2018 Brewers Prediction

The short version of this essay:  if you think the Brewers are – at present – a playoff caliber team, you are high.

Now, to elaborate.

General Manager David Stearns had Brewer Nation all abuzz in late January when he traded for outfielder Christian Yelich and signed free agent outfielder Lorenzo Cain within a twenty-four-hour period.  I thought signing Cain for a large sum of money was a mistake then, but I was willing to concede the decision if Stearns had the next trade up his sleeve, offering some combination of Keon Broxton, Domingo Santana, Brett Phillips or first basemen Eric Thames for a starting pitcher.  If this was the case, picking up Cain would make sense, and I spent nearly every day in February checking the headlines for the next big name to don a Brewer uniform.  A trade never transpired, leaving the Brew Crew with a gluttony of outfielders and a dearth of starting pitching.  I’m sure Stearns tried, but to me, picking up Cain should only have been done if the next trade was already in the pocket.  If not, the money would have been better-spent on pitching.

And it isn’t as if pitching couldn’t have been found for a reasonable cost. Yes, the likes of Arrieta or Darvish may have been too rich for a small-market team, but Minnesota snagged Jake Odorizzi from the Tampa Bay Rays for a minor-league infielder.  Surely, the Brewers could have managed something along those lines.

Instead, the rotation is set – sort of – with Zach Davies, Chase Anderson, Jhoulys Chacin and Brent Suter, with Jimmy Nelson expected to return sometime midway through the year.  Wade Miley, who starts the season on the disabled list, is a potential fifth before Nelson returns, but either way, this is likely not a rotation that’s going to beat the Cubs or even the Cardinals. 

The Brewers are going to hit and hit well, but players are going to need to have career years if the Crew expects to be in the hunt for a playoff spot.  My guess is that before it’s all said and done, a deal will be made for pitching, but this can only happen if the Brewers play well enough during the first half to make a mid-season trade viable.  Can they hang in there long enough?  If they do, how much more will they have to trade for a mid-season pitching rental than they would have for an off-season pitcher with a few years left on his contract?

Stearns has received accolades for many of his personnel moves since joining the Brewers in 2015, but he isn’t above making dumb decisions – perhaps not Doug Melvin dumb, but dumb all the same, most notably cutting second baseman Scooter Gennett last spring, who went on to tear up the league for Cincinnati, and trading first-baseman Garrett Cooper to the Yankees for Tyler Webb, who lasted all of two outings before being sent down to the minors.  Unless Stearns finds a way to get some needed pitching, the signing of Cain may be added to the list.

In the meantime, my prediction: a disappointing 84 wins for the Crew this year, several games back from the wild card hunt.

I’ll still be there on opening day and hoping that come October I look like a fool.

Recap of the Brewers' 2016 Season

That the Milwaukee Brewers managed to win 73 games in 2016, a full five games ahead of their disastrous 2015 season, is nothing short of miraculous when considering that the team they fielded consisted of so many players with little to no major league experience. Add to that the mid-season trades of four of their more productive players – Aaron Hill, Jeremy Jeffress, Will Smith and their all-star catcher, Jonathon Lucroy (all of whom played for teams that made the playoffs this year; more on that in a moment) – and it’s amazing that the team was able to finish as strongly as they did. At the July 31 trade deadline, the Crew was 47-56, on track to win 74 games.  They finished just one game short of that pace during the remaining two months of the season despite fielding a team made up of players who had just spent time in the minors.  Hell, they even took care of the Cubs and Pirates during September. Pretty incredible.

Front and center of the team’s return to somewhat respectability is Hernan Perez, a jack of all trades defensive player who since coming from Detroit a year ago has shown that he belongs in the Major Leagues. Jonathon Villar isn’t far behind. He strikes out a lot, but the guy was one home run away from the coveted 20-60 clubs of 20 home runs and 60 stolen bases, finishing with 19 and 62, respectively. Not too shabby. Strong finishes of Keon Broxton, Domingo Santana and rookie Orlando Arcia, plus a return-to-form season for Ryan Braun – a few nagging injuries and regular off days aside – helped the Brewers hold their own for the most part, even down the stretch. Second baseman Scooter Gennett also proved himself as a capable starter by figuring out how to hit left-handed pitching. His status as an unmovable infielder may make him a short-term contributor to the team as it positions itself for the future, but Gennett has clearly proved himself as a legitimate starter or platoon player somewhere, if not Milwaukee. Chris Carter, who amazingly finished tied for first in the National League in home runs, also led the league in strike outs and batted .222 with only a .321 on-base percentage. A contributor, for sure, but not exactly the first baseman the Crew has been longing for since Prince Fielder’s departure five years ago. If the Crew hopes to compete in a year or two, an upgrade at first base may be needed.

On the pitching side, manager Craig Counsell was able to piece together just enough starting pitching to hang in there until the sixth inning, when he could hand the reigns to a fairly solid relief core that was initially hampered by a bizarre injury to Will Smith but bolstered by performances from Tyler Thornburg, Carlos Torres, and Jeremy Jeffress. Starter Zach Davies proved once again that he’s a force to be reckoned with, and the big surprise of the year goes to starter Junior Guerra, who at age 31 had rookie-of-the-year type numbers before exiting due to injury. I had hoped the Brewers would trade him at the end of July when he was hot, but who knows – the guy could end up being a contributor for years to come.

As a Brewer fan, watching former Milwaukee players enjoy amazing seasons and careers is a constant source of frustration. Last year's Brewers shortstop Jean Segura had a terrific year for Arizona – leading the league in hits and batting .319 – and left fielder Khris Davis finished with 41 home runs for Oakland (along with a piss-poor OBP).  Carlos Gomez finished strong with the Rangers, and don’t get me started on the former Brewers who’ve played with the Royals the past four or five seasons, plus JJ Hardy is still having a great career with Baltimore, etc.  It begs the question: is there something wrong with the Brewers’ coaching staff that can’t get the best out of their players while they’re in a Milwaukee uniform? Add up all the former Brewers in MLB, and you’ve got yourself a pretty damn good team. Of course, being among the smallest two markets in baseball, Milwaukee can’t afford to keep most players around too long, but lately general managers Doug Melvin (until last year) and now David Stearns have been dishing players off before they’re even arbitration eligible, much less free agents. Probably not a formula that can continue for too long if the team hopes to compete in the near future, and one has to wonder if the Brewers could have actually competed this year had they kept onto some of their core players. Perhaps not, and perhaps in a few years fans will reap the benefits of rebuilding, but the organization is going to have to find a way to tap into the talent of players while they’re in Milwaukee instead of seeing glimpses of talent that end up maturing elsewhere.

Still, as a fan, it was a fun season to watch, in that I had absolutely no expectation for this team. Watching young guys compete can be a satisfying endeavor even when the end results aren’t perfect. The Brewers could manage to get back to a .500 team next year and perhaps manage a winning season in 2018, but it’s going to be a tough road. We’ll see if the Cubs continue their hapless ways in the playoffs this year, but make no mistake – they are going to be good for a long, long time, and with a one-game wildcard playoff (which I hate), it may be a long while before the Brewers actually get to play a legitimate playoff series again. GM Stearns may be ahead of where many of us expected the Crew to be at this point, but he and the team still have a long way to go.

Either way, I’ll be watching and likely losing more hair in the process.

The Ryan Braun Debacle on 89.7 WUWM

My essay on Ryan Braun aired on Milwaukee's NPR station, 89.7 WUWM, on September 11th.  

The Ryan Braun Debacle

As a lifetime Brewer fan and – until recently – a defender of Ryan Braun’s (yes, I was taken in by the ferocity of his public statement in February of 2012 .  Call me an idiot, or, in the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “What a gull-a-bull.  What a nin-cow-poop.”), I feel compelled to comment on the unfortunate situation the smallest metropolitan market in Major League Baseball now has to endure.

In early 2004, after Paul Molitor was elected to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame, and as the Brewers were limping along to win about 67 games a season, a friend of mine wrote: “THE BREWERS WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN 2 PLAYERS IN THE BASEBALL HALL OF FAME! EVER! THAT SUCKS!”  And it was hard to argue with this sentiment.  The Crew as a franchise was pathetic.  They hadn’t finished above .500 since 1992, the year after which – by the way – the let said future hall-of-famer Molitor flee to the Blue Jays by offering him – get this – a pay cut of $900,000 (in pure stupidity, Sal Bando’s legacy in Milwaukee exceeds that of even Ernie Grunfeld, who let Ray Allen get away from the Bucks in 2003).

In short, there was little reason to be optimistic for baseball in Milwaukee.

And then…

In 2005, a 21 year-old who was blasted in Michael Lewis’s book Moneyball two years earlier, took his first at-bat as a major-leaguer.  Prince Fielder started making waves, and not just on his sizable gut.  This kid could hit.  Two years later, Ryan Braun entered the picture, and suddenly, the idea of the Brewers having a winning season and – dare we jump the gun just a bit too quickly – a future hall-of-famer – didn’t seem so farfetched.

Fielder played six spectacular seasons for the Brewers and – baring a complete collapse of his skills – is a shoo-in at Cooperstown.  But if that day ever comes, he’ll likely go in as a Tiger, not as a Brewer.  Oh well.  It was still fun while it lasted (and honestly, the Brewers may have the last laugh when the Tigers pay a 36 year-old Fielder $24 million in 2020).   Fielder helped propel the Brewers into the playoffs in 2008 and 2011, and though he rejected a long-term contract with Milwaukee, fans can look back on his stint with fondness.

Braun did something no one expected.  He decided to be The Man, the franchise players on a small-market team, taking less money than he could make elsewhere.  In 2011 he signed a five-year extension on his contract, keeping him in Milwaukee through the 2020 season.  It was a dream come true for Brewer fans.  Finally, FINALLY, someone decided to take the high road.  After enduring a host of other players rejecting long-term offers from the Crew, Milwaukee fans found someone who actually chose to stay with the Brewers.  Sure, he’d make a little less money than he would with the Yankees or the Red Sox, but he’d be the biggest guy in town – something impossible on a large-market team.  He’d open a few restaurants with another franchise player from a small-market team, Aaron Rogers, and life would be great.

Which is why the recent scandal is so monstrously unfair.  Finally a small market team reels in the perfect player with the perfect contract, only to find out that they were sold a bill of goods.  In 2011, just eighteen games into the season, Braun said, "I truly believe I can get much better as a player.  These first 18 games are probably the best baseball I've played in my career and I really believe that's a sign of things to come."

Well, sure.  He was cheating!  Of course it was a sign of things to come.  Why contracts don’t have a clause that immediately makes them null and void if a player gets suspended is mind-boggling to me.  But there you have it.  Now the Brewers are stuck with a pathetic human being, and – very possibly – a mediocre ball-player for the next seven seasons, an eternity in baseball.  The Brewers will have to pay Braun a total of $117 million.  This for a team whose total payroll in 2012 was $88 million.

What’s worse is that Milwaukee fans, who’ve had so little to celebrate these past thirty years, will no longer be able to look back on 2011 with any pride.  The Brewers’ first division title in 29 years was a lie.  The Brewers’ first MVP in 29 years was a lie.  Braun hit .500 in the NLDS.  If I were a Diamondback fan, I’d be fuming (Arizona manager Kirk Gibson is, and I don’t blame him).

Of course, Matt Kemp has a few reasons to be ticked off as well, having lost the MVP ballot to a cheater.

And not just a cheater, but a liar.  A man willing to hurt other people’s reputations to further his own career.  No one is perfect, but not everyone stoops to such inordinate lows as Braun has.  And to play the Jew Card – accussing urine-collector Dino Laurenzi Jr of anti-Semitism (if the report is true) – is lower than the depths of any athlete I can think of, including A-Rod. 

New York fans may be used to this sort of thing, but Milwaukee fans won’t be quick to forgive.  Many may not even return to Miller Park until Braun is gone.  If there’s a team willing to take on $117 million of tarnished goods, I’m sure Brewer GM Doug Melvin is all ears.  Perhaps Braun can take part in this year’s High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.  After all, he won’t be playing baseball, so he has no excuse not to participate in beginning the long, hard, arduous journey of contrition and, ultimately – if he’s very lucky – redemption.