Some things to read while opening your mail.
The Milwaukee Brewers needed one win in their three-game series against the last-place Chicago Cubs over the weekend to clinch the 15th winning season in their 46-year franchise history, and that’s exactly what they got. After a win on Saturday brought their season total up to 82, they closed the season with a 5-2 loss Sunday. Noah Jarosh of Brew Crew Ball has a recap, if you missed it. Milwaukee ended up as this season’s only National League club to own a winning record and miss the playoffs.
Sunday’s game was likely to be the final Brewers appearance for several players, but one longtime member of the organization made his final Miller Park appearance on Saturday. Rickie Weeks didn’t get into the season finale, and Ron Roenicke said Weeks declined to play on his final day with the organization he’s been with for the last 12 seasons. If this is it for Weeks, his final Brewers plate appearance will have been his single in the eighth inning on Saturday. Nathan Petrashek of Cream City Cables took a moment on Saturday to appreciate Weeks’ contributions to the team over the years.
Jonathan Lucroy made the most of this weekend’s opportunities, however. His double on Saturday broke the MLB record for two-baggers in a season as a catcher and tied the Brewers overall franchise record, Then on Sunday, he got hits in each of his final two at-bats to finish the season batting over .300. Lucroy is the first Brewers catcher to qualify for the batting title and post an average better than .300 since Ted Simmons in 1983.
Mike Fiers finished his season with something of a down start by his standards, allowing four runs (three earned) on six hits over six innings. Fiers finished the season with a 2.14 ERA in 14 MLB appearances, and Ryan Romano of Beyond the Box Score has a look at how Fiers’ position on the pitching rubber may have helped him rebound from a tough 2013 season.
Other notes from the field:
- Will Smith pitched a scoreless eighth inning in his 78th appearance of the season, which tied him for the NL lead in that category (h/t @AndrewGruman). He’s the first Brewer to lead his league in appearances since Chuck Crim in 1989 (@joe_block).
- Aramis Ramirez went 0-for-2 on Sunday before being lifted for a defensive replacement in what might have been his final game as a Brewer. If this is it, Ramirez will finish with 398 hits as a Brewer, the 48th-most in franchise history. He’s five behind Casey McGehee and three ahead of Jose Hernandez.
- Logan Schafer started in center field in place of Carlos Gomez on Sunday and will be the last Brewer ever to wear jersey No. 1, The Brewers are retiring the number in 2015 in honor of longtime former owner and MLB commissioner Bud Selig.
- Despite a season finale that went head-to-head with a Packers/Bears game, the Brewers drew 33,837 fans to Miller Park on Sunday. For the season, 2,797,384 fans paid to see games in Milwaukee, the seventh-highest total in franchise history and in excess of 250,000 more than 2013.
- Looking back a day, Wily Peralta set a new career-best and tied the Brewers’ season high with 13 strikeouts on Saturday. It was only the 12th 13-K game in franchise history.
- Jonathan Lucroy was honored on Friday as the Brewers’ “We Energies High-Energy Player of the Year.”
- The Bratwurst, Polish and Chorizo won this weekend’s Sausage Races, in that order.
With the 2014 season in the books, the process of building the 2015 team begins today. The only thing that appears certain at this point is that general manager Doug Melvin will be back, but he and Mark Attanasio are performing an “extensive review” of the remainder of the organization. Attanasio talked with the media on Saturday expressed his disappointment with the team.
It remains to be seen how much of the blame for this team’s collapse will fall on the shoulders of Ron Roenicke, who went into Sunday’s game not knowing whether he’d be retained for 2015. Before the game, he told reporters, “I did the best that I thought I could do.” Mike Bauman of MLB.com says the Brewers’ struggles weren’t Roenicke’s fault, but he may take the blame for them.
We’re already mentioned that free-agent-to-be Rickie Weeks likely will not be back, but at least one potential free agent appears to be staying in the fold: Over the weekend, news broke that the Brewers are planning to exercise the club option in Yovani Gallardo’s contract and bring him back for 2015. Gallardo will make $13 million next season if the option is exercised, and the Brewers would have to pay $600,000 to buy him out. He set a career-low with 6.8 strikeouts per nine innings this season but had his lowest walk rate (2.5 per nine innings) and ERA (3.51).
Ryan Braun will also be back, and for the first time in a while, we have somewhat optimistic news regarding the thumb issue that has limited his production for the last two seasons. Braun will have a surgical procedure on Thursday to “deaden the pain receptors” around a nerve at the base of the thumb, and he’ll be the first baseball player to undergo this treatment.
Meanwhile, another Brewers surgery is drawing significantly less attention: Reliever Brandon Kintzler will have knee surgery on Tuesday to correct an issue in his patella that’s been bothering him for two years (h/t @Todd_Rosiak). Kintzler finished the season with a 3.24 ERA over 64 appearances despite striking out just 4.8 batters per nine innings.
The future is much more uncertain for Francisco Rodriguez, who finished the season just shy of a franchise record with 44 saves after pitching a scoreless ninth inning on Saturday. Rodriguez earned just $3.25 million plus incentives this season but will likely get much more as a free agent this winter. He talked to Todd Rosiak of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about his strong season and what happens next.
In the end, the Brewers’ 82-80 record isn’t really much different from what a lot of local and national pundits predicted before the season, but their dramatic rise and fall certainly makes things feel worse. Jordan Mader of Brew Crew Ball argues that the 2014 team was an inverted version of their 2012 counterpart, which played its way out of contention early but climbed back into the picture down the stretch.
In the minors:
- Brad Krause of Miller Park Prospects has a review of the Huntsville Stars’ 2014 season. The Stars rode a hot start to a Southern League playoff appearance behind first baseman Nick Ramirez and pitchers Drew Gagnon, David Goforth and Brent Suter.
- The 2015 MLB Draft order was finalized after the results of Sunday’s games, and the Brewers will have the No. 17 overall pick next June. The pick is not protected, however, so they could lose it if they sign a top free agent.
I believe we’ve reached the final week of power rankings in 2014:
- Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times has the Brewers finishing the season as baseball’s 15th-best team, down three spots from last week.
- Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the Brewers as the National League’s sixth-best team.
Around baseball:
Blue Jays: Claimed pitcher Cory Burns off waivers from the Rays.
Diamondbacks: Fired manager Kirk Gibson and bench coach Alan Trammell.
Marlins: Signed manager Mike Redmond to a contract extension.
Mets: Outfielder Bobby Abreu announced his retirement.
Orioles: Designated pitcher Preston Guilmet for assignment.
Pirates: Pitcher Charlie Morton is out for the playoffs and will likely miss Opening Day 2015 after having labrum surgery on his hip.
Reds: Signed general manager Walt Jocketty to a multiyear contract extension.
Rockies: Claimed pitcher Chris Rusin off waivers from the Cubs.
Let’s go around the NL Central:
- The Pirates came into the season’s final day with a chance to finish tied for first in the NL Central, but lost 4-1 to the Reds on Sunday and will have to settle for a Wild Card. Johnny Cueto picked up the victory for Cincinnati and is the first Reds pitcher with 20 wins since 1988.
- In the end, the Pirates loss wouldn’t have mattered, though, as the Cardinals beat the Diamondbacks 1-0 anyway. With a division title clinched, the Cardinals opted to rest Adam Wainwright and started rookie Nick Greenwood, who pitched three shutout innings.
- The Cubs, as you likely know, finished off a series win and the season with a 5-2 victory over the Brewers.
| Team | W | L | GB |
| Cardinals | 90 | 72 | — |
| Pirates | 88 | 74 | 2 |
| Brewers | 82 | 80 | 8 |
| Reds | 76 | 86 | 14 |
| Cubs | 73 | 89 | 17 |
Mark Townsend of Big League Stew has a look at how the Cardinals won the division, and includes the Brewers’ collapse as a contributing factor.
Before Sunday’s games, it was possible MLB could have needed as many as three tiebreaker games today, but all three potential situations were resolved following the day’s action. Instead, the postseason will kick off on Tuesday when the A’s travel to Kansas City to take on the Royals in the American League Wild Card game.
Before this season, the Royals had not been to the postseason since 1985, a streak of nearly 30 seasons. The longest active playoff drought now belongs to the Blue Jays, who haven’t played a postseason game since winning the World Series in 1993.
It remains to be seen if a reliever from the Royals or one of baseball’s nine other remaining contenders can burst onto the scene and become a household name over the next month. Paul Swydan of FanGraphs remembers when Francisco Rodriguez did that as a member of the Angels in 2002.
The Brewers may undergo some significant coaching and/or personnel changes this winter, but they’d have to fall a long way to be comparable to the mess the Rockies have become. They lost on Sunday to finish the season at 66-96, and several players have spoken out to the media about the organization’s poor authority structure.
Today in former Brewers:
- Pat Listach is one of several candidates expected to interview for the Astros’ managerial vacancy. Listach served as Houston’s third-base coach in 2014 and has worked on major league coaching staffs with the Cubs and Nationals.
- LaTroy Hawkins made the 1,000th pitching appearance of his career on Saturday, becoming just the 16th pitcher in MLB history to reach that mark. The Brewers are one of 10 organizations Hawkins played for en route to the milestone.
- Patrick Green of Call to the Pen has a look at how Norichika Aoki has turned his first season in Kansas City from a disappointment to a success with a hot September.
- Dave Nilsson, Greg Vaughn and a vast collection of others made the second half of Lee Sinins of Gammons Daily’s list of letter-by-letter home run leaders.
- Michael Trzinski of Reviewing the Brew is listing the 1985 El Paso Diablos as the sixth-best farm team in Brewers’ franchise history. That squad featured pitchers Chris Bosio, Dan Plesac and Juan Nieves.
Finally, with help from the Baseball Reference Play Index, we’d like to wish a happy birthday today to:
- Tyler Thornburg, who turns 26.
- 1997 Brewer Eddy Diaz, who turns 43.
- 1998 Brewer Joe Hudson, who turns 44.
- 1986-90 Brewer Rob Deer, who turns 54.
- 2009-10 Brewers manager Ken Macha, who turns 64.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to make sure everyone got it.
Drink up.
Don’t forget to follow Kyle on Twitter @BrewFrostyMug, and check out and “like” the Mug’s Facebook page. The Frosty Mug runs mornings Monday-Friday and is brought to you by Legends of the Field, a sports memorabilia company you can trust.
