Brewers in Playoffs - 2009

[pmg4]

Will they? Yes or No?

 

I say no. Pitching is a huge question mark, and defense will lose late in games.

[kramnoj]

I don't think it's likely, but they have a chance. Look at the pitching that the Phillies had for the first part of the year. When they came to town for the first time last year, I certainly didn't think I was watching the team that would win the WS that year.

 

They need to have a lot go right for them, and they need to have other teams suffer some bad luck. I think they will be competing for the WC with the Cards, the Phillies and the Braves (my guess is that the Mets and Cubs win their divisions and that the West won't have a WC contender). They could be a mid 80's win team and get into the playoffs if those other teams blow close games or suffer key injuries.

[zzzmanwitz]

I have faith. YES!

[owbc]

With the team right now...no.

 

When we are one of the few with spending money at the deadline and can make a move...YES!

 

The key is to stay above .500 until mid July and then go for it again.

[BrewCrewForever]

Am I as optimistic as last year? No. But I do think we have a chance and I do believe we will contend again, if Braun, JJ and Prince do what they have been doing and we get Rickie to start to come close to his potential and Hart to play like he did in 2007 we will be fine.

[rluzinski]

Any team that projects to be .500 or better has a chance but I think it's well below a 50% chance for the Brewers.

[PeaveyFury]

When we are one of the few with spending money at the deadline and can make a move...YES!

 

The key is to stay above .500 until mid July and then go for it again.

 

I think this is my opinion as well. Like last year, the goal is to legitimately be in the playoff race in July, and then see what you need to add to make another push like in 08. It certainly seems feasible if not likely that they'll at least be in the running in July with the team's current make-up.

[Ennder]

If we pick up a SP I'd say we are in the thick of the wild card race and it will depend on injuries, over/under performers etc. If we go with our current roster I think we are on the outside looking in.

[sheetskout]

We have a much better chance with Sheets. We'd be bascially back at the start of last season.

[brewtank34]

The 2 biggest "Must Have's" are having Weeks and Hall have career years! I'm actually excited to see what the lasix surgery does for Hall as well as what Randolf can do for Weeks.

I think that we'll be in it for the wild card all season long...no doubt. Whether or not we make it, it's above average.

[logan82]

I think it depends on which starting pitcher gets injured this year. We know one of our starters is going to go down and we really don't have good depth there. With the current team and good health, I think we can make the playoffs if we get a little lucky in close games like we did last year.

[RU Rah Rah]

I look at it this way: the team barely scraped into the WC in '08. Is the '09 version of the team better or worse than that one? In my assessment, it's worse, especially in terms of the rotation, so I find it hard to be optimistic about the playoffs. (A winning record? Yeah, I think so.)

[Patrick425]

So tempting to enter a Jim Mora video clip here.

[PeaveyFury]

In my assessment, it's worse, especially in terms of the rotation, so I find it hard to be optimistic about the playoffs. (A winning record? Yeah, I think so.)

 

But the thing is, the only real difference is a lack of Sheets at this point. Really, if they acquire one more solid starter, they're right where they were last year to start the season.

[RU Rah Rah]

In my assessment, it's worse, especially in terms of the rotation, so I find it hard to be optimistic about the playoffs. (A winning record? Yeah, I think so.)

 

But the thing is, the only real difference is a lack of Sheets at this point. Really, if they acquire one more solid starter, they're right where they were last year to start the season.

I'm not totally disagreeing, but that seems like a big difference in the front of the rotation. We're talking about (very roughly) substituting maybe a whole season of Gallardo for about 60% of Sabathia and 75% of Sheets. I agree that finding a competent starter would help stabilize things overall in the rotation -- no doubt about that -- but I cringe to think about what could happen when guys get injured/fatigued.

[nate82]

Not enough information to judge if the Brewers will or will not make it to the playoffs. For all we know someone on a team could get injured and that team spirals out of the playoff picture. To many variables to even say if they will or will not. The Brewers should be above .500 and will be competitive if that is enough to make the playoffs I don't know.

 

Last year the Twins lost Santana and almost made the playoffs last year. At the beginning of the season the Twins were not even expected to be a playoff contending team.

[PeaveyFury]

We're talking about (very roughly) substituting maybe a whole season of Gallardo for about 60% of Sabathia and 75% of Sheets.

 

But there's also nothing keeping the Brewers from acquiring a Sabathia-type pitcher in July again either if they're in contention, FWIW.

 

Really, if the Brewers do re-sign sheets somehow, I think that the staff as a whole is better heading into 09 than in 08, as the bullpen is probably somewhat better and we at least know what we have with McClung at this point as well.

[TheCrew07]

But there's also nothing keeping the Brewers from acquiring a Sabathia-type pitcher in July again either if they're in contention, FWIW.

The first problem is that's a very short list of talent that would have to be available. Second who would the team be willing to part with? It's fine to suggest Escobar, Gamel, or both but that's probably not realistic. We already have a lack of pitching talent between MLB and AA, why would they do the same with the hitting talent?

 

Trading away all of our prospects for rentals will just make the inevitable crash that much worse. It's the surest way to make our window to compete as short as possible. This team will lose players to FA in '10 & '11, Cameron will be gone next season... what impact players would be left to replace them with? I really like Green and Cain but I wouldn't call them "impact" at this time, Lawrie maybe but he's never taken a professional AB yet. With so many holes and positions that will need to be addressed in 1B (FA), 2B (upgradable), SS (FA), 3B(Hole), RF (depending how you feel about Hart), and CF (FA) how does the team get over hump making rental player deals? If they keep talent and make shrewd deals they can maximize the competitive window, and I'd like to the team to remain competitive as long as possible.

 

I'm not against trading prospects though it may seem so because I've been arguing against trading them this offseason, but why burn them in rental deals? Why not get some lasting value out of the players? I would have much rather seen the team use the Sabathia package to acquire a Marcum, McGowan, Morrow type pitcher. I know Toronto's whole staff got hurt in the 2nd half, that's not really the point. Seattle and Toronto weren't going anywhere and could have used some bats that were close to MLB ready. Why does our target have to be Sabathia or Halladay when it costs so much to acquire a pitcher of that caliber for such a short time?

 

Who's going to give up a good young SP for 1 year of Hardy + 2 draft picks next off season when Escobar is finally deemed ready? Flip the script would we give up a guy like Parra for 2 years of a premium offensive player who's a Boras client and best suited to play DH in Fielder? Which teams around the league have surplus pitching, need bats, are in their window to compete or looking to rebuild? Right now it's a very short list of AL teams, and TB already signed a bat and traded pitching so we can pretty much cross them off unless we want Niemann.. If we're talking about trading Hardy or Fielder next off season the destination likely becomes a large enough market that can afford to extend either player right away. The closer our guys get to FA, the tougher they are to trade because years are so valuable to mid and small market teams.

[PeaveyFury]

how does the team get over hump making rental player deals?

 

Well, one issue here is that you're assuming that they're acquiring rental players. Peavy would almost surely be available, and would be under contract for several more years. Roy Halladay (as you mentioned)is likely to be available if the Jays are out of contention as they almost surely will be by July, and would be here for 1.5 years, to name a couple of options. But as to why guys like this are the ones that you need to trade for to get over the hump, those are really the only types available to acquire during the season. It'd be great to acquire a guy like Morrow or Marcum, but cheap, young pitching under contract for several seasons are the type of player that an out-of-contention team is trying to acquire, not trade away.

[GAME05]

no Sheets but a healthy Gallardo. it's a bit of a dropoff, but i'm also expecting the offense to be better. so all in all, an equal team to what we had last year. i don't think we can beat the Cubs to a division title, but i expect about the same chance at the WC as we did last year.

 

what i think is going to be exciting about this coming season is that even if we're out of it, it's going to provide the opportunity to trade players like Fielder and Hardy and Cameron, and we'll get the chance to see a ton of new faces that will make for a great team in 2010.

[RU Rah Rah]

no Sheets but a healthy Gallardo. it's a bit of a dropoff, but i'm also expecting the offense to be better. so all in all, an equal team to what we had last year.

Maybe, if we're lucky, Sheets and Gallardo will be a wash, but Sabathia pitched 130 pretty much fantastic innings down the stretch. There's a giant void now in terms of replacing that.

[BrewCrewForever]

Sabathia to me is NOT replaceable. But a healty Gallardo will put up better numbers then Sheets did last year. My opinion. The only way to somewhat replace CC is hope they pick up one other above average starter and/or hope the other guys behind Yovani (Parra, Bush, Suppan, McClung) all step their games up.

[EinhornIsFinkle]

Sabathia couldn't even have replaced himself because there is virtually no way he would have repeated his performance from last year.

[BrewCrewForever]

Sabathia couldn't even have replaced himself because there is virtually no way he would have repeated his performance from last year.

Very true, Homer brought that up on his radio show at the start of the Hot Stove season. He will still be a great pitcher, but will probably never replicate what he did last year with the Brewers. He was that good in the second half last year.

[GAME05]

I'm trying not to put all my eggs in the Gallardo basket. I think he's going to be an excellent pitcher, but it's asking a lot to be figuring he'll equal or better Sheets' numbers from last year. If a Yankee fan talked the same way about Phil Hughes we'd likely laugh, and i don't think there's a tremendous difference between the two. I'm not trying to compare them, because that's for a different thread. I'm only saying the dude has tons of talent, but he's still really young and doesn't have a whole lot of experience yet as a ML starting pitcher.

 

more than anything, i'm trying not to forget that Cleveland had a winning record after they traded CC last year.