Brewers (Drohan) vs Cardinals (May): 7/6/26, 6:45pm

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 minutes ago, owbc said:

For real. I watch about equal between the Brewers and the Mariners. The Mariners are 47-44, in first place, and are coming off of an ALCS appearance. 

The Brewers are 1000x more watchable. It's not even close. When I saw the Brewers are hitting like .150 with RISP over a few weeks, I was like, whatever, the Mariners batted .150 as a team in all situations back in April for like two weeks. Most of the Mariners' offense is to draw a couple walks and hope for a home run. 

A little over a month ago, I went to two Mariners in the span of about a week and they GOT ONE HIT BOTH TIMES! I'm not even joking. Then the third game I went to they got 4 hits and that felt like a lot. 

Rob Reysnyder has gotten 119 PAs for the Mariners in a favorable platoon situation. He is batting .133 with an OPS+ of 22. And he doesn't make up for it with his glove. 

I could go on and on. Remember, the Mariners are not bad, they are in first place with a +27 run differential and will likely win their division. Yes, they pitch well, but their pitching ability is about equal to Milwaukee and actually worse when you take away their favorable home ballpark. 

Brewers fans are going to be in for a rude awakening the next time we have a below-average offense. The average offense in MLB is terrible and half the teams are worse than that! 

There was a time when I thought Refsnyder would make a nice bench bat. Didn't know he's dropped so far off the face of the earth.

Good points. I think when the Brewers struggle to score offensively, don't get runs in from 3rd w/less than two outs, etc a lot of fans watch the highlight shows & see people hitting the ball out of the park, running around the bases, etc. Those are HIGHLIGHTS. The Vasgersians of the world are usually able to ignore the other 90-95%. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

52 minutes ago, Soupy said:

Pretty sure Yelich has a no trade clause. He isn’t going to approve a trade to the Mets. 

The Mets wouldn't approve, either.

[owbc]

37 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

There was a time when I thought Refsnyder would make a nice bench bat. Didn't know he's dropped so far off the face of the earth.

Good points. I think when the Brewers struggle to score offensively, don't get runs in from 3rd w/less than two outs, etc a lot of fans watch the highlight shows & see people hitting the ball out of the park, running around the bases, etc. Those are HIGHLIGHTS. The Vasgersians of the world are usually able to ignore the other 90-95%. 

Buyer beware for any player in their mid-30s, especially role players. You never know when they are going to fall off a cliff. 

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

They are really winning on the back of talent this year. Haven't played the clean baseball we are used to seeing from them which I think is a testament to how much the talent on the team has improved.

I was looking at some of their W/L splits on BRef today and I think the year over year progression on margin of victory/defeat does a pretty good job illustrating how much they have been improving from a talent standpoint...

2023 (92 W - 70 L | +81 RDiff)
OneRun: 29 W - 18 L | +11 runs
TwotoFour: 44 W - 37 L | +33 runs
FivePlus: 19 W - 15 L | +37 runs
[47 OneRun games represented 29% of the season total, while 34 FivePlus were only 21%. The Brewers 4.49 R/G was only 17th in MLB for the season so they needed to do well in the games with closer margins because their offense wasn't capable of producing many blowouts or winning them at a top end clip]

2024 (93 W - 69 L | +136 RDiff)
OneRun: 28 W - 25 L | +3 runs
TwotoFour: 36 W - 34 L | +2 runs
FivePlus: 29 W - 10 L | +131 runs
[53 OneRun games represented 32.7% of the season total, while 39 FivePlus were 24.1%. The Brewers increased their offensive output to 4.80 R/G (6th) which helped them to a slightly higher percentage of blowout games with a much improved W% & margin of victory in those games as well]

2025 (97 W - 65 L | +172 RDIFF)
OneRun: 28 W - 20 L | +8 runs
TwotoFour: 32 W - 29 L | +10 runs
FivePlus: 37 W - 16 L | +154 runs
[48 OneRun games represented 29.6% of the season total, while 53 FivePlus represented 32.7%. The Brewers again increased their offensive output to 4.98 R/G (4th) which helped them to a much higher percentage of blowout games where they again dominated their opponents]

2026 (56 W - 33 L | +128 RDiff)
OneRun: 14 W - 12 L | +2 runs
TwotoFour: 21 W - 14 L | +22 runs
FivePlus: 21 W - 7 L | +104 runs
[26 OneRun games represent 29.2% of the season total so far, while 28 FivePlus represent 31.4%. The Brewers scoring is up yet again at 5.09 R/G (4th) while the pitchers have also shaved a quarter run per game from last year at 3.65 RA/G (2nd) which has again allowed them to have a high percentage of blowout games that they are winning at an improved clip by larger per game margins]

The percentage of OneRun games remaining relatively static year to year while the percentage of blowouts takes a big jump between 2024/2025 is a pretty good indicator of how much the talent level has been improving.

In 2023 they made more hay in the low margin games than they did in their blowouts because they weren't that much better than their opponents. In 2024 they made almost the entirety of their hay over their 39 blowout games. These last two years the magnitude and frequency of those blowouts has taken another couple two tree steps forward. 

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

I was looking at some of their W/L splits on BRef today and I think the year over year progression on margin of victory/defeat does a pretty good job illustrating how much they have been improving from a talent standpoint...

2023 (92 W - 70 L | +81 RDiff)
OneRun: 29 W - 18 L | +11 runs
TwotoFour: 44 W - 37 L | +33 runs
FivePlus: 19 W - 15 L | +37 runs
[47 OneRun games represented 29% of the season total, while 34 FivePlus were only 21%. The Brewers 4.49 R/G was only 17th in MLB for the season so they needed to do well in the games with closer margins because their offense wasn't capable of producing many blowouts or winning them at a top end clip]

2024 (93 W - 69 L | +136 RDiff)
OneRun: 28 W - 25 L | +3 runs
TwotoFour: 36 W - 34 L | +2 runs
FivePlus: 29 W - 10 L | +131 runs
[53 OneRun games represented 32.7% of the season total, while 39 FivePlus were 24.1%. The Brewers increased their offensive output to 4.80 R/G (6th) which helped them to a slightly higher percentage of blowout games with a much improved W% & margin of victory in those games as well]

2025 (97 W - 65 L | +172 RDIFF)
OneRun: 28 W - 20 L | +8 runs
TwotoFour: 32 W - 29 L | +10 runs
FivePlus: 37 W - 16 L | +154 runs
[48 OneRun games represented 29.6% of the season total, while 53 FivePlus represented 32.7%. The Brewers again increased their offensive output to 4.98 R/G (4th) which helped them to a much higher percentage of blowout games where they again dominated their opponents]

2026 (56 W - 33 L | +128 RDiff)
OneRun: 14 W - 12 L | +2 runs
TwotoFour: 21 W - 14 L | +22 runs
FivePlus: 21 W - 7 L | +104 runs
[26 OneRun games represent 29.2% of the season total so far, while 28 FivePlus represent 31.4%. The Brewers scoring is up yet again at 5.09 R/G (4th) while the pitchers have also shaved a quarter run per game from last year at 3.65 RA/G (2nd) which has again allowed them to have a high percentage of blowout games that they are winning at an improved clip by larger per game margins]

The percentage of OneRun games remaining relatively static year to year while the percentage of blowouts takes a big jump between 2024/2025 is a pretty good indicator of how much the talent level has been improving.

In 2023 they made more hay in the low margin games than they did in their blowouts because they weren't that much better than their opponents. In 2024 they made almost the entirety of their hay over their 39 blowout games. These last two years the magnitude and frequency of those blowouts has taken another couple two tree steps forward. 

Yeah I think talent wise we just haven’t had a team this good. Even with some of the soft skills deteriorating a bit namely baserunning and fielding range (OAA) the team is winning more than they ever have previously. Don’t think we have had this combo of pitching and offense before. The early 2020 teams were much more pitching heavy. The last two years were more hitting, speed, defense heavy. Now we have such a good combo of pitching and offense.