Misery Loves Company

[Fike85]

I have taken comfort in the fact that the Milwaukee Brewers are not alone in their under-achieving. I believe it will be therapeutic for the rest of Brewerfan.net to take a look at how some other "playoff contenders" are performing:

 

Detroit Tigers, 5th place, 17-27

Offensive vitals: .257/.334/.404

Pitching vitals: 4.98 ERA, 1.51 WHIP

 

Seattle Mariners, 4th place, 18-27

Offensive vitals: .248/.307/.380

Pitching vitals: 4.31 ERA, 1.47 WHIP

 

Colorado Rockies, 3rd place, 18-27

Offensive vitals: .258/.329/.392

Pitching vitals: 4.59 ERA, 1.49 WHIP

 

San Diego Padres: 5th place, 16-30

Offensive vitals: .235/.303/.348

Pitching vitals: 4.31 ERA, 1.38 WHIP

[bklynbrewcrew]

Misery does love company but the Tigers were in the world series a few years ago and Colorado was there last year. I will take a world series appearance in exchange for a years misery. Problem is as Brewers fans we have had a ridiculous amount of misery since 1982.

[Glennron]

Weren't some people predicting the Tigers to score 1,000 runs? It's probably more crushing being a Tigers fan than a Brewers fan at this point. At least they have the Pistons and Red Wings...

[pretendastronaut]

I try taking solice in knowing we're in almost the same spot as the Yankees, and they seem to be able to turn it around every year.

 

New York Yankees, 5th place, 20-24 6.5GB

Offensive vitals: .255/.323/.407

Pitching vitals: 4.48 ERA, 1.35 WHIP

[brewizard]

we're in almost the same spot as the Yankees, and they seem to be able to turn it around every year.

 

Gee. If only we had a player with Arod talent returning to the team soon...

[Thurston Fluff]

I try taking solice in knowing we're in almost the same spot as the Yankees, and they seem to be able to turn it around every year.

But htey have a great manager who puts the players in the best postion to succeed.

[InsomniacInkRoss]

The 07 Cubs were 9 games under .500 in June

 

*edit*

 

I think the Tigers and Padres fans have the most to be upset about

[MickeyDavis]

The difference between us and those teams is we are on year 26 of no playoffs.

[TSack27]

Gee. If only we had a player with Arod talent returning to the team soon...

I'd like to think that the potential 30-50 point improvements in BA/OBP/SLG from Weeks, Cameron, and Hall, would be as beneficial to the Brewers as the upgrade from Morgan Ensberg to a healthy Alex Rodriguez is for the Yankees.

[jeffy]

MLB franchises with the longest current post-season drought

Seasons	Team	Last appearance
26	Montreal Expos-Washington Nationals	1981 NLCS
25	Milwaukee Brewers	1982 World Series
22	Kansas City Royals	1985 World Series
15	Pittsburgh Pirates	1992 NLCS
14	Toronto Blue Jays	1993 World Series
12	Cincinnati Reds	1995 NLCS
10	Baltimore Orioles	1997 ALCS

I think we are the real #1 on the list as Washingtom is in an entirely new location...the past history of the Expos is not a source of misery in Washington.

[MickeyDavis]

And at least those teams (except the Expos/Nats) have actually won a World Series at some point. We must be the only team that continuously celebrates a team that lost the championship.

[nate82]

Gee. If only we had a player with Arod talent returning to the team soon...

Arod is not going to kick start the Yankees into winning. They will be above .500 when Arod comes back but I don't see him and him alone making the Yankees that much better and winning a lot of games. The Yankees have a lot of pitching problems a lot of it is due to their starting pitching. Mussina is almost done, Hughes is injured again (injury prone?), Kennedy is struggling, Wang the only bright spot in the Yankees rotation, and I don't even know who their 5th guy is. Lots of problems for the Yankees and Arod coming back is not going to help those problems.

 

The Tigers are actually as good as the Brewers are. Their starting pitching is one of the worst in MLB. Their rotation actually looks rather similar to the Brewers rotation. Verlander their best pitcher = Sheets, Rogers = Suppan, Bonderman = Bush, Galarraga = Villanueva, Robertson = Parra and Willis = Capuano. Yes some of the pitchers I named are better than their counterparts. Verlander and Sheets are about equal even though Sheets is having a better year right now than Verlander.

 

I believe the Tigers are in more trouble than the Brewers are. The Cubs rotation isn't that great it is comparable to what we had with Gallardo. Without Gallardo the Cubs rotation is better. But the Brewers have an easier mountain to climb than the Tigers or even the Yankees have to climb. The Tigers I don't even think will make the playoffs now unless they somehow land a deal where they get some starting pitching help. The Yankees could make the playoffs but it depends on how well the Rays play the rest of the year I don't think that there will be 2 teams from the AL East in the playoffs though.

 

I just don't see where all the doom and gloom for the Brewers is coming from. We have gotten off to a bad start but it is only May yet. We still have 4 months of games to play yet.

[JohnBriggs12]

Ryan Howard is hitting .187/.290/.404. which makes Bill Hall's .199/.271/.404 not look so bad.

 

Brett Myers is 2-5 with a 5.76 ERA, and 15 HR allowed in 59 1/3 innings, more HR allowed than Villanueva.

 

Chuck James has an 8.22 ERA in 5 starts.

 

Barry Zito is 0-8 with a 6.25 ERA.

 

Edgar Gonzales is 1-2 with a 6.60 ERA in 6 starts.

 

Eric Byrnes is batting .217/.284/.373

 

Justin Verlander (yes that Justin Verlander) , Nate Robertson, and Kenny Rogers are a combined 5-16 with an ERA of 6.24.

 

Ian Kennedy is 0-3 with an 8.38 ERA in 6 starts in which he's gone a total of 25 2/3 innings, barely 4 innings per start.

 

That's just a few guys struggling as bad or worse than some of the Brewers.

[dadofandrew]

Guys and teams have bad 44 game stretches all the time, they just do not get noticed as much when the BA falls from .310 to .275. Overreaction won't do much good either, basically, you just gotta hope guys return to the norm.

[JohnBriggs12]

Al's pretty much on target. Over 44 games, luck (good or bad) plays a much larger factor than it does over say 100 games. Many teams and players with rather ugly stats undoubtedly can attribute at least some of that to bad luck, and or not yet having their expected stretch of good performances figured in to balance off normal bad stretches.

[MBHA]

I see alot of disregard for the current statistics put up by the current players based upon small sample sizes. Just for my education at what point during the season, what number of games played, number of at bats, innings pitched, etc., does the sample size actually mean something?

[sveumrules]

I see alot of disregard for the current statistics put up by the current players based upon small sample sizes. Just for my education at what point during the season, what number of games played, number of at bats, innings pitched, etc., does the sample size actually mean something?

Samples generally become pretty reliable after about two to three full seasons...

[Diskono]

And at least those teams (except the Expos/Nats) have actually won a World Series at some point. We must be the only team that continuously celebrates a team that lost the championship.

 

LOST????

http://www.colinbaker.org/files/images/07-08-07_1303.preview.jpg

 

[bigredrobbo]

I don't believe the Tigers will stay in their funk anymore than I believe the Crew will stay in theirs. Both teams are better than they are demonstrating at the moment. Unfortunately, like us, they have several stars and key players underperforming at the same time. Teams generally have a player or two struggling at any given time, but six or seven is a recipe for losing streaks. Oh look, like we've both had.

[MickeyDavis]

Maybe when you have 6 or 7 players struggling, some of them aren't struggling at all. Maybe they just aren't that good to begin with. I remember waiting for Pat Listach to regain his form. Still waiting. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

 

[bigredrobbo]

Maybe when you have 6 or 7 players struggling, some of them aren't struggling at all. Maybe they just aren't that good to begin with. I remember waiting for Pat Listach to regain his form. Still waiting. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

 

 

Make your mind up, which is it? The players are not good enough or they are good enough and it's all Yost's fault they are underperforming. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

 

 

[pitchleague]

Diskono,

 

Cool pennant but I can't believe how lame it is in comparison to the AL Championship pennant I have in my room. Similar in style (the roster scroll on the left, Kuenn's name under the logo, etc.), it looks MUCH better than that World Series Championship design. Maybe I'm biased since I've looked at this one on my wall for 26 years now and that is the "norm" for me.

[mothershipconnection]

I think we are the real #1 on the list as Washingtom is in an entirely new location...the past history of the Expos is not a source of misery in Washington.

 

Not to mention they were the best team in baseball in '94 and were robbed by the strike. They were 74-40 and had a 6 game lead with 48 games remaining.

[danzig6767]

Obviously i want the Brewers to make the playoffs this year, but another reason i want them to get on a hot streak is i really would be bummed if the team got buried so far in the standings early on that the last few months don't matter much besides seeing younger players do well.

 

The great thing for me last season was that every game felt important. It sucked that we missed the playoffs, but at least the last few months of the season i was still very much into the games. In so many of the prior seasons, by June/July, the Brewers were already out of it and i'd watch less and less of the games unless some young prospect was called up. There would be very little reason to care if the Brewers won or lost a game in July/August/September because they'd be buried in the standings.

 

Last year it was a wonderful feeling that losing games in August and September actually stung, instead of making me yawn. Even if we don't make the playoffs, i really hope that in August the team hasn't crashed down so far that i'm watching something on the Food Channel instead of Brewers games.