NL Central Discussion

[StearnsFTW]

18 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Will Atlanta have to worry about setting up their rotation for the playoffs? Regular season ends on 10/1. NLDS starts on 10/7 which is a full 5 days off. I don’t think they would need to do that.

 

I think a better way of looking at the schedule comparison is by number of series left against potential playoff teams/not playoff teams rather than win%. Cubs have 7 series vs potential playoff teams and 4 vs not playoff teams. Brewers have 5 series vs potential playoff teams and 6 series vs not playoff teams.

Fair points, but they'll have no motivation to win that's all.  Trying things they may not otherwise try, etc.

 

I don't think it's a big deal either way, but could factor in.

[Underachiever]

13 hours ago, sveumrules said:

If the Brewers end the season 18-18, the Cardinals would have to go 33-2 to finish higher in the standings.

Yes, but if the Brewers go 0-36, the Cardinals only need to go 15-20. 

[wiguy94]

24 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

Fair points, but they'll have no motivation to win that's all.  Trying things they may not otherwise try, etc.

 

I don't think it's a big deal either way, but could factor in.

The fact they have like 4 players who have played every game this season makes me at least somewhat hopeful they will still have good lineups in the 2nd to last series of the season. I imagine those 4 guys all want to play every game this year.

[LouisEly]

3 hours ago, StearnsFTW said:

Fair points, but they'll have no motivation to win that's all.  Trying things they may not otherwise try, etc.

Dodgers are only 4.5 games back for #1 overall seed.  Braves could easily have something to play for.

[StearnsFTW]

22 minutes ago, LouisEly said:

Dodgers are only 4.5 games back for #1 overall seed.  Braves could easily have something to play for.

Extremely unlikely, but yes, possible.

[KeithStone53151]

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Brewers at 91.8% playoff odds. The most interesting thing I'm seeing, is that there are still 9 teams with over 25% postseason odds according to this site. Could be a wild finish to the season.

[wiguy94]

20 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds

Brewers at 91.8% playoff odds. The most interesting thing I'm seeing, is that there are still 9 teams with over 25% postseason odds according to this site. Could be a wild finish to the season.

If we can go 4-2 to close out the month with a series win against the Cubs, I would feel pretty good about our playoff chances. We already have the tiebreaker over the Reds and winning the series against Chicago at the end of this month would leave us needing 1 win in the final series of the season to have the tiebreaker over them as well.

[KeithStone53151]

8 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

If we can go 4-2 to close out the month with a series win against the Cubs, I would feel pretty good about our playoff chances. We already have the tiebreaker over the Reds and winning the series against Chicago at the end of this month would leave us needing 1 win in the final series of the season to have the tiebreaker over them as well.

Our place in the standings allows us more room for error down the stretch. We can go 2-4 and probably still have the lead heading into September. I would hope we do better, we're certainly playing better baseball lately especially offensively. A true hot streak from Adames down the stretch would be massive.

I haven't cared for Counsell's comments on the playoff race. He keeps saying it's going to come down to the last week. He's probably right, but it doesn't have to. We can close the race sooner than that, and we should instill that thought process and sense of urgency into our players.

[formerlybis]

8/24 Brewers' magic numbers:

Cubs 33

Reds 32

Pirates 23

Cardinals 21

[StearnsFTW]

2 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

If we can go 4-2 to close out the month with a series win against the Cubs, I would feel pretty good about our playoff chances. We already have the tiebreaker over the Reds and winning the series against Chicago at the end of this month would leave us needing 1 win in the final series of the season to have the tiebreaker over them as well.

You don't feel good about their chances now?

 

I sure do. 

[wiguy94]

6 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

You don't feel good about their chances now?

 

I sure do. 

I feel good. I definitely don’t feel 92.1% chance of making the playoffs good yet though like Fangraphs currently has us.

[StearnsFTW]

Ok.

That number seems about right to me.

The reason I say that is that 7.9% seems like about the right chance one of our top 3 pitchers gets hurt.

 

That's the only way they miss in my opinion.  And that probably wouldn't do it either.  

[Underachiever]

5 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Our place in the standings allows us more room for error down the stretch. We can go 2-4 and probably still have the lead heading into September. I would hope we do better, we're certainly playing better baseball lately especially offensively. A true hot streak from Adames down the stretch would be massive.

I haven't cared for Counsell's comments on the playoff race. He keeps saying it's going to come down to the last week. He's probably right, but it doesn't have to. We can close the race sooner than that, and we should instill that thought process and sense of urgency into our players.

Sounds like Counsell is instilling the urgency to win every game by saying it will come down to the last week. Even with a sweep of the Cubs next week, the Brewers really can't close the race sooner. It's baseball, they will win some and lose some, no matter what Counsell says in a press conference. What if the Brewers go 21-8 up until the last week of the season? I think we would all  consider that outstanding. If the Cubs go 20-10, the race comes down to the last week, even with what I would perceive to be a tremendous sense of urgency and superior play on the Brewers part. I don't think it's realistic to expect a 7-game lead on Sept 25 with six games to play. I would be ecstatic with a four-game lead with 3 to play!

[torts]

You guys with your 18-18 and 0-36 are all forgetting we're coming up to Craigtember, we're about to go 36-0

[brewerfan82]

2 hours ago, torts said:

You guys with your 18-18 and 0-36 are all forgetting we're coming up to Craigtember, we're about to go 36-0

[Frisbee Slider]

On 8/24/2023 at 10:58 AM, KeithStone53151 said:

I haven't cared for Counsell's comments on the playoff race. He keeps saying it's going to come down to the last week.

This seems like any typical interview response. Not sure what else Craig could publicly say about the playoff race.

[Frisbee Slider]

Exciting win by the Reds last night against Arizona.

Should be a fun week in the NL Central. Cubs/Brewers for 3 games then Cubs/Reds for 4 games.

Reds start the week with three games at San Francisco then host Seattle next week. Brutal.

[wiguy94]

4 hours ago, Frisbee Slider said:

Exciting win by the Reds last night against Arizona.

Should be a fun week in the NL Central. Cubs/Brewers for 3 games then Cubs/Reds for 4 games.

Reds start the week with three games at San Francisco then host Seattle next week. Brutal.

Once Reds get through those games their schedule eases up quite a bit with only 3 more games the rest of the season against a playoff team after the Mariners series. The damage could be done by then if they don’t start playing better though. 

[TPlush]

After we swept the Padres and the Reds lost 3 of 4 in Arizona, Fangraphs shows the Brewers with an 85% chance to win the Central and 97% chance to make the postseason. Reds are down to a 1% chance to win the division, at 6 games back now. Winning 2 or 3 in Chicago could make things a lot easier down the stretch for us.

[KeithStone53151]

On 8/24/2023 at 4:14 PM, Underachiever said:

Sounds like Counsell is instilling the urgency to win every game by saying it will come down to the last week. Even with a sweep of the Cubs next week, the Brewers really can't close the race sooner. It's baseball, they will win some and lose some, no matter what Counsell says in a press conference. What if the Brewers go 21-8 up until the last week of the season? I think we would all  consider that outstanding. If the Cubs go 20-10, the race comes down to the last week, even with what I would perceive to be a tremendous sense of urgency and superior play on the Brewers part. I don't think it's realistic to expect a 7-game lead on Sept 25 with six games to play. I would be ecstatic with a four-game lead with 3 to play!

I think I was pretty clear saying it probably would come down to the last week, but I feel it sends a bad message to the players regarding sense of urgency to say that publicly. And in your scenario if the Cubs go 20-10...if we aren't playing with a sense of urgency that probably means they win the division. Fortunately, it seems the players bypassed CC and had a players only meaning to instill proper urgency...and it seems to be working.

[Team Canada]

18 minutes ago, KeithStone53151 said:

Fortunately, it seems the players bypassed CC and had a players only meaning to instill proper urgency...and it seems to be working.

I think in one of the latest game recaps from McCalvy it said that Counsell said a few things at the beginning and then let the players take it away.

[BruisedCrew]

There was some exchange at the end of the game thread yesterday about whether the Cubs have a more difficult remaining schedule than the Brewers.

I got some pushback on my opinion that the Cubs schedule isn't any harder than the Brewers schedule and I'm going to elaborate on that opinion here. One response I got declared that the Cubs' schedule is harder because their opponents have an aggregate winning percentage of .506 vs .485 for the Brewers' opponents.

I think these numbers support my point more than refute it. The Brewers and Cubs both have 10 series and 32 games remaining. In 32 games a team with a winning percentage of .506 would expect to pick up 16.192 wins, while a team with a .485 winning percentage would have 15.52 wins. So, by this measure alone, the Brewers schedule "advantage" would be about a half a game.

To illustrate how insignificant this difference is, the Brewers current winning percentage is .562 and the Cubs percentage is .531. That difference of .031 percentage points is slightly higher than the .021 points difference between the Cubs and Brewers opponents. Would you really argue objectively that a team that had to play the Cubs this week has an "easier" schedule than one playing the Brewers because of that difference in winning percentage?

The other problem with using season to date winning percentages to project future schedule difficulty is that the teams that play in September may be different or peforming significantly better or worse than the teams that played the first 5 months.

It has already been mentioned that the Braves might not be as imposing the last week of the season (when the Cubs play them) as they have been for most of the season. They might be resting players, shortening outings for their pitchers, or playing with less motivation than they did before they locked up one of the playoff byes. 

As for teams currently fighting for wild card spots, they might have dropped out of contention before the Cubs or Brewers play them. And those teams have not necessarily been more difficult to beat than ones who are out of contention. To illustrate this, just look at the records of NL teams since the All Star break. In the 40 or so games each team has played since the break, 5 of the 6 best records belong to the Dodgers, Cubs, Brewers, Braves, and Phillies, not coincidentally the top 5 teams in the playoff race. The outlier with a record of 25-16 (virtually the same as the Brewers 24-15) is the Nationals, who would be considered a relatively easy opponent based on their overall record.

All other NL teams have records under .500 since the break, including the Mets (18-23), Cardinals (18-23), Padres (18-23), and Pirates (17-24), whose records are very similar to, if not better than, the playoff contenders. The post break records of those contenders: Giants (18-22), Reds (18-23), DBacks (17-23), Marlins (13-26).

When you put all of this uncertainty together, I conclude that the Brewers schedule advantage over the Cubs falls somewhere between nonexistent and insignificant. Their real advantage comes entirely from the 4 game lead they currently hold, plus the one game edge in the season series against the Cubs.

This highlights all the more how pivotal the current series is. The Cubs can significantly improve their position just by winning 2 out of 3, much less winning all 3.

BTW, Fangraphs projects the Brewers to go 17-15 in their last 32 games, and the Cubs to go 16-16. This suggests that the projections do not detect a significant schedule advantage for the Brewers.

 

[areacodes]

1 hour ago, BruisedCrew said:

There was some exchange at the end of the game thread yesterday about whether the Cubs have a more difficult remaining schedule than the Brewers.

I got some pushback on my opinion that the Cubs schedule isn't any harder than the Brewers schedule and I'm going to elaborate on that opinion here. One response I got declared that the Cubs' schedule is harder because their opponents have an aggregate winning percentage of .506 vs .485 for the Brewers' opponents.

I think these numbers support my point more than refute it. The Brewers and Cubs both have 10 series and 32 games remaining. In 32 games a team with a winning percentage of .506 would expect to pick up 16.192 wins, while a team with a .485 winning percentage would have 15.52 wins. So, by this measure alone, the Brewers schedule "advantage" would be about a half a game.

To illustrate how insignificant this difference is, the Brewers current winning percentage is .562 and the Cubs percentage is .531. That difference of .031 percentage points is slightly higher than the .021 points difference between the Cubs and Brewers opponents. Would you really argue objectively that a team that had to play the Cubs this week has an "easier" schedule than one playing the Brewers because of that difference in winning percentage?

The other problem with using season to date winning percentages to project future schedule difficulty is that the teams that play in September may be different or peforming significantly better or worse than the teams that played the first 5 months.

It has already been mentioned that the Braves might not be as imposing the last week of the season (when the Cubs play them) as they have been for most of the season. They might be resting players, shortening outings for their pitchers, or playing with less motivation than they did before they locked up one of the playoff byes. 

As for teams currently fighting for wild card spots, they might have dropped out of contention before the Cubs or Brewers play them. And those teams have not necessarily been more difficult to beat than ones who are out of contention. To illustrate this, just look at the records of NL teams since the All Star break. In the 40 or so games each team has played since the break, 5 of the 6 best records belong to the Dodgers, Cubs, Brewers, Braves, and Phillies, not coincidentally the top 5 teams in the playoff race. The outlier with a record of 25-16 (virtually the same as the Brewers 24-15) is the Nationals, who would be considered a relatively easy opponent based on their overall record.

All other NL teams have records under .500 since the break, including the Mets (18-23), Cardinals (18-23), Padres (18-23), and Pirates (17-24), whose records are very similar to, if not better than, the playoff contenders. The post break records of those contenders: Giants (18-22), Reds (18-23), DBacks (17-23), Marlins (13-26).

When you put all of this uncertainty together, I conclude that the Brewers schedule advantage over the Cubs falls somewhere between nonexistent and insignificant. Their real advantage comes entirely from the 4 game lead they currently hold, plus the one game edge in the season series against the Cubs.

This highlights all the more how pivotal the current series is. The Cubs can significantly improve their position just by winning 2 out of 3, much less winning all 3.

BTW, Fangraphs projects the Brewers to go 17-15 in their last 32 games, and the Cubs to go 16-16. This suggests that the projections do not detect a significant schedule advantage for the Brewers.

 

Did anybody say the Brewers had a significant advantage with the schedule?

[BruisedCrew]

19 minutes ago, areacodes said:

Did anybody say the Brewers had a significant advantage with the schedule?

You can look at the thread yourself to see the details, but I first responded to a poster who said that, after looking at the Cubs schedule, they would be surprised if the race stays close and that the Cubs would pretty much have to sweep the 6 games against the Brewers and get some additional help to stay close. Although the word "significant" wasn't used, that comment pretty clearly indicates they think the Cubs schedule is significantly harder.

My response expressing my differing opinion stated that I don't think the Cubs schedule is any harder than the Brewers schedule.

I got two responses, one telling me that the Cubs schedule is "objectively tougher" and another that the Cubs schedule is "harder". Though they didn't use the word "significant" I wouldn't expect someone to respond that way unless they thought the difference in schedule difficulty was significant.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I've mentioned I thought the Cubs would be the Brewers' main competition for the division since mid June when I just didn't have faith in either the Pirates or Reds sustaining the hot streaks that got the to the top of the standings at different points this season, and never really thought the Cards had enough pitching to play winning baseball over an extended stretch.  That being said, the pitching issues the Cubs are dealing with make it feel like their recent hot streak isn't going carry deep into September, and the next couple weeks on their calendar isn't exactly a cakewalk.

It almost feels like the Brewers treaded water at about a 0.505 winning percentage clip through July until some of their deadline bats hit a little, Woody got back in the rotation, and Adames figured out how not to be a black hole in the middle of the order and now it's their turn to be white hot for a few weeks and get us excited for what they might be capable of in October if all their key players stay healthy.