JosephC

Dodgers may have already had the lead, but Puig delivering such a decisive blow was a real punch in the gut. And not to make any excuses for Jeffress, I'd really like to know if Stearns regrets having Cedeno on the roster instead of Jennings. That seemed to be a questionable roster decision at the time and looks really bad now.

We'll see some runs tonight: Brewers = 9 Dodgers = 5

I'm a big fan of Counsell. Attanasio/Stearns could give him a lifetime contract in the organization and it wouldn't bother me one bit. But I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever figure out why the guy would bat Hernan Perez fifth in any game, much less a big game like the one today. What part of Perez's career .256/.285/.388/.673 slash line is so hard to figure out?

No question that Buehler is a talented guy, but he wasn't great in his last post-season outing. 5 earned runs in 5 innings pitched. At one point he walked in a run and then gave up a grand slam. If the Brewers can get a guy on base early in an inning, and put Buehler in the stretch, then I think the offense will do just fine. And I love the way Chacin has pitched recently. He had that rough patch in the middle of September but he's been excellent the last three times out. My biggest concern in this game is the last time he pitched was on the 5th. Rested pitchers are a good thing but that might be a little too much rest. Hopefully he'll come out sharp from the very first pitch.

I like the college football system. After watching last night's game I'm completely convinced that UW has absolutely no business playing for a national championship because they are not at that level. Adding too many teams to a playoff system completely dilutes any meaning a regular season has. Seriously, what significance do regular season NCAA men's basketball, NBA or NHL games have? I view them all as extended pre-season games that really only determine if a team is a five seed or three seed once it gets to the playoffs. So why should I spend my money or waste my time paying attention to all those meaningless regular season games?

Watching Alex Hornibrook and Joel Stave makes me long for the days of watching top flight UW quarterbacks like John Stocco. That's right, John Stocco. How pathetic is that? Hornibrook is just awful. Big 10 level arm-strength, no. Big 10 level accuracy, no. In terms of mobility, I think he might be the worst QB to take the field since Dan Marino. And for how "cerebral" he is, he sure seems to misread coverages over and over. I'm almost expecting Chryst to use the Testaverde-excuse and announce that Hornibrook is color-blind considering how often he throws the ball directly at an opposing player. I have no problem with the way Chryst coached the game last night, but I do have a problem with his choice for a starting QB and his inability to recruit a decent QB. Even the rare 4-star recruits have ended up as completely mediocre players (like Bart Houston). I totally get that the Badgers are a run-first, then run-second and eventually we'll get to the pass type team, and the vast majority of practice time and OL coaching is going to be geared towards running and the pass game will always lag behind. But for Pete's sake, the QB has to be able to complete a simple screen pass. Hornibrook can't even do that. Every time the offensive linemen let the defensive linemen loose, Hornibrook immediately gets happy feet, poops his pants and proceeds to toss the ball right at a defensive lineman. The guy is just awful. He should be playing for the Wisconsin-Eau Claire Bluegolds. He has no business being in a Big 10 uniform. Not even for Rutgers. Can't wait until Hornibrook breaks the school record for number of wins for a quarterback (which, as everyone knows, is currently held by the great Joel Stave). It will be just peachy to hear the talking heads ramble on about how under-rated Hornibrook is and what a wonderful, stabilizing influence he's been for the Badgers and all the various nonsense like that. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that "wins for a quarterback" is just about as meaningful a statistic as "wins for a pitcher" in baseball. Hornibrook and Stave...ugh!

In another thread Greenleaf1 made the excellent point of saving Peralta for a Colorado road game considering his fastball-heavy approach. Very sound logic. But I'd still go with Peralta in game one because of one reason. Kyle Freeland. The Brewers probably see him in game three, so before that I'd try to do everything possible to get the first two games in the bag. He's the one NL pitcher I have most concerns about. The Brewers did alright against guys like Kershaw and Foltynewicz this year. I'd go with whatever seems to be the best options in games one and two and do everything to try and post wins in both of those games. There are many numbers that demonstrate that maybe this guy isn't as good as I think he is. 4.22 xFIP, 2.5 K/BB ratio...lots of really average peripherals. But this guy has a nice cutter/change-up combo and doesn't have to rely on his fastball to win games. I just see him as being a real tough matchup for Brewer hitters. And Freeland delivered in a big way when he had to step up and deliver against the Cubs. Who knows, maybe the Brewers get him in game three and bash him around a bit. Anything can happen on any given day. But I'd be focused on making all the moves now to try and win these first two home games and not have to worry about game three that much.

It's a very small sample size (26 at-bats), but Rockies hitters have butchered Woodruff (.407/.469/.630/1.098 slash line against). I figured Counsell to go heavy with right handed pitchers against the Rockies. Rockies slash .272/.336/.462/.799 off of lefties this season but only .248/.315/.422/.738 off of righties. That's a pretty significant difference. In addition, Gonzalez (.818 OPS against) and Miley (.797 OPS against) have been mediocre against Colorado hitters. Davies is one righty that has been awful (.861 OPS against). On the other hand, Chacin (.735 OPS against), Anderson (.696 OPS against) and Guerra (.680 against) have all been solid or better against Colorado. Note this in this paragraph the OPS against are career numbers, not just this season. And then there is Freddy Peralta who had that electrifying debut against the Rockies. Note that wasn't his only start against Colorado. He has another start against them in early August where he only allowed 2 runs in 6 innings with 8 strikeouts. In those two starts, Colorado hitters totaled 36 at-bats against Freddy and hit a pitiful .083/.175/.167/.342 against him. I would have rather seen them go with Peralta and see if lightning strikes for a third time.

I still can't get over how good Chavez was. Sometimes a front office gets credit for making great moves but quite often they simply stumble into good fortune. Not taking anything away from Epstein/Hoyer because they know what they are doing, but the Cubs lucked out big-time with Chavez. 1.15 ERA, 0.79 WHIP and an 8.4 K/BB ratio out of that guy? I still can't believe it.

The silver lining for Cub fans. Rizzo won't have to play any more baseball this year.

All along I thought the Cubs were a better team and am pleased that I was proven dead wrong. 163 game schedules do not lie.

I like the decision to stick with a normal, traditional starter in today's game. Bottom line is that this is not an elimination game, but the next game might be. As much as I'd absolutely love for the Brewers to win the division, Counsell not only has to manage for this game but for beyond this game as well. It would be a shame if the Brewers "bullpen'ed" this game and lost a close one, and Counsell ended up using all the best relievers for multiple innings which could leave them shorthanded for the following elimination game. Hopefully we'll get a solid 6+ from Chacin today. Despite their woes against Quintana, I feel pretty good about this game today.

Have to correct the comment from above. Davis turned out to be a good year one add for the Rockies. He had a disasterous stretch in early August and the Brewers caught him at exactly the right time on August 3rd and posted 3 runs against him. 6 days later, Davis gave up another 3 runs against the Dodgers. Davis was near flawless after that. In his last 18 appearances, he posted an 0.50 ERA, a 0.50 WHIP and a 25/2 K/BB ratio. Lights out down the stretch. Rockies went 9-1 to finish the season and are in the playoffs even if they lose today. So it looks like three of the eleven biggest contracts this off-season were year one "wins" for the franchises that signed them. Lorenzo Cain, J.D. Martinez, Wade Davis.

I would not be starting Peralta in this game. Lefties are .252/.376/.489/.864 against him and the Cubs can throw a whole bunch of left-handed bats in the lineup. Righties are OPS'ing a pitiful .396 off of Peralta. An ideal situation for a one-game playoff (which this is not) would be to use Hader as an opener, and then follow him with Peralta if the opposing manager stacked his lineup with righty hitters in a poor attempt to counter Hader being on the mound. That's kind of been my hope for a wild-card game. But this is not an elimination game and the Cubs aren't the team to do this with IMO. Unfortunately, the two Brewer starters that have had the most success against current Cub hitters started the last two games: Miley = .222/.276/.333/.609 Gonzalez = .206/.296/.317/.613 These are the current Cubs slash line against the most likely candidates: Guerra = .221/.331/.317/.648 in 104 at-bats...Javier Baez is .364/.364/.636/1.000 in 11 at-bats Davies = .242/.303/.391/.694 in 215 at-bats...Kris Bryant is .371/.405/.657/1.053 in 35 at-bats Anderson = .224/.291/.436/.728 in 165 at-bats...Wilson Contreras is .500/.533/.750/1.283 in 12 at-bats Chacin = .242/.322/.409/.731 in 132 at-bats...Daniel Murphy is .400/.435/.750/1.185 in 20 at-bats According to ESPN, current Cub hitters only have 5 at-bats against Peralta. 2 hits with 1 being a double in those 5 at-bats. Maybe Counsell could throw him out there since Cub hitters haven't seen that much of him, but I wouldn't do it considering how major league lefties have hit him this year. Looking at the numbers and I'm surprised that Counsell threw Guerra two innings today. Not sure that 27 pitches would eliminate the possibility of him pitching on Monday. I'd just make the safe guess and think it would be Chacin since he's been the most consistent of the starters throughout the year.

Would be a real attractive candidate if not for the shoulder problem last year. The medical stuff is hard to ignore.

Interesting that Olivera is involved because his signing seemed to be as "transparent" as it gets. 29 year old that defected from Cuba. The agent that he was working with, Greg Genske, seems to have a good reputation. It will be interesting to see what's going on here.

I went through and figured out the run differential for all of the Brewer teams that played .500+ baseball, and then went through and looked at league rankings in things like runs/game, ERA, FIP, defensive efficiency. After doing so, I'd name the three teams that you did but would also include the 1980 team, which was the 4th best team in franchise history in terms of run differential. They were 3rd in runs scored, 4th in ERA, 5th in defensive efficiency but lagged behind in terms of FIP (10th, these are AL ranks only). I could see where some people would dismiss this team right away, because they were similar to the 1982 team but the 1982 team scored 0.46 additional runs per game which is very significant (the 1982 team surrendered 0.19 more runs per game than the 1980 team). The team that seemed to be the best "across the board" is, surprisingly, the 1992 team. Third best in franchise history in run differential. 5th best in runs scored, 1st in ERA, 6th in FIP and 1st in defensive efficiency. They allowed 3.73 runs per game, which was a full 0.30 better than the next best team in the AL (Twins). It's astounding when looking at the team's slash line (.268/.330/.375/.705) to think that this team was solidly above average in runs scored. But they stole 256 bases that year, had the fewest grounded into double plays, and has the second lowest total of runners left in base in the AL despite the OBP being in the top half of the league. Really sort of a remarkable team, I could see why they would be dismissed because of some poor slash lines in the everyday lineup, but the bottom line is runs scored and they were top 5 in the AL and that went along with some pretty good pitching. One team that flies under the radar a little bit when just looking at run differential is the 1987 team. They were a +45, which wouldn't even rank in the top 10 in franchise history. But that team was second in runs scored and third in FIP (AL only). However, the ERA was 9th and the defensive efficiency was 13th...it sure looks like a team that could have done much better had they been able to play some defense.

The overall numbers don't really support using Jennings as an opener IMO. Carpenter doesn't have wildly difference splits that "play up" a lefty/lefty matchup. So far this year Carpenter has been a .270/.382/.552/.934 hitter against righties, a .240/.363/.487/.850 hitter against lefties. Better against righties, but not to the extent where it makes sense to play lefty-lefty matching up the first inning of a ballgame. Also, Carpenter has hit the skids recently. .143/.280/.286/.566 in the last seven days and .178/.315/.247/.562 so far in September. Carpenter may be an MVP candidate, but if I was picking one guy in this lineup that I wouldn't want to beat me in tonight's game, it wouldn't be Carpenter. I can only assume that Jennings has fared well against Carpenter in the past. Would like to know how big that sample size is?

Anderson hasn't been that bad this month. 4 starts, 3.06 ERA, 1.36 WHIP. The biggest criticism of him has been the home runs, but in those 4 starts the HR/9 is only 1.02 which is a reasonable number. To me the key thing is that, in those 4 starts, he's only pitched 17 2/3 innings and has only averaged 73 pitches per start. To me that's the biggest thing here, it sure seems like Counsell has lost confidence in him and no longer trusts him. August was a bad month for Anderson and he got himself on the short hook despite pitching better recently.

Interesting that three of the four teams have already won more games than last year, and this is with a week of games still to be played. Meanwhile, the 11 largest free-agent contracts given out this off-season: Eric Hosmer - San Diego - terrible team Yu Darvish - Chicago - likely the best team in NL despite Darvish's mediocre performance and injury J.D. Martinez - Boston - great year one addition to best team in baseball Lorenzo Cain - Milwaukee - great year one addition on what is probably the 2nd best team in the NL Jake Arrieta - Philadelpha - Phillies and Arrieta both faded badly in the second half Carlos Santana - Philadelphia - Phillies not considered a factor in NL playoff race for a few weeks now Alex Cobb - Baltimore - worst team in baseball by a large margin Wade Davis - Colorado - Rockies made a nice run but appear to be fading fast, current playoff odds < 30% Jay Bruce - New York Mets - The Mets did look pretty good in April Tyler Chatwood - Chicago - Cubs able to win all those games despite Chatwood not being able to throw strikes Zack Cozart - Los Angelas Angels - Cozart got hurt and it's been obvious for the last couple months that the Angels were not going to the playoffs All this above wasn't put together to make the argument that free agent dollars aren't worth spending. But clearly in what was a very weak free agent class, it really didn't make much sense for the A's and Ray's to go out and spend money just for the sake of spending money.

Still surprised that the Nationals weren't able to put a string of wins together that would have thrown them into the wild card chase. And I'm pretty happy about that. There really isn't very many individual pitchers that worry me in a wild-card setting, but Scherzer definitely would qualify as one. Glad to see the Nationals completely out of the mix.

By my completely unscientific calculations (which means guess estimate), I'd put the Brewer's chances of winning the division at 1% and the chances of making the postseason at 99.5%. But I'm biased, I don't think the Brewers are as good as the Cubs but I do think they are better than any of the other wild card contenders. I also think the remaining schedule is pretty favorable and see a bit of evening-up happening in the upcoming Pirate series. Hard for me to see a scenario where they play their way out of a wild card spot.

Having a "most valuable players" and a "most important player" is simply a nice little gimmick to honor two players instead of one. People shouldn't forget about Aguilar's contributions in the first half. It's easy to look at Cain's WAR or Yelich's slash line now, but Aguilar's bat may have been the biggest difference-maker for this team because he was the one guy hitting the cover off the ball during all those early stretches where the Brewers were getting absolutely nothing out of half of the lineup.

If Wright retires then he forfeits his 2019 and 2020 salaries which total 27 million dollars, unless the doctor(s) conclude that a particular injury is career ending. Gil Meche was the last player I can remember that just decided to retire and walk away from a big payday. https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/sports/baseball/27meche.html

I would have to agree with the disgruntled fans (although I really wasn't one of them), Yelich should be playing everyday down the stretch considering how close the Brewers are to the Cubs and how close they are to falling out of a wild card spot. Baseball players can whine about playing too many games in a row, but unlike the average worker they get several consecutive months off during the year. Not to mention they also get paid pretty well. Not to mention they are playing baseball, which would without question be by far the less physically grueling of the four major north American sports. Not to mention the Brewers had off August 13, August 16, August 23, August 27, September 6...so there was a stretch of 25 days there with 5 scheduled off days. Sure seems like that would be enough. I totally agree that racial types comments, players getting things thrown at them, those types of behaviours are completely unacceptable. But for fans booing a guy that strikes out, or a writer criticizing a player for taking a day off, or a broadcaster lamenting that a team is paying an old washed-up player 20 million a year...that goes with the territory of being a professional athlete. Put on the big boy pants. If players don't like it, they can always find another line of work.