Big Picture...

[PlayerHader]

I know it doesn't help right now, but what the team did this year was at least a year, maybe 2, ahead of "schedule" as most had laid out. There's no guarantee for the future, but the young nucleus this team is built around is super exciting. We'll likely need an upgrade at 3b, but I'd feel pretty decent going into next year with what we have otherwise. Starting pitching is a big question mark, but we should have all kinds of options, and that's without factoring in any potential pickups.

Do you agree? We're a year or two ahead of schedule? I refuse to believe this franchise is cursed or incapable of winning in the post season like I've heard from so many of my friends who are fans. So much to look forward to.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

There is no schedule. Said the same thing when the Packers choked away that divisional last year. The stage was set for a run. They had to beat the Lions. They had the game nearly in hand. 

The cope afterwards was "Love's first season, growth, exciting, rah-rah" etc. How good they'd be this year. And now look at them. Injured, in last place. Sure there is time to turn it on, but you just don't know. It's not just a linear ascension because you are "young." Every year you win 90+ is a opportunity and now it's a blown opportunity.

They appear to be well-run and have some nice players. Sure. But it is an agonizing sport and you can't accept losses like last night because "the future is bright." Williams had to do the same thing he's done all year and he didn't do it.

[owbc]

13 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

There is no schedule. Said the same thing when the Packers choked away that divisional last year. The stage was set for a run. They had to beat the Lions. They had the game nearly in hand. 

The cope afterwards was "Love's first season, growth, exciting, rah-rah" etc. How good they'd be this year. And now look at them. Injured, in last place. Sure there is time to turn it on, but you just don't know. It's not just a linear ascension because you are "young." Every year you win 90+ is a opportunity and now it's a blown opportunity.

They appear to be well-run and have some nice players. Sure. But it is an agonizing sport and you can't accept losses like last night because "the future is bright." Williams had to do the same thing he's done all year and he didn't do it.

Agreed, I remember we said the same thing about the 2018 run being ahead of schedule. In many ways the 2019 team was better positioned to make a deep playoff run, but that was undone by the exact same thing that happened last night. 

Every year is different. Based on the comments from players/coaches last night it seemed like they had an especially close clubhouse which may not be the case in 2025. Given their organizational strengths it would be crazy not to predict them to at least secure a wild card again next year, but you never know what will go right/wrong. Maybe more adversity would help, it certainly seems to have helped the Mets. 

If you want a franchise with a playoff curse, look at our neighbors to the north. They had a 1-21 run in the playoffs prior to 2023 and are now 1-11 in their past 12 playoff series. We're currently on a streak of 6 consecutive postseason series losses. So it could get far, far worse. 

[PlayerHader]

38 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

There is no schedule. Said the same thing when the Packers choked away that divisional last year. The stage was set for a run. They had to beat the Lions. They had the game nearly in hand. 

The cope afterwards was "Love's first season, growth, exciting, rah-rah" etc. How good they'd be this year. And now look at them. Injured, in last place. Sure there is time to turn it on, but you just don't know. It's not just a linear ascension because you are "young." Every year you win 90+ is a opportunity and now it's a blown opportunity.

They appear to be well-run and have some nice players. Sure. But it is an agonizing sport and you can't accept losses like last night because "the future is bright." Williams had to do the same thing he's done all year and he didn't do it.

You have no option but to accept losses like last night unless you think there is an organizational flaw that can be fixed to prevent your 2x Reliever of the Year closer from blowing a 2 run lead in the 9th in the future. I don’t think that was the case.

[PlayerHader]

31 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

There is no schedule. Said the same thing when the Packers choked away that divisional last year. The stage was set for a run. They had to beat the Lions. They had the game nearly in hand. 

The cope afterwards was "Love's first season, growth, exciting, rah-rah" etc. How good they'd be this year. And now look at them. Injured, in last place. Sure there is time to turn it on, but you just don't know. It's not just a linear ascension because you are "young." Every year you win 90+ is a opportunity and now it's a blown opportunity.

They appear to be well-run and have some nice players. Sure. But it is an agonizing sport and you can't accept losses like last night because "the future is bright." Williams had to do the same thing he's done all year and he didn't do it.

There absolutely is a schedule or projected timeline or whatever you want to call it. You know when and where you have young talent and budget flexibility, and offense and defense talent should be able to come together. That doesn’t mean it works out that way, but to say there is no “schedule” is refusing to see the forest through the trees.

 

[liveforoctober]

I'm on both sides of the fence.

This year's team was this year's team and they had a chance. Next year's team will look vastly different. Young pitchers coming up. Adames gone. Possible Williams trade. If Ortiz is the new SS will he handle it well? Who is the new 3B? Do Turang/Chourio/Perkins, etc grow or recede?

The future looks great. That doesn't mean we had a chance at it this year and might not again.

Fun season. Painful end.

[homer]

Just getting Woodruff and Yelich back is enough for me to think next year could be pretty special.  Let me have hope, damnit.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Point of me saying there isn't a schedule is that "the future looks bright" very often doesn't equate to brightness. 

Packers won a Super Bowl and I was told the core was so young they'd be back multiple times. I was told the Brewers were ahead of pace in 2018. 

Had the Packers lost the 2010 Divisional, we'd have had people saying how bright the future was because Rodgers was so young. Reality is much harsher.

[PlayerHader]

7 minutes ago, liveforoctober said:

I'm on both sides of the fence.

This year's team was this year's team and they had a chance. Next year's team will look vastly different. Young pitchers coming up. Adames gone. Possible Williams trade. If Ortiz is the new SS will he handle it well? Who is the new 3B? Do Turang/Chourio/Perkins, etc grow or recede?

The future looks great. That doesn't mean we had a chance at it this year and might not again.

Fun season. Painful end.

That's about it for me. I have a group of guys I'm in group chat with and many/most of them feel that a regular season is meaningless if there isn't postseason success. I just can't get on board with that. Especially in a 3 game series (division winners deserve better, btw).

[PlayerHader]

3 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Point of me saying there isn't a schedule is that "the future looks bright" very often doesn't equate to brightness. 

Packers won a Super Bowl and I was told the core was so young they'd be back multiple times. I was told the Brewers were ahead of pace in 2018. 

Had the Packers lost the 2010 Divisional, we'd have had people saying how bright the future was because Rodgers was so young. Reality is much harsher.

There's no guarantee of postseason success ever. The Packers did have a great run after 2010, but were never able to get over that NFCC hump. I don't think winning one in 2010 made that any easier for fans, though. The whining just went from "we never got it done" to "we only got it done once".

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The odds of putting Josh Hader and Devin Williams on the mound to get a save in elimination game and going 0/2 can't be that great. 

I don't think anyone here needs it explained that postseason success isn't guaranteed. 

I just think we've crossed over into a zone where people are in straight up denial that this is "just baseball" and not acknowledging that our local teams have really, truly been losing in painful ways and more often than what is normal.

[owbc]

2 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Point of me saying there isn't a schedule is that "the future looks bright" very often doesn't equate to brightness. 

Packers won a Super Bowl and I was told the core was so young they'd be back multiple times. I was told the Brewers were ahead of pace in 2018. 

Had the Packers lost the 2010 Divisional, we'd have had people saying how bright the future was because Rodgers was so young. Reality is much harsher.

Stinging losses can sometimes cripple franchises. Narratives can get amplified by the fans and media and become part of the identity of the franchise. There haven't been many instances in recent baseball history of a team getting a postseason series clinch at home ripped away in that fashion. It wasn't quite 2004 Cubs level, but it was pretty bad. 

There are a lot of ways to lose and I think it bodes well for our future that there isn't a glaring managerial mistake to criticize or a major blunder by one of the players (other than the classic "closer blew it" narrative which is quite common in baseball). It also helps to be in a small market. The media will have moved onto the Packers by tomorrow. 

Just reading the vibes suggests that most are sad/disappointed as opposed to angry, and I think that bodes well for the franchise in terms of moving on from this. 

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

Just reading the vibes suggests that most are sad/disappointed as opposed to angry, and I think that bodes well for the franchise in terms of moving on from this. 

Disagree. After so many abrupt exits, where their strengths during the regular season end up causing their downfall, I kinda want to see some anger. 

I wasn't mad last night. Stiff upper lip and all that. Still super bummed this morning... and then I read the quotes. The small market spin was being aired by the manager 15 minutes after the final out. And it pissed me the hell off.

To me, that says nothing is going to change. That we're the new Twins of the 2000s. Make the playoffs most years, won't do anything in them, but hey, we're a small market. Accept the October groin kick and be grateful for it.

[owbc]

13 minutes ago, Marc Newfield of Dreams said:

Disagree. After so many abrupt exits, where their strengths during the regular season end up causing their downfall, I kinda want to see some anger. 

I wasn't mad last night. Stiff upper lip and all that. Still super bummed this morning... and then I read the quotes. The small market spin was being aired by the manager 15 minutes after the final out. And it pissed me the hell off.

To me, that says nothing is going to change. That we're the new Twins of the 2000s. Make the playoffs most years, won't do anything in them, but hey, we're a small market. Accept the October groin kick and be grateful for it.

I empathize with this. I just don’t think there’s anywhere to direct that anger internally within the organization. 
 

If MLB had a salary cap we’d be winning championships. Instead we got beat by an organization with 3x our payroll who has wasted their entire advantage in spending power and yet still managed to avoid a rebuild and sneak into the playoffs, almost entirely because of MLB’s unfair economic system. Which, you could argue, is the same reason the Twins are systematically dismantled by the Yankees/Astros in the playoffs almost every single year. 
 

The bone that had been thrown to us is the playoffs being a random crapshoot, but that’s been working against us lately while inferior teams with comparable payrolls have been going on World Series runs. 

[Nola Beery]

3 hours ago, liveforoctober said:

I'm on both sides of the fence.

This year's team was this year's team and they had a chance. Next year's team will look vastly different. Young pitchers coming up. Adames gone. Possible Williams trade. If Ortiz is the new SS will he handle it well? Who is the new 3B? Do Turang/Chourio/Perkins, etc grow or recede?

The future looks great. That doesn't mean we had a chance at it this year and might not again.

Fun season. Painful end.

I wish I had posted this.

[AKCheesehead]

4 hours ago, owbc said:

Agreed, I remember we said the same thing about the 2018 run being ahead of schedule. In many ways the 2019 team was better positioned to make a deep playoff run, but that was undone by the exact same thing that happened last night. 

Every year is different. Based on the comments from players/coaches last night it seemed like they had an especially close clubhouse which may not be the case in 2025. Given their organizational strengths it would be crazy not to predict them to at least secure a wild card again next year, but you never know what will go right/wrong. Maybe more adversity would help, it certainly seems to have helped the Mets. 

If you want a franchise with a playoff curse, look at our neighbors to the north. They had a 1-21 run in the playoffs prior to 2023 and are now 1-11 in their past 12 playoff series. We're currently on a streak of 6 consecutive postseason series losses. So it could get far, far worse. 

I guess I have to go ahead and disagree with this a bit.  Because I remember watching our neighbors win 2 World Series in my lifetime, whereas I'm not especially optimistic the Brewers will have won one by the time I'm done sucking air.  I'm well past halfway done doing so already.

[rickh150]

If we would have made deeper playoff runs, maybe a couple more times in the last 5 years….. just beat the Nationals in 2019 and beat the Diamondbacks last year, we don’t have the narrative of regular season champ, postseason chump.  And we are blowing these games largely at home as the favored team…home field against 11 Cards, 18 Dodgers, 21 Braves, 23 Diamondbacks, and 24 Mets.

More sadness….we have less postseason series wins as a franchise (3- 82 Angels, 11 Diamondbacks, 18 Rockies) in 55 years than the 23 Rangers alone (4).

I prefer, however, to include the 57 Braves as a MLB championship of the city and state. I don’t know why this isn’t championed more here.  Milwaukee does have a World Series over the Yankees. If not championed, at least mentioned.

 

[SomewhereInTime]

12 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

The odds of putting Josh Hader and Devin Williams on the mound to get a save in elimination game and going 0/2 can't be that great. 

I don't think anyone here needs it explained that postseason success isn't guaranteed. 

I just think we've crossed over into a zone where people are in straight up denial that this is "just baseball" and not acknowledging that our local teams have really, truly been losing in painful ways and more often than what is normal.

Well both of those things are true.  It is just baseball, but these losses have also been very painful.  You can be on the bad side of variance like the Brewers have been the last few years and it's really painful and awful.

[SomewhereInTime]

4 hours ago, rickh150 said:

If we would have made deeper playoff runs, maybe a couple more times in the last 5 years….. just beat the Nationals in 2019 and beat the Diamondbacks last year, we don’t have the narrative of regular season champ, postseason chump.  And we are blowing these games largely at home as the favored team…home field against 11 Cards, 18 Dodgers, 21 Braves, 23 Diamondbacks, and 24 Mets.

More sadness….we have less postseason series wins as a franchise (3- 82 Angels, 11 Diamondbacks, 18 Rockies) in 55 years than the 23 Rangers alone (4).

I prefer, however, to include the 57 Braves as a MLB championship of the city and state. I don’t know why this isn’t championed more here.  Milwaukee does have a World Series over the Yankees. If not championed, at least mentioned.

 

It'd be the same narrative unless they win the world series one of those years.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

13 hours ago, rickh150 said:

If we would have made deeper playoff runs, maybe a couple more times in the last 5 years….. just beat the Nationals in 2019 and beat the Diamondbacks last year, we don’t have the narrative of regular season champ, postseason chump.  And we are blowing these games largely at home as the favored team…home field against 11 Cards, 18 Dodgers, 21 Braves, 23 Diamondbacks, and 24 Mets.

More sadness….we have less postseason series wins as a franchise (3- 82 Angels, 11 Diamondbacks, 18 Rockies) in 55 years than the 23 Rangers alone (4).

I prefer, however, to include the 57 Braves as a MLB championship of the city and state. I don’t know why this isn’t championed more here.  Milwaukee does have a World Series over the Yankees. If not championed, at least mentioned.

 

Good point about the '57 Braves. That was 30 years before I was born, but I think these windows are narrower than we realize. We put a lot of feeling behind "we'll never win one," but I think if we did, it would only be 20 or 30 years before we turned to "we'll never win one again."

My wife is a big Twins fan. She was in middle school in '91 and elementary school in '87. Her most salient memories of the Twins are a) winning that awesome game 163 against the Tigers and b) utter Yankee heartbreak. You just really have to have the team win one in a certain age range for it to feel like it fixes anything, and even then, it fades quicker than you realize. The Cubs won about the most consequential championship anyone ever could, and it sure doesn't seem to have made the Cubs fans I know much happier (same goes for Cardinal fans, for all their success--they hate how much the Brewers have won the Central). And the Packer fans here know that 2011 feels so long ago.

I don't know if this Milwaukee baseball team will win a World Series anytime soon. But it is also just way harder for a team like Milwaukee to do so now. Sport is such a massive business, and free agents are much easier to sign (both financially and culturally) in the big, coastal cities. I mean, look at the Bulls futility since Jordan's exodus, and that's a marquee NBA franchise. The Bucks winning was itself kind of a mini-miracle and happened because of a singular player and a shrewd trade for Jrue. The Brewers have broken my heart regularly, but they've also provided a TON of great memories and moments, especially recently. And Wisconsin sports really have had their share of success, despite a lot of disadvantages. If you're winning one title a decade in our market, you're doing pretty great. The whole state of Ohio has one title in the last 30 years, and that's with like 7 franchises. The Rangers won their WS last year, but how many other titles have Texas teams won since the 90s? I believe it's just the Dirk Mavericks. It's just crazy to think about how rare titles are even for the marquee teams like the Yankees and Dodgers.

[Thurston Fluff]

I don't think this is about a schedule as much as it is about finding ways to put competitive teams on the field every season. We've done that for long enough to think the organization is capable of doing so in the future. That we've not done well in the playoffs is like playing paper, rock, scissors and losing five straight. It's unlikely but past results are not predictors of future results.

Unless someone can show me a legitimate way the Brewers can have so much success in the regular season and not the playoffs I'll continue to believe they have a chance every season they make the playoffs. So far we've had experienced playoff rosters and lost. We've had inexperienced playoff rosters and lost. We've had a mix of youth and experience and lost. Now we've had a team that was above average in all phases and lost. We've had good starting pitching and lost. Good relief pitching and lost. Good defense and lost. Good offense and lost. It. Just. Happens.

The reason I'm optimistic the playoff losing streak will end is we put a good team out there every season and there's no reason to think we won't in the foreseeable future. We have a good core of young players and serviceable veterans with a strong farm ready to produce more.

[TURBO]

1 hour ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

The Rangers won their WS last year, but how many other titles have Texas teams won since the 90s? I believe it's just the Dirk Mavericks. It's just crazy to think about how rare titles are even for the marquee teams like the Yankees and Dodgers.

Astros?

[SoCalBrewfan]

IF you're worried about 'the narrative' you spend too much time watching stupid sports 'journalists' who need to fill space. Do you really think that Joey Ortiz or Jackson Chourio is out there thinking about what happened to the 2019 Brewers? 

Also 

Quote

you can't accept losses like last night because "the future is bright." 

OK, let's say for the sake of argument that I don't accept it. Now what? I should get mad and throw things? Get drunk and punch a wall? Fire and or trade everyone? 

Fans get emotional, sure. The professionals shouldn't.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

Astros?

Lol. Yeah, forgot about them! I still think the point stands that it is REALLY HARD to win titles these days, even for the big market teams.

[brewers888]

I wish I could look at the big picture but this was such a gut punch and the continued playoff choking has destroyed my hopes of ever winning a World Series.