Fear The Chorizo

The only way the Brewers can afford to resign Sabathia is if the rest of the expiring contracts/player options aren't picked up for next season, at least one of the arby eligible Brewers (Fielder, Hart, Hardy) are dealt for cheaper talent (unlikely to get cheaper players in return unless it's more prospects), and all the holes in the Brewer roster are filled by their current crop of minor league prospects, who will have their ML clocks start ticking too early...not exactly a sound organizational move. I think the better option is to let Sabathia and Sheets go and reap the draft comp picks (unless for some reason they take huge discounts over what many believe they'll get from other teams), followed by packaging one of the arby eligible Brewers with other blocked prospects to trade for a frontline starter approaching free agency on a team looking for offense...Halladay, anyone? Suppan's contract will prove to be a big albatross that gets in the way of the 09 and 2010 Brewers from signing a big time free agent - their big acquisitions will need to continue arriving via trades.

Nothing would make me happier than the Brewer offense giving Cub fans plenty of reasons to start worrying about their game 1 playoff starter...please score some runs early, we all know Suppan needs all the help he can get. Above all else, just win! I'm guessing we get the Cubs' forfeit lineup tonight since they traveled last night and still have some starters nursing minor injuries, but they'll probably throw in a few more regulars...I'm also betting that the Cubs actually use their good relievers this series - I don't remember seeing Marmol much at all against the Mets. Both Z and Harden have been less than stellar over their past two outings, if Dempster lays an egg their feared pitching staff starts looking even more beatable. After watching their game last night, is anyone else with me in hoping DLee starts over Hoffpair?

The great thing about baseball is that there are many ways a team can be constructed that can win. However, teams run into problems when their philosophy doesn't fit their personnel. IMO, the Brewers don't have the offensive personnel to be sac-bunting themselves out of innings. Their season-long struggles with RISP and 2-out hitting indicates that this Brewer team needs the big inning more often than not to win ballgames. I think teams who rely on "small ball" to win need to have above average pitching, stellar defense, and a lineup full of high-average, high-obp guys who don't regularly hit home runs and put the ball in play. Since the Brewers' roster is poor defensively aside from a few positions, and is full of low-average, low-obp guys who hit lots of home runs and strike out alot, giving away outs to advance runners probably isn't a good idea for them.

Since his last complete game shutout: 26.2 IP, 25 K, 4 BB, 29 H, 9 ER, 3.04 ERA, .684 OPS against I hope every pitcher on the Brewers scuffles like that. Good job of taking only one of the 4reasons I listed why the Brewers shouldn't scare anyone in the playoffs and expanding on it without understanding the context. My point regarding C.C. is that he's had to throw alot more pitches to get through innings in his last few outings - he's not putting away hitters as easily as he had been during July and part of August. Because of that, games C.C. starts haven't been bullpen off days lately, and with Sheets out we're left pondering who will even start 1/2 of their remaining games. C.C. scuffling is better than 90% of the league's starting pitchers, yes, but with what the rest of the pitching staff looks like with Sheets injured, the Brewers need him to completely dominate and keep the bullpen off the mound. He hasn't been doing that of late. I'm not faulting the guy for still being solid, I was just pointing out that along with how brutal every other phase of the Brewers' team was going, he was no longer an automatic complete game with 105 pitches thrown.

I see them playing like heck to beat the Mets - if the Brewers don't win the wildcard, the Cubs would play the Mets in round 1 if the Phillies hang onto the division....that's 2 games against Johan Santana, not a fun idea for any opposing team. The Brewers should scare nobody in the playoffs with Sheets ailing, CC scuffling, the offense sputtering, and the bullpen being they typical Brewer bullpen. If I'm the Cubs, I play the next four games like it's the playoffs and rest parts of the team over the final weekend, hoping Milwaukee can find a way to stumble into postseason play.

LOL...this team is comically bad right now - just painfully, comically, bad.

Add the swept doubleheader to the first no hitter thrown at Miller Park by Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs, and then you start to develop some perspective. Not even mentioning the fact that the Brewers are now 0-11 in their most recent games against the Cubs, Phils, and Mets. I wouldn't call it the "worst night", but this day definitely ranks up there in the "most disappointing" category.

Bill Hall - It's official, 2006 was his aberration year...he's just not that good Rickie Weeks - all the physical talent in the world, but not enough time spent by the organization to allow him to develop from a toolsy guy into a baseball player with great tools Gagne should have never been signed Riske has been a huge disappointment Shouse shouldn't have to face opponents' RH studs late in games, ever Suppan is proving to be a big time liability when building the roster going forward The bullpen is full of retreads and marginal stuff guys - good for stretches and horrible for stretches, not even close to be reliable in a playoff series As a team, the Brewers strike out too much, don't walk enough, and do a terrible job of making in-game adjustments. That combination leads to prolonged stretches of zero offensive production, and they couldn't have picked a worse time to go through it. I'm done venting, I'm done with this team for the next week, and if certain personnel/managerial decisions aren't made to alter this organization in the offseason, I'll probably stop caring about opening day 2009.

I think when Yost returns to Miller Park as manager of the Brewers, he's going to hear Sheffield-esque boos, and nobody will be complaining about that, either. While it's true that players on the field ultimately determine how good a team is, it's a manager's job to understand the game enough to put players on his roster in the best possible scenarios that promote success. It's also his job to have a better feel for the mentality of his team than anyone else, and know how to handle players individually to get the most out of them. IMO, Ned Yost fails miserably at both of these traits, which are essential for a manager on a contending team. National sportswriters even see that Yost is a buffoon. I would love to be a fly on the Brewers' flight home right now to see just how loose, relaxed, and even-keeled the team actually is right now. I would also love for Nedly to see a voicemail/text message pop up from Mark A. after the plane lands asking for a meeting tomorrow morning to discuss "things". For as optimistic I was about this team around the 25th of July, I'm now probably more pessimistic about their chances to make the postseason.

it quite honestly can't get any worse - nowhere to go but up!

It's official, the Brewers can't even win on the road now because they have nightmares of being booed at Miller Park. A few posts earlier in this thread hit the nail on the head - the increased sense of the "all in" - win now mentality combined with 26 years without seeing the postseason have created an overly crazed fanbase who have set attendance records and are thirsty for a winner. Brewer management and PR have maximized that feeling and have created almost unrealistic expectations for the team to achieve. When those expectations aren't being met, and the appearance of another collapse is at hand, fans aren't exactly going to be pleased about it - especially for the 2nd September in a row. Booing may not ever have a positive impact for the home team, but 8 pages of this thread trying to quantify just how negatively it impacts players is pointless too - if the Brewers are so affected by hometown boobirds, they aren't as good a team as many of us had hoped. Maybe Ned shouldn't be the enabler that he is and the players could start holding themselves more accountable for their onfield performance. Better yet, make sure the Brewer clubhouse has plenty of earplugs for the players to use - my guess is if they continue to slide right out of contention, they're going to need them during the final homestand.

It's simply the players starting to look for excuses, and a fanbase that's absolutely dying for a winner and stepping toward the ledge during what appears to be another potential September meltdown. I think the whole "all in" mentality Brewers' brass coined earlier this summer has alot to do with it, too. Fans realize that the organization is in win-now stage, and squandering this chance could really set the team back. Watching what appears to be the entire roster slump and press at the absolute worst time is definitely a panic-inducer. Somehow in all this talk about the negative Brewer fans, the players managed to forget the game where Turnbow received a standing ovation and encouragement when he came in to try and save a game earlier this season against the Phillies. He was struggling mightily before and after that, but the fans were still pulling for him. They also forget all the standing ovations given during innings that could produce a rally - fans got behind whoever was at the plate - the boos did come out after many opportunities to score were squandered. Gagne has been given especially rough treatment, then again he's basically stolen 10 million bucks for his season-long poor performance, and he started the year off with a bang by being in the Mitchell report. There are always going to be the drunken fools who spend the entire game ragging on players for no good reason - that happens in every baseball city. The booing at home is more general frustration boiling over for a fanbase that probably wants the postseason too much, and that has unrealistic expectations for their team to win 90% of the time. Had the Brewers gone 7-3 on that last homestand instead of 3-7, I'm guessing the boobirds wouldn't have been as significant.

If the players are concerned about the boobirds from this previous homestand, I'm sure they'll be ecstatic about the 25K Cub fans rolling into Miller Park for the final series of the season. While booing doesn't help things, in no way should it hurt things on the field, either - not for teams deserving of being in the playoffs. The fact that booing apparently does induce Brewers' pressing leads me to believe that many players on the team still have plenty of growing up to do, and this team probably won't make the postseason because of it. The same fans that boo when things aren't going well cheer whenever something good happens for their team. I think Yost doesn't help matters much with how he interacts with the media, and with his tendencies to belittle fans' knowledge of the game in some quotes. Many times the boos are directed toward Yost - problem is he isn't one of the 9 on the field. Corey Hart has a short term memory - unless he thought fans of other teams voted him into the all star game. Team's going to draw 3 million fans this year, and apparently the players want to go back to when the park was 1/3 full every day in September and 90% of them were wearing Packer/Badger jerseys. This doesn't matter much, the way things are going the Brewers won't be in playoff position the next time they take the field at Miller Park, anyway. Remember how warmly the Mets were received late last season after spitting the bit and choking away a playoff birth? How the 04 Cub fans booed the hell out of them for choking away a big wildcard lead? Fans rooting for winning teams are the same everywhere - if the team can't close the season out strong and they end up missing the playoffs, there aren't going to be many cheers.

Hurricanes are among the most unpredictable storms there are - what happens if Ike hits near Houston and the cold front it's running into stalls it right there? The hurricane-force winds may dissipate, but Houston would be measuring the rainfall it receives by the foot, not the inch, in that scenario. Something similar to that happened with a tropical storm that came in a few years back, and parts of Houston were several feet under water after 46 inches of rain fell over a relatively short period of time. I think since Friday's game is already cancelled and the brunt of the storm isn't supposed to get there until Saturday, there's a good chance that the Cubs/Stros can only get 2 of the 3 games in this weekend (probably a DH monday) - that would leave one game to be played at season's end in the event it needed to be to determine homefield advantage, division, or wild card scenarios.

Maybe there's a higher power that wants to mess with the Cubs...the forecast for their game tonight against the Cardinals looks pretty dicey, too.

I figured that the Brewers would give Parra an occasional day or even skip a few of his starts during August to make sure he was good to go in September. McClung wouldn't have been far removed from starting, and could have easily given them 5-6 innings here and there. Since they didn't do that, the Brewers don't really have anyone in the pen that's stretched out enough to trust making a start at this point in the season, so hopefully Parra is feeling strong.

With how pathetic the Crew has started September, I'm wondering if it has anything to do with what seems to be 50 fresh faces in the clubhouse that were called up. The Brewers were on a roll and relatively healthy, why disrupt the clubhouse by adding a pile of youngsters for their "cup of coffee"? I'm not saying the reason why the Brewers can't win anymore is due to the presence of Gamel or Escobar on the bench, but honestly, why mess with a roster that was working so well? Part of me thinks having all these guys up has taken some focus of the regular players away. Also, it creates any Brewer fan's worst nightmare - more players for Yost to make stupid decisions with. And if these callups aren't going to be used, they shouldn't be there. Most of them still fall under the prospect label, and I don't want September games being decided by prospects with little to no MLB experience, not when winning or losing can affect a playoff birth. Had this team not been contending, I'd be all for calling up everyone and anyone - I personally don't see the point of introducing major league newbies into a pennant race they weren't a part of creating over the first 5+ months of the season.

And the meltdown continues. Their playoff magic number managed to decrease with the Phils' loss, but a Cards and Astros win pushes them a bit closer. With 10 games remaining against the Phils and Cubs to finish out the month and games against poor teams dwindling, I really am starting to question their ability to do anything in the playoffs, if they even get in at this point. With how mightily the Cubs have struggled, it's incredibly disappointing to see the Brewers waste a golden opportunity to catch them during this recent stretch of playing supposedly poor teams. With what happened during the last Cub series, I was hoping the final 6 games played between the two teams would have little bearing on the wild card race - with how things are shaping up, that's not going to be the case. Regardless of how this season concludes, I think Ned Yost absolutely has to be let go this offseason - have the Brewers ever finished one season strong with his bumbling arse at the helm?

The Brewers are setting things up to completely tank. Ned and maybe even Mr. Melvin may want to get their resumes updated - that upcoming road trip is looking mighty terrifying right now.

I hate Jay Bruce

if the Crew can't come back tonight, they are guaranteed a losing homestand that they had 7 games against the Reds and Padres....teams that do that in September don't deserve to make the playoffs, I don't care how much other contenders have been struggling recently. There are Zero good options out of the bullpen at this point.

Cards sleeping giants? Whine, toss helmets, pose and pimp hypocritic tools Tony LaRussa Drinking, driving, shouldn't mix Your antics are tired Brewers win tonight Start the weekend series right Wildcard berth in sight

We all knew the Cubs had a very good team to start the season - with the years Theriot, Soto, Fontenot are having, coupled with a couple of GREAT moves to get solid CF contributions from Edmunds and Johnson, and the overall health of their pitching staff (including Wood, Dempster, Harden), they are a great regular season team. At this point, the Cubs would have to go into a complete meltdown for the Brewers to win the division from them - while I'm not completely throwing in the towel, the way the Cubs managed to win their game last night makes me think they're not going to be losing often enough to give the Brewers a shot at them (unless we expect to win all 6 remaining games against them, not a legitimate hope, IMO). Brewers had their shot to take control of the division at the end of July and crapped down their leg, so while I'd love for Milwaukee to get back in the division race, I'm also tipping my cap to having to try and chase down a team that's got a legit shot at over 100 wins. The Cards remain the main wildcard opponent, and treading water over the past two games maintained our 4 game loss column lead, and it shaved 2 games off the remaining schedule - Cards also have 7 left with the Dbacks, 6 with the Cubs, and 3 with the Marlins. If the Brewers play .500 baseball or better, it's going to be tough for the Cards to make up that kind of ground without any more head to head matchups left. Funny thing about the regular season is that it doesn't mean anything once the playoffs start - if Milwaukee can get in as the wild card, I like their chances. If the 2006 Cardinals can win a World Series, anyone in the playoffs can. I can't think of anything sweeter than knocking off the Cubs in the NLCS...actually, the only thing sweeter would be winning the series that would take place after that - let's not get ahead of things, though!

After their July and Early August meltdowns, I'm sure the Brewers' playoff odds in 2007 were hovering around 50%, since the NL Central was way out of the wild card chase, and the Brewers/Cubs stayed within 3 games of each other until the very end. Am I wrong, or are the postseason odds based almost entirely off the league/division standings, with maybe a small boost/hit for schedule strength and pythagorean record? The percentages are good to keep in perspective the significance of the # of teams you trail for a playoff spot, not just the # of games

Cards off the schedule for the season and we have a 4 game lead on them in the loss column - I'll take it weekend series against the hapless Pirates (albeit on the road) and the Cards are at Houston - I'll take it over half of our next 13 games are against the Padres and Reds, while the Cardinals play Houston, Arizona, Florida, and the Cubs - I'll take it. the potential for the Brewers to finish the month of August 20-7 - I'll take it