owbc

I just had a "holy **** we're in the World Series" moment. I don't think it had truly set in yet.

@Brian the Automator are you still out there?????

I actually have a Halloween thing with the wife and kid tonight so I'm going to catch the first couple innings and then try to sneak peeks on my phone while I can and hopefully be home before the end. Feels a bit blasphemous but there's going to be a lot of baseball played in this series. As for predictions...I think Caminero gets a HR off of Miz tonight but otherwise he's solid through 5+ and we pick up a 5-2 win with relatively low drama. Chourio and Contreras both go deep for us and the defense is solid.

Game 1 has gone to extra innings 3 of the previous 4 years.

Last night my wife said to me: "Today is the last day of your life when the Brewers have never played in the World Series." (I was born after 1982) I'm hoping I have about a week left of living in a world where the Brewers have never won the World Series.

The Rays are smart. This is an Occam's razor situation, they are not going to over manage like the Padres did. They know the numbers on 4 days vs 5 days rest like we do. That's really all there is to it. If we drop game 1 there will be a whole media narrative around it but we're only really in trouble if we go down 0-2 and it's hard to see that happening unless a lot goes wrong for us. I expect it will be 1-1 going to Tampa.

After I saw Woody throwing 90-92 I knew he was gonna make it. This is about experience and results. He has a career 1.90 FIP in 28.1 postseason innings. He was pitching at a high level earlier this season. Do I dream about him being on the mound for the final out? Absolutely. I don't know if it will happen but the crowd is going to go absolutely wild if he makes an appearance.

I would also say that how these guys pitched against the short handed Yankees and the bad Guardians offense is not a predictor of how they will do against us.

Rasmussen is 42 IP above his previous yearly high (season + postseason), it makes sense that you would try to get him 5 days rest. I don't read this as a desperation move, I read it as them expecting a 6-7 game series so in a long series you may as well optimize your rest schedule. Where it backfires is if you fall behind in the series and you're sending Martinez out in an elimination game 5 against Miz. Or if it results in a lot of bullpen usage early in the series.

I'm pretty close to aligned with this plan. The worst thing we can do is let success lead us astray from the philosophy that got us here. That means doing the top 3 on your list although the Megill trade is the one that I could potentially see not happening if they want to run back more of the roster in '27 and due to his age potentially limiting return. Bauers -- I wish he would accept the QO but I don't see it realistically happening. Contreras -- I'm in the anti-extension camp. Seems to be about a 50/50 split on this website. I project the cost to be around $100M but if there's a salary floor in the new CBA he could easily fetch more with how many teams might be spending to get to the floor. On Ashby I could go either way as well, I lean toward high leverage relief at the moment with Hall taking his old role. We'll do our usual open tryouts with reclamation projects for the back half of the rotation. Made -- this is where they can use some of that World Series money to get a deal done, but I wonder if the ship has sailed. Both parties have to be willing to come to the table and Made might decide to bet on himself. Maybe we see some of the other top prospects get signed instead. Ortiz -- trade. Sell high and clear infield logjam. Deadline acquisitions -- I predict we get at least one of Romero or Senzatela back on a team-friendly contract while we ride the wave of our success. I wouldn't rule out May either, he suddenly looks like a "buy low" option and would have a whole winter to work on whatever we tell him to do. On projections -- our days as the underdog are over. We'll be consensus picks to win the division and have a lot of pundits picking us as back-to-back pennant winners. Our over/under will be well into the 90s of wins. As much as a lockout sucks, the cumulative wear of playing an extra month of baseball can be rough. A shortened season would work in our favor.

FYI—yesterday the main ticket drop on the Brewers website was at 11:02 AM central. I wasn’t successful yesterday but hopefully today. It was mostly single tickets yesterday per social media reports.

I tend to agree with the rules here. Otherwise it would be super easy for the Brewers to use Woodruff a single time and then declare that he's re-injured himself to get a roster replacement. I wouldn't want our opponents doing that to us.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7708471/2026/10/20/brewers-brandon-woodruff-world-series-return/ The fact that we have inquired suggests that we're serious about potentially adding him.

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I like the strategy of letting your lefties face the middle-innings lefties. You’re playing into the opponent’s hands when you PH too soon. I don’t want our platoon righties facing Kelly or Baker, ever. I feel much better about our lefties against Seymour or Booser.

I have Brewers in 7. This is like looking at ourselves in the mirror. We’re not going to be able to out-strategize these guys and a number of our strengths over LA are more like a wash vs. TB. We’ll need contributions for every roster spot. In the end I think we can out pitch them and that will be the difference. I think we fall behind 2-1 in the series and then our depth wins us games 4-5.

Damn Freddy had nice things to say about Milwaukee.

After MLB banned LOOGYs there seem to be less of the slow throwing deceptive guys than there used to be. Still some lefties out there like Suter but not many righties.

Pretty wild that Freddy Peralta is on the mound with a chance to send the Rays to the World Series. There are a lot of alternate universes where he pitched such a game for us.

In the late 90s the average MLB fastball was somewhere around 89 mph. So if Jones did peak at 86 mph, that's the equivalent of 91 mph today.

I didn't watch but my dad said it was boring because they can't score and that he regretted watching.

And that was with a full spring training ramp up. I give it a 5% chance that he makes the roster.

Mariners fans said the same thing about Cal Raleigh a year ago. And they were proven right. Unfortunately, they have been proven right while Cal Raleigh is still on the roster with a freshly-minted $100M contract. I get that Bill could be the next Salvador Perez but even Salvy's production has been pretty brutal for 3 of the past 4 years. I think we should be thankful that we can run it back with him next year and go for one more shot at a championship (or back-to-back with any luck). Let someone else pay for his decline.

I used to worry about the hitters but since the Trajekt machines got popular that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. These guys are facing 100 mph pitches in the cage all week. Plus they already had a 5 day layoff for the wild card round and looked fine after that. For pitching, I appreciate that MLB gives the 3 off days to make the World Series a fairer match, but I have no doubt that our fresher pitching will be an advantage, especially if the series goes 6-7 games.

I prefer Tampa, that’s the correct matchup between the two most deserving teams and organizations. I think Tampa had the dangerous “happy to be here” mentality at the start of the series but are starting to lock down. I’d like Cleveland to draw it out to 7 games though to wear down their pitching as much as possible.