Zack Greinke signed a six-year, $206 million contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks last week and put to rest my irrational sports dream that he would return to Milwaukee for a triumphant vengeance tour. I suppose that will have to wait for 2021, when 38-year-old Greinke will undoubtedly team up with suspiciously spry and athletic 37-year-old […]
Tag: Commentary
Rooting for Ryan Braun and What It Means to be a Fan
Brewers fans have a complicated relationship with Ryan Braun. The team has been stationed in Milwaukee since 1970, but they’ve really only been good for an extended period of time twice: the Robin Yount/Paul Molitor years and the Braun/Fielder teams of recent memory. And given that Molitor and Yount last played together during the 1992 […]
Insight into the Brewers’ Upcoming Trade Strategy
As a team that does not expect to compete in 2016, the Milwaukee Brewers shouldn’t be tied to any single player who isn’t a sho0-in to be an integral part of the organization’s next playoff team, a category which is basically limited to youngish superstars and high-quality prospects. The Brewers are light on superstars, but — […]
Why Hasn’t Jonathan Lucroy Been Traded?
If the Brewers are indeed open to trading him, Jonathan Lucroy could be one of the hottest commodities available on the trade market. Given the fact that very few attractive options on the free-agent market at catcher existed at the beginning of the offseason, it has become even more barren with Matt Wieters acceptance of his qualifying offer […]
The Worst Decision In Brewers History
The worst decision in Milwaukee Brewers franchise history, to me, is obvious. It wasn’t any of the team’s myriad poor draft choices or trades or free-agent contracts. No, it wasn’t a baseball move at all. It was the ill-fated decision to ditch one of the greatest logo designs in sports history in 1994, the demise […]
What Will the 2016 Brewers’ Bullpen Look Like?
The recent trade of Francisco Rodriguez means that the 2016 bullpen will look significantly different from the 2015 one. There will obviously be a new closer, but that specific title is less important than the specific leverage roles that each player will fill. Rodriguez was not just the Brewers’ closer; he was also one of […]
Jonathan Lucroy And Catcher Concussions
On September 8th, Jonathan Lucroy took a foul ball of the mask, which resulted in him suffering a concussion. In addition, Lucroy had one of the worst seasons of his career. He not only had problems with his catcher framing, but he also only managed to achieve a .254 TAv — something which hadn’t been […]
The Search for a New Core: Lessons from Previous 90-Loss Teams, Part III
We return for Part III of Lessons From Previous 90-Loss Brewer Teams. For a quick refresher, I am trying to use this portion of the offseason to look back at previous Milwaukee Brewers teams which lost at least 90 games, in order to see if there are any lessons from those past failures that can help […]
The Weird Timing of the K-Rod Trade
This past Wednesday, David Stearns continued to pour gasoline on the hot stove by trading the Milwaukee Brewers’ closer, Francisco Rodriguez. In general, a lot of things go into a trade. All potential trade partners have to be explored, the loss of that particular player has to be justified by the return for both parties, one […]
Milwaukee’s Struggles with Run Prevention
Baseball statistics can be broken up into two general categories: run scoring and run prevention. The Brewers’ run prevention has traditionally not been their strong suit. Even when the team was consistently good, they tended to win games by bludgeoning teams. This year, that trend continued, as they finished 24th in runs allowed as a […]