2019 Standings and Playoff Races Discussion

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Fangraphs has us at 19.2 percent to make the playoffs. 538 has us at 18. That's the best in the current chase pack.

 

I think you need to be 13-7 at least here. With the number of teams in contention, 87 wins seems like it will be the minimum. 14-6 would put you in pretty good shape for at least a playoff to get to the playoffs.

[MDCrew]

I think 14-6 might be enough to get them in. Like it was mentioned above the Phillies and Nats both have a tough schedule ahead of them. Miami tripped the Crew up in June now it’s time to go knock them around and get to St. Louis with some real momentum.

[Brew crew 92]

The Cubbies are not a good team. We should have won 3 of 4, even shorthanded, as we are. Now the tough part begins.

 

Trap series if I’ve ever seen one. Recent history says we just don’t play well vs this team, especially in Miami, and that’s with a team that has moose in the lineup and a healthy Cain and Braun.

 

Hoping for 3 of 4, but a split would not surprise. Even losing 3 of 4 wouldn’t shock me. Hoping Yelich can continue to carry us offensively.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

4 gamer @ Mia: have to find a way to take 3 of 4

3 gamer @ St. Louis: would be great to take two, but I'm guessing they take 1 of 3

4 gamer home against San Diego: this should be a series they can take 3 of 4

3 gamer home against Pittsburgh: they are going to need a sweep in here somewhere, and this might be the series to take 3 of 3

3 gamer @ Cincy: they have played the Reds better of late, and the Reds will be in a spoiler role obviously by this time. Still, this series scares me. Hopefully they can take 2 of 3

3 gamer @ Colorado: If things go according to the plan above, the team will be sitting at 86 wins. I don't know if 87 or 88 wins gets them a WC spot this year. They might need a sweep to finish at 89 wins.

 

Now obviously this is pretty optimistic, and you can never predict a sweep, but if this team gets hot, and finally plays the way it should against perceived lesser competition, a 90-win season isn't impossible. Of course, this team has put a lot of bad baseball on tape this season as well, so anything can happen.

[Pugger]

I'd rather be us than the Cubs right now. They are riding on fumes and have 7 games coming up against the Cards and 3 against the Reds on the road.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Don't sleep on the Cards having problems the rest of this month despite their recent extended run of winning baseball - If the Cubs don't implode the rest of September for them looks pretty daunting compared to their last ~20 games.

 

They've got Rockies on the road (CO isn't a great team, but that stadium kills good pitching), followed by Brewers, Nationals, Cubs, Dbacks, Cubs...It wouldn't surprise me if headed into the season's last weekend that the division and at least one wild card sport are up for grabs among the Cards, Cubs, and Brewers.

 

The Cubs, while still in wildcard position, are a battered team right now that can't rely on its starting rotation nearly as much as they need to. That said, they still have the talent to prevent a tailspin, so they will be a factor until the end. Brewers need to win series, and they'll be a postseason participant.

[Brew crew 92]

Don't sleep on the Cards having problems the rest of this month despite their recent extended run of winning baseball - If the Cubs don't implode the rest of September for them looks pretty daunting compared to their last ~20 games.

 

They've got Rockies on the road (CO isn't a great team, but that stadium kills good pitching), followed by Brewers, Nationals, Cubs, Dbacks, Cubs...It wouldn't surprise me if headed into the season's last weekend that the division and at least one wild card sport are up for grabs among the Cards, Cubs, and Brewers.

 

The Cubs, while still in wildcard position, are a battered team right now that can't rely on its starting rotation nearly as much as they need to. That said, they still have the talent to prevent a tailspin, so they will be a factor until the end. Brewers need to win series, and they'll be a postseason participant.

 

100% agree.

The cards have played above their talent level for an extended period and are due for a correction. If Yelich can continue to carry the team offensively, at least until, Moose and or Hiura are back, this division could still be up for grabs.

[clancyphile]

Sweep the Marlins, sweep the Cards...

 

In fact, maybe it's time to see if this Crew can make George Webb give away free burgers again...

[tmwiese55]

Happy to be alive another week. Get 3/4 from MIA and they really shouldn't be in too bad of shape at that point. Easier said than done of course.

 

For the division, while I agree with your premise overall of Cards due for a downturn a bit. We need to make up 7 games with only 20 to go. This is almost impossible. You'd need a historic collapse from them. Sure, if you sweep them that would at least put it in play, but still this is almost impossible.

[pacopete4]

I fully expect this team to split with Miami. Happy to be totally wrong though.

[Jopal78]

Having survived the Cubs and Astros going 6-3, the Brewers only have 3 games left against teams with winning records. Here is the remaining games left against winning teams for all remaining contenders:

 

Brewers: 3

Cubs: 7

D'Backs 7

Mets: 10

Cardinals: 16

Phillies: 17

Nationals: 17

 

Unbelievably the door is open for the Brewers to get into the post season. While they have the most work to do outside of New York, they have the softest remaining schedule by far including 50% of their remaining games against last place teams. The problem now is can they buck a season long trend of poor play against last place teams.

[RollieTime]

Hopefully the smell of another postseason birth gets them in gear down the stretch to make a run at getting in. Take 3/4 against Miami and we will be sitting pretty.

[KeithStone53151]

Happy to be alive another week. Get 3/4 from MIA and they really shouldn't be in too bad of shape at that point. Easier said than done of course.

 

For the division, while I agree with your premise overall of Cards due for a downturn a bit. We need to make up 7 games with only 20 to go. This is almost impossible. You'd need a historic collapse from them. Sure, if you sweep them that would at least put it in play, but still this is almost impossible.

 

To get within a reasonable range, we for sure would need to sweep the Cards. And they haven't shown signs of slowing down yet, so that's wildly unlikely. The most likely outcome playing 3 in st louis is 1 win. Hopefully the guys aren't looking ahead and are focused on Miami. We really need to hit in this series, 8+ runs a game and make the pitching side of things trivial.

[Madhawk23]

No doubt - these next few weeks are huge. And, now that we are into August, the light at the end of this 2019 tunnel is becoming clearer. Here's how I think this thing needs to play out for the Brewers (knowing full well of course that nothing ever seems to go according to plan):

 

Tex: win 2/3

Min: win 1/2

@Was: win 2/3 (Scherzer is out, and maybe we can avoid one of Corbin/Strasburg in this series?)

@Stl: win 1/3 (if we lose 2/3 in Wsh, then we need to win 2/3 here for a .500 trip)

Ari: win 2/3

Stl: win 2/3

@Chc: win 1/3

Hou: win 1/2

Chc: win 2/4

@Mia: win 3/4

@Stl: win 2/3

SD: win 2/4

Pit: win 2/3

@Cin: win 2/3

@Col: win 2/3

 

To me, these expectations seem a bit lofty - especially given the current state of our pitching staff. And, this would still only leave us at 87 wins. Is that enough to hunt down the Cubs? Or, are we probably more likely to be going for a WC spot with this scenario? We'd have to hope that the Cubs go 25-23 down the stretch if we were to force a game 163 with them again this year, or 24-24 to beat them outright. Boy, that seems like it is a tough "ask," doesn't it? My guess is that the Cubs end up winning 90 games and taking the division by 3-4 games, when all is said and done. If we can get to 87 though, I'd have to think we'd at least be in a fight for one of the two WC spots.

 

Just for fun, I thought I would revisit this projection today - now that we are about 1/2 way through it. I thought when I looked back on this today that we would be way off my projection at this point - but to my surprise, we are only a game behind - through the Cubs series that wrapped up on Sunday. Now, we are going to need to win tonight in game 2 vs the Astros to remain a game behind (I had us splitting this series, and we've obviously lost the first game already). If (and I know it's a HUGE "if") we can win tonight, and then somehow find a way to take 3/4 from the Cubs this weekend (that's almost a "must have" situation), then we'll somehow be back in line with my projection towards 87 wins. Unfortunately though - I had us then winning every series from the final Cubs series forward, and it's really hard to envision this team accomplishing such a feat at this stage, the way they continue to play (not to mention all of the injuries that have mounted now).

 

Well, go figure - we did what we had to do last week (winning the 2nd game against the Stros and 3/4 against the Cubs) to get back on track with my projected route to 87 wins. Now, who knows if 87 wins will be enough to get the 2nd WC - but I've got to figure that it'll at least keep us in the conversation right up until that last weekend of the season. I had us needing to go 13-7 now in this final 20 game stretch, so as has already been stated - this team is going to have to play really good baseball during these final three weeks if they are to make a run. 3/4 in Miami is almost a "must" at this point.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Happy to be alive another week. Get 3/4 from MIA and they really shouldn't be in too bad of shape at that point. Easier said than done of course.

 

For the division, while I agree with your premise overall of Cards due for a downturn a bit. We need to make up 7 games with only 20 to go. This is almost impossible. You'd need a historic collapse from them. Sure, if you sweep them that would at least put it in play, but still this is almost impossible.

 

To get within a reasonable range, we for sure would need to sweep the Cards. And they haven't shown signs of slowing down yet, so that's wildly unlikely. The most likely outcome playing 3 in st louis is 1 win. Hopefully the guys aren't looking ahead and are focused on Miami. We really need to hit in this series, 8+ runs a game and make the pitching side of things trivial.

 

I hear this alot, and it isn't really true even with just 20 games to go. If the Brewers win each of their remaining series, they are at minimum 88-74 at season's end. Assuming this means the Brewers take 2 of 3 against the Cardinals, meaning they'd still trail them by 5.5 games after taking out this weekend's 3 game set. We'd also need to assume the extra game the Brewers have is a win, meaning they'd need to play 5 full games better than the Cardinals over their remaining 16 games on the calendar. Sure, that's a tall order, but it isn't that far fetched for the Brewers to go 11-5 or better against the likes of the Marlins, Padres, Reds, Pirates, and Rockies while the Cards could go 5-11 against the Cubs, Nationals, Dbacks, and Rockies. The silver lining is if the Cards don't crater during this part of their schedule, they'll be helping the Brewers by beating up directly on their wildcard competition.

 

Sure, sweeping the Cards this weekend makes a big swing in the division standings and really opens the door for having the division title in play by late September. Reality is that the Brewers still have a shot at the division if they are within 3 games of the lead headed into the season's last week based on schedules, and they have two weeks to make up 3.5 games in the standings with an extra game and a head-to-head series during that time to at least get to that point.

 

By no means do I expect it to happen, but it's not that unrealistic if the Brewers play well.

[tmwiese55]

It's like going 14-6 combined with them going 6-14. Ballpark approximations here of course. Combine the odds on both of those happening and you're at shockingly low percent, probably in the 1-3 type area. But just think of like this, they're already at 81 wins. We're trying to contrive a way to get to 87, while they're already sitting at 81. Plus, along with it you need the Cubs to do poorly, which as you said since Cubs/Cards play each other so much one of them is getting a W each time.

 

But yea, get your 3/4 vs Miami and a sweep this weekend and all of a sudden you've gone from next to impossible up to "hey this wouldn't be that crazy to happen"

[KeithStone53151]

Don't sleep on the diamondbacks, by the way. They won 8 of their last 10 including 3 of 4 vs the Dodgers. They also have possibly an easier schedule than us down the stretch. 6 vs SD, 3 vs Cin, 3 vs Mia...then 2 tough ones with the Mets and Cards.

[clancyphile]

Sweep the Marlins and the Cardinals... that's my hope.

[pacopete4]

6-2 record in Craigtember.

[Eye Black]

The Brewers finishing the regular season on a 23-game winning streak is going to make the 2007 Rockies look like total chumps.

[Brew crew 92]

The Brewers finishing the regular season on a 23-game winning streak is going to make the 2007 Rockies look like total chumps.

 

Ha, at first I did a double take, thinking I was in the optimism thread.

[jjfanec]

Don't sleep on the diamondbacks, by the way. They won 8 of their last 10 including 3 of 4 vs the Dodgers. They also have possibly an easier schedule than us down the stretch. 6 vs SD, 3 vs Cin, 3 vs Mia...then 2 tough ones with the Mets and Cards.

 

How is their schedule easier than ours?

We both play cincy

We both play Miami but we get one more game - advantage brewers

We both play the cards

We both play the Padres but they get two more games. We essentially swap those extra two Padres games for the Rockies - advantage brewers

They play 4 vs the Mets and we get the Pirates instead - huge advantage brewers

[MrTPlush]

People are going to go complete doomsday, but I think the Brewers can still make the postseason. Yelich is one guy and there isn’t much season left...he could have OPSd’ .800 the rest of the year for all we know. Small sample results can get fluky, the rest of the season is a small sample.

 

His main replacement has an OPS north of 1.000 the last week, you just don’t know...much like Ace Lyles has been with us.

 

Don’t get me wrong I’d much rather have Yelich healthy, but he is one guy. They are 11-7 without him this year. That is 99 win pace if you are curious. He is not the magical man worth 20 wins like it is made out to be sometimes. We can and have won without him.

[Brew crew 92]

People are going to go complete doomsday, but I think the Brewers can still make the postseason. Yelich is one guy and there isn’t much season left...he could have OPSd’ .800 the rest of the year for all we know. Small sample results can get fluky, the rest of the season is a small sample.

 

His main replacement has an OPS north of 1.000 the last week, you just don’t know...much like Ace Lyles has been with us.

 

Don’t get me wrong I’d much rather have Yelich healthy, but he is one guy. They are 11-7 without him this year. That is 99 win pace if you are curious. He is not the magical man worth 20 wins like it is made out to be sometimes. We can and have won without him.

 

Agree 100%.

This is a team that wins late in the year, every year under Stearns. It’s a September team. They have a tremendous amount of underperforming talent that since the day before September has been performing like their talent suggests we should. These injuries to Hiura Woodruff Moose Pina Braun Cain should have kept us from winning, but haven’t, and now this injury to Yelich won’t either. We have good players, AAA players that have given the team a burst of energy, solid starters and a massive bullpen that the skipper of our massive pen can mix and match with the best em. We will overcome, and it’ll feel that much better when we do.

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think the brewers wind up dusting the cubs in the standings down the stretch despite losing yelich - the cubs are also walking wounded and their pitching is in worse shape than the brewers. to me the question becomes whether they hold off the dbacks and phillies for that second wildcard spot.

 

I now have a very difficult time thinking the division title is still up for grabs, though.