Eye Black

I keep seeing references to MLB setting the prices but I don’t understand how that works. The Brewers (or MLB?) are clearly using dynamic pricing. Yesterday the Brewers were selling tickets in 124 for $2,600 each. Today those exact same seats were now $3,852. Regarding the Cleveland tickets he got them through SeatGeek which is the official ticket reseller of MLB and basically the next best thing to getting tickets from an MLB ticket office.

My buddy pulled the trigger on potential WS Game 5 tickets in Cleveland this morning after striking out in the presale. I feel like if the Brewers and Guardians both win today he won’t be the only one making that leap. Those tickets ended up being less than half the cost of comparable tickets for a home game.

I used this morning’s code to grab Game 6 WS tickets. That’s easily the most I’ve ever spent on tickets to a single sporting event, but if it gets to that point the stakes will be so high that I don’t think I’ll regret it. I did a pros and cons when deciding between Games 1 and 6 (both on Friday’s). Game 1 would be guaranteed, would feature the Miz on the mound, and be the first World Series game in Miller Park/AmFam history. Game 6 on the other hand isn’t a guarantee but has a chance to be for a World Championship. I also justified it as if it doesn’t happen I’ll either be ecstatic anyway that the Brewers won the WS or happy to get my money back if they got beat before then.

Ashby’s little head shake after striking out Freeman sent me 😆

Time to manufacture a run now.

Contreras has been an absolute beast with the bat this Postseason. ABS challenges on the other hand, not so much.

The one downside of an otherwise fantastic turn of events.

From a 2025 NLCS game two complete game to a 2026 NLCS game two shortest start of his career. The Postseason comes at you fast!

Sort of continues the Postseason trend where uncharacteristic miscues cost them but simultaneously could’ve also been so much worse.

I had such PTSD from facing Yamamoto in last year’s NLCS that I’m just ecstatic he had to throw 20+ pitches out of the gate.

It’s been a minute (or a few years), how’s everyone doing?!

Thanks for sharing this, and I agree that you’d like to see the contact rate a little higher. Luckily, a low contact rate alone isn’t guaranteed to be a death knell, and there are a few outliers in terms of players that can produce big time value with a lower contact rate. One notable example that comes to mind is Fernando Tatis Jr. who had an even worse 67.2% contact rate during his monster 2021 season which included 42 home runs. One plate discipline stat that’s slightly more favorable to William Contreras is swinging strike rate. If you do the same query of 350 plate appearances from last season, the younger Contreras ranked 40 spots from the bottom in SwStr% at 14.0%. Some notable names he finished better than included Nick Castellanos (17.0%), Salvador Perez (16.9%), Jeremy Peña (15.7%), Luis Robert (15.2%), Nelson Cruz (15.0%), Bryce Harper (14.8%), Byron Buxton (14.6%), Julio Rodriguez (14.4%), Rafael Devers (14.2%). One spot better than Contreras was Dansby Swanson (13.9%) who was in the midst of having a career season offensively. William even finished ahead of brother Wilson (14.4%) in swinging strike rate. Plate discipline is obviously a crucial part of the equation, but as long as he’s barreling the ball and doing damage when he is making contact I think he’ll end up proving to be a valuable offensive threat.

The Baseball America trade reaction podcast is a great listen, and covers a lot of angles of the transaction. It’s overwhelmingly positive in favor of the Brewers. Was also listening to a Braves-centric podcast, Battery Power, and they are very high on Contreras. They maybe summed it up best of all, “the Brewers should feel like this is Christmas morning.”

I agree that Ruiz’s industry evaluations are probably a bit all over the place. I think it’s fair to assume the Brewers were another team that valued him more highly than the median when they acquired him back in July. I do think there are certain teams that place a high value on having a speedy centerfielder with good range. Here is A’s GM David Forst discussing Esteury Ruiz’s future in centerfielder: "I think he has the ability to play there every day in the big leagues between the speed and the range -- I think he has a chance to be really good there." He also confirmed that he expects Ruiz to start the season with the major league club.

Contreras has played just five career games against the Brewers (four of them at AmFamField), and in those 21 plate appearances he has a line of .333 BA / .524 OBP / 1.391 OPS. Meaningless small sample, but still a little awesome as well.