Are we overreacting?

[Ennder]

Every mid range team has large prolonged slumps though, you can't freak out about it and yell the sky is falling every time. To me the fans that freak out over every little 10 day slump are those that just haven't watched baseball that closely in a long time and think this is something just our team goes through.

[DougJones43]

To me the fans that freak out over every little 10 day slump are those that just haven't watched baseball that closely

This isn't 10 days though. During the past month, the team is 11-18. One of the 2007 skids you referenced in your post earlier was actually 2 full months. So, to claim the slumps that get people upset over are "little 10 day slumps" is completely misleading.

 

And the biggest concern is that the team doesn't appear to be making progress. The hitting still looks terrible. Five of the starting position players have a BA under .250. None of the starting position players have an OPS over .800. The starting pitching has been marginal, at best. No starter other than Sheets has won in well over a month. Gallardo is out for the year. Gagne has completely imploded.

 

With approximately 1/4 of the season complete, these are totally legitimate things to be VERY concerned about.

[Ennder]

To me the fans that freak out over every little 10 day slump are those that just haven't watched baseball that closely

This isn't 10 days though. During the past month, the team is 11-18. One of the 2007 skids you referenced in your post earlier was actually 2 full months. So, to claim the slumps that get people upset over are "little 10 day slumps" is completely misleading.

 

And the biggest concern is that the team doesn't appear to be making progress. The hitting still looks terrible. Five of the starting position players have a BA under .250. None of the starting position players have an OPS over .800. The starting pitching has been marginal, at best. No starter other than Sheets has won in well over a month. Gallardo is out for the year. Gagne has completely imploded.

 

With approximately 1/4 of the season complete, these are totally legitimate things to be VERY concerned about.

 

That isn't true though. If you are going simply by wins it is a 13 day slump at most and really most likely a 6 day slump with the losing streak. They didn't have a bad record long term for anything but those 6 games. Last years big slump around August was really august 5th to august 28th. They went 5-14 during that stretch. Yeah it stinks but a 3 week slump happens to most teams. The Cubs as an example were 6-16 from May 9th to June 2nd last year and 9-13 from Aug 2th to Aug 26th. Every team has a completely nasty 2-3 week period at some point.

 

If I really wanted to split last year into the easiest terms it would be the following.

 

24-10

4-13

18-9

11-14

8-20

18-13

 

We had a very bad run in late May and a miserable Late July/early August. This is pretty normal though, I could do this same thing with any 75-85 win team and get the same tyep of results. Some hot streaks some cold streaks.

[Tbadder]

I don't think you can overreact if the concerns have a legitimate basis. Since production is a legitimate cause to be concerned, I don't understand how this can be labelled overreacting. How many division winners in history have the identical record as the Brewers currently--coupled with the amount of teams ahead of the Brewers, plus at least one major injury to their rotation. What are the percentage of these teams that have won a playoff berth?

[DougJones43]

They didn't have a bad record long term for anything but those 6 games.

Whatever. If you're going to look at it like that, then it should be noted that outside of that 6-game slump during the past month, they have merely played .500 baseball. There have been no winning streaks.

 

.500 baseball mixed in with 6-to-10-day slumps and no prolonged winning periods = bad overall results during large chunks of the season. Again, a bad trend and cause for concern with everything going on, in my opinion. If you disagree, and choose to continue to believe there is nothing to worry about, that's your perspective.

[brewizard]

I think it is possible, even likely, that the Brewers go on a warmer streak than they've been on lately. However, given the general level of play that I've seen so far this season, I find it unlikely the Brewers will go on another 24-10 run anytime soon.

 

I've been drinking Kool Aid for a long time. I'm finally willing to admit it.

[Ennder]

They didn't have a bad record long term for anything but those 6 games.

Whatever. If you're going to look at it like that, then it should be noted that outside of that 6-game slump during the past month, they have merely played .500 baseball. There have been no winning streaks.

 

.500 baseball mixed in with 6-to-10-day slumps and no prolonged winning periods = bad overall results during large chunks of the season. Again, a bad trend and cause for concern with everything going on, in my opinion. If you disagree, and choose to continue to believe there is nothing to worry about, that's your perspective.

 

Just because there haven't been any winning streaks doesn't mean there won't be though. Teams have ups and downs and a lot of people on this forum freak out at every down. I'll tell you right now if we go out and start playing better and win a bunch of games and get back in the playoff race we will have another half a month where the team looks rotten at some point this year. It is just how things go.

[jeffy]

When I say don't worry it means the team will come out of it's slump and that is exactly what happened when everyone freaked out last May after the bad road series.

 

I don't think the playoffs are likely because of the Gallardo injury but this is a slump, not a team that just has no talent.

Are we looking at another season long slump on the road? The horrible road trip has me concerned that this team is once again going to fall apart every time they play anywhere but Miller Park.

 

Yes, this year's excuse is going to be the loss of a guy with all of 23 games of major league experience. Next year's will be that we no longer have Ben Sheets,...

 

Oh, and don't forget the Brewers were in a World Series in 1982. Meanwhile the Florida Marlins have somehow managed to win 2 championships in their short 15 years of existence. The Twins have made 7 post season appearances in the last 40 years and 4 of those are even in this millenium.

[WV Brew]

KC Jim-

 

My name is WV Brew and I'm a Brewer fan. I hear you. You're not alone. I can't believe I let myself be roped in to wasting another Saturday yesterday. I don't even get the game on TV. I'm just using gameday which is very frustrating at times. Probably I'm overreacting.

[cnycerveceros]

I don't know about overreaction or not, but here is how I'm trying to think about it. They don't need to win 90 games to win the NL central. If they win 85 they'll be right in the thick of things. That means 68 wins out of 126 games left to play, or a winning percentage of .539. Does that seems like a tall order given their performance over the last several seasons? I remember about this time last year thinking, "man all they have to do is play .500 ball for the rest of the season and this is locked up." We see how well that turned out, they played 0.460 after the 24/10 start. Clearly, you couldn't have expected that start to last (they were on pace for about 114 wins which is just not going to happen), but expecting around .500 seemed perfectly reasonable and would have been about 88 wins.

 

All that said, however, one stretch where they win 8 of 10 and then .500 the rest of the way and they're still in the playoff hunt. Especially given the wildcard which lets bad teams into the playoffs and gives them as much chance to win the World Series as anybody else who made it (i.e. last year's Rockies).

[logan82]

Unless I am mistaken, at least one wild card team has made the WS every year except once.

[naivin]

I think it is fair to point out here that Florida and Houston are both 8-2 in their last 10 games. Now, obviously the Brewers played a role in that, but so did the Nationals, Dodgers, and Padres. Not that the Brewers have played very well, but running into two white hot teams didn't help any either.

[Tbadder]

Did anyone think that having expectations of a division winner was an overreaction? What about the overly optimistic crew that hangs out here--was that a bit premature?

[naivin]

Did anyone think that having expectations of a division winner was an overreaction? What about the overly optimistic crew that hangs out here--was that a bit premature?

If they were able to remain healthy, I don't think so. The way I put it to a Cub fan friend of mine at the start of teh season, was that the team that was best able to avoid injury would win the division. I think Gallardo's injury has unfortantely put the division out of reach for the Brewers, unless the same thing were to happen to Zambrano, Lilly, or possibly Marmol.

[cnycerveceros]

I think it was reasonable to have high expectations of the Brewers this year for a lot of reasons already covered elsewhere very well, and I don't think it's unreasonable to continue to have them (yet). I'll admit that I was concerned that this year would end up being a huge disappointment, but that has more to do with my basic outlook on life than any kind of analysis. On bad days I worry that last year Hardy,Hart,Braun,Fielder all had career years. Nonetheless, you watch the way this team has played (not very good) and you look at the record (only 1 game under) and you think that even modest improvement could put them into the chase in the NL Central. Each team ahead of them at this point will have significant slides at some point. If the Brewers have figured it out by then, then they can be right back near the top.

[Tbadder]

Did anyone think that having expectations of a division winner was an overreaction? What about the overly optimistic crew that hangs out here--was that a bit premature?

If they were able to remain healthy, I don't think so. The way I put it to a Cub fan friend of mine at the start of teh season, was that the team that was best able to avoid injury would win the division. I think Gallardo's injury has unfortantely put the division out of reach for the Brewers, unless the same thing were to happen to Zambrano, Lilly, or possibly Marmol.

I really didn't ask the question to give anyone the needle. But given that the Brewers were coming off a barely over .500 year, and the inevitablity that during a long season it's more likely that a major injury or major non-performance are bound to happen than not happen, why did we have those expectations?

 

I know I did. I thought there was a very good chance we'd be a playoff team. Certainly, I was more skeptical than most, but I'd also be the least surprised person on earth if the Crew had succeeded. While not exactly berating myself for believing that they could be good, I gotta admit it seems less than realistic now. Of course this could be nothing more than hindsight, but as the bumper sticker says POO HAPPENS. It's inevitable in a sport with an ungodly long season, and while the poo-rule might apply to every team in the majors, not too many small market teams have the resources to make adjustments.

[rluzinski]

Did anyone think that having expectations of a division winner was an overreaction? What about the overly optimistic crew that hangs out here--was that a bit premature?

 

The Cubs were the clear favorites to win the division even before the season started. With Gallardo going down early, the Brewers current situation shouldn't be surprising to anyone. I mean, how many wins SHOULD the Brewers have right now? One or two more?

[Fatter than Joey]

Unless I am mistaken, at least one wild card team has made the WS every year except once.

 

I hear what you are saying.... although many years the WC is better than some of the Division winners, and could be the second best team in the league. -- The WC is not often "the 4th best team"