was holding back the team. 

Ryan Braun
Projection: .294/.332/.554
Actual: .285/.335/.553

The Brewers golden boy didn't put up the insane numbers he did his rookie season, but is would have been unrealistic to expect a repeat performance since Braun .365 BABIP was healthier than normal.  Instead he was brought more into line with a .305 BABIP, and he still put up some pretty impressive numbers.

As you can see, ZiPS was pretty much on the nuts with their projection.  His 39 doubles and 37 home runs were higher than projected (33 2B, 33 HR), and he also drew more walks than expected.  The scary part is that Braun's intercostal strain clearly hurt his performance in the final month, so a healthy Ryan Braun probably would have surpassed his projection.

J.J. Hardy
Projection: .262/.318/.421
Actual: .283/.343/.478

I think most fans had to be really happy with what they saw out of J.J. Hardy this year.  Unlike 2007 when he got off to a torrid start, J.J.'s season was more of a slow burn this year.  He expressed that he was uncomfortable batting in front of the pitcher early in the season when the team experimented with batting the pitcher 8th and the punchless Jason Kendall 9th in the order.  He found his swing and was eventually moved up to 2nd in the order where he really excelled, hitting for power and getting on base in front of Braun and Fielder.

Hardy is one of the few players who really blew past expectations.  He hit for more power, showed more patience and overall showed the maturity we were hoping to see from the entire line-up.  Hardy hit 9 more double and home runs than projected, who would have guessed that he would hit 4 triples?  J.J. will never be a burner, but we may have to admit that he's faster than he looks.

Corey Hart
Projection: .289/.353/.518
Actual: .268/.300/.459

If computers could have broken hearts, they'd cry in their diary about Corey Hart.  ZiPS, like every other blue collar baseball fan in Wisconsin, loved Corey Hart.  What the heck happened?  Everything started out fine in April and May, but there were some signs in June that Corey needed to make some adjustments.  Hart's power spiked in June, but that covered up the fact that his OBP dove 50 points, from .342 to .292.  That stuff fluctuates, but unfortunately for Corey and the line-up, he struggled to post a .300 OBP for the next three months before the bottom fell out in September.  Hart struggled to post .173/.192/.245 and didn't hit a home run in September.

What changed?  I don't know.  None of the Brewers' hitters do a good job of recognizing balls and strikes or identifying pitches to drive, but Hart just fell into the abyss for the last month.  Maybe it's in his head?  Hart said he didn't like hearing the boos at Miller Park, and it was odd to hear that comment from him since he was well liked by the fans before September.  We'll see if the grind just got to him in 2008 and the off season clears his head.

Ultimately, Hart's struggles really ground the offense to a halt.   Hardy, Braun and Fielder were all getting on base and Hart was in position much of the season to put up some gaudy numbers.  He ended the season with 91 RBIs, but that number is a pretty good example of why RBI totals are overrated.

Rickie Weeks
Projection: .254/.363/.422
Actual: .234/.342/.398

Rickie Weeks was just about every scout and analysts pick as the break out player of 2008.  If you check out the comments on the Baseball Think Factory projections page, ESPN and Scouts Inc. writer Keith Law asks for the optimistic projection* for Rickie Weeks which turns out to be .278/.394/.501.  Weeks ended 2007 hitting .273/.441/.553 in August and September, which gave hope that his short demotion to Nashville allowed him to figure something out and we'd see him come close to reaching his full potential.

It just never clicked for Weeks.  As always, he shows great patience at the plate and probably does a better job with pitch recognition than any of the young core on the team.  Rickie just seems to be one of those puzzles with a ton of tiny pieces that takes forever to put together.  It'll be awesome when it's finished, but how much time do you want to invest putting it together?

Weeks didn't terribly under perform his projection, though he did benefit from platoon with Ray Durham the last two months of the season.  Like most of the young hitters on the Brewers, Weeks had a significant platoon split where he hit .227/.319/.391 against righties and .250/.391/.414 against lefties. 

The club needs to give Weeks one more season to right the ship before searching for other options.  Unless they make a significant move, he's probably still going to be their best option to lead off, but he needs to be moved down in the order.  Bat him lower in the order for the good of his own development even if it means placing a lesser option at the top of the order.  He may need a change of scenery, and hopefully it's just in the Brewers batting order and not with another organization that will help him shake his funk.

*Projections are done with a bell curve and broken down into percentages that represents the chance a player will fall into that projection.  The Optimistic projection is the top 15% of the bell curve.  The projections used for this post were the mean or 50% projection.  I do not claim to be an expert and suggest that Google exists if you'd like a better explanation.

Ben Sheets   ERA   WHIP   INN   BB   K
Projection:    3.72   1.172    145    27   128
Optimistic:    2.93   1.034    175   26    166
Actual:          3.09   1.149   198    47   158

Ben Sheets had a rough final two weeks in Milwaukee and may have thrown his last pitch in a Brewers uniform...though up to that point he really performed as well as anyone could have hoped.  His strikeouts were down, and his walks were up, but he was by far the most effective pitcher on the staff until Sabathia arrived.  Sheets really deserves as much credit as anyone for the Brewers first playoff appearance 26 years.

Yovani Gallardo was lost for the season on May 1,  Jeff Suppan was a waste of $42M, Dave Bush and Manny Parra started slowly.  Ben Sheets went out and put up his best numbers since 2004, and (if you add in his 2 innings from the All-Star Game) threw 200 innings.  Even after he experienced discomfort in his elbow pitching against St. Louis in August, Sheets still managed a sub-2.00 ERA before his final start against the Cubs in the final weekend of the regular season.

It was really sad to see Ben's career in Milwaukee come to a close with a whimper.  No matter what anyone says though, Ben Sheets' final season in Milwaukee was a success.