FVBrewerFan

What is the one thing you want to see the Brewers do in the 2018 season? More than one, but bear with me. 1) Either Nelson returns to form late in the year or Anderson puts up similar numbers as 2017 season. Would love both, of course, want to see one. 2) 2/3 Woodruff, Hader, Burnes pitch very well as part of the rotation. Again, would love 3/3, but I'm being realistic. If they do these two things, we have at least 3 young/ relatively young pitchers in the rotation headed into 2019. And really, a 4th is handled by Davies or whoever. That means either Peralta/Ortiz can be the 5th, or go out and get a FA or trade. This is where it starts. A realistic starting rotation that can compete. 3) Trade Knebel if possible if you can get a big haul. Trade Braun for anything. Not expecting either. 4) Move Braun or Santana to 1B. Ideally Santana. 5) Improvement, even 25 OPS points from Santana and Arcia. 6) Want to see Shaw repeat his 2017 season. 7) Phillips and Brinson showing they at least belong. Not even expecting jaw dropping numbers, just enough to see they can be part of the future. 8) 2/4 A+ bats come to life. Erceg, Diaz, Ray, Clark. 9) Peralta get walk rate down, go deeper into games more consistently and show he is ready to be the old TOR type starter in the very near future. Back-up plan, Ortiz figures out how to miss more bats and show he is stud. 10) Two pitchers emerge in the system as top prospects. Bickford, Houser, Ponce, Yamamoto, Supak, Herrera, etc. Would I love to see them in the playoffs? Of course. But the 10 things above are more important to me than that.

Draft position is somewhat of a cop out. Not saying it's not a factor at all, but he could have traded up, traded back. It's not just the middle rounds, he's whiffed plenty in the 1st. I just don't think the 34 is in his DNA, and apparently not with some of their scouts.

Anderson, Davies, Woodruff, Hader, Wilkerson. Suter your emergency starter. Then, at some point early in the season I could see Burnes coming up for anyone who is injured or ineffective. Then, there's Nelson- who I'm not counting on at all but could come back late in the year. If not, Derby may be a guy to kick the tires on. At the end of the year, maybe Peralta is ready. That's how I would roll. I'm sure they can/will bring in a couple AAAA types just for insurance.

Thompson should be fired on bypassing TJ Watt for Kevin King alone. Capers has to go, but the talent needs to be upgraded too. Thompson has been taking defensive players in the early rounds the last several years. None have been difference makers. Some have been complete busts. A quality defense can win some games with very mediocre play at QB as long as the offense takes care of the ball like they did last night, but the offense can't score when the defense can't get off the field. I sensed Thompson was losing it when he started drafting 90% of his picks from the West Coast. That's weird to me. He loves drafting tweeners. DBs that can play in/out, Safeties that can also play in the slot or is some crazy package at LB. DEs who are LBs, or LBs converted to DE. As a result, you have a bunch of guys from USC and UCLA who aren't great at anything, other than being versatile (mediocre.) Offensive side of the ball hasn't been much better. O line in worse shape that it's been in a while. Let Cook walk, and bring in two TEs who aren't as good as Cook combined. No difference makers at the WR/RB positions. Tear it down. New GM, let him find a new HC, and go from there. The only good thing about Rodgers injury is just MAYBE there's enough Board members at 1265 to finally realize it's time.

This means Brogdon will be playing a lot more 2 guard, which is probably a good thing. Not sad to see Monroe go at all. But yea, I don't think they're done dealing yet. Can't imagine they go through the rest of the season with Maker/Henson as their only bigs.

I say this with all sincerity, being involved with us football, most hs teams disguise a blitz better than the Packers.

Both hilarious and true. So predictable on both sides of the ball. On another note, so sick of inconsistent pi/holding calls in the NFL, it's awful.

Mark Murphy is living off Rodgers too. Good enough to make the playoffs, sell hats and jerseys, develop land, everything but winning a sb.

That's the type of move that often fails. Different doesn't equal better in many, many cases. There are probably 25-27 teams in the league that would trade their coach for McCarthy straight up, as he's a top 5 guy in the league. Yeah, you could try something different and hope for an upgrade. Or it could end up way, way worse as it happens all the time. In the end, though, it IS all about winning, and if they don't make another run to a title, it will bring about the end of his tenure eventually. And honestly, for those still wanting Thompson gone, the guy is about to be 65 years old. The Packers clearly made both Wolf and Gutekunst some sort of promises to keep them around last year. It doesn't seem like a huge stretch to think that there's already a transition plan in place, with successors named behind closed doors. I would expect that to be announced and made formal soon. Sure, most of the time coaching changes don't work, or GM changes. See the Cleveland Browns. I've been ready to take that chance for a long time. Ray Rhodes could take them to the playoffs with Rodgers. I doubt MM is top 5, maybe he is. But maybe this team needs the 16 best if, just to change things up. Other than Belichek, the exception to everything, I think generally an NFL coach has a shelf life of 5-7 years if they're good.

Add McCarthy and Thompson to the list. Capers is a convenient target, and yea he's part of the problem. But talent is lacking, that's on TT. MM time has come and gone. Same stuff, bad defense, bad ST, bad at managing time outs, replays, etc. Hey, he's a good coach. But in sports, sometimes the message gets old, the routine gets old, the scheme gets old. This should have all been torn down 3 or 4 years ago.

It wasn't me but I saw that as more that even if we were to lose 10 more games, he would still see the season as a success if Arcia, Phillips, Brinson, Woodruff, Hader, and Burnes have great years. And overall, I would agree because that means we now have a stud/GG shortstop, top tier RF and CF players and a #1 (Hader), #2 (Burnes), #3 (Woodruff) pitchers. That would be an amazing core to build around and what would have likely happened to get there is the surprises from 2016 (Villar, Broxton) didn't recover, a couple surprises from last year (Shaw, Anderson, Thames, Knebel, Pina) didn't repeat, and maybe a mainstay or two (Braun, Santana) faltered. Now, if we went exactly 76-86 and we got good to great production from the young guns mentioned, that could mean all that happen was we had a bullpen implosion and 2-3 blackholes in the lineup with and half failed starter. So I'm going to project Braun getting injured, Villar/2B and Thames playing poorly, whoever the 5th starter that gets replaced by Burnes (Suter?) and all FA bullpen pieces failing. Maybe sprinkle in some early season struggles by the young guys who eventually recover. So that still leaves us with a good Shaw, Santana, Pina, Knebel, Davies/Anderson and a returning Nelson to go along with Arcia, Phillips, Brinson, Woodruff, Hader, and Burnes. While the record is disappointing, I would still consider this a successful year because the future is very bright with young strong talent everywhere and only holes at 1B, 2B and bullpen for 2019 (in my imaginary projection). Yes, I was "that guy" and you summed up my thoughts very well. I did not say I wanted to tank, nor did I say I wanted them to lose 10 more games than last year. As you said, my point was I would feel better about this team if a bunch of young talent performed very well- regardless of their record.

If those players all have great years and we win 10 less games, something sure went very wrong elsewhere. Yes, and there's a whole lot of ways that can happen. Nelson doesn't pitch at all. Anderson returns to norm, Knebel could be traded, platoon at 1B may really fall off, Braun could really fall off. A whole laundry list of things could happen, and it wouldn't take very many of them. I mentioned 6 names, still dependent on 19+ more players.

No doubt the team should believe the bar is higher. Just like 2017, when they were supposed to be one of the worst teams, they ignored that and exceeded expectations. That's a good thing, you should always expect to win as a player. As a fan though, I would be way more encouraged if Arcia, Phillips, Brinson, Woodruff, Hader, and Burnes had great years but they win 10 less games.

It is wildly unlikely that Jungmann opens in the rotation, barring a miraculous uptick in velocity at his age. His mechanics are prone to serious control problems, and his stuff isn't good enough to get away with control issues. Maybe Jungmann would have had a shot on the 2017 bullpen, but the bar will be much higher for this team than the 2017 team. I think Jungmann and Drake are being kept around solely for depth, if kept at all. I think there's a very real chance that we try to sneak one or both through waivers and outright to AAA at some point this offseason. That's the problem. Same problem the Bucks have had for over a decade. Fighting to get better every single year, so they're the 5th best team in the NL instead of the 6th. 2017 was an unexpected surprise, and it was fun. But I don't expect them to make a big jump in 2018, in fact I would fine if their record was worse. It's still all about acquiring and developing young talent, and adding them to the 25 when they're ready to contribute. That's it. I don't want to see them get a FA starter, or trade for one. No, I want those starts to go to Hader and Wilkerson and eventually Burnes, Peralta, Ortiz, Houser, Perrin, Ponce and anyone else on the verge over the next two seasons. I think they have enough there to build a really good rotation in-house, and spend big money on a bat or two when the time is right.

Something reminds me of the office or seinfeld/curb pretty much every day. I need to binge search the office this winter. It's one show when asked my favorite episode can't do it. Probably 20.

Millenials are too lazy to figure out what years the range covers.

I agree with building a elite pen, been saying for years it's one area where small market teams can compete with anyone. That said, I don't like short term contracts at this stage. I want to see innings given to young guts from the system. There will be a time to buy a reliever or two, and a bat. I guess it's because I think they are still early on in the rebuilding process.

Things usually work themselves out, especially with this many games to go. But let's face it, the most likely way it works itself out is UW will not run the table in the Big 10, then beat Ohio St. If they do, and don't make the playoffs, that may be it for me. That tells me it's all about who they think SHOULD be the 4 best teams.

Our 'secret' parking garage is the Boston Store garage on 4th and Michigan. Only 4 blocks from the BC, < $10, and hardly anyone ever uses it. Wait. There's still such a thing as Boston Store? And there's one downtown? I had no idea!

I understand what you're saying, and yes I saw him play plenty of games in Grand Chute. That said, I always have a problem with the "looks like he doesn't care" comment about any player. Same thing was said about Hart, Domingo Santana, plenty of other guys. Players carry themselves differently, doesn't mean they don't care.

They're both better teams. Frankly, there's probably a few more teams ranked lower that are better. But ad Brew said, win out and it won't matter. Undefeated Big 10 champ left out? I cant imagine.

I think the other key is no trade clause. Most, if not all, of the guys being talked about I would not want any no trade clause in the extensions.

I would trade Thon, just not for Bledsoe. I would trade anyone but Giannis for the right deal.

How about the % of bunts that are bobbled, thrown away, or go as hits? Some bunts are not even outs. Now, that is the missing variable. No question that's a variable in favor of burning. Here's another against. How many ABs are ruined by trying to bunt until 2 striikes, then swing away. So that doesn't go down as a failed bunt attempt, but it basically is.

Well, I'm taking this way OT now But the reason you don't/ shouldn't see more bunting when it's a close call to do it or not? Players don't know how to bunt anymore. Now there's an old school comment right there, but it's true. Whenever these bunt discussions come up, the variable that is missed is % chance the bunt will be SUCCESSFUL. If it was a video game and you just bunt the runner(s) over, I'm sure managers would bunt more often. But with so many fails, it just seems like a better idea to hit away in most situations.