2022 MLB Playoffs

[wntrtxn21]

37 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

The Astros just know how to get it done in the postseason. That they've managed to stay this consistently successful despite so many of the key principals from their 2017 World Series championship team having departed is a real testament to the system they've built. Please dial up your old front office pals Stearns and ask them for their secret!

It's called payroll. Depending on what site to believe between $193-196M for this year. Unlike the Brewers and other small market teams, they can afford to keep any of their good players they want after arby and can afford $185M for guys like Verlander. They have a good development system, but again, they don't have to trade any top guys to fill holes unless they want to. They can afford to fill in with FAs if needed. 

[Brewcrew82]

10 minutes ago, wntrtxn21 said:

It's called payroll. Depending on what site to believe between $193-196M for this year. Unlike the Brewers and other small market teams, they can afford to keep any of their good players they want after arby and can afford $185M for guys like Verlander. They have a good development system, but again, they don't have to trade any top guys to fill holes unless they want to. They can afford to fill in with FAs if needed. 

They do have more total resources than we do, but it's not like they're signing big-money FA's left and right. All of their key position players (Altuve, Alvarez, Bregman, Tucker, Pena) were a developed by them, with Alvarez being the only one that they didn't originally draft/sign. The only major FA signing they've made in recent years was Brantley and even that wasn't really something that would be out of our price range. Not to mention they've had several core players price themselves out of town over the past few years (Springer, Correa, Cole, etc.). So, I largely disagree that it's their payroll. Rather, it's the system they've put in place that's allowed them to absorb these losses with literally zero impact to their overall success. Definitely something that we've attempted to emulate during Stearns' tenure in light of his previous experience in that FO. We just haven't had the same success in developing position player talent to this point. Hopefully, that starts to change with this exciting crop of prospects coming from Nashville. 

[Team Canada]

3 hours ago, Hopper said:

Are you administration?  

Let's not rehash the Hader deal in this thread.

There, is that better now that a mod said it?

[Patrick425]

16 hours ago, Brewcrew82 said:

They got caught cheating in 2019? I thought the only verifiable proof of cheating came exclusively from their 2017 World Series team (i.e., the banging on the trash cans)...I personally haven't forgotten it for sure, but I've also come to appreciate how consistent and fundamentally sound they are. Something I hope for the Brewers to emulate. 

To clarify, their cheating came to light in 2019 and was confirmed by MLB in January of 2020 (I believe it covered all of 2017 and part of 2018) The news of it was really blowing up in Spring of 2020 before the season was shut down. 

[Sixtolezcano]

15 hours ago, Team Canada said:

Let's not rehash the Hader deal in this thread.

There, is that better now that a mod said it?

Nice way to put it. I blame social media.

[Brewcrew82]

Astros own the Yankees.

[Brewcrew82]

Philly crowd is absolutely electric tonight. Also, I love the interviews after big HRs Fox is doing this postseason. 

[UpandIn]

On 10/19/2022 at 9:46 PM, Patrick425 said:

Not sure how anyone can root for the Astros.  They get caught cheating in 2019 after making 2 of the 3 previous WS, and winning one. They have no legitimate excuses for their actions.  They are set to face some pretty hostile road crowds in 2020, but are bailed out by COVID. They still have some pretty prominent members of those teams on their roster (Altuve, Bregman, Verlander...). Yet, people have just seemed to have forgotten about it.

I get that people hate the Yankees, but I'll root for them any day against the Astros. 

For me...I just don't care. It feels like a lot of righteous indignation by other teams who cheat in a litany of ways...they were just the dumbest. 

Quote

Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat tweeted that the Brewers and Rangers (in addition to the Astros) were frequently named by players as practitioners of electronic sign-stealing. Former MLBer Logan Morrison named the Yankees, Dodgers, Astros, and Red Sox as team using video to decode signs.

 

Anyone find it odd that the Dodgers hit two late HRs of Jeffress splitters...which were NEARLY unhittable that season? Very likely flips the series?

• Quote

  Robert Murray, then of The Athletic, reported that the Brewers suspected the Dodgers of using a camera to steal their signs during the 2018 NLCS. 

  And about a dozen other teams that were accused by various people within the game;

• https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/oakland-as-pitcher-chris-bassitt-says-astros-werent-only-team-in-mlb-stealing-signs/#:~:text=Jeff Jones of the Belleville,using video to decode signs.

[UpandIn]

On 10/16/2022 at 9:44 AM, sveumrules said:

Stearns didn’t torpedo the team.

They started a franchise best 32-18.

Over the next two months they went 25-27 with Hader losing four games personally and posting an 8.31 ERA.

If Hader pitched like his normal self for those two months and the Brewers were seven up at the deadline instead of only a three game lead with an imploding closer, do you think Stearns still would have traded him?

Yes...absolutely.

If Stearns reason for trading Hader was basically 2 bad outings in which he gave up 9 ERs in 1/3 or an IP over two games...that'd be an absurd knee jerk reaction...and how he threw vs the Red Sox in his last outing when he was overpowering hitters(or the last 4 overall when he had a .36 FIP). Now...this would be silly to use such a small sample size, but...again, yes, I do believe that. If Stearns saw Josh Hader have a couple of bad outings and THAT was the impetus behind the trade, he's not the GM I want moving forward. Of course I don't believe that.

I also don't believe that Hader "personally" lost 2-1 games or 3-2 games. 
But, if he did, then did he "personally" win the 15 games he came in and closed out that we won by 1 run?
Or the 10 2-run games?

 

I don't think Stearns "torpedoed" the team, if the argument is he traded him due to a bad stretch, that pretty much flies in the face of EVERYTHING they've said and every justification given for the Hader trade. 

[UpandIn]

On 10/15/2022 at 5:30 PM, SF70 said:

The Phillies are a superior team to MKE. Wheeler-Nola-Suarez with a bullpen of Dominguez-Hand-Alvarez-Eflin.

Schwarber-Segura-Hoskins-Harper-Castellanos-Realmuto.

Not particularly close either.

This is objectively false based on the 162 games played...

It's also false based on the "those teams were hot going in," as the Phillies were awful in Sept.
The Brewers are absolutely right there with the Phillies and just listing players on Philly doesn't change that. 

Castellanos has a sub .700 OPS. Segura had a worse OPS than Wong. Tellez is comparable to Hoskins...

Burnes, Woodruff, Lauer, Peralta, Bush, Boxberger, Milner...

There's no argument where you can say the Brewers and the Phillies weren't comparable this season or that it's "not particularly close."

[BruisedCrew]

36 minutes ago, UpandIn said:

There's no argument where you can say the Brewers and the Phillies weren't comparable this season or that it's "not particularly close."

The one argument might be based on the fact that the Phillies played in a much stronger division and, therefore, had to negotiate a tougher schedule. 

The teams might be somewhat close, but maybe not quite as close as suggested just by the numbers. For one thing, the Brewers don’t have the big impact hitters like Harper and Schwarber or one of the best offensive catchers in MLB. 

The Phillies also improved themselves at the trade deadline, something the Brewers clearly did not do. 
 

 

[UpandIn]

1 hour ago, BruisedCrew said:

The one argument might be based on the fact that the Phillies played in a much stronger division and, therefore, had to negotiate a tougher schedule. 

The teams might be somewhat close, but maybe not quite as close as suggested just by the numbers. For one thing, the Brewers don’t have the big impact hitters like Harper and Schwarber or one of the best offensive catchers in MLB. 

The Phillies also improved themselves at the trade deadline, something the Brewers clearly did not do. 
 

 

They were 16-3 vs the Nationals including going 6-1 vs the Nats in the final month when they were 11-14 overall. So 5-13 excluding the worst team in baseball in Sept. The Nats were a 55 win team(by far the worst in baseball). The Marlins were a 69 win team, they won 12 vs them. So that's 28 wins vs two terrible teams. 

We were 36-33 the 2nd half of the season
Phil-38-32
Better in the final month. 

Schwarber was a 2.2 WAR player.

So the Brewers finished stronger while the Phillies were terrible in the final months...and Phillies fans were lamenting how terrible their team was as well. 

There was VERY little difference between the two teams, there's no way to couch this that there was any significant difference. 

There's no twisting this...there was not a big gap between the two teams. The Phillies making the playoffs game down to two games we went into the last at bats with a lead and blew the game making us 2-4 rather than 4-2 vs the Phillies and 86-87 wins.

There's just no dressing it up. The Brewers, Phillies and Pads were all VERY evenly matched this year. 

 

For all the players you can name on the Phils, the overwhelmingly have warts are...just weren't that good. 

[BruisedCrew]

I’m not trying to argue that the Phillies of the regular season were head and shoulders better than the Brewers. But, I do think that they were better, and were significantly better positioned for the playoffs than the Brewers would have been. 
 

A few points:

1. Yes, the Phillies played 38 games against the Nats and Marlins, but that they also had to play 38 games against the Braves and Mets, I don’t think there’s any question that that is much more difficult than playing 57 games against the Reds, Pirates, and Cubs, and 19 against the Cardinals (clearly the weakest division winner in the NL). 
 

2. The Phillies everyday lineup entering the playoffs was much stronger offensively than anything the Brewers could have put together. Harper, Schwarber, Realmuto, and Hoskins are significantly more formidable than the Brewers top 4 hitters, and the Phillies have used that offense to advance in the playoffs, especially as they pounded on the Braves. I seriously doubt that the Brewers could have done that. 

3. The Phillies playoff lineup is stronger than the one they put out through much of the season when you factor in that Harper and Segura each missed over a third of the season with injuries, and that adding Marsh at the trade deadline gave them a boost in CF, both offensively and defensively. 

The Phillies did an admirable job getting themselves into strong position while Harper was out, then almost buckled under the pressure of expectations down the stretch. They invited the Brewers to take the last playoff spot, but the Brewers couldn’t win games they needed to win, including against the likes of the DBacks, Rockies, and Marlins. They missed Wheeler when he had to miss a few starts in September. 

Maybe the Brewers could have done in the playoffs what the Phillies are doing. But my guess is that they wouldn’t have. 
 

 

[Brewcrew82]

What a game goin on in Philly rn...Seesaw affair with a lot of bombs. 

[UpandIn]

14 hours ago, BruisedCrew said:

Maybe the Brewers could have done in the playoffs what the Phillies are doing. But my guess is that they wouldn’t have. 

The '06 Cards, the '07 Rockies, the '21 Braves, the '87 Twins(Which won 85 games and got outscored during the regular season)...

Every year we see teams that get in and beat better teams. So the whole, "it wouldn't have mattered anyway, the Brewers couldn't win anyway," logic just...doesn't track with most of Baseball history.

[Robocaller]

I guess we have to root for one of the NL teams (plucky underdogs) rather than the Evil Empire (of the American League, the Yankees), or the Cheaters (Astros.)

Ah, give it to S.D.

 

[UpandIn]

1 hour ago, Robocaller said:

I guess we have to root for one of the NL teams (plucky underdogs) rather than the Evil Empire (of the American League, the Yankees), or the Cheaters (Astros.)

Ah, give it to S.D.

 

Agreed. I'm on board with the Friars. I'm gonna HATE the incessant rehashing of the Hader trade, but the Astros have recently won one. I don't particularly care about the cheating as I think other teams were cheating as well(the Dodgers have been accused in the year we lost to them in the NLCS and we've been accused...along with several other teams). 

Beyond that, imagine rooting for the Yankees for Phillies? I feel like I need a shower just thinking about it. 

[BruisedCrew]

5 hours ago, UpandIn said:

The '06 Cards, the '07 Rockies, the '21 Braves, the '87 Twins(Which won 85 games and got outscored during the regular season)...

Every year we see teams that get in and beat better teams. So the whole, "it wouldn't have mattered anyway, the Brewers couldn't win anyway," logic just...doesn't track with most of Baseball history.

My broader point is that the regular season is not necessarily reflective of the playoffs. During the regular season teams have injuries and make roster changes through trades, acquisitions, and incorporation of upcoming players. Also, teams that have problems in the regular season because of lack of pitching depth can be more successful in the playoffs when they can get by with fewer starting pitchers and a tighter bullpen. 
 

A team with a less impressive regular season record (like the 2019 Nats or 2021 Braves) might be much more equipped for a playoff run than it might appear from its regular season numbers. Or a team like the 1987 Twins that had a huge home/road disparity might be able to succeed by winning games at home while losing all of its road games in the World Series. The randomness of baseball can be a factor too,

Bottom line is that it is my opinion that the 2022 Brewers were not well equipped to succeed in the playoffs because their everyday lineup would have a lot of trouble scoring against the top line pitching they would be facing. They wouldn’t be looking at the pitching staffs  from the likes of the Reds and Pirates against which they padded their regular season numbers.
 

Coming into the season the Brewers hopes in the playoffs were pinned largely on near perfect pitching from their top line starting pitchers and a bullpen anchored by Williams and Hader. But Peralta’s injury and Hader’s slump and subsequent trade removed a significant part of that strength. 

Of course it is possible that the Brewers could have caught lightning in a bottle and suddenly started producing runs if they had slipped into the playoffs. But their performance through most of the last 5 months of the season, and especially in September with the playoff berth on the line, tells me that that was the longest of long shots. 
 

Just my opinion.
 

 

[UpandIn]

1 minute ago, BruisedCrew said:

But their performance through most of the last 5 months of the season, and especially in September with the playoff berth on the line, tells me that that was the longest of long shots. 
 

They were better than either of the teams remaining in Sept. 

The 2019 Nats had on of the worst BPs of anyone in the league in 2019. The 2021 Braves were a beat up team missing their best players. 

Again, to reiterate, this isn't even about the Brewers(for the...umpteenth time)...this is about how the game is played and the absurdity of saying the team we finished 1 game is SO much better or equipped and that it doesn't matter that we didn't make the playoffs because "we weren't going anywhere."

Any gap between the Phillies and the Brewers is negligible. 

 

OR, put it this way, the Cardinals, the Braves, the Dodgers and the Mets were all MUUUCH better than the Phillies and the Padres. The gap was MUCH wider between those teams and the Brewers and the Phillies. Those "super teams."

The Phills are on the verge of a WS. 

[BruisedCrew]

7 hours ago, UpandIn said:

They were better than either of the teams remaining in Sept. 

The 2019 Nats had on of the worst BPs of anyone in the league in 2019. The 2021 Braves were a beat up team missing their best players. 

Again, to reiterate, this isn't even about the Brewers(for the...umpteenth time)...this is about how the game is played and the absurdity of saying the team we finished 1 game is SO much better or equipped and that it doesn't matter that we didn't make the playoffs because "we weren't going anywhere."

Any gap between the Phillies and the Brewers is negligible. 

 

OR, put it this way, the Cardinals, the Braves, the Dodgers and the Mets were all MUUUCH better than the Phillies and the Padres. The gap was MUCH wider between those teams and the Brewers and the Phillies. Those "super teams."

The Phills are on the verge of a WS. 

I get it. You disagree with my opinion. That’s fine. 

[Brewcrew82]

Bryce Harper with the superstar home run to put the Phillies on the brink of the pennant....Wow

[Brewcrew82]

And Melvin doesn't bring in Hader to face him...

[markedman5]

3 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Bryce Harper with the superstar home run to put the Phillies on the brink of the pennant....Wow

Melvin had a chance to use Hader in the 8th against the meat of their order…….but opted for the conventional route…….and it probably ended their season.

Harper has been just incredible 

[owbc]

As soon as the lead off guy got on I thought for sure Hader was coming in. Baffling.

[wiguy94]

9 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

And Melvin doesn't bring in Hader to face him...

6 out save…Hader? That’s hilarious.