Brewers (Sproat) vs Cubs (Imanaga): 5/18/25, 6:40pm

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just in time for their first matchup of the year, the Cubs and Brewers hold the 1-2 positions in the NL Central. This is gonna be a fun one.

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Trevor Megill	0	0	16	0	0	16
Shane Drohan	0	0	0	0	0	0
Jake Woodford	0	0	0	0	19	19
Grant Anderson	0	16	0	0	29	45
DL Hall	0	18	0	0	21	39
Chad Patrick	0	0	0	52	0	52
Abner Uribe	19	0	11	0	0	30
Aaron Ashby	14	0	23	0	0	37

[BarremlensTSSC]

[igor67]

Ashby available for games 1 and 3, with Miz in game 2 excellent strategy.

[BarremlensTSSC]

The nature of my baseball fan psychosis:  I will 100% turn this game off (and that's true for the rest of this series) if it starts to go sideways. 😂

I'm pretty good at this point just enjoying the ride when it comes to MLB regular season fandom, but there's too much of the bitter little 10 year old left in my psyche to stick around and watch the Cubs do well against the Brewers.  Too much latent "trauma" from watching childhood friends who were "Brewers fans" become Cubs fans once WGN started broadcasting the Cubs nationwide via cable in the late 70's.  I know that sounds bizarre to anyone under 50, but if you ever wonder why you run into random Cubs fans north of Madison/Fondy/LaCrosse who don't have family ties to Chicagoland and who say their "Dad is a Cubs fan, so..." dollars to donuts that's why.  I was more than happy to listen to Uecker on the handheld transistor radio that ran through batteries like water but a LOT of folks in the part of small town Wisconsin space-time continuum in which I grew up became Cubs fans between 1978 and 1984 because they could watch the games on TV.  (Many briefly came back and acted like they never left in 1982, and then pretended they'd always been Cubs fans after 1983.)  

Let's Go Brewers!  (clap-clap-clapclapclap)

[sveumrules]

PECOTA quite handily (94.0 wins to 86.9 wins) and FanGraphs by a narrower margin (88.4 wins to 86.2 wins) are still favoring the Cubs at this point in the season.

However, we know that PECOTA and the default FanGraphs projections have less than stellar histories when it comes to forecasting Brewers win totals. If we flip FanGraphs over to their Season to Date mode it swings things in the Brewers favor at 97.4 wins versus 93.2 wins for Chicago.

The midpoint of the two FanGraphs projections is 92 wins. Over the eight full seasons from 2017 to 2025 the Brewers won 734 games, or 91.75 per season.

[RobertCrawley]

Sproat's first start at Wrigley. He's has some nerves in the past. Let's hope he gets through the first inning and settles in.  Imanaga will be tough. But if we keep it close in the late innings, I like our chances against the Cubs pen.

[Playing Catch]

48 minutes ago, BarremlensTSSC said:

Wow. It just goes to show that for me, the Cubs manager could be Mother Theresa, and I'd be comfortable with people booing them. I see Craiggers wearing that hat, and I think, "Aww, I liked that guy!"

[RobertCrawley]

3 minutes ago, Playing Catch said:

Wow. It just goes to show that for me, the Cubs manager could be Mother Theresa, and I'd be comfortable with people booing them. I see Craiggers wearing that hat, and I think, "Aww, I liked that guy!"

Greg seemed so normal.

[StearnsFTW]

1 hour ago, BarremlensTSSC said:

The nature of my baseball fan psychosis:  I will 100% turn this game off (and that's true for the rest of this series) if it starts to go sideways. 😂

I'm pretty good at this point just enjoying the ride when it comes to MLB regular season fandom, but there's too much of the bitter little 10 year old left in my psyche to stick around and watch the Cubs do well against the Brewers.  Too much latent "trauma" from watching childhood friends who were "Brewers fans" become Cubs fans once WGN started broadcasting the Cubs nationwide via cable in the late 70's.  I know that sounds bizarre to anyone under 50, but if you ever wonder why you run into random Cubs fans north of Madison/Fondy/LaCrosse who don't have family ties to Chicagoland and who say their "Dad is a Cubs fan, so..." dollars to donuts that's why.  I was more than happy to listen to Uecker on the handheld transistor radio that ran through batteries like water but a LOT of folks in the part of small town Wisconsin space-time continuum in which I grew up became Cubs fans between 1978 and 1984 because they could watch the games on TV.  (Many briefly came back and acted like they never left in 1982, and then pretended they'd always been Cubs fans after 1983.)  

Let's Go Brewers!  (clap-clap-clapclapclap)

Yep.  I'm 54 and this is it for me.  There is nothing that any franchise could do to make me hate them more than the Cubs.  I went to Madison in 1989 (Cubs playoffs) and the flatlanders (and worse, Wisconsin-born Cubs fans) did me in forever.

 

[tmwiese55]

Remember a factor too is that before the Brewers existed the Cubs were the closest so would be the 'local' team to many.  And then when the Brewers came in they were AL so could kind of be both. So its somewhat tough to blame people of that age and their subsequent kids for being fans.   My understanding is my dad was a Cubs fan as a kid until the brewers came in and then switched over to them as time went on.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Was kind of hoping the wind would be blowing in today. That favors this kind of offense more than past versions, and we know the Cubs can hit.

Of course, it looks like it'll blowing out to left and left center quite strongly today. The good news is that Imanaga has been a fly-ball pitcher during his career, and Sproat's GB rate is right in the neighborhood of league average. Maybe he goes a little sinker-heavy today in hopes of keeping it in the yard.

Cubs are in the stronger part of their rotation coming off a series loss on the south side. Their bullpen will be much more beat up than ours, so hopefully we get to them. Stealing this one tonight with Miz ready to go tomorrow would be a great start to the series.

[BruisedCrew]

A big question for the Brewers is going to be whether their offense can pick up the pace before the pitching returns to earth. 
 

It’s amazing that the Brewers have gone 10-4 this month with the mediocre or worse run production they’ve gotten. But, the pitching has kept them in almost every game, even when they’ve only scored 2 or 3 runs. 

I will consider it a steal if the Brewers win tonight with the pitching matchup and a strong wind SW blowing out to left field. 

[markedman5]

 

[Brian]

5 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

A big question for the Brewers is going to be whether their offense can pick up the pace before the pitching returns to earth. 
 

It’s amazing that the Brewers have gone 10-4 this month with the mediocre or worse run production they’ve gotten. But, the pitching has kept them in almost every game, even when they’ve only scored 2 or 3 runs. 

I will consider it a steal if the Brewers win tonight with the pitching matchup and a strong wind SW blowing out to left field. 

The Milwaukee Brewers $129 million powerhouse is Done with the talkin'! 

[Jim French Stepstool]

2 hours ago, BarremlensTSSC said:

The nature of my baseball fan psychosis:  I will 100% turn this game off (and that's true for the rest of this series) if it starts to go sideways. 😂

I'm pretty good at this point just enjoying the ride when it comes to MLB regular season fandom, but there's too much of the bitter little 10 year old left in my psyche to stick around and watch the Cubs do well against the Brewers.  Too much latent "trauma" from watching childhood friends who were "Brewers fans" become Cubs fans once WGN started broadcasting the Cubs nationwide via cable in the late 70's.  I know that sounds bizarre to anyone under 50, but if you ever wonder why you run into random Cubs fans north of Madison/Fondy/LaCrosse who don't have family ties to Chicagoland and who say their "Dad is a Cubs fan, so..." dollars to donuts that's why.  I was more than happy to listen to Uecker on the handheld transistor radio that ran through batteries like water but a LOT of folks in the part of small town Wisconsin space-time continuum in which I grew up became Cubs fans between 1978 and 1984 because they could watch the games on TV.  (Many briefly came back and acted like they never left in 1982, and then pretended they'd always been Cubs fans after 1983.)  

Let's Go Brewers!  (clap-clap-clapclapclap)

For me it's just the overall obsession with that franchise. Like years ago, you might be watching a game on ESPN or going further back, ABC or NBC, and so-and-so comes in out of the bullpen or comes up to pinch hit. The guy might've been a journeyman who has played for the Astros, Yankees, Braves, Cubs & Tigers and the play-by-play guy will say he's "a former Cub". Just shaddup.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

59 minutes ago, markedman5 said:

 

Have to say I feel bad for Rengifo. His batted-ball luck was terrible his first few weeks. Struggled after that. Then picks up seven hits in three games; followed by a current 0-10 in which most of the ABs weren't pretty. Just can't get on any kind of a roll. His one sub-par year in the last four (last year; still much better than what he's doing now) might be a portent, but at age 29? Just disappointing.

Hard to decipher the timeline for Pratt/Williams. I thought Williams might come first & get eased in gradually on the left side---he's played a lot of SS---but he stayed at 3B yesterday when Pratt sat out. Then there's the super-2 consideration. Something will happen. My guess is it'll involve Hamilton & those who are hoping for it in the next few days will be disappointed.

[BrewerFan]

31 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Have to say I feel bad for Rengifo. His batted-ball luck was terrible his first few weeks. Struggled after that. Then picks up seven hits in three games; followed by a current 0-10 in which most of the ABs weren't pretty. Just can't get on any kind of a roll. His one sub-par year in the last four (last year; still much better than what he's doing now) might be a portent, but at age 29? Just disappointing.

Hard to decipher the timeline for Pratt/Williams. I thought Williams might come first & get eased in gradually on the left side---he's played a lot of SS---but he stayed at 3B yesterday when Pratt sat out. Then there's the super-2 consideration. Something will happen. My guess is it'll involve Hamilton & those who are hoping for it in the next few days will be disappointed.

I don't get the comment by McCalvy with regard to Pratt though. There's nothing in his contract that I've seen(not that I've looked too deep) about when he starts his career. 

8 year/50M, this is year 1, right? So no need to wait on him. 

As for Williams, the way he's swinging the bat, you can wait a few weeks I suppose, but... might as well bring up Pratt now. He looks like he's figured it out and I'm not sure you're losing a whole lot. 


I'm looking forward to adding Williams, Pratt, Lara at some point this year and then can't really think of anyone who should play too big of a role the next few years in the minor leagues. Tyler Black?

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 minutes ago, BrewerFan said:

I don't get the comment by McCalvy with regard to Pratt though. There's nothing in his contract that I've seen(not that I've looked too deep) about when he starts his career. 

8 year/50M, this is year 1, right? So no need to wait on him. 

As for Williams, the way he's swinging the bat, you can wait a few weeks I suppose, but... might as well bring up Pratt now. He looks like he's figured it out and I'm not sure you're losing a whole lot. 


I'm looking forward to adding Williams, Pratt, Lara at some point this year and then can't really think of anyone who should play too big of a role the next few years in the minor leagues. Tyler Black?

The contract, super 2, arby-eligibility stuff bores me to tears so there are folks on here much more attuned to that stuff than I am. Re Pratt, I assume you're correct.

I love how Pratt looks right now. Underneath the more publicized numbers he's taking some walks, not striking out much at all, and is hitting to all fields. And the defense has always been there. Fairness to Ortiz, his ABs have been much better in the last week & they value the glove (with good reason). Still, it looks to be only a matter of time. The way this organization has performed, I'll trust them as to when they deem that to be.

Depending on what happens with Contreras---we need to keep an eye on Quero, Dinges, even Matt Wood. Post-Contreras I could see them picking up a vet but one or a multiple of the others could be important. Other than that, over the next couple years it would be great if Burke or Adamczewski forced their hand. And Mike Boeve is someone who could challenge Black for a similar spot on the organizational totem pole.

[Playing Catch]

2 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

I love how Pratt looks right now. Underneath the more publicized numbers he's taking some walks, not striking out much at all, and is hitting to all fields. And the defense has always been there. Fairness to Ortiz, his ABs have been much better in the last week & they value the glove (with good reason)

Are you referring to the exit velocities? Because that was the last step for me, personally, in his readiness, and he's posted some very nice exit velos lately. He's not just hitting to all fields, he's been hitting to all fields with some punch.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 minute ago, Playing Catch said:

Are you referring to the exit velocities? Because that was the last step for me, personally, in his readiness, and he's posted some very nice exit velos lately. He's not just hitting to all fields, he's been hitting to all fields with some punch.

 I see that he's been driving the ball lately but no, I haven't paid attention to the exit velos. Good to hear they've been trending upward.

[Brewcrew82]

There wash plenty of handwringing on here over Chourio's defense yesterday....

In far less innings, he's already been better than every single one of our OFers by OAA and FRV. 

That play yesterday was low probability. Mitchell, for instance, has failed at numerous other similar or higher probability plays this year. Chourio's range gave him a chance at a ball that normally the LF should make. 

He's fine in CF (no worse than Mitchell and Perkins this year). And elite in the corners. 

[Brewcrew82]

Bauers in LF and Chourio in CF tonight vs. Imanaga. Giddy'up. 

[wiguy94]

12 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Bauers in LF and Chourio in CF tonight vs. Imanaga. Giddy'up. 

LF defense probably not as important when the wind is blowing out at like it’s supposed to tonight. 

[liveforoctober]

How many teams can call up their AAA pitching staff to throw an entire MLB series and win the series with little help from the offense?