More Impressive?

[rickh150]

What is more impressive?

Dodgers dominating, winning 3 World Series Championships over the last 9 years-including back to back- but doing it with limitless payroll - or Milwaukee making the playoffs 7 out of last 9-including 5 Division champ. and a couple of NLCS appearances- doing it with a bottom third payroll with over a billion less dollars?

I know what is easily more valued, more desired, and more meaningful,,,, but most impressive? I’ll take the Brewers current run. Just truly remarkable and building steam!  Top farm system, top prospect, and young star players are everywhere. And doing it in a league with limited revenue sharing and no salary cap….just so cool to be a a part of it. Gotta remind myself of this weekly…what we are seeing is very, very unique.

Go Brewers!

 

[CheezWizHed]

I'd certainly take a WS victory instead, but continually frustrating the Cubs is a nice consolation prize. 

[Matt]

What the Brewers are doing is the most impressive thing in the sport. I'm not even sure I'd trade it for a one-off WS. Having about a decade's worth of meaningful baseball to watch for six months out of the year is so, so valuable.

[Dragonbait]

Its like the '90s Braves.

[sveumrules]

4 hours ago, rickh150 said:

just so cool to be a a part of it. Gotta remind myself of this weekly…what we are seeing is very, very unique.

After tonight's win the Brewers 158 W - 103 L record going back to August 6th of 2024 is the best in MLB. Their 993 runs allowed are the fewest in MLB over that stretch, and their 1,301 runs scored are fourth for a +308 run differential (+1.18 R/G).

I'm not quite old enough to have any memories of those early 1980's Brewers, but it looks like they had a stretch from April 20th of 1981 thru September 29th of 1982 where they had an MLB best 154 W - 106 L record. Their 1,345 runs scored were the most in MLB over that stretch (111 more than the Angels in second) but their 1,115 runs allowed were 18th in a then 26 team MLB for a +230 run differential (+0.88 R/G).

Something else to consider about the current squad is that while this is the ninth season of their postseason window or whatever one wants to call it going back to 2018, it's really only like the third year of the Murphy iteration.

Either way, the aforementioned Dodgers first season of their playoff run was all the way back in 2013. From then through 2023 they won 91 more games than any other team in baseball, but zero World Series outside of the COVID weirdened 2020 season. It took them until their ELEVENTH try to win one in a full season. And all they need to finally get over that hump was to sign a generational superstar & a bunch of other really good players to contracts that were essentially like injecting PEDs into their already bulging financial muscles. 

Since winning their last World Series in 2009 the Yankees have won the second most games in MLB behind the Dodgers. They made the playoffs in eleven of those fifteen full seasons with just one World Series loss to show for the whole enterprise. The OG Dynasty, Daddy Warbucks Yankees are going on Year 17 now of trying to win another World Series.

When it takes the two teams with more built in advantages a decade plus (& still counting in the Yankees case) to finally win their WS, the Brewers going on Year Nine (but really more like Year Three at this point) is really them just getting things started.  

[rickh150]

7 hours ago, Dragonbait said:

Its like the '90s Braves.

If the Braves were a small market. So nothing like it.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

This has been a great regular season run.  And I agree that we are one of the most well-run franchisees in baseball.

Objectively, though our performance in the playoffs is below average.  In the current era there are 11 playoff series winners per year.  4 wild card, 4 divisional, 2 LCS, and 1 WS, meaning that about 100 playoff series have been won over the past decade.

We only have two wins (series), whereas leak average would be somewhere between 3 to 4.

if you look at final four appearances (making the LCS), we have two out of the 40 that have qualified the past decade, slightly above average 1-2.

in some ways, I do not like comparing the past decade to the 80s and 90s, as it has become much easier to make the playoffs (4 teams versus 12), but there is no denying this is definitely the golden era of Brewer’s baseball.

sure beats the heck out of the Wendy SP era.

Go, Brewers let’s sweep the Dodgers!!

 

 

[Thurston Fluff]

I think the only thing I'd add to the OP is I think fans of teams like the Brewers have much more satisfaction when their team wins. We know our team didn't win by rigging the game. We won by beating teams who rigged the game against us. While there is no metric to gauge satisfaction, I find it hard to believe following a team that defied the odds has to be more satisfying that having to defend winning by privilege. When (and I mean when) the Brewers win we won't have to defend our championship by saying things like "We just played by the rules" or "We're not the only team with a huge payroll". 

[adambr2]

3 hours ago, rickh150 said:

If the Braves were a small market. So nothing like it.

The 1999-2006 A’s is a pretty comparable era. 2008 to present Rays have been a pretty sustained track record of small market success with a few lean years mixed in there.

[sveumrules]

18 minutes ago, adambr2 said:

The 1999-2006 A’s is a pretty comparable era. 2008 to present Rays have been a pretty sustained track record of small market success with a few lean years mixed in there.

Yeah, Cleveland has been at it more or less since 2016 too with the 4th most wins in MLB over that stretch and what's looking like their eighth postseason trip over those 11 seasons coming up later this year.