Kyle Lohse: Enigma

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Few Brewers players have caused more fans to be so torn as Kyle Lohse has. Sure, he hasn’t been as divisive as Ryan Braun or Bob Terwell, that old bag of gummy worms, but Lohse has been a paradox, no less.

From the get-go, Lohse produced bipolar reactions. Many fans loathed the signing, seeing Lohse as little more than another Cardinal pitcher, destined to fail once he stepped out of the glowing aura that is/was the St. Louis Cardinals and Dave Duncan. Those fans cited his age, his lackluster career stats, and the fact that he once wore the same jersey as Jeff Suppan and Braden Looper. And then there were fans like myself that were legitimately excited by the signing. I cited his increased use of a 2-seamer as a turning point in his career, and a reason to throw out his career stats. Sure, he was old by baseball terms, but he had shown no signs of decline, and he didn’t rely on overpowering stuff. I also noted that his ground ball tendencies would make the transition from pitcher-friendly St. Louis to homer-friendly Miller Park much easier.

One of the bigger concerns with the signing was that it signaled that Mark Attanasio was not ready to rebuild, and that he thought the Brewers had enough talent to ‘go for it’. This was probably the most valid concern, but I countered by noting that if he pitches well, he can be flipped for prospects a year or two down the road, making this signing a potential contribution to the rebuild.

I was wrong. It sucks.

It sucks because I was right, really damn right, but I was so damn wrong at the same time.

He could have been traded at the deadline in ’13. Braun had been suspended, and the season was clearly going nowhere, but keeping him then was more than reasonable. He still had 2 years left on his contract. There would be plenty of time to maximize his return in a trade.

He should have been traded at before the ’14 season. The team looked mediocre at best on paper, and Lohse had just completed the three best consecutive years of his career.

At the deadline in ’14, the Brewers looked all but certain to make the playoffs, so they held onto him. That’s all well and good, but after the September collapse, Doug Melvin and Mark Attanasio had 5 months to trade him, but they sat on their hands, juggled their ball-bags, and sold their fans another line of ‘we think we can compete’ garbage.

Kyle Lohse was a valuable trade asset for two years, but now all the Brewers have to show for it is a 74-win season, an 82-win season, $7 million dollars of deferred money, and a video of Lohse playing Golden Tee against a Juggalo.

The worst part of it all is how familiar it feels. The Brewers have managed to effectively turn themselves into the Milwaukee Bucks of the 00’s, doing just enough to get by, without really doing anything of actual significance.

For years, Doug Melvin and Mark Attanasio couldn’t decide whether they wanted to rebuild or retool. They tried to do both, and honestly, it looked like it was possible. Nay, it was possible. Except, when the timing was right, they lost focus, fell asleep at the wheel, and drove the bus into a field of quicksand. Now, just like the post-Allen Bucks, this team is in danger of being stuck in perpetual mediocrity. Unfortunately for the Brewers, there aren’t 16 playoff spots in baseball.

It’s impossible not to place blame on Doug Melvin, but at the same time, I can’t help but believe he’s smarter than that. I can’t help but believe that Melvin knew exactly when certain windows closed, but he was also smart enough to realize who the real boss was. Lohse playing well meant the Brewers were playing well, and Mark and Doug were too skittish to press the button. Now that Lohse is bleeding out, so are the Brewers. It’s obvious that the window has closed, and a Lohse trade couldn’t even bring back a toxic wasteland. The opportunity has come and gone.

Once a deity in the city of Milwaukee, Mark Attanasio is quickly turning into a modern-day version of Herb Kohl. It’s a business, after all, and winning today helps the bottom line. That may be true, but the Bucks have shown us that only kind of/sort of winning gets old fast. Eventually, only winning half of the time starts to hurt the bottom line. The fans stop showing up, and you have no current assets to flip for future assets. Now, Bucks fans are left with two new meddling owners left fighting for the Bucks’ life and trying to sell the city on a new arena, and a half-billion dollar Park East development that will never really come to fruition.

Luckily for the Brewers, Lohse’s window was not the last window to close. Milwaukee has two current assets that could command monster returns in a trade. Bringing on Lind and Parra (and actually using them correctly) was a coup for Melvin, but their trade values have moderate-to-low ceilings. Gomez and Lucroy, however, are two of the best players in baseball. They are each in their prime, and both are currently signed to some of the most team-friendly contracts in the game. As much as it hurts to say, these two fan-favorites will be well into their decline by the time the Brewers are competitive again.

There’s money to spend next year in free agency. Mark can still put a 74-82-win team together without Gomez and Lucroy. Those guys may have seemed like franchise players, but fans will still pay to see different players win 45% of the time. The team can still be respectable, and let’s be real, summer, tailgating, and beer sell a lot more tickets in Milwaukee than the players do. At least this way there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

And that’s the bottom line.

Brewers Reportedly “Very Interested” in Jake Peavy

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 Reports have been coming out recently saying that the Brewers are very interested in Jake Peavy.

Doug Melvin likes to keep things close to the denim vest, so it’s unusual to hear adverbs like, “very” describing the Brewers interest in a trade target. I honestly can’t remember the last time that Brewers had their interest in a player reported before they traded for him. Maybe Nyjer Morgan, but Melvin immediately refuted that report, only to trade for him a day later. Sabathia and Greinke were out of the blue. It’s just not in this FO’s nature to have reports like this leak.

So, like I said about reports that Rob Gronkowski could be ready to play in Week 1, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Sure, it’s possible that this report is coming from the Red Sox side of things. If that’s the case, then it’s definitely not to be believed. Perhaps Doug made a call to the Sox to ask about his availablity, but Melvin just doesn’t seem to be the type to express that he’s VERY interested in a player. Plus, the Sox have every reason to try to drum up competition for Peavy’s services.

At first glance, a trade for Peavy doesn’t seem to make much sense. The rotation is full. Nelson will replace Estrada on Saturday, and even if there’s an injury, Estrada can slot back in with similar results to what we’d expect from Peavy.

There are a few ways I could see this trade make sense, though. First of all, Peavy could be an intriguing buy-low candidate. Boston isn’t an easy place to pitch by any means. When he goes on the road, it doesn’t get any easier, with Toronto, Baltimore, and New York’s hitter-friendly parks all in the division. Perhaps the team thinks that playing in the AL East is obscuring his stats a bit. His peripheral stats don’t seem to support that, as his K:9 is taking a nose dive, and his BB:9 is exploding. But hey, Maybe the Brewers have identified a mechanical flaw or think he’s simply pitching scared and avoiding the strike zone because of the parks he’s playing in. Admittedly, that latter possibility is a big stretch.

What would make a bit more sense is if the team is looking for Peavy to provide bullpen help. Peavy’s average fastball velocity is now just 89.7 mph according to Fangraph’s Pitchf/x data. For reference, it was 93.9 mph in his rookie year. The pitch has lost its effectiveness, but a move to the bullpen could result in an uptick in throwing speed. Peavy’s always been tough on right-handed batters (not so much this year), so maybe they see him as a potential ROOGY in a lefty-heavy pen. If he pitches well out of the pen, maybe he could be a potential rotation candidate down the road. Jimmy Nelson is going to be pitching more innings than ever before this year, so there’s a distinct possibility that he could wind up being fatigued by September. Peavy could become a short-term option to allow Nelson to rebuild arm-strength before the playoffs, or a fill-in if one of the other starters gets hurt.

Now, let me be clear, I do not support a Peavy trade. I don’t think there’s much upside there, even if the cost is minimal. That said, if the Brewers see something that Peavy’s stats aren’t telling, he could be an intriguing pickup that the Brewers could get creative with.

Slump Got You Down In the Dumps?

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If you’re like me, you’ve seen a lot of people freaking out about this Brewers slump in recent days. You’ve also got long skinny toes that you can use to pick up clothes and stuff. I mean, not food stuff, but just stuff in general that isn’t gross to pick up with your feet. Maybe a dog toy.

I understand the frustration. The team hasn’t been firing on any cylinders. The hitting has been as absent as comedy at a Carrot Top show, the bullpen’s ERA has ballooned quicker than Carrot Top’s biceps, and the starting staff has been… I don’t know, something about Carrot Top and steroids or props or whatever. But then, just when it looked like it couldn’t get any worse, they have one of those gut-wrenching games where their WPA plummets faster than Carrot Top’s career trajectory. A frustrating, late-inning loss really is the icing on the proverbial meat cake here.

With that, I’ll say here what I keep yapping about on Twitter: The sky is not falling.

First of all, although the team’s playing like garbage, they’re still in first place. True-talent-wise, I view this roster as an above average team with very good pitching and average, maybe slightly above-average hitting. The holes are obvious. Their bench is week. They lack left-handed bats. The have a 24-man roster due to Wei-Chung Wang’s continued attendance.

Secondly, the bullpen looks exhausted, but help is on the way. The All-Star break can’t come soon enough. A week or so of rest could do wonders for Will Smith and Brandon Kintzler. Henderson is nearly ready to return, and Thornburg is throwing again. On top of that, the team is likely going to fill any remaining bullpen holes through trades.The important thing is that the main pieces are in place.

The next, and possibly biggest reason not to fret is that they’re healthy. People can’t seem to stop complaining that Jimmy Nelson has yet to take Estrada’s spot in the rotation, and I suppose I can’t say I blame them. You know what, though? At least Nelson didn’t get forced into the rotation because Kyle Lohse needed Tommy John surgery, or something of that sort. The Brewers have made it to the All-Star break (3 games left, knock on wood) with their original starting five still in tact. Offensively, while they’ve had Braun and Gomez miss some time here and there, Aramis Ramirez has had the only truly extended absence.

If we look at our competition in the NL Central, we see some major injuries. The Cards just put Molina on the disabled list for 2-3 months with a thumb injury. Before that, however, they may have suffered an even more important loss in young starter, Michael Wacha. Wacha has a stress reaction in his scapula, that could turn into a stress fracture if the team is not careful. It’s an extremely rare injury by baseball standards, and while he might only miss a few more weeks, it could most definitely become a recurring issue.

Meanwhile, the Reds have just placed Brandon Philips on the disabled list with an injury similar to Yadi’s. More importantly, though, Joey Votto is back on the DL. He was never really fully recovered from his “quad strain,” which is probably more of a tendon issue that he’s going to have to deal with for the rest of his career than a pulled muscle as the name would indicate. The Reds are a still a decent team without Votto, but they are certainly not a legitimate contender.

The Pirates just put Gerrit Cole back on the DL with a strained lat. It’s nothing too serious long-term, but it’s still an injury to their best pitcher. They’re also still the Pirates, which doesn’t help their cause.

I guess what I’m saying is that, while the individual games may be frustrating, it helps to take a step back and look at where the team stands in the grander scheme of things. The obvious answer is “1st place,” but when we dig a little bit deeper, past the carroty top, we find that the state of the Brewers is pretty damn solid right now.

Doug Melvin’s Trade Notes Have Leaked As Well

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Yesterday, we learned that the Astros experienced a security breach in which somebody accessed an internal server and stole notes that Astros executives compiled about trade discussions had with other teams. The notes were published on an anonymous dropbox site called Anonbin (here and here). The Astros claim to have known about the leak for a month, and say that they have contacted the FBI.

This seems like quite a bit of work and risk to go through for such little reward until you realize that in order to breach the Astros security, all you need to do is walk past a sleeping guard dog (literally a Great Dane named Astro), and ask Rosie the Roomba for directions to the “Trade Notes”. She’ll print you out a copy and send you on your way.

Well, today, another MLB team had their notes posted on a site called, DougiLeaks. That team, of course, was the Milwaukee Brewers. Presented below without comment, are some of the highlights of Doug Melvin’s trade notes from January 2013 to May of 2014.

March 15th, 2013: Gord Ash offered me a bite of his fish taco for a bite of my leftover boiled potatoes. Fish tacos are a bit exotic for my tastes. Not a risk I was willing to take.

March 16th, 2013: Really glad I didn’t make that trade yesterday. Hot stoves are perfect for boiling potatoes, but what in the slimy heck are they going to do for a fish taco?

March 20th, 2013: Counsell told me that my secretary called him. I guess Neil Huntington has called each of the last 4 days. I know the guy’s in Florida, but what abomination of a world does this guy live in where he thinks I’m not wartchin’ my team in Arizona?

March 23rd, 2013: Boy, this Wil Myers kid sure can swing a bat. I sure hope Dayton gives me a call when I get back to Milwaukee, because, boy, do I have the deal for him!

April 4th, 2013: Still no call from Huntington. Not sure what he wanted.

May 1st, 2013: Saw Anthopoulos on MLB Network today. Gotta admit, that traitor sounded pretty good… I haven’t talked to him since he told me he doesn’t have a single player seeking to become a permanent citizen. Still haven’t figured out why he thanked me for the Lawrie trade. Gonna have to teach his guys how to recycle when they visit Milwaukee in July.

June 8th, 2013: I think this season’s officially in the laundry hamper. Time to break out the old Calgary flame and heat up that stove.

July 20th, 2013: Duquette called today. He’s looking for some relief help. Says he thinks his Orioles can make it to the playoffs, HA! I had a good laugh at that one. Anyway, he asked about K-Rod, and I told him he was a good kid, the type of guy that will call you from jail. I also told him to pay more attention to time zones and call after lunch next time.

July 21st, 2013: Gord told me that he talked to Danny Duquette today. He says Danny’s not joking about the playoffs thing.

July 22nd, 2013: Took a look at the standings in the Toronto Times, and by I’ll be… I guess Gord was right!

July 23rd, 2013: Well, I’ve officially traded the single-season saves leader. It’s been in the 80’s all week, so maybe we can chalk it up to the heat wave, but he’s gone. There’s no turning back. Not sure how to break the news to Fran’s family.

July 25th, 2013: Dombrowski called today. He wanted to, “Make sure I didn’t have any players available that he might be interested in, unlike last time.” Huh?

July 31, 2013: This afternoon’s trade deadline is approaching faster than a honey bee chasing Yogi Bear. Phone lines have been quiet, which has been kind of nice. I would have liked to see more offers, but those are natures ropes. I guess we won’t be rebuilding things around here. Like I always say, “Trust in the Queen, let the Maple Leafs fall where they may, and who knows, maybe Carly Gomey falls in your lap.”

September 2, 2013: Phone rang today and scared the living Cordero outta me. I didn’t answer, but Mozeliak left a message. Hopefully he calls back soon.

September 3, 2013: Cardinals called again, asking about Axford. I made a joke about people putting the k before the s in the word, “ask,” and said, “What are you Aksing for Axford?” We lost our connection, but they Mozeliak called back. He didn’t want to give Wainwright, but did ask how Cory was coming along as a scout. He offered Blazek instead. What a gent, class act!

September 29th, 2013: TGIFridays ran out of gravy today. I offered them a piece of my mind in exchange for better service. They declined.

January 8th, 2014: Gave Axford a ride home from Dale Howerchuk’s Canuck & Puck Tavern tonight. He paid for the gas. We both won that trade, you say?

March 15th, 2014: Explained the process of obtaining a passport to Counsell today. He’s going to be the Greatest Scout of the Great North. HashtagCanadaScouting

The notes mysteriously end there, with March 15th being the last entry. It isn’t clear if Doug left his notes in Maryvale, or if he simply hasn’t had any trade discussions since March.

So, what do you think? Still think you could run this team better than Doug Melvin?

Post-Draft Recap

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Yeah, yeah, I know there are still two days left, but I don’t have any friends or relatives hoping to be picked, so I’m going to say the draft is over.

As I noted yesterday, professional sport drafts are boring. In all leagues, they’re boring, but in baseball, they’re especially boring. At least players entering the NBA or NFL could make an immediate impact, but in baseball, these guys generally have 3-5 years of development left. I mean, some college pitcher might find himself in a bullpen at the end of the year, or the middle of next, but that’s certainly not the norm. For every player from the first 2 rounds that makes it to the big leagues, there is another that sputtered out and turned into a bust, or another with a career-derailing arm or knee injury. Plus, at least in football and basketball, we’ve seen the draft prospects play, and have a more clear idea of why we like whom we like.

In 5 years, ESPN or MLB Network will start showing high school games of top prospects in prime time, and start hyping their top plays on ‘Sportscenter’ so that they can hype up their live draft show, kind of like Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg. But that won’t change the fact that these kids are still 3-5 years away, Hell, some of them won’t even sign.

So, while I’m not going to waste my time watching players I don’t know play MLB dress-up on a stage with Bud Selig while actual baseball is being played, I did see the names roll by on Twitter, and read some scouting reports after the fact. The Hawaiian guy whose name I can’t pronounce seems like a safe, sure-to-sign, money-saver that was drafted so that they could afford a more expensive second pick. That second pick was Gatewood, who people seemed to be excited about, so that’s cool. Now that I kind of know the names (“Young Richie Sexson” and “Hawaiian Guy”), I have my reference for when news breaks about them getting hurt or promoted. Those of you who watched it, hey, more power to you, but I read their names, and that’s all I need from the MLB draft.

Leading Off

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This March, the Brewers announced that Carlos Gomez would be batting in the leadoff spot. The move was so polarizing that it elicited such reactions as, “OK, then,” and “Yeah?” In truth, Gomez is not an ideal leadoff hitter. His career OBP isn’t very high, and his power is best utilized further down in the lineup. But the Brewers aren’t exactly a team with better options at leadoff, after trading Nori Aoki in the offseason, and, hey, the Gomez’s OBP has at least been trending in the right direction. Gomez posted the highest OBP of his career in 2013. So what if it was only .338?!

Gomez, though, continued improving, as he’s becoming one of the most valuable players in baseball. Gomez made some people roll their eyes with his first pitch swinging, and his aggressive approach, but as a leadoff hitter, Gomez hit .298/.374/.560. That’s a .374 OBP! Now add in 10 doubles, 2 triples, 10 home runs, and 7 stolen bases on 8 attempts, and Gomez put himself in scoring position, or scored, roughly 85% of the time he got on base, or roughly 30% of his plate appearances. You couldn’t ask for more from your leadoff hitter. Really, the only thing you could as of him is to move down in the order. Gomez essentially forced Ron Roenicke to move him out of the leadoff spot, not because he couldn’t get on base, but because he’s TOO GOOD TO HIT LEADOFF.

By and large, lineup construction at the major league level makes very little difference, but Gomez’s power has been something to behold this season. He really does need to be put in a place where he can drive runs in. Gomez has the 6th highest ISO (.361) in the majors against left-handed pitching. That number is so big that it actually makes his ISO against right-handed pitching seem modest (.231). That number is not modest at all, as it’s actually the 26th highest in the game.

Gomez hasn’t been hitting leadoff for some time, now, and rightfully so. However, Gomez isn’t going to maintain an ISO above .300 against lefties, Segura got back on track in May, but only to the tune of a .313 OBP, and Ramirez is coming back, soon. Will we see Gomez moving back to leadoff? The Brewers don’t have an ideal leadoff hitter, and that might just be good problem to have.

 

Gomez On the Run

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Carlos Gomez got his offensive season off to a hot start, knocking the first pitch of the season for a single to left field, and taking second when Justin Upton briefly bobbled the ball. However, he immediately poured water on his hot start by trying to take third and being thrown out by more than a full ten feet. Gomez saw a soft toss from Upton. Gomez saw that New Chipper was standing pretty far off the bag at third. Gomez thought his blazing speed could get past New Chipper before he caught Upton’s lazy throw. Gomez was very wrong, and likely cost the Brewers a run.

This is not a newly minted aggressiveness for Gomez, though the excitement of Opening Day may have made him a bit more brash than usual. He’s always been known as a risk taker on the basepaths, whether it be to his credit or his detriment. His speed has always been a bit of a double edged sword. He has a reputation for making a lot of mistakes.

Perception and reputation are funny things, though. Because cameras on TV broadcasts follow the ball, we always see Gomez cost the team runs when he gets thrown out, but we don’t always see  how many runs he creates when he goes from 1st to third on a play where anyone else would have been stayed put. Perception of the common fan is also largely based upon what they hear from the announcers.

Take for instance, the hit and run. On several occasions in this young season, Gomez has attempted to steal second with Jean Segura at the plate, and Jean has fouled off a pitch. Each time, Gomez had a great jump, and would have stolen the base easily. Bill Schroeder and Brian Anderson noticed this and suggested that maybe Segura shouldn’t be swinging while Gomez is running. There may be some truth to this suggestion, but it ignores the benefits of the hit-and-run play.

I tweeted last week that if Gomez and Segura are going to be batting 1-2, we will see a lot of hit and runs. Roenicke loves putting pressure on the defense and creating chaos on the bases, and Gomez-Segura is a great combo for doing just that. Segura is a very good contact hitter (90.3% contact rate with pitches in the zone last year). He’s not elite, like Marco Scutaro (97.1%!), but he’s still a very good contact hitter. In this case a hit-and-run is not about protecting the runner, as Gomez doesn’t need protection. Since joining the Brewers, Gomez has stolen bases at an 86% success rate. In this case, it’s about advancing the runner as far as possible. If Gomez takes off from first, he’s already in scoring position. If Segura gets a single, Gomez is on third base at the very least, with a good chance that he’ll score on the play.

Here’s another aspect. Segura puts the ball on the ground and gets a lot of infield hits. He posted the 2nd highest GB% in MLB last season, behind teammate, Norichika Aoki. Combine that with his speed, and Segura also had the second most infield hits, also behind Aoki. Putting a runner in motion forces the second baseman out of position to cover the bag, likely making Segura even more likely to reach on a ground ball. Segura puts the ball in right field fairly often, so this could potentially help Segura quite a bit (Spray Chart at Fangraphs).

It’s legitimate to question if a hit-and-run with Gomez and Segura is worth it. They’re speedy enough to stay out of the double play, and Gomez doesn’t need the protection to swipe a base. But it’s also legitimate to note that Segura’s speed and contact rates seem to diminish much of the risk involved.

If we know anything about Roenicke, it’s that he loves using speed to create chaos and put the opposing defense into a bind. I think we’ll see quite a bit of the Gomez-Segura-hit-and-run, but I don’t think we should be as quick to write it off as Brian and Bill seem to be, even if it doesn’t always work.

 

 

On Fans, Ryan Braun

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Ryan Braun walked to the plate at Miller Park to a chorus of mostly cheers. Sure, there were some boos, as was expected, but it was the best reaction that Braun could have possibly hoped for. The fans reacted as if they hadn’t seen their best player in 8 months.

The truth is, we have seen a little bit of Braun in the last 8 months. We’ve seen him do an ‘impromptu’ apology/admission press conference. We saw him do a a more formal presser in Arizona. We saw him signing autographs at Brewers On Deck. We saw him hit a home run in his first spring at bat. But mostly, we saw his name in the paper and on the internet. We heard his name on our TV and radio, being lambasted by the press and by baseball fans around the league.

It’s not just the past 8 months, either. Braun’s trouble goes back to December of 2011, when news of his failed drug test first leaked. It’s been nearly impossible to talk about the team without somebody noting that Ryan Braun is a jackass. It’s been tiring.

On Monday, when Braun walked to the plate, many fans gave him a standing ovation, much to the national media’s dismay. Much to their disgust in some cases.

I wasn’t at the game, as I’ve recently moved out of state, but I would have been standing right with those fans. It’s not because I support what he did; no Brewers fans are happy anything that Braun did in regards to PEDs. It’s because we’re sick of the negativity. We’re sick of baseball taking a backseat to what Braun is or isn’t saying. We’re ready to move on.

I still vividly remember the feeling of my stomach crashing to the ground when I read the news that Braun failed his drug test in December of 2011. I had come into work on the weekend to finish some things when the news hit Twitter. The word, ‘shocked’ only begins to scratch the surface. There should be some kind of fire drill for steroids that you practice so that you know how to deal with it when the time comes. As questions raced through my head, I hit the message boards to see what the die-hards were saying. Turns out, most people were defending him. Then a thought went through my head. “We’re gonna be the Giants, aren’t we?”

We don’t have to be happy with what he has done in order to support what he will do. That is what the cheering is about. We are not cheering for lozenges. We are not cheering for publicly implicating an innocent man. We are not cheering the continued lack of comment. We are cheering for the best player on our team. We want him to know that we support him going forward, something he probably hasn’t heard much of for the last 15 months, and damn it if Brewers fans were going to let him hear the boos. We’re OK with the boos. We understand the boos (Who am I to tell you how to react?). We just don’t want that to be our message to him.

It’s cathartic. We’re ready to move on. We’ve been ready to move on from the constant negativity for quite some time, and nothing is a better catalyst here than Braun playing baseball. In a way, cheering Ryan Braun’s first regular season at bat since his suspension was a release of pent up frustration. Braun fucked up, yet we feel like we’ve been paying for it for more than a year. The logical reaction would be to boo him, but fandom is hardly a logical thing. Grant Brisbee very eloquently pointed that out here in July. A fandom that boos it’s best player is a pretty depressing fandom.

We cheered Ryan Braun not only because he’s a Brewer, but because he’s vital to the Brewers’ success. He may have turned into the heel, but he’s our heel, and without him, there isn’t exactly a lot to be positive about. If Braun were traded today, many of those fans that gave him a standing ovation would boo him when he came back. Look what happened with Brett Bielema. Bielema was cheered while he was coaching the Badgers to Rose Bowls, but the moment he left, fans let loose how they really felt about him. But because he’s here, because he’s given us a lot of happiness in the past, and because he can give us more happiness in the future, we’re going to support Braun.

That’s not to say Brewers fans dislike Braun. He has plenty of time for redemption, but he wouldn’t exactly be leaving on good terms. The point is that cheering, even if it’s done loudly and while standing, sometimes just means, “Hey, do something cool.”

 

 

 

 

 

Opening Day Drinking Games

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We’ve all been there. It’s Opening Day. You woke up at 5:30, tossed and turned for an hour, too excited to fall back to sleep. You made it to the stadium early, waited on Canal Street for 45 minutes, followed the Impark guy’s overly dramatic arm flailing and unreasonably angry directions to your parking spot. Now it’s time to…

Huh. What do you do now? You’ve fired up the grill and laid your meat on it, but something seems to be missing. The gates don’t open for at least an hour. What do you do in the meantime. Well, fret no longer, fellow Brewer fan. There’s a reason you packed that case of beer; it’s time to play:

The Opening Day Drinking Game: Tailgate Edition!

Drink 1 If:

Somebody jumps up and down with excitement.

“Who’s pitching today?” (either team)

“Who are the Brewers playing?”

Somebody gives the wrong answer to either of the above questions.

Anytime someone leaves for the bathroom.

Your group forgot to bring something.

A group near you asks to borrow something that they forgot.

Drink 2 if:

Somebody mentions, “Hank”.

You see a person wearing eye black.

You see a person wearing a headband.

Scalper

You hear Rihanna.

Somebody mentions, “Braun,” related to PEDs.

Another 2 if “Biogenesis” is spoken.

Drink 5 If:

“Axford can’t blow it.”

“Nyjer Morgan”

“Hank” and “cute” in same sentence.

“Sick of Hank”.

“[player] is a bum.”

You see somebody wearing a Hank shirt.

You see somebody wearing no shirt.

You see a Braves fan.

You hear Guns and Roses.

You hear Journey.

You witness a couple fighting.

You witness a couple making out. Finish your beer if it’s the same couple that was fighting

You hear, “Yeeeeaaaahhhh, Brewers!”

Cubs hat.

Somebody tries to sell you a t-shirt or a sticker.

Finish Your Beer If:

Somebody throws up in public.

You witness a fistfight.

You see a pinata.

The game has begun, yet you’re still in the parking lot.

 

Enjoy, and Drink Responsibly!