KeithStone53151

The Wild Card game is a Game 7. The team that invested in better pitching won. The Brewers go as cheap as they can get away with, every year, and lost. The Brewers have also never drafted & developed a pitcher like Strasburg. Oh please. They needed a ball through the legs and the most dominate reliever in baseball to blow the game. This is so disingenuous. They were a coin flip away from being sent packing by the Brewers despite their "investment" in better pitching. I'll also add, when was the last time the Brewers drafted first overall? We've never had a shot at a 1st overall selection wire to wire elite pitching talent like Strasburg. And in this case, Strasburg was no longer under the initial team control window anyway, he would have been a free agent years ago had the Nationals not paid him more or less market value.

The Wild Card game is a Game 7. The team that invested in better pitching won. The Brewers go as cheap as they can get away with, every year, and lost. The Brewers have also never drafted & developed a pitcher like Strasburg. I don't think you're correctly dissecting my point here. I prefer playoffs operate in more of a series manner. I get the game 7 aspect, you look at how rosters are constructed and players are used...and it's just different in a 1 game wildcard. There's also that much more variance in a 1 game than a 3 game. You're more often going to have the truly better team come out of a 3 game series than a 1 game. Sure if you split the first 2, both teams are going to load up best on best for that last game as well as they can. Might be tough for them to use all 3 in a game 3 in this scenario. Bottom line, I view the 3 game series much more like real baseball than a 1 game series.

The most hilarious thing about these "projections" is that Pecota came up with scenarios where the Pirates win what looks like 90 games. How much can I bet on the under for 90 wins?

It's another game that they can fill up a stadium and put the game on TV. I'd agree that nobody cares (as we've discussed NBA vs. MLB on this thread) as the Bucks line up for said 8 seed and even most of the games as said 8 seed...but it makes the owners more money. The Bucks are a weird example here, we could probably bench our starting 5 and beat the 8 seed consistently. This team is historically good, the 1 seed usually isn't quite as dominant as the Bucks are. Probably at least half the time, the 8 seed wins at least 1 game. Plus, the 8 seed in any case is probably feeling some David vs Goliath...and that team probably cares to a decent degree about the outside chance they could take down Goliath.

They nailed it last year, but if I remember correctly ZIPs and Steamer were substantially off. As was PECOTA in 2018. Important to remember that these are PROJECTIONS RANDOM NUMBER GENERATORS, and not PREDICTIONS. Fixed

NL Central 2020 Standings Prediction Brewers - 89 Cardinals - 87 Reds - 86 Cubs - 78 Pirates - 61

A couple side effects of this that I haven't seen posted yet. More playoff teams means less team dumping players and loading up super teams. I get a bit frustrated that 16 teams trade off everything of value at the deadline to the other 14 teams. I think this idea along with getting rid of the August trade window will make the last couple months of the season much more competitive. More teams playing competitive baseball also leads to more tie potentials. What happens if 2 teams from a division AND another wildcard team all tie? Add to that, two other teams tie for the 7th best record. This isn't a super far-fetched scenario either. We've dealt with pretty significant tie issues the last couple years, and would get that much more confusing in this type of scenario. If enacted, I think you'd have to set tiebreaker criteria like the NFL and avoid playing games to break ties. If they are solely going for good TV, maybe put the coin toss tiebreaker up higher and televise that. If Vegas is calling the shots, that's what would happen. As it stands, the only part I really don't like is the picking of opponents. It's just not a good idea. I do like the full home field advantage thing, I could even be talked into 27 man rosters and 3 games in 2 days to streamline this...but no way would the players union go for that. I really like the 3 game series versus 1 game. A 1 game winner take all made the games not like a real game. Where we had to face Scherzer, Strasburg, and Corbin all in one game. That's not really in the nature of how baseball works, even in the playoffs. I'm neutral on the expansion of playoff teams, but I think 6 is plenty if you do it. You can still do a quick 3 game series in the same manner and allow for 2 teams to have byes. 10 teams is 33% playoffs, 12 is 40%, 14 is 47%. 33% seems about right to me. 40% is fine, 47% just seems like way too much. Half of teams making the playoffs. The only teams not making it are the true trash teams. My guess on this, baseball wasn't happy that the Cubs and Red Sox got edged out...and want to provide them a better chance to get in on their marginal years. With their money, it will be rare for teams like that to win 70ish games or less. They'd probably make the playoffs 9 out of 10 years if 47% of teams make it.

I just checked now out of curiosity and pickins are super slim. I couldn't get 4 together anywhere. I could get 2 together field level in the last section of infield, or in the outfield...also in the terrace. Everything else is either single seats or just sold out. I highly suspect they are holding a good chunk of tickets back that they'll release at later dates...but as of right now there's not much available.

I have a hard time believing too many Cub fans will get their hands on our opening day tickets. Its such a high demand ticket already, hard to imagine too many people buying and putting on stubhub. Other Cubs games yes, but not opening day. If the crowd is more than 25% Cub fans I will be very very surprised. I was able to snag some extras and pickins were already very very slim. My extras are in section 212 in the upper rows.

That’s how I feel with Macha. He had a solid team on paper, but he ran his team into the ground with listless, emotionless performances day in and day out. The only time I’ve ever emotionally given up on a season was under Macha. I would like to think all this reminiscing helps people appreciate CC a little bit more. Also thinking back to Melvin not guiding us to more success in Braun's prime years would help appreciate Stearns a bit more.

TLR managing style pretty much comes down to finding an excuse to repeatedly bean any player who's hitting well...yet RRR couldn't even top that...

Why is everyone acting like the red Sox are rebuilding? They still have an excellent roster and could very easily contend. They probably need a couple things to break their way, but this definitely isn't enough to be a punt on 2020.

I agree on resale. Also the SSH presale limits to 2 tickets per account. I'll add SSH also have access to tickets to every other Cubs game for the year in advance as well, limit 4 per account for all those.

True, but look at our infield, offensively, I think Hiura is the only position that we know what we have. SS is now up in the air, 3B looks like a nightmare, and 1B could be troublesome too with Smoak penciled in for at least half the starts. Hiura is the only bright spot in that infield, everything else is a complete and total crap shoot. I'm going to nitpick and call the bolded a bit of an understatement, but otherwise I generally see and agree with your point. SS is unfortunate as we had a real shot at solid production there until Urias got hurt. 1b I think will be super solid with Braun/Smoak. Probably no all-star, but that combination could easily yield borderline all-star production in tandem. 3b is certainly our weakest position, but it's probably better than most think. Before the Urias injury, we basically had 4 guys competing for playing time at 2 spots. The competition would likely bring the very very best out of at least 2 of the players. Do you think Gyorko is content coasting through the year, hitting decently in his AB against lefties, which at best would result in a minor league deal from someone next year? Or do you think we're going to see the very best version of him show up in camp and try to win the 3b job outright so he can potentially parlay that into a multi-year deal next year? My money is on the latter. That same thought process can be applied to all 4 guys with slight variables.

Usually you aren't going to have an all-star caliber player at every position. Those guys as a platoon project to have pretty solid production. We can also potentially add 3b at the deadline. It's pretty likely at this point we open with that platoon.

I'd rather have Strop Prior to last season, Strop had six straight years of a sub-3 ERA, Phelps only did that once. Besides ERA, Strop has been much better at limiting guys getting on base. Strop's skills are diminishing considerably. He's lost almost 3 mph on his fastball since 2017 and almost 5 since his peak. Guys are hitting the ball much harder, and he's getting far less whiffs. Phelps is a more complete pitcher and throws 4 distinct pitches(4 seam, sinker, cutter, curve). His ratios were all better than Strop last year. I think Phelps has a better shot to hang on for one more good season than Strop. Strop seems like more name than anything at this point.

I strongly prefer Phelps to Strop given the price. I would consider those 2 virtually a push from a talent perspective at this point.

I have that Anderson has up to $2M in incentives, right? Yeah I see that now. So $7m in potential incentives.

Not to be that guy, but I personally think Peralta is going to force the Brewers hand and force them to give him a rotation spot. I suppose it's mostly irrelevant as most likely arm to lose his job is Houser, and he'd do fine in the bullpen. Also, no guarantee the Brewers are done. I would bet we'll bring in multiple more arms at least on minor league deals, but still a solid chance we grab an arm on another low $ major league deal.

With this signing, I have the Brewers at $107 million in payroll...with a potential $5 million in total bonuses for Lindblom and now Phelps. With those numbers, I'm assuming Hader and Suter both win in arbitration. Suddenly payroll is creeping up a bit.

Brewers will have to clear a 40 man spot for him. Feyereisen, Perdomo, Yardley, Freitas, Matthias, and Taylor seem like the most likely to get kicked off the 40 man to clear a spot.

This is probably low dollars. Decent move, could use another good RH arm in the bullpen.

QTC, Ray, Rasmussen, and Shelby Miller(if he counts) are the guys that jump out at me the most. As for a surprise, sign me up for Braden Webb. If he can harness that terrible command for a stretch...he'll move quick

This was noted in another thread, but Milwaukee would probably be pretty high on guys list for a minor league deal. If offered one with the Marlins, Astros, and Brewers...I think the Brewers are probably the choice. Marlins are gonna suck, Astros have less opportunity. The Brewers have an interesting dynamic in that a minor league deal guy can certainly earn a spot if they can find another gear, yet we have a roster talented enough to contend. So I tend to agree with you. We will probably bring in a few guys on minor league deals, primarily pitchers. There's also certainly the possibility of a small trade or two to bring in a solid bullpen arm to add some stability there.

I get what you are saying but the reality is most teams don't have very good options past like starter #3. Most teams do not have deep proven rotations. Miller could have found quite a few other teams that would give him a path to playing time if somehow he is good. If I was a talented pitcher looking to get back on track, Milwaukee would definitely be high on my list. Lyles & Pomeranz were probably looking at 1 year prove it deals before the trade deadline last year, both signed multi year deals for a combined 50 million after turning things around with the Brewers. Another pitcher no one was excited about us acquiring, Wade Miley, has gone onto sign deals worth 19.5 million since he left the Brewers. I was going to say literally the same thing but you beat me to it. We have a pretty good track record of helping vets get back on track and parlay their time with us into big $, and we have considerable opportunity in both the rotation and bullpen. I know that sounds a bit contradictory considering my previous comments on our pitching, there's definitely no room for a guy that proves to be decent or adequate in ST...but if a guy can find another gear like Pomeranz, Miley, Lyles, etc...they can earn a spot over guys like Anderson, Devin Williams, etc. Add to that, we have a very real shot at contending...which must be more fun than going and pitching in Miami.