long ball

I think in general I feel better about this team going into the playoffs than I have most years. 2018 was probably the most optimistic due to MVP Yelich, how we chased down the cubs, game 163, returning to the playoffs for the first time in 7 years, and the Dodgers weren’t quite the dodgers yet. I’m generally pretty hopeful every time we make the playoffs so I feel a little extra optimism this year. on the AL side I am rooting for the White Sox but I don’t have much hope for them. So the Rays and Guardians are the other teams I’m pulling for.

I’m not sure how much attention this has been getting, but the Marlins did something interesting with some of their starters down the stretch. They had Alcantara and Pérez pitch out of the bullpen on their throw day. From what I understand, this is a little bit of a test kitchen idea. See how guys handle the schedule. now I don’t think the brewers would implement this, however it is a very interesting thought experiment. Pair this with a 6 man rotation, a team who is very likely to make the playoffs, generally needs to find advantages at the fringes of the roster/rules and we’d be an interesting candidate to do this. upside: less need to shuttle guys to and from the minors since we have an extra bullpen arm every game. Get 20+ additional innings from some of the best pitchers on the roster. This makes it easier to run a 6 man rotation all year. downside: the game may not present an opportunity for the starter to get into the game so you’d have to have them get their bullpen work in after the game? You lose the ability to just work on stuff without the pressure of it being a live inning. Unknown how it would impact performance and health. they talked about it on the just baseball podcast with lance brodkowski the other day and I found it an idea.

I think I’m pitching Misiorowski and Henderson in games 1 and 2. I understand the argument of pushing Henderson to game 3, but I’d rather just go with my 2 best guys to start the series. as for the rest of it, no one else is going to go longer than 4 innings so I don’t really care the order. I’d probably throw Gasser in game 3 as the “bulk” pitcher and expect to cover the other 5-7 innings with the pen. I’d probably just start Gasser, but I could see Patrick or Senzatela as an opener making sense. The padres do a little more platooning than the Cubs do. Most of the Padres scary hitters are right handed (France, Tatis, machado) I will note… May has made 2 great starts against SD and a third that was pretty decent. He also made one good start against the cubs while still pitching for STL.

The cubs have the biggest weakness that I think we can take advantage of. I think they’re playing worse than the Padres right now. It’s fun to beat the cubs. Less travel. bring me Chicago. I think we can beat either, but either will be tough.

I know the cardinals aren’t a good offense, but he looked good. My butt would be clenched the entire time he’s pitching in a playoff game. If they keep 13 pitchers, I’d lean toward him making it. if they only keep 12 pitchers then he’s fighting with Drohan and May for that last spot in my opinion. These 10 guys feel like locks: Misiorowski, Henderson, Gasser, Megill, Uribe, Ashby, Hall, Romero, Senzatela, Patrick. so pick 2 of Harrison, May, Drohan, and Anderson (if healthy) id keep May. Then Harrison and Drohan are a bit of a toss up to me. I think they’ll only keep 12.

Someone who is smart and has the time can probably confirm or refute this… but it feels like the brewers haven’t done a lot of mid inning pitching changes this season. Probably because their bullpen has generally been really good and their lefties are decent enough against righties for the most part. However for the last month or so it seemed like on occasions Murphy has allowed SP to get one extra up without having the pitch the full inning and here recently they’ve done some mid inning changes with guys who may be more match up dependent like Senzatela and Romero. I like it. Give these guys a taste of coming in mid inning since that’s going to happen in the playoffs.

What a fun season. 100 wins is really cool. 97 was cool last year, but 100!

Since they haven’t activated Wilson today, I kinda wonder if they want to use Richardson to eat an inning or two tonight before DFA him to activate Wilson tomorrow.

Ahh I missed that! Thanks.

I wonder what they’ll do with Wilson after today. Presumably they’ll try to get about 3 IP out of him today. That likely makes him available again on Sunday after Miz pitches his 2 innings, but they may want to use that day to get 1 final tune up inning for guys. kinda feels mean, but I wonder if they DFA him after today to make room for Grant Anderson tomorrow.

When Pratt was called up, I made a comment on one of the articles or forum threads about how poorly our young glove first infielders have hit early on in their careers so I wasn’t expecting anything other than a slight improvement on what we were getting from Ortiz in the first half of the season. I am very pleased with the results he’s gotten (and thrilled with the turn around Ortiz has made). Even if we are getting very limited power from Lara/Frelick, Ortiz, and Pratt they’re all capable of getting on base at a respectable clip. Let’s hope it continues throughout the duration of our playoff run.

I was kinda mapping this out the rest of the way and I think it makes sense to do this: 9/16v Pitt Henderson 9/20 v Balt Misiorowski (4 days rest, hasn’t done that much this year and avoids giving Philly a look at him. I don’t care if it’s a 3-4 inning start, but gives him a chance to work on a 4 days rest schedule since that’s likely what we will need in the playoffs) 9/22 v Phillies Henderson on 5 days rest 9/26 v cards Misiorowski (final tune up start on 5 days rest. Likely only a couple innings. Freddy went 2 IP last year in his final start) 9/27 v cards Henderson (final tune up start but on 4 days rest. Likely only a couple innings) 10/3 is game 1 of the DS. So if they map it out this way they’ll both have a chance to make 1 start on a 4 days rest schedule. Then they’ll have 6 days of rest before their first playoff start. I don’t really care what they do with the rest of the starters. None of those guys are going to be asked to go more than 3-4 innings (mostly think Gasser and May will be the other “bulk” pitchers on the roster)

I’ll give the brewers a pass if they lose tonight. Glad to have the division clinched.

Our game starts an hour before the cubs/braves. if we win, we could be waiting an hour or so to see if tonight’s clinch night. we’ve built up a pretty decent buffer between us and Atlanta so a top 2 seed is looking highly likely at this point.

My read in the current situation is that they’re trying to get Frelick going. If he can show some semblance of what he did last year, he’s probably a better hitter today have in the line up come playoff time. Bauers is likely getting all of the starts in RF against lefties come playoff time. we will see if Lara gets the CF starts against lefties or if it’s Mitchell. I’d probably lean toward Lara in RF against righties, but it may be just an all hands on deck approach where there are mid game line up changes depending on pitching moves the opponent makes. Basically what we’ve seen since Frelick returned.

I think you’re spot on with everything here. we did only carry 12 pitchers last year in the playoffs, even in the nlcs. If we go with 14 position players, I’d lean toward Lockridge. I feel like he adds at least 1 elite skill (speed) while Naylor is really only useful as an emergency catcher.

Record prediction will hopefully be a few wins short, but 94 wins was one of the more optimistic predictions in this thread. Playoffs: still tbd but will be massively disappointing if they lose in the DS like I predicted in spring. Turang as team mvp was a good choice- could really be any of Turang, bauers, Chourio, or Misiorowski Nailed Misiorowski as team CY (ok this was a pretty easy pick going into the year) Sproat as team ROY was a flop. Henderson is the pretty easy winner there. Couldnt have been more wrong about Rengifo. frelick has been disappointing and probably the biggest disappointment on the position player group. Only Woodruff going down with injury again, sproat, Koenig, or Rengifo could be in this category. overall I think I did ok!let’s hope I was most wrong about the playoff outcome.

He has been a playoff riser for sure. He's one of the guys we need to stay healthy heading into the playoffs.

Chourio is going to be stealing bases this month like Giannis would be assist hunting in third 4th quarters when he had 7 assists and a triple double on the table.

They talked about this on the radio call just now. I have no recollection of this from his time here.

All the way to Lake Michigan!

I’ve thought about it quite a bit recently and I don’t think the Brewers will offer Bauers the QO. He’s been massively important this year and it will sting to lose him, but I’m operating under the assumption he will sign elsewhere. it will be very interesting to see how the Brewers address Megill, Vaughn, and Contreras. All 3 have been important contributors and are entering their final year of team control. If we make a World Series run or heck win it, that probably lends more toward running it back with at least 2 of these guys. If we lose in the NLCS or earlier, it’s probably business as usual and at least 2 of these guys are traded. mitchell is obviously the other guy. He’s been quite good this year in his first healthy campaign. We have enough at bats to go with a 4 man outfield group of Chourio, Lara, Mitchell, and Frelick but I totally understand the concept of hoping to entice a team into giving up some long piece(s) for him given his injury history. You could include Frelick in this bucket too, but since he will be coming off his worst year in the bigs I don’t see an acceptable trade package coming our way so it makes sense to hope he bounces back next year. We don’t have a ton of OF depth at the high minors, but maybe the Brewers move off of Mitchell and try to add a more potent corner OF bat and slide Frelick into more of a 4th OF role. ortiz is another interesting guy. Huge second half turn around at the plate to where he’s nearly league average offensively on the year. If I had to guess today, our infield to start the year looks a lot like it does now with Hamilton, Pratt, and Ortiz manning 3b and SS. A Made extension would certainly change the equation here though. Otherwise I see Made as a May/June call up. woodruff would be interesting to bring back, but I don’t think they can or should commit much money to him. If he wants to re-sign here for under $5m, I think I’d be good with that if he comes out of this rehab in good shape. Baddoo, Wilson, may, Romero, and Senzatela are unlikely to be re-signed. I could see them bringing Sánchez back if they decide to trade Contreras. zerpa is the most interesting non-tender decision. Looks like grant Anderson will be arb1 next year, and I think we will retain his option so he seems like a perfectly reasonable 7th man in the pen and should be tendered. Zastryzny is a non-tender.

Win enough games to secure a bye. 1 or 2 seed, I’m pretty indifferent on. Ideally Hall, Romero, and Senzatela continue to get high leverage appearances. See what we have in them a playoff role. figure out a role for Gasser, May, Harrison, Drohan, and even Sproat. Where do they fit in the playoff pitching picture? Get guys maintenance days. Get as much rest for the high leverage bullpen arms as possible. Hopefully no more 3 appearances in 4 days type thing (the off days will help ). At this point I think I’d let guys like Ortiz, Pratt, and Lara take any pivotal at bats they’re set up for rather than pinch hitting. a .500 record down the stretch against a pretty soft schedule should be sufficient for a bye.

A lot of things didn’t go our way in the first 8 innings, but just about everything that could go well did go well after the Kelly 2 rbi double. -Murph pulled Megill who wasn’t good, but also didn’t want to run him into the ground once the lead was given up. -trusted Hall to come in against Crow-Armstrong and he absolutely delivered. Keeping it at a 2 run deficit was huge given the shape of the cubs pen. -Yelich battling back for a PH single -Chourio tank -Mitchell with the throw and Hamilton with the tag -frelicks bloop finding the grass in no-man’s land -Lara getting the pep talk and delivering the game winner after having a pretty rough game at the plate. If any of those 5-6 things didn’t go right, we probably lose. Tonight those things went our way and it was so fun to experience.

This is where I’m at. I wouldn’t advocate for trying to “manipulate” our playoff opponent like you sometimes see down the stretch of the NBA regular season, but I’m indifferent on the 1-2 seed. I am holding out slight hope for 100 wins just because it would be really cool, but we obviously shouldn’t go balls to the wall chasing that.