owbc

I'm cheering for the Rays and Braves, but for pure entertainment value give me a Dodgers/Astros World Series.

I don't follow the Packers too closely but from what I've seen they look like a serious Super Bowl contender. Are Packers fans too jaded to bring this up at this point? If so, I will. This team is going to be in the Super Bowl this year. The Seahawks are the only team that could potentially challenge that and without home field advantage I doubt they will.

This is the perspective that I don't really understand. Which guidelines are life changing? I can't think of anything I've done recently that feels like my life has changed and I've traveled, dined indoors, and been in social gatherings while following the rules. I just canceled a trip to NM in November due to their 14-day quarantine for high-risk state visitors. I am almost definitely not taking a planned trip to Japan (probably can't if I wanted to) in March. I think generally speaking, not THAT much has changed locally, at least nothing I would categorize as life-changing. As an aside, my mother passed away in March and we have not services due to her family being on the East Coast, mostly 65+, and not able/willing to travel easily. I'm sure there are many instances of that sort of thing. On a larger scale this thing is killing many businesses, big and small. My employer has been decimated and laid off 1,000 people since the start. Small retail businesses are getting crushed. Travel-related jobs have been obliterated. If you are safely employed, the overall impact has been fairly minimal. But, there are always people who aren't you. I should be clear that there are major life-changing consequences of the pandemic, as you point out, but the part I'm not understanding is the connection between the current set of government regulations and the life-changing consequences. From what I can the civil disobedience is really quite minor...i.e. there is little to no difference in day-to-day life between the places with low and high compliance to mask/social distancing guidelines. And everyone seems to accept that masks reduce virus spread. So I feel like I'm not understanding the reason for not following these rules besides petty political disagreements. Sorry about your mother and not being able to properly say goodbye. I worry every day about my grandmother who is in the Milwaukee area with my relatives trying their best to keep COVID away from her. It's a big part of the reason that the poor compliance for regulations in WI makes me so angry.

This is the perspective that I don't really understand. Which guidelines are life changing? I can't think of anything I've done recently that feels like my life has changed and I've traveled, dined indoors, and been in social gatherings while following the rules.

Judging by who advertises on FS Wisconsin, the Brewers' TV audience skews older and isn't worth much in terms of advertising dollars. The real value is in the subscription fees, since if you want to watch in-market MLB you have to have a very expensive cable subscription. Even if Mark A wanted to do something different I doubt he has the power to do it. If he went to MLB and said he wanted to take a lower value, non-exclusive deal that would allow the Brewers to be available in-market on MLB.tv he probably would get laughed at. But from a fan perspective it would be awesome.

Aaaaaaannnd nevermind.

2020 World Champion Miami Marlins sounds about right

I love this. As an additional advantage, increasing the contact percentage will speed up the pace of play. More balls hit in-play early in the count and less foul balls. I do understand the desire to just let things evolve naturally, but the rules for professional baseball were written for players who were a lot less serious and skilled at baseball than the professionals are today. It is kind of amazing that they held up so well for over 100 years. I just wish MLB could be more proactive about it and not let the fans suffer through what is obviously a serious issue that will need correcting.

Exactly this. Why give up an out to move a guy over when it's likely the next two batters aren't going to put it in play anyway. It seems like the argument here is that it's a personnel problem. Which is fair. Maybe the conclusion is simply that the Dodgers are headed to the World Series and there's nothing our weak/injured roster could have done about it.

Pitchers are already punished for walks and they already throw juicy 3-0 pitches? If you walk two guys and have runners on first and second, the current strategy in MLB is entirely 3TO-based. Hitters want a 3-run HR and pitchers want a strikeout. Most of the time (at least when the Brewers were hitting) the pitcher got the strikeouts and a runner never even touched 3rd base. Edit: the Atlantic league increased the base size by 3 inches, so not much. I haven't seen any stats on what difference it made.

I think there's a lot of truth to this post. The analytics argument for not bunting is already becoming outdated. Pitching strategy and defensive shifts operate under the assumption that bunting isn't going to happen. The statistics were not calculated on 2020 numbers where offense is down considerably. It's no longer 2019 when every other pitch was a home run. It seems like managers have become slaves to the spreadsheets and the result was several teams with .215 batting averages getting shut out in playoff games or even a whole series in the case of the Reds. How is 36 strikeouts better than a failed sac bunt? I saw both the Brewers and Reds try and play for 2-3 run innings when they needed 1 run. There was a complete lack of situational awareness--a night game in late September in LA against Kershaw--you might get one or two balls the whole game with an exit velocity over 100, and even with the right launch angle it might die in the cool, stable air and be another out. When you can only hit singles and doubles moving baserunners becomes incredibly valuable. And hopefully someone in MLB eventually realizes that. But more likely Manfred will juice the ball again and we'll go back to 2019 home run rates. I also don't buy the argument about not being able to bunt 95 mph pitches. MLB pitchers historically were able to sacrifice with 50% success. Maybe it's 40% with 100 mph pitches with movement? If I had to change one rule, I would make it easier to leg out infield singles and steal bases by making the bases bigger. It's not my idea but I think it's a good one. I like the idea of making steals easier because it will punish pitchers for BBs and make them more likely to throw juicy pitches to hit on 3-ball counts.

Finally this miserable season comes to an end.

Misery loves company. It could be worse. We could be Reds fans. We at least put up a couple runs this series. And the division champion Cubs are in danger of getting eliminated by the Marlins

Quite the reunion, too bad the game is a dud... It’s like a funeral where you see all your friends and relatives that you haven’t seen in years... a funeral for the the Brewers’ 2020 season.

Quite the reunion, too bad the game is a dud...

This series went about as expected.

We're not losing!

What a feast for the eyes.

Healy time!

I agree with this but it only works when the background level of COVID in the community is very low and you can contact trace the positives. That's the case in some parts of the country right now and not others. I don't worry about stretching the rules a bit when I am, but I am very reluctant to travel to anywhere where COVID is more widely present in the community. The situation in Wisconsin is too bad but everyone knows it happened because very easy and simple guidelines were not followed.

Yup. I thought that with their starting pitching they could maybe be a dark horse to make it to the WS (three game series' being what they are and what not). In the current version of MLB it seems like almost everyone has enough pitching to get through a 3-game series and the real difference-maker is whether you have the bats to be able to plate runs off of the better pitching in the league.

Last night's game ended too late for me and I'm in Pacific time

And that's the ballgame.

You can tell they are calling the game from the east coast.

2-0. DO NOT SWING.