danzig6767

I agree that with other young starters ready to join the rotation, i'm fine with Hader staying in the pen. Plus, today's baseball is just a different game from the past. Bullpens are as important or close to as important as a rotation is. Look at the Brewers this year. They won 96 games and would be in the World Series if they simply scored more than one run in a 13 inning game, even with a rotation where Chacin was their best starter. Next year one of or both of Burnes/Woodruff will be added to the rotation, Peralta could be, and hopefully Nelson is good again. Remove Hader though from the pen and there is a chance that the bullpen goes from a huge strength to a question mark.

I get way more nervous watching important sporting events on TV compared to when i attend them in person. For example, i've been to multiple Packers playoff games over the years. Being at the games, it was more of a fun atmosphere for me at least than super nerve racking. When i watch sports playoff games on TV though, and especially if at home by myself with nothing else to distract my attention from the game vs (watching the games with others or at a bar), my nervous level rises quite a bit.

Not wanting to watch an endless stream of boring commercials makes people impatient? Even with my DVR, i've still seen enough Gruber one call that's all commercials to unfortunately last multiple lifetimes. It's like he's stalking me. Always there, regardless of what i'm watching. DVR's also allow people to watch shows when they want to or have time to, not when forced to. A higher tech VCR. An essential item in my home.

I feel the same. That is why i DVR every single Brewers game and watch another show in my recordings for about an hour. Then i get to fast forward between every inning change, every pitching change, and pretty much anything else wasting time unrelated to actually playing. By around the 8th-9th inning, i'll usually catch up with the live feed. I can't imagine anymore sitting through all of those commercials. On the rare occasion that i watch something live, all of the dead time is so annoying.

I was thinking about this as i was agonizing over the later stages of Game 2. A bit of back story. So i've long been a big sports fan, whether it's the Brewers, Packers, Badgers football, basketball, and hockey. During that time, i to often would take tough losses really hard. Then the mother of all brutal losses happened to my sports fandom. In the 2014 NFC Title Game, the Packers pulled an epic collapse late in the game, blowing a trip to the Super Bowl. Between the absolute torture of watching it live and days after the game, my brain refusing to stop thinking about it, I was crushed in an unhealthy way. I decided to give myself a bit of a self-intervention. Told myself i would never allow a sporting event to devastate me to that degree again and it's mostly worked. I'd still get tense during close games of teams i like, but not to the point my acid reflux got so bad, even my armpits would be burning. Fast forward to this current Brewers team. I've enjoyed this season immensely. Watched and/or attended about 150 of their games. Thanks you DVR's. Well, for whatever reason, these last three games of Brewers/Cubs for the division, and the first two playoff games have brought back the old super nerve racked fan in me. It's been a little more torture than fun, especially during all of the numerous failed attempts to get a runner in from third with only 0 or 1 out. Given how close the scores, nearly every pitch feeling agonizingly important, and a blown lead late for a loss would leave me sick to my stomach, as almost happened in Game 1. For others here. Have these last three games during the time while watching them, not once over, been more fun or torture?

The expanded rosters aspect is key. Much easier to do this now vs over a full regular season where a bullpen isn't loaded with 14-15 pitchers.

Crazy stat The Rays and the Indians have nearly exactly the same record, the Rays one game better, but the Rays are 18.5 games back in their division and the Indians are 14 games ahead in theirs.

Reading the IGT can sap the enjoyment out of any game. I enjoy this team a lot more when I'm not following that thread alongside the game. Muting the worst culprits helps too, but avoiding it altogether is better. That's why i don't take part in the IGT threads. It doesn't matter who the manager is, they are all idiots who don't know what they are doing whether it's the lineups, who get days off, or how the bullpen is used. FWIW, this isn't something only Brewers fans do. At times i used to read other team forums in various sports and their fans also always complain that the coach/manager is a clueless idiot, regardless if their team is in first place or last place. It's just the way it is on pretty much any forum. Hell, the Red Sox are 32 games over .500 and i'd bet that their fans regularly complain about moves Cora makes.

And in all sports I've attended MLB, NFL, NBA, college football, college hockey, and minor league hockey games. People get not just buzzed, but instead flat out hammered and act like everything from minor idiots to flat out angry belligerent scumbags, even with young children around them. Often targeting opposing fans. No fan base has a monopoly on these type of rude fans or is without them. I will say though that by far i've had more enjoyable/positive interactions with fans of other teams in all of those sports than negative interactions.

I've been to 4 Brewers/Cubs games this year and have had no issues. Nor have I I've been to about a dozen Brewers/Cubs games at Miller Park and really enjoyed the back and forth atmosphere at the majority of them. Granted, i don't go with young kids since mine is grown, so any swearing and such doesn't faze me at all. I usually go with other grown men, which lends to never feeling intimidated by any belligerent Cubs fans. For families though, i can see why some of them don't appreciate that atmosphere, especially if seated in a section where rowdiness is unpleasant to threatening.

I know that i'll be in the extreme minority in viewing things this way, but i love attending these Brewers/Cubs games at Miller Park. They are among my favorite to attend, so long as both teams are good and thus the game is important. There is a juice in the park for these games that just aren't in many others because there is always noise. You also have fans of both sides at times trying to make noise over the others in various chants. It's fun to me. These games kinda seem like those soccer matches overseas where the crowds are split about 50/50 and such it's always loud. I get that many Brewers fans are annoyed to be in our home park and it is so loud when the Cubs do something good, but that doesn't faze me. I'll take the high level of energy in the park for games like these. The only time i've disliked being at Miller Park for Brewers/Cubs game is when the Brewers lost convincingly and then only Cubs fans were able to get loud. Then it's a bummer.

Lara has been terrible all 12 years he’s been in the system and I have a feeling they know what they had in him. I kept waiting for it to click with him and it never did. Harrison didn’t do much as a 22 year old in A ball. Seems like he’s a long ways away. We may regret it someday but I’d be surprised if either of these guys makes it to the majors. I don't care at all about Lara, but why would Harrison have to be thrown in given Gonzalez has been straight garbage since the All-Star break? Harrison had a nice year in rookie ball.

That cutter of his is a very effective pitch vs righthanded hitters. He consistently gets that pitch on their hands, leading to softly hit ground balls.

Reason for optimism for the Braves that they've traded for a better pitcher than he was for the O's: He's throwing a lot more changeups. Maybe this is a big difference in his results. Reason for pessimism that he's the same old pitcher and will regress to his inconsistent 4 FIP self: He's faced the Marlins x2, Brewers (insert jokes here), Mets, and Pirates. That is a dose of what you get in the NL but he has hardly been in a tough situation. Those teams regularly score more runs against other pitchers than they scored against Gausman. Put it to you this way. Is there a starter on the Brewers who you think would have a sub-2 ERA in those starts instead? Who knows how well he'll do going forward given a small sample size so far, but he has the arm and stuff which got him drafted 4th overall, he just couldn't put it together in Baltimore. If Gausman does though produce a lot better in Atlanta, he certainly wouldn't be the first player to perform much better after a change of teams for a variety of potential reasons.

For as great as the Hamels pickup for the Cubs has been, Gausman has been nearly as good and the Braves have two more years of control.

Adams is a nice pickup for the Cardinals, but we'd have nowhere to play him. He's basically Thames and we struggle to get Thames in the lineup.

Hamels had a 6.41 ERA, a 6.16 FIP and a 4.49 xFIP when pitching in Texas this season, but a 2.93 ERA, 4.17 FIP and 3.83 xFIP on the road. That is why the Cubs took a chance on Hamels, and that regained velocity which declined earlier in the season. Granted, Theo and the Cubs likely weren't expecting Hamels to be this good, but it's not as if there were no reasons to acquire him.

Segura had his career change for the better in the offseason after we traded him. In winter ball at the suggestion of former major-league outfielder Luis Mercedes, who also had worked with Robinson Cano and Edwin Encarnacion, he got Segura to change how he hit by lowering his hands a lot. From that time on, Segura has gone from a guy who was awful for two straight years to one who has hit well ever since. He's said so himself. Granted, blame certainly could be put on the Brewers coaching staff back then for also not getting Segura to try hitting like Luis Mercedes instructed, but that turned around Segura's career. This type of stuff happens all around baseball where a hitter or pitcher leaves one organization and someone on the staff of the new team tweaks something with that player, leading to much better production.

In general i agree, but when it comes to top 5-10 picks in the first round, i can see at least some GM's taking an active role in who their team selects. Clearly though, GM's aren't going around evaluating prospects taken throughout a 30 plus round draft. As for Theo, i think it likely was a philosophy which he believed in that lead to the Cubs drafting only position players with four straight top 10 picks after he was hired.

Plus, high school hockey in Minnesota seems something like how high school football is in Texas. A long time passion for those sports on the high school, college, and pro level which is hard to duplicate. As for Michigan, they simply have double the population. College football is the same. Wisconsin is the only Division 1 program while Michigan has five.

It's now 32 games and counting since Schoop took his last walk. That's hard to do for any hitter, much less a guy with his power.

His plate discipline so far has somehow looked even worse than what we see out of Arcia and Perez. That's hard to do. Schoop has legit really good home run and doubles power, but he simply refuses to make pitchers throw him better pitches to hit hard. There have been times since the trade where i've literally found myself yelling at the TV, "please stop swinging at that crap", as he he flails at one pitch way off the plate after another.

That was just said because he leads baseball in home runs since Oakland acquired him.

It's amazing to me that Peralta has been as productive as he has been given all of the walks he issues, how often he's behind in the count, and that he throws just his fastball such a high percentage of the time. It was likely only a matter of when more of those walked batters started to come around and score once Freddy was unable to keep his hits per innings pitched to numbers which weren't realistic to stay so low.

People can believe that Santana would not consistently be as good as he was last year and thus it made sense to shop him, but i don't recall anyone predicting that he'd fall off the cliff like he did this year. Unlike swing at everything hitters in the mode of Arcia, Perez, Schoop, etc who it's easy to see why they slump badly by getting themselves out by regularly swinging at crap off the plate, Santana walked 73 times last season. He has continued walking at a good rate this year, both while in the majors and in AAA. His power completely vanishing though couldn't have been predicted, even if some thought he wouldn't remain a 30 plus homer guy every year.