If you believe most of the national punditry, the Milwaukee Brewers should stick their season where the sun don’t shine. You know, someplace like Chicago.
I’ve seen the Brewers picked anywhere from second to fifth in the National League Central, but never first. These schmoes think the Brewers are worse than all but four teams in baseball. Word is they liked Dennis Rodman to win “Celebrity Apprentice,” too.
The lack of faith in Milwaukee is, well, predictable. Silly and unfounded, but predictable. Because since when has Milwaukee been respected for anything in baseball? Besides the Klement’s Sausage Race, of course.
Here’s the logic behind the most recent lack of respect. The Brewers lost pitchers CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets in the offseason, so they must stink. That’s it. That’s the whole argument. Never mind that last season’s Brewers were a playoff contender well before they traded for Sabathia, and they didn’t have Sheets down the stretch.
If the Brewers are gonna stink, you have to dig deeper than that. In fact, I can give you three reasons why the Brewers might stink. And I can give you three more reasons why they’ll make the playoffs. Baseball’s funny like that.
So let’s get to it.
Three reasons the Brewers won’t make the playoffs.
The competition’s too good: There are four consensus playoff teams in the National League, and the Brewers are not one of them. Everybody thinks the Cubs will win the Central going away. Everybody thinks the Dodgers will win the West. And everybody thinks the Mets and Phillies will make the playoffs, one of them by winning the East and the other by winning the Wild Card. There’s a lot to like about those teams, which is why everyone is picking them. The Cubs may have bullpen issues, but they’re loaded with starting pitching and their offense is solid. The Dodgers are the best of baseball’s worst division. The Mets appear to have addressed their Achilles heel of a bullpen by acquiring closer Francisco Cordero and setup man J.J. Putz. The Phillies are just the defending World Series champs. If there was a second Wild Card spot, you might hear the Brewers in the national conversation. And if Sabathia liked beer better than money, he’d still be in Milwaukee.
The bullpen’s too bad: Life is full of mysteries. What’s at the end of a rainbow? How does Joe Morgan still have a job? When will the Brewers ever have a reliable bullpen? Once again, Milwaukee’s relief corps is an easy target for Brewers naysayers. They’ll argue that Trevor Hoffman is too old – and now injured, to boot. They’ll claim that neither Carlos Villanueva nor Seth McClung is ready to step up in Hoffman’s absence. And they may very well be right.
Braun’s ribs will get barbecued: When your local baseball writers become medical experts on intercostal strains, it’s bad news for everyone. Especially when the intercostal in question belongs to the best hitter on your team. Nobody’s intercostal is more integral to Milwaukee’s playoff hopes than Ryan Braun’s. Take Braun out of the lineup for any extended length of time and you’re completely exposed. He makes everybody around him better. Baseball Reference has a neat tool that lets you compare the production of players at similar ages. Braun gets compared to Ralph Kiner and Babe Ruth. Milwaukee simply can’t afford to lose him, but if those rib muscles don’t heal, the Brewers may face that very fate.
Now for the bright side of life.
Three reasons the Brewers will make the playoffs.
They’re under new management: Conventional wisdom says that a good manager will win five games for you, while a bad manager will lose five. So if you buy the notion that Ken Macha is good and Ned Yost was not, you’re looking at a 10-game swing. Does that mean the Brewers win 100 games this year? Of course not. But it does give them some cushion to absorb the loss of CC Sabathia and Ben Sheets. And don’t underestimate the addition of a coach like Willie Randolph. The former All-Star second baseman just might be the man who unlocks the enigma that is Rickie Weeks.
They’ll be offensive: Two National League teams – the Cubs and Florida – hit more home runs than Milwaukee in 2008. Three teams had more total bases than the Brewers – the Cubs, Cardinals and Phillies. You can nitpick parts of this lineup – too many strikeouts, too low of a batting average – but as a whole, it’s one of the best in baseball. Nobody has a one-two power punch that’s better than Braun and Fielder. Corey Hart and J.J. Hardy are two of the most underrated players at their positions. If Rickie Weeks finally breaks out and if Bill Hall is rejuvenated by his lasik surgery (and the spring training reports on both are good), then you’re looking at an offensive juggernaut.
This Busharrallardo guy can pitch: That’s Dave Bush, Manny Parra and Yovani Gallardo. The talk has been all about what the Brewers lost on the pitching mound. No argument. But let’s not forget what they have. Gallardo, Parra and Bush are good, plain and simple. This is not cockeyed optimism. The numbers bear it out.
Gallardo is one of the best young pitchers in all of baseball. Name five other pitchers under age 25 that you’d rather have. Tim Lincecum. Sure. Chad Billingsley or Felix Hernandez or Joba Chamberlain? Perhaps. Matt Cain? No. Last year’s freak knee injury made people forget how good Gallardo’s been in his debut 134 innings. A 3.35 ERA, a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And opposing hitters muster only a .246 batting average against him.
Manny Parra? He’s looking at a 16-win season in 2008 if Milwaukee’s bullpen doesn’t blow six saves for him. If he cuts down on the walks, his 4.31 career ERA will drop significantly. And while Bush has been bashed at times during his Milwaukee tenure, I think he turned a corner last year. In August and September, he was 4-1 with a 3.27 ERA. And he pitched Milwaukee’s first postseason win since Mike Caldwell.
Does Milwaukee have a depth problem when it comes to starting pitchers? Sure. And so does almost every other team in baseball. But Braden Looper is a serviceable No. 4 starter and Jeff Suppan is… well… I hear his hot wings are good.
Of course the Brewers would be better with Sabathia and (a healthy) Sheets on board. But thanks to the quality of their young hurlers, those predictions of a complete pitching meltdown are way off base.
Here are some predictions I hope are a little more accurate.
National League
NL East: Mets. NL Central: Cubs. NL West: Dodgers. NL Wild Card: Brewers. Yes, the Phillies are due for a letdown. And for all the talk of Milwaukee’s pitching problems, Philly’s rotation is in worse shape. It’s Cole Hamels’ bad elbow and… and… Bueller, Bueller, Bueller? Brett Myers is a home run waiting to happen. Joe Blanton is a below-average Joe. Jamie Moyer is 98 years old, so his fountain of youth must be close to empty. And Chan Ho Park is Korean for long gone.
American League
AL East: Red Sox. AL Central: Twins. AL West: Angels. AL Wild Card: Rays. What, no Yankees? Correct. This team is moldier than a dorm room fridge. For all the fanfare in signing Sabathia and Burnett, it’s still the third-best pitching rotation in the AL East, even if Burnett stays health (which is a big if). And so many key players are battling age, injuries or both. A-Rod, Jeter, Posada, Matsui, Rivera, Damon. Too many question marks. I think the Yankees would win almost any other division. But this year, again, they’re in the wrong division. Now they know how all those other teams feel.
NL Champs: Mets. AL Champs: Red Sox. World Series Champs: Mets. They’ll party like it’s 1986.
Badger impropriety?
Madison TV station WKOW is following the story of a potentially embarrassing incident between a UW-Madison football player and the wife of Badgers Athletic Director Barry Alvarez. WKOW’s initial report alleged that Cindy Alvarez may have improperly gifted a moped to a freshman football player. The school says there was nothing improper about the transaction, that it was a legitimate sale, and eventually produced a canceled check as proof.
So far, a Google search turns up no other media outlet that has followed up on the story, which was originally reported on April 1 (and no, not as an April Fool’s joke). This tells me one of two things. 1) Other outlets have investigated the story themselves and found nothing improper, or 2) other outlets are asleep at the switch. No inside info here, but my gut leans toward option No. 1. News organizations love a good college athletics scandal – witness the recent Connecticut basketball brouhaha and the Florida State academic mess. So I can’t imagine that the local or national media, whose job it is to cover the Badgers and the Big Ten, would ignore the story if it was a legitimate scandal.
Getting an Education, Calipari-style
Want proof of the priorities in college basketball? Just check out the contract Kentucky gave new basketball coach John Calipari. He gets a $50,000 bonus if 75 percent of his players graduate from college. He gets $375,000 if his team wins the NCAA championship.
Everyone who’s surprised by this, raise your hand.
Bueller? Bueller?
But shouldn’t we be a little ashamed of it?
The Jay Cutler Caper
You have to love the hero’s welcome Jay Cutler is getting in Chicago. It should last right up until the point that he screws the Bears like he screwed the Denver Broncos.
Now that the trade is done, and Peter King gives a great behind-the-scenes look at it, Green Bay Packers fans have to pay attention. Sure, Cutler’s a spoiled and impetuous brat, but the Bears are simply a better team than they were a week ago. If they can add a receiver or two, they’ll become legitimate Super Bowl contenders. But that’s easier said than done.
At the very least, Bears-Packers games just got a lot more compelling. As if they needed any help. The good news is that Aaron Rodgers vs. Jay Cutler, as detailed by Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports, should be a whole lot of fun.
The better news is that everyone might finally stop talking about Brett Favre.
How does Tim repay the help he got after losing his underwear? Find out in the latest Training with Tim, our weekly fitness column.
Tune in every Tuesday morning during the 6 o’clock hour when I join Doug Russell and Mike Wickett on SportsRadio 1250 AM for Tuesdays with Howie. You can also find the segments in their Audio Vault. And I’ll be on WUWM’s “Lake Effect” Friday at 10 a.m. and again at 11 p.m.
