lowblow

I guess I'm just lucky to sit amid that "few" fans. My guess is that you have a bit of selective hearing. Unless I specifically listen for it, I don't hear the embarrassing drunks at Wrigley Field. I suggest you actually listen for it and you'll be surprised. But you are right in that Baez has gotten much more profound booing than Rizzo in 2018 and 2019. And not to put too fine a point on it, I've been to at least a dozen Cub/Brewers games at Wrigley Field in the last several years and I've never heard Yelich booed at all! Braun yes certainly, but he got booed everywhere. Strangely, Grandal got booed a lot too and I never understood that either.

Look, I'm a Cub's fan who goes to 4 or 5 Cubs/Brewers games in Milwaukee every year. To answer your question, Yes Rizzo got booed at Miller Park every game I went to there for the last 5 or 6 years. For the last four years, Baez has been booed pretty regularly as well. It's certainly not most fans at the game, but you are kidding yourself if you think that it's only Cubs fans who are irrational.

I think that is a great explanation of the situation for the Brewers.

It's a long way from over. But don't kid yourself, the Brewers lost ground today. The Cub's "magic number" and Brewer's magic number, both got smaller due to each other's losses, but each day off the schedule without an advantage for the Brewers makes winning the Central that much more unlikely. Of course, if the Brewer's win three in a row while the Cubs are losing three in a row, the math would the be against the Cubs for the same reason.

Unfortunately the guys attacking my grandchilderen weren't 20 somethings. More like 35-45 year olds with two of them wearing red hats that I think were associated with some grain manufacturer.

I know many of you have horror stories about the disgraceful behavior of Cubs fans at Miller Park and I don't doubt for a minute that each of them truly happened. I have gone to Miller Park between fifteen and twenty times in the last four years and I have seen only one incident of the type ascribed to Cubs fans on this site "as typical". I guess my experience in that regard is atypical. In general my experience with other fans (Cubs and Brewers alike )at Miller Park was pretty great. However, on June 12 of this year, I took my 10 year old grandson, his eight year old sister and their father to the Cubs- Brewers game. They are fifth generation Cubs fans and they got excited at the game and cheered their favorite team on. Apparently that behavior was unacceptable to a group of five or six overserved Brewers fans a couple of rows behind us who around the fourth inning started yelling at the kids and telling them to sit down and shut up. By the seventh inning, the language got pretty vulgar and I complained to an usher and asked him to deal with it. He had a thirty second conversation with them that kept them somewhat restrained for only about ten minutes and then their language got even worse than it had been before. When I complained to the usher, he shrugged his shoulders and said that we had provoked them by wearing Cubs hats. It got so bad, we left in the top of the ninth inning (and missed a Cubs win in extra innings. Now I don't think those drunken bums (and that's what they were) are typical of Brewers fans at all. But imagine for a moment, how easy it would be to generalize about "Brewers fans", based on that experience.

Hardly a disaster year, they have had a pretty average season for injuries. This site tracks how much each team has been hit by injuries and it lists the Brewers as the 8th most affected and the Cubs as one of the healthiest teams overall at 26th. https://www.rosterresource.com/mlb-disabled-list-tracker/ As if all injuries were equal and all injuries were measured by time on the DL. In terms of the 'player days", the Cubs are somewhat better off than many teams, but their best player Kris Bryant has been injured since late May. Their biggest offseason acquisition Darvish has been injured for more than half the season (by the way, it appears that he probably suffered the underlying elbow injury in May). Their closer, Morrow has been out for over six weeks as well. Everyone has nagging injuries during the long season, but to rely on the above-mentioned "disabled list tracker" is to assume that a day of Mike Trout on the DL is valued the same as a day of a day of Stephen Vogt.

If the Brewers are going to catch the Cubs for the division, they better get to it pretty quickly. After September 9, the Cubs play thirteen of their nineteen final games at Wrigley Field and three more at the White Sox. Their only real "road trip" is three games in Arizona. At this point, the Cubs are winning just short of two out of every three at home.

I find it interesting that many on this board seem to beat up Theo/Cubs for their "terrible" offseason pitching acquisitions while at the same time complaining that David Stearns hasn't done enough to acquire starting pitching help for the Brewers. Those are the two sides of the same coin. Since the Cubs see themselves as competing for the World Series, they go all in, all the time. And since great starting pitching is the rarest commodity in MLB, you have to take a lot of chances to acquire it. You may have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find the prince. The Cubs seem to have a lot of confidence that they know how to find hitters through the draft and internationally, so they are willing to spend them (and money) to acquire that rare commodity (starting pitching). Among other things, that's why big market teams that act like it are at a significant advantage. Imagine for a minute the position the Brewers would be in if they had signed Chatwood and Darvish over the offseason and they had performed this way. When you question why Stearns hasn't done more to get more SP for the Brewers, realize that the cost of being wrong for him and his team is higher than it is for the teams he's directly competing with.

I believe that you're making the same mistake that many on this board seem to when looking at "small market teams" (Brewers) vs. "large market teams". Each of the big market teams has very carefully maneuvered themselves under the 'Luxury Tax" threshold for 2018 because of the large ticket free agents that maybe coming on line this off season. Please don't be surprised when the Cubs/Dodgers/RedSox/Yankees, etch fly way past the Luxury Tax line for next year. You're kidding yourself if you don't understand that the Cubs will be trying big time to sign Bryant's pal Harper (or for that matter Almora's boyhood friend Machado). Going over the Luxury Tax line only costs money until the third year in a row over it when draft choices and international draft money get involved - writing a check is something they can do. It's not a hard cap and don't forget that with TV and licensing deals, etc their (big market teams) revenue may well be close totwice what a small market team may make. ...and by the time the third year comes around, MLB and the Player's Association will be negotiating a new CBA. Between you and me, I'd bet that the Luxury Tax line goes up dramatically in that agreement. It's not "fair" to the small market teams, but don't expect it to change. As more avenues of revenue open up, it's likely to get worse for the smaller market teams in terms of comparative revenue. The rich will get richer. None of that makes it impossible for small market teams to win occasionally but without long term sources to comparable revenue, the chances for sustained success are small. Unless you have a complete cohort of terrific young players that arrive in the Majors within a couple year window, it's almost impossible for a small market club to develop sustained success. A few weeks ago, I challenged Brewer fans to decide what kind of fan they were. Are they "take a chance - go for it" fans who want to win a world series (or at least participate in one) so badly they can taste it. This group will won't worry about "what prospects we're giving up" - they want to win now! Or are you a "waiting for it all to come together" type of fan who doesn't want to "waste prospects" just trying to get better. Just think "how much better we'll be when those vaunted prospect help us take over the league - or at least the Central Division." It would be nice to have both - and well-managed big market clubs do. But the reality of free agency will savage small market clubs.

Actually he isn't a free agent after this year. The Cubs have a $20M option for him next year or a $4M buyout. But I think you miss what I am talking about in re Big Market teams. The Cubs gave Chatwood a $39M contract for 3 years and when he consistently failed to do the job, they got Hamels and put Chatwood in the back of the bullpen. A small market team couldn't afford to do that.

Don't beat yourself up about that. I remember when I posted that the Cubs essentially bought a lottery ticket with Hamels (and those have been known to be winners every now and then). Big market teams can afford to take more chances than small market teams because they have the financial strength to eat their mistakes. The Brewers can be winners, but it is much harder for them than for big market teams like the Cubs (who spent nearly seventy years acting like a small market team). Epstein and Hoyer aren't gods, but they like the Yankees, Red Sox, and Dodgers understand the advantages their financial situation affords them and they leverage it.

....and the Phillies have a big TV contract. They will be a big player in the free agent market in the off season. I think they will be the Cub's biggest competitor for Bryce Harper (I truly doubt that he will return to the Nats - he wants to win too badly and they appear to be snake bit and unless Lerner wants to really subsidize the team already at their financial limit). Atlanta can afford to compete in the off season as well because they have a bunch of young cost-controlled players who show tremendous promise. If the Dodgers don't lock up Kershaw early, I would bet that the Braves will be a big bidder there.

Why do you have a minor league system? So that you can develop assets to use in your major league club or trade for other assets that will hopefully help the major league club win. Either you trust Stearns or you don't, but he seems to understand that you have to take chances when there are opportunities. With Bryant out for such a long time, Darvish adding little or no value and Morrow out, I would argue that 2018 is likely to be the Brewer's best chance in the NL Central for at least the next three years. Moreover, with the Dodgers' injuries, it almost seems like the opportunity for the Brewers to get to the World Series is there for the taking. I'm surprised that he didn't push more chips into the middle of the table to get another starting pitcher. But I guess it comes down to a point I made a couple weeks ago. Small market teams have very little margin for error. Unfortunately for the Brewers, I think their competitive position isn't likely to improve in the next few years as both the Phillies and the Braves keep getting better and neither the Cubs or Dodgers are going to get any worse.

Hamels is a lottery ticket for the Cubs (an expensive lottery ticket certainly), but one that big market teams can buy and small market teams are reluctant to try. The downside of $5 million wasted by the Cubs is virtually insignificant. The Cub's new TV contract that you will start to hear about this offseason will probably add upwards of $60 million per year to the Cub's revenue. Say it's a 10% chance that Hamels gives the Cubs four or five quality starts the rest of the way and say there's a 45% chance that he pitches to a 4.00 ERA but eats innings and a 45% chance that he's even worse than Chatwood is now. It's still a good bet for them, because there is no real cost.....and Hamels is a pitcher who has pitched in big games and won't be flustered by it. Stearns can't make that bet, because the cost of being wrong is too high. Moreover, recently winning a World Series provides the Cub's front office a lot of leeway with their fans. Should Hamels fail miserably, most Cubs fans will just shrug. Big Market teams have the latitude to make mistakes that small market teams don't.

With all due respect a glance at Santana's page in baseball reference will demonstrate that at least thus far in his career, last year was the outlier not this year. So while it might have been hard to anticipate that Santana might dramatically drop off this year it is hardly "inexplicable" and it wouldn't be inexplicable for Javier Baez to drop off dramatically after this year either. If Yelich were having a terrible year, that would be inexplicable.

As you question yourselves and each other about Stearns' success you should ask yourself what kind of fan you are. Are you 1) the I want to win a World Series whatever it takes kind of fan or a 2) I want to compete for a playoff spot every year even though we are pretty unlikely to win it all kind of fan. It's really hard to be a fan of a small market team in baseball today and be both. The resources of the big market teams are so much greater that they can take lots of chances that the small market teams fear to. As one poster mentioned earlier, where would the Brewers be if they had "won" the Darvish Sweepstakes? The reality of baseball today is that you have to take chances to become great. For a small market team to win the World Series they have to be not only good but very lucky in the chances they take. So if you're a type 1 fan, you will be wanting your GM to take chances, "mortgage the future", etc. because that's how teams in that financial situation can go for the big prize. If you're a type 2 fan, you'll content to be in the discussion every year when someone mentions "contenders" knowing that your team is unlikely to win the big prize, but you'll get to watch a lot of winning games. Type 2 fans will want their GM to protect their "prospects" for the "future". A long time ago in my high school days, I was the type of athlete who was just good enough to make every team he tried out for, but never really excellent at any sport. In retrospect, that was pretty unsatisfying to me....that one moment of excellence would have meant everything to me. I'm a type 1 fan. I'd risk years of mediocrity for that one year of superiority. When you think about your GM's actions, put it into the context of what type of fan you are.

There is plenty of room to argue whether the Brewers should go all in this year versus waiting for next year or some other time in the future. As a small market team, the Brewers really don't have a lot of margin for error. The rich big market teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Cubs, and Dodgers can eat the contracts and go forward. If they can't get the right guy at whatever price, they'd be foolish to try. What I don't understand is your statement that the "Cubs are not going to keep getting better". What makes you think that? Each of the Cub's starters are 28 or younger (although Heyward and Rizzo turn 29 next month). Why do you think they won't get better as they move through their prime years? As for their "lack of a farm system". I find it hard to imagine that the upper reaches of any farm system wouldn't be temporarily depleted after graduating the likes of Contreras, Baez, Russell, Bryant, Schwarber, Almora, and Happ. I really do disagree with you on your statement that this isn't some "down" year for them. They're getting next to nothing from Darvish and little from Chatwood and both Bryant and Rizzo have been off their norms. That's why I am surprised that the Brewers haven't pushed more chips into the pot, because I think they might have a unique opportunity to "steal" one from the Cubs.

As I said in another post, why not now. What makes you think that the Brewers will be in a better competitive position next year or the year after versus this year. The Cubs' lineup is better man for man and is not likely to see any deterioration for at least two or three years at the earliest (their core lineup is all 28 or younger) and they will "buy" pitching in the off season until they grow some of their own. The Brewers should take advantage of the off years from Rizzo and Bryant and the injury to Darvish and the ineffectiveness of Chatwood to strike while the iron is hot.

As I said in another post, why not now. What makes you think that the Brewers will be in a better competitive position next year or the year after versus this year. The Cubs' lineup is better man for man and is not likely to see any deterioration for at least two or three years at the earliest (their core lineup is all 28 or younger) and they will "buy" pitching in the off season until they grow some of their own. The Brewers should take advantage of the off years from Rizzo and Bryant and the injury to Darvish and the ineffectiveness of Chatwood to strike while the iron is hot.

Why are you here? Seriously. Because I like to talk baseball. I am a Cubs fan, but I've been an avid baseball fan since I was six and that's 65 years ago. I went to my first game at Wrigley Field in August of 1953 (a week or two before Ernie Banks joined the Cubs).

I realize that you would like to believe that the Cubs have "reached peak", but that is kind of an exercise in wishful thinking. Rizzo and Heyward are 28. Bryant and Contreras are 26. Baez and Schwarber are 25. Russell and Almora are 24 and Happ is 23. Their lower minors are far from "barren", but they certainly don't have any "elite" prospects close to the majors. Unfortunately for the Brewers, they aren't in urgent need of them because their everyday lineup is still quite young. And if you think the financial situation is unequal now, just wait until 2019 and the Cubs new TV deal. They are likely to add an additional 60 and 80 million dollars a year to what they earn now.

I'm a Cub's fan, so value my comments as you will. With the slow start and injuries that Rizzo has had and Bryant's DL stints and Darvish's extended DL (not to mention Chatwood's ineffectiveness), the Brewers should go all in at the trade deadline (another bat or two - Machado? as well as a front of the rotation starting pitcher). This might be your best chance for the next few years. There is no sense in waiting for the Cubs to get old, because they're younger than the Brewers at almost every position. The Brewers do have a couple of interesting prospects that are getting closer to Majors and they are likely to significantly improve at a few positions in the next couple of years, but those players don't figure to be better than what the Cubs already have. Without a doubt, the Brewers have better pitching prospects (at least starting pitching prospects) closer to the majors than the Cubs do, but when all is said and done, pitchers break It is there that the situation actually gets somewhat unfair, because the Cubs have the financial flexibility to "buy" pitching. They are paying Darvish and Chatwood around $35 M dollars this year and they are certainly not getting their money's worth, but they seem to be in first place going into the break. I made the point on the Cub's board that I normally post on that Cubs (like Boston, the Yankees and the Dodgers) have the financial latitude to make mistakes where the smaller market teams don't. What they cannot do is "buy" pitching in season, which is why I suggest that the Brewers go for it now, because I doubt their (the Brewers) chances will improve over the next four or five years.

As a Cubs fan, I can tell you that they were unhappy! Due to their recent success (three years in a row in the NLCS), however. most Cubs fans cut them quite a bit of slack. That is reinforced by an incredible confidence in the Front Office being able to pick up a player to fill a hole if that is necessary.