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[brewers888]

For me personally this was the worst sports loss I have ever endured. I would have preferred losing game 2 or getting blown out in game 3 but choking the way we did was just soooooooo incredibly disappointing that I question if I will ever get the excitement back for this team. I doubt I will watch another postseason game I’m just too upset about how we lost.

I wish I could be like many of the other fans that are looking forward to next season but at least as of today I’ve lost all faith that we will ever win that ever elusive World Series.

[HarryDoyle]

Like Morgan Freeman said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."

[SF70]

3 minutes ago, brewers888 said:

For me personally this was the worst sports loss I have ever endured. I would have preferred losing game 2 or getting blown out in game 3 but choking the way we did was just soooooooo incredibly disappointing that I question if I will ever get the excitement back for this team. I doubt I will watch another postseason game I’m just too upset about how we lost.

I wish I could be like many of the other fans that are looking forward to next season but at least as of today I’ve lost all faith that we will ever win that ever elusive World Series.

The choke was committed by 1 player, Devin Williams, who likely won’t even be here next season.

 

[SF70]

On 10/4/2024 at 1:05 PM, 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.

Yes we can accept losses like last night since they lost because of 1 player, Devin Williams. 

They also gained valuable experience in 2 pressure-packed games which will make them better in postseasons moving-forward, of which there will be many.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

15 hours ago, SF70 said:

Yes we can accept losses like last night since they lost because of 1 player, Devin Williams. 

They also gained valuable experience in 2 pressure-packed games which will make them better in postseasons moving-forward, of which there will be many.

Yeah. That's really been working out great for them. Swap out Williams for Hader and the same thing happened 5 years ago without any progress since. 

[Thurston Fluff]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Yeah. That's really been working out great for them. Swap out Williams for Hader and the same thing happened 5 years ago without any progress since. 

By that logic the Oakland A's should never have thought Dennis Eckersley was capable of helping win a World Series after the 1988 meltdown. No reason to think someone who blew a game like he did could ever do anything other than that.

[SF70]

3 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Yeah. That's really been working out great for them. Swap out Williams for Hader and the same thing happened 5 years ago without any progress since. 

No progress?

We now have a large, young, dynamic and controlled core which we didn’t have 5 years ago. We also have a mature infrastructure which we didn’t have 5 years ago. Top all that off with the best teenage positional talent of any farm system and I’d say that’s a ton of progress.

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Yeah. That's really been working out great for them. Swap out Williams for Hader and the same thing happened 5 years ago without any progress since. 

Assuming that because negative things happened, they're going to continue into perpetuity is a bad way to go through life.

[Jim French Stepstool]

19 hours ago, HarryDoyle said:

Like Morgan Freeman said in The Shawshank Redemption, "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane."

I guess the best reaction to a post-season disappointment is to get busy livin', or get busy dyin'.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

3 hours ago, SF70 said:

No progress?

We now have a large, young, dynamic and controlled core which we didn’t have 5 years ago. We also have a mature infrastructure which we didn’t have 5 years ago. Top all that off with the best teenage positional talent of any farm system and I’d say that’s a ton of progress.

Show me results. 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

2 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Assuming that because negative things happened, they're going to continue into perpetuity is a bad way to go through life.

That's what the experience of being a Brewers fan is. 

[SF70]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

Show me results. 

We won 93 games with the second-youngest team in baseball. This young core is only going to get better as they develop and mature.

‘Down on the farm’ ranked our ‘23 draft-class the best in all of baseball. BA said we have one of the best IFA departments in the game with a best in baseball ‘24 IFA class.

Those 2 classes have added the best 17-20 years old talent in the game to our system. Next year we have five (5) top picks and $16M+ in pool money for the draft that will add more impact talent to our system.

This FO is getting results on the field and also just as important, behind the scenes gathering talent for the system.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

44 minutes ago, SF70 said:

We won 93 games with the second-youngest team in baseball. This young core is only going to get better as they develop and mature.

‘Down on the farm’ ranked our ‘23 draft-class the best in all of baseball. BA said we have one of the best IFA departments in the game with a best in baseball ‘24 IFA class.

Those 2 classes have added the best 17-20 years old talent in the game to our system. Next year we have five (5) top picks and $16M+ in pool money for the draft that will add more impact talent to our system.

This FO is getting results on the field and also just as important, behind the scenes gathering talent for the system.

They are 2-10 in their last 12 playoff games, have not won a series since the 2018 NLDS. 

 You can dress it up how you want, but they are stagnating. And when the manager is patting them on the back 10 minutes after choking the season away in crushing fashion, saying how great it is that they keep making the playoffs, it's fair to wonder how much ownership really cares about getting much further. 

Are they a well-run organization, yes, sure, yippee. Will they ever be able to win 4 playoff series? I am not too optimistic.  

 

[SF70]

30 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

They are 2-10 in their last 12 playoff games, have not won a series since the 2018 NLDS. 

 You can dress it up how you want, but they are stagnating. And when the manager is patting them on the back 10 minutes after choking the season away in crushing fashion, saying how great it is that they keep making the playoffs, it's fair to wonder how much ownership really cares about getting much further. 

Are they a well-run organization, yes, sure, yippee. Will they ever be able to win 4 playoff series? I am not too optimistic.  

 

Stagnating to you, because you choose to not look under the hood organizationally or for some reason ignore their youth and years of control. 

Murphy knew the team had it won and one (1) player choked the season away. 1 player.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Judging teams by small sample, playoff success is so intrinsic to American sports, but it's a big part of why I enjoy following soccer. Generally, everyone understands that the system is unfair. And teams know they're competing for different things. Brighton is just not going to judge their year by whether or not they win the Premier League. That would be crazy. You judge your year by a) whether you finish high enough to qualify for European competition (the playoffs), b) whether you make a deep run in a domestic cup competition (sort of like winning a division title), or c) you avoid relegation. The goal, really simply, is to have more good days than bad.

American sports aren't set up in that way, but baseball runs closer to that model that just about any other professional league (even the MLS!). I think that's a difficult thing for folks to accept, but it also feels true to me. The "October defines you" narrative seems like a bad story to me. Buying into it seems more logical in a sport like the NFL, which is really about the perpetual present because careers are so short, and the revenue system is more egalitarian. In baseball, buying that story just seems to undercut the nature of the sport, which is all about long-haul, large-sample, daily outcomes. 

[wiguy94]

1 minute ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Judging teams by small sample, playoff success is so intrinsic to American sports, but it's a big part of why I enjoy following soccer. Generally, everyone understands that the system is unfair. And teams know they're competing for different things. Brighton is just not going to judge their year by whether or not they win the Premier League. That would be crazy. You judge your year by a) whether you finish high enough to qualify for European competition (the playoffs), b) whether you make a deep run in a domestic cup competition (sort of like winning a division title), or c) you avoid relegation. The goal, really simply, is to have more bad days than good.

American sports aren't set up in that way, but baseball runs closer to that model that just about any other professional league (even the MLS!). I think that's a difficult thing for folks to accept, but it also feels true to me. The "October defines you" narrative seems like a bad story to me. Buying into it seems more logical in a sport like the NFL, which is really about the perpetual present because careers are so short, and the revenue system is more egalitarian. In baseball, buying that story just seems to undercut the nature of the sport, which is all about long-haul, large-sample, daily outcomes. 

I specifically became a Brighton fan because they give me Brewers/moneyball vibes. Think my hopes for this year after a big spending summer was making Conference League and a QF run in one of the Cups. You basically know you have no chance of winning the league or even making Champions League but it's still a lot of fun.

I read somewhere that for the MLB to match NBA's 80% higher seed win rate in the playoffs you would need to play a Best of 75 series. Putting baseball down to 3 game series is just inviting randomness. We had a team 111 wRC+ vs the Mets and the Mets had a 64 wRC+ but they beat us 2-1 and outscored us by 4 runs. If you ran a simulation with one team having a 111 wRC+ and the other a 64 wRC+ in a 3 game series, the team with a 111 wRC+ would win far more often than not, but in a singular 3 game series anything can happen. Mets hit over .400 with RISP during the series while the Brewers hit .160. Basically the series came down to the Mets having extremely good sequencing and the Brewers having extremely poor sequencing.

[rickh150]

1 hour ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

They are 2-10 in their last 12 playoff games, have not won a series since the 2018 NLDS. 

 You can dress it up how you want, but they are stagnating. And when the manager is patting them on the back 10 minutes after choking the season away in crushing fashion, saying how great it is that they keep making the playoffs, it's fair to wonder how much ownership really cares about getting much further. 

Are they a well-run organization, yes, sure, yippee. Will they ever be able to win 4 playoff series? I am not too optimistic.  

 

Low hanging fruit complaint….kicking a lying dog.  When things don’t go well, abandon ship.  

Go ahead and be disappointed like us all, but you give no solution to having a team that goes further in the playoffs…..except maybe spend more money and have a manager that complains more about losing.

We literally cannot ask for more in the regular season.  It has been better than almost any small market in the last 30 years.  It has been so much fun, which makes the postseason flops outside of 2011 and 2018 so sad.  It just hasn’t worked out for different reasons each year, seemingly.

Still a fan. Still with them.. Great young talent here and more on the way.  And a healthy season could have been the difference this year. It just wasnt. 

The next seasons just mean even more now….sounds great to me. Still way better to go through this than not being relevant for 20 or so years.

 

[Redd Vencher]

Here's a look at a big picture with where the Brewers are at compared to the rest of the league.

Over the 20 seasons Mark A has owned the team the Brewers are 8th winningest team in baseball averaging 84.0 wins over 162 games making the playoffs 8/20 times with 2 NLCS appearances. Since 2017 on this current run, the Brewers are 6th winningest team in baseball averaging 90.3 wins per season making the playoffs 6/8 times with 1 NLCS appearance. 

2005-2024 (WS wins)
NYY 92.9 (1)
LAD 92.8 (1)
STL 88.0 (2)
BOS 87.3 (3)
ATL 86.3 (1)
CLE 84.9
TBD 84.6
MIL 84.0
PHI 83.4 (1)
LAA 83.1
HOU 82.7 (2)
NYM 82.0
TOR 81.7
SFG 81.5 (3)
CHC 81.2 (1)
TEX 80.6 (1)
MIN 80.2
OAK 79.9
DET 78.9
SEA 78.4
SDP 78.2
ARI 78.1
WSN 78.0 (1)
CIN 76.8
CHW 76.6 (1)
BAL 75.0
COL 74.3
FLA 73.5
PIT 73.2
KCR 71.9 (1)

 

2017-2024 (WS wins)
LAD 103 (1)
HOU 97.6 (2)
NYY 94.2
ATL 91.8 (1)
TBR 91.0
MIL 90.3
CLE 89.8
BOS 86.6 (1)
STL 85.5
MIN 84.1
CHC 83.5
SEA 83.4
PHI 82.6
NYM 81.5
TOR 80.6
SFG 80.1
SDP 79.6
ARI 79.2
OAK 77.3
WSN 76.0 (1)
CIN 73.9
LAA 73.8
TEX 73.4 (1)
COL 72.9
BAL 71.6
PIT 70.6
CHW 69.5
MIA 69.3
DET 68.7
KCR 68.4

I think the Brewers will be much more active in trades going forward because they've built a deep pipeline of talent that will lead to consistent 40 man roster crunches similar to what Tampa has faced over their run. Much easier in a way to improve the big league roster than during the course of this run.  

[Jopal78]

The Brewers were eliminated in a best of 3 series. A dumb idea by MLB and primarily so mediocre teams hovering around .500 can keep their fan base engaged. Meanwhile the deciding factors in best of 3 series isn’t talent, but luck and circumstance.

 

The only valid criticisms against the ‘24 Brewers is they let the foot off the gas in September (.500 record) costing them a first round bye. Secondly, they played poorly against the bottom feeders in their league: Nationals, Marlins, Rockies and Pirates which also cost them a first round bye. 
 

Big picture: this collection of players is probably the best talent they’ve had top to bottom in the last 30+ years. It wasn’t too long ago that the organization was mostly devoid of talent and the roster was made up of journeyman players like John Van derWal, AAAA players like Wayne Franklin and washed up vets like Jeff Suppan. 

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

13 hours ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

They are 2-10 in their last 12 playoff games, have not won a series since the 2018 NLDS. 

 You can dress it up how you want, but they are stagnating. And when the manager is patting them on the back 10 minutes after choking the season away in crushing fashion, saying how great it is that they keep making the playoffs, it's fair to wonder how much ownership really cares about getting much further. 

Are they a well-run organization, yes, sure, yippee. Will they ever be able to win 4 playoff series? I am not too optimistic.  

I'm in the same boat as you. I'll believe ownership cares when they pony the hell up to build a lineup that can win 4 playoff series. As constructed the Brewers are playing with no margin for error come October. If the pitching or defense falters the bats can't pick them up. You might win a series or two before it falls apart,

[homer]

2 minutes ago, Marc Newfield of Dreams said:

I'm in the same boat as you. I'll believe ownership cares when they pony the hell up to build a lineup that can win 4 playoff series. As constructed the Brewers are playing with no margin for error come October. If the pitching or defense falters the bats can't pick them up. You might win a series or two before it falls apart,

Losing a guy that was hitting .315/406/909 in late July didn't help the lineup. 

[Redd Vencher]

4 minutes ago, Marc Newfield of Dreams said:

I'm in the same boat as you. I'll believe ownership cares when they pony the hell up to build a lineup that can win 4 playoff series. As constructed the Brewers are playing with no margin for error come October. If the pitching or defense falters the bats can't pick them up. You might win a series or two before it falls apart,

This offense scored the 6 most runs in baseball this year. 7 fewer than the Phillies and 9 more than the Mets.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

4 minutes ago, homer said:

Losing a guy that was hitting .315/406/909 in late July didn't help the lineup. 

He was a crushing loss. That was really the point I knew they might get hot/lucky, but they were going to be limited by reality. You can't lose a guy like that on a roster like this and not pay a price for it. Problem is that I think it will be difficult getting him to the finish line any given year. 

 

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I think people are in denial about the luck/circumstance stuff. That has always been a factor in baseball more than other sports, but the structure is such that a playoff series, whether a best of 3, 5 or 7, is not regular season baseball. The Brewers can go 26 deep on the margins of WAR and have mastered that, but when you don't have to pick up wins over 162 games and you just have to win 3 times, talent of your best 10 or 11 is what counts. They might be able to beat 1 team, I don't see them being able to beat 3 or 4. 

They are losing these series because the opponents have more talented teams built to win head-to-head against the best. Can you look at any of these recent losses and say the Brewers had a better lineup than any of them?

[homer]

9 minutes ago, OldSchoolSnapper said:

I think people are in denial about the luck/circumstance stuff. That has always been a factor in baseball more than other sports, but the structure is such that a playoff series, whether a best of 3, 5 or 7, is not regular season baseball. The Brewers can go 26 deep on the margins of WAR and have mastered that, but when you don't have to pick up wins over 162 games and you just have to win 3 times, talent of your best 10 or 11 is what counts. They might be able to beat 1 team, I don't see them being able to beat 3 or 4. 

They are losing these series because the opponents have more talented teams built to win head-to-head against the best. Can you look at any of these recent losses and say the Brewers had a better lineup than any of them?

Kinda looked like the Royals lineup circa 2015.