Fear The Chorizo

Feels like 0 for 111

3 walks in an inning...why do I feel no confidence that the brewers will get even 1 run? Please prove me wrong

Unless you win 22 in a row, you are playing out the string, apparently...

Keeping fingers crossed the Giants find a way to hang on and beat the Rockies - then the Brewers can hopefully find a way to win tonight...and if by some unicorn miracle the Rays actually beat the Cubs, the Crew would be tied for the 2nd WC and 2.5 games back of the division at the start of tomorrow's game. This week is all about keeping as many postseason options open as possible - here's to hoping!

With the combination of the actual quote and the representative date of that post being roughly 3 weeks into a 162-game season, I have no doubt who posted that... Kudos to the Brewer organization and coaching staff as a whole in recent years for fielding a competitive pitching staff at all - it cannot be understated that the Brewers have MLB's lowest team payroll this season, in part because they largely chose not to spend on pitching. When Stearns did on Feliz, which was likely to try and flip him at this year's deadline, they cut bait after it was apparent he couldn't close games. The rest of the teams contending for playoff spots rank #1 (dodgers), #2 (yankees), #3 (red sox), #8 (cubs), #9 (nats), #11 (angels), #14 (cards), #16(rockies), #17 (indians),#18 (astros), #22 (twins), and #26 (dbacks) in terms of opening day payroll. Kudos for the Dbacks having a great season with only a $93M opening day payroll, but that is still $30M clear of the Brewers. By every measure, this year's Brewer team is in rebuild mode - the only way you field a MLB team in this day and age for under $70M is by putting a pitching staff together filled with youngsters, veteran castoffs, and a few nuggets mined from other organizations identified by your scouts. That sort of pitching staff is expected to struggle at times in order for different pitchers to get their shot at the MLB level and see if they can do the job. The fact they are legit postseason contenders with two weeks of the season remaining is fantastic. This year's bullpen was the team's weakest link during the first four months of the season - they blew a good number of late inning leads that have likely cost the Brewers the division since the Cubs have been playing great since the AS break, although they still have a legit shot at them. But, since a few deadline deals were made to bring in relievers (those trades were panned as being insignificant by quite a few posters), the bullpen has solidified and has been among the best in baseball - thanks in part to quality starts to keep them from being overextended, even with key starters being injured during this season. Had they not improved, this team would be closer to Cincinnati in the standings instead of the Cubs, because their offense has gone through extended periods of futility the past few months.

Glad to see the Brewers gain ground on somebody last night...when Mike flipping Montgomery carriers a no-hitter into the 6th inning and the Cubs' opponent manages 1 hit for the game, it seems like the Cubs will never lose again unless they are playing the Brewers in September. Sounds like Arrieta is starting game 1 of this weekend's series, and will likely be on a limited pitch count coming off that hammy tweak...optimistically, I'm hoping he can't get through 4 innings after a combination of runs and pitches - then the Brewers can find a way to have a big inning off middle relief to get the series started off right! Pitching matchups indicate they are going to miss Lester this weekend.

I loathe the Cardinals, and I loathe the Cubs - since I loathe them equally, I was hoping they would beat up on each other during their 7 remaining games in September, with one team winning 4 while the other won 3...the Cards got off to a lousy start towards that record by getting swept by the Cubs in Chicago - here's to hoping they at least split their remaining 4 game home series against the Cubs that happens right after this weekend's Brewer/Cub 4 game set. I've maintained that the only way for the Brewers to win the NL Central this year was for it to be a 3 or 4 team race into the last week of the season - with everyone beating up on each other and overlooking Milwaukee until it was too late. I'm pulling for the Cards to crawl themselves back into it over the next week, so they still have something to play for against the Cubs. The Cards have 6 against the reds and pirates to hopefully inch back to within shouting distance of the Cubs in the standings before their 4 game series next week.

The only team in baseball with a better record over their last 10 games than the Brewers (8-2) is the Indians (9-1)...who are fresh off that ungodly 22 game winning streak. Amazing they haven't been able to shoot up the standings more...

I've posted a similar statement in the optimism thread - with the games remaining against the Cardinals and Cubs, the Brewers simply need to avoid falling on their faces against the rest of their remaining schedule to have their playoff fate in their own hands. As a Brewer fan, you root for the mets to take at least one of the final 2 against the Cubs before the Cubs and Cards hopefully beat up on each other this weekend. If the Brewers win tonight and find a way to win the series against the Marlins - which will fortunately be taking place at Miller Park - they'll likely find themselves no worse than 1 game out of first heading into a stretch that has the Cubs playing the Brewers and Cards 8 times.

With all the remaining games that the Cubs, Cards, and Brewers play each other, the Brewers truly have control of their own destiny for a division title with less than 20 games to play. Anyone who actually believed that was a possibility for this team back in early March is probably too optimistic even for this thread - here's hoping they keep on a roll and make the next few weeks interesting!

Post ASB Brewer offensive stat MLB rankings: Last in runs Last in hits Last in total bases Last in RBI 2nd worst OBP 3rd worst OPS Most Ks 6th fewest walks 2nd worst total extra base hits some of these are counting stats so comparing them to teams with more/fewer games played is tricky - but in general that's horrific.

Lutz looks every bit the part of a guy that could explode...will be interesting to see how he handles more advance pitching - if he can avoid tons of K's, he could be a fast mover through the system.

Scooter is the type of player that can make a nice career for himself as an everyday MLB regular for teams in the midst of rebuilding. He can't be a utility/bench player on a team serious about contending for the reasons many posters have previously mentioned (can only play one position that prioritizes defense and he's bad defensively even at that one, not a prolific basestealer, can't hit LH pitching, etc). Cincinnati is pretty much the ideal fit for him at this stage of his career. They still have 2 years of team control via arbitration on him, which will likely raise his salary this offseason to the point where the Reds may actually look to trade him at what is likely his peak value. Scooter's the type of player that plays through his free agent year, gets a decent 2-3 year contract that pays him for past performance, falls off a cliff and winds up either being traded to a series of non-contenders or gets waived by big a market team and bounces between multiple AAA and big league rosters if he wants to continue playing. Gennett was and still would be blocking more talented middle infielders in the Brewer organization longterm - regardless of the season comparisons between him and Villar for 2017. Going into the season, the Brewers needed to make room for Villar to continue playing everyday in order to see if he could be a long-term answer at 2B. It looks like the wrong move based on 2017 stats, but it was absolutely the right thing to do as an organization. Villar has 1 extra year of team control remaining than Gennett, is 1 year younger than him, and has a better chance of filling a utility-type role should a better option come along to play 2B everyday in Milwaukee.

Anybody have a gif of a dead horse being beaten after it's been buried for a few months? That's pretty much how the last few pages of this thread feels...

So frustrating to be playing like a steaming pile if garbage while the teams the brewers need to catch apear to be limping along towards the finish line...cubs lose again and it's looking like another spoiled chance to make up ground

The Cards have come back to life a bit, and they still play the Cubs alot down the stretch...the division is absolutely still in play with the Cubs' shaky starting pitching. With the Rockies' remaining schedule, I wouldn't at all be surprised if the 2nd wild card winds up being the the NL Central's 2nd place finisher (Cubs, Brewers, or Cardinals)

Plus Baez it at minimum day to day with an injured thumb and issues with his head/neck after that sliding collision in yesterday's game. Cubs without an offday until after the Brewers series - appears this stretch of 20 games in 20 days may be a tough grind on them. Too bad the crew couldn't pull today's game off to get a game closer...

vintage arcia...

Gameday had 3 of the four called balls in the votto bb in the strike zone...

There are too many recent examples of teams overcoming huge gaps in the standings during the final month of the season, particularly for the wild card, to say that anyone is out of it right now. Multiple teams can be leapfrogged if somebody rattles of 12 of 15 against the right competition. What's good for the Brewers' playoff hopes is that both wild card spots are creeping back into view, giving them 3 routes to improbably get a ticket to the playoff dance. I think the division title is actually their most likely route, since they get the opportunity to play the other teams competing for it much more often. 7 games left against the Cubs, 5 against the Cards, and 6 against the Pirates give them ample opportunity to make up for any ground lost by playing a "tougher" schedule. At the end of the season if the Brewers wind up a few games short of a playoff berth, all they need to look back to is the recent 4-game interleague sweep by the Twins, and the 2-8 road trip right after the AS break against the Pirates, Phillies, and Nats. As for the schedule comparison between the Brewers and Cubs, the opponent team records obviously looks more difficult for the Brewers, but one other thing to keep in mind is that the Brewers still have 5 off days, two of them around the upcoming Dodger series at the end of their west coast swing. The Cubs only have 3 off days left, with one of them being today. After tomorrow, the Cubs play on 20 straight days that include 2 road trips just after losing Lester for at least a few starts. That 20 game in 20 day stretch finishes up with a weekend series against the Brewers. So yes, the Cubs are actually 3 games up on Milwaukee in the loss column, but as the season winds down those games in hand start looking like an advantage for the Brewers - particularly since the Cubs pitching staff is already a little thinned out with little/no help coming from their system in the form of September callups.

We are at least ready for some sort of call assistance. It doesn't have to be pure computerized. It is just sad that the viewers get help knowing whether it is a strike or a ball yet the people actually calling the plays do not. Every game I watch as 4 or 5 completely clear cut strikes or balls are missed, you could at least assist them with those clear cut cases. This is exactly why I think there should be a real-time monitoring system that communicates with the umps during the game, not sitting them down after the game to go through the missed pitches. It wouldn't necessarily be something that players/teams could challenge, but giving an ump instant feedback after missing a strike or ball call in the first few innings could help them realize they're missing on a certain corner or high/low end of the strike zone, and they could potentially make an in-game adjustment. This type of system could be calibrated to only notify the ump if a drastic error was made on a call instead of just being an inch off. This could also be a helpful ump evaluation tool - if certain umps prove to be slow, unable to adjust, or consistently make egregious calls during games, they can be replaced.

I think there needs to be sort of an invisible fence thing applied to home plate umps with the strike zone for the next few seasons - allow them to make balls and strike calls as they wish to preserve that "human aspect of the game", but then also have a system in place to give them a little shock therapy when they make an incorrect call using the technology already available to log pitches. Not that it would ever be implemented, but you could base the intensity of a shock on how egregiously bad a call is, similarly to how much a pooch gets jolted based on how far beyond the yard marker they venture. I'd put all this post in blue, but the premise of it has merit if there's a way for a home plate ump to get real time feedback on his ball/strike calls during a game from something other than a PO'd catcher or hitter arguing balls and strikes. Maybe some sort of vibrating facemask or wristband that goes off whenever a call is missed, just to get the ump's attention without making it obvious to the hitter/catcher that the incorrect call was made.

Eloy Jimenez will not be wearing a Cubs uniform to torment Brewers fans whenever he starts his MLB career, possibly as soon as next year - since headlining the trade that sent Quintana to the Cubs, Jimenez has continued putting up video game #'s in A+ ball as a 20-yr old and was recently promoted to AA Birmingham. He promptly homered and doubled in his first game there. So, yay for missing out on trading for an above-average rotation arm and watching the Cubs send off a prospect with perennial all star talent.

I've thought alot about this, and while the league-wide offensive approach has changed to put limited priority on contact rate in favor of "not getting cheated", even with two strikes, I think there will be a shift back in the other direction at some point. With all the shifting due to spray charts and with the emphasis put on pitching to try and rack up strikeouts, eventually there will be organizations and players that see the benefit of changing their offensive approach to "hit 'em where they ain't", particularly the players who don't have enough pop to hit alot of HRs. Not that a team will suddenly field a lineup full of David Eckstein fleas, but having a couple of those guys in a lineup between mashers could make some sense. Specific to Eckstein, he had a knack of fouling off extremely hittable pitches, to the point where I'd want to throw something through the TV to make him hit a fair ball because you knew he couldn't do much more than a down the line double's worth of damage. Great type of hitter to rack up pitch counts and give a pitcher a different approach to have to deal with. Also, developing those type of players could help small-mid market teams keep big time offensive players around without destroying payroll. At the youth level, I think there's tremendous benefit to teaching a contact approach with two strikes - it can only help their hand/eye coordination, which will lead to better full swing results from them as they develop as hitters. I think more often than not, the caliber pitcher a youth team faces can dictate what type of approach they should take - even with less than two strikes on them.

The Brewers have lost 100 games exactly once in their history... So I guess at least you can plan on celebrating this day annually with a high level of confidence, even if overall confidence in the team is bad!