MVBrewers #8: Josh Hader

Nov 22, 2022 - 10:00 PM

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Our MVBrewers series continues this week with former Brewer Josh Hader coming in at No. 8 on the team for 2022.

While Hader was traded at the deadline to the Padres and struggled at the end of his tenure in Milwaukee, he was still the cornerstone of the team’s bullpen before his departure.

Finishing with a 4.24 ERA across 37 appearances with the Crew this season, Hader ended up with a 1-4 record and 29-for-31 in save opportunities. He also ended up as an All Star for the fourth time in his career.

It was a tale of two seasons for Hader with Milwaukee, as he gave up no runs in his first 19 appearances, going 18-for-18 in save opportunities with 28 strikeouts, four hits allowed, and six walks across 17 ²⁄₃ innings. After his first blown save on June 7 against the Phillies, he still went 11-for-13 on save opportunities, but he allowed 16 runs across 18 appearances, including nine runs across two appearances against the Twins and Giants in mid-July.

While this series is about Most Valuable Brewers, it should be mentioned that Hader’s struggles continued with the Padres in August, resulting in him losing his job as the closer for a short time. He ended up allowing no earned runs in his final 10 appearances during the regular season with San Diego, and he continued to dominate in the postseason, allowing no runs on just one hit and one walk with 10 strikeouts across 5 ¹⁄₃ innings.

Considering so many of Hader’s appearances with the Brewers were so similar (a single 1-2-3 inning), it’s hard to single out any one appearance as being his best this season. Instead, I’ll just say that he had seven appearances with three strikeouts for Milwaukee this season, four of which were 1-2-3 innings.

Since Hader is gone, I’d also like to recall his incredible 2 ²⁄₃ inning performance against the Reds back in 2018, when he struck out eight of nine batters in an extended save situation.

We’ll continue the rankings of the 10 most valuable Brewers each Monday into January. Come back next week to see who we have at No. 7.

8. Josh Hader
9. Christian Yelich
10. Luis Urias