Brewers/Giants Series 4/5-4/7

Post #1 » by **ReasonablySober** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 3:25 pm

Fine, none of you want to do it? This is the opening day GT you get.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Brewers/status/716990626122842116[/tweet]

There may not be a baseball player I loathe more than MadBum and it would make today incredibly sweet if we could beat him. He had an ERA over 4:00 on the road last year so this won't be impossible.

I think this season is going to be fun. I want to see the young guys simply not fall on their faces, Lucroy to bounce back in a big way, Braun to have an OPS over.850, and get a couple pleasant surprises along the way. I'm thinking Carter and Rivera. Obviously it would be great to have the minor leaguers light it up.

Go Brewers. I'll be taking a late lunch to a bar nearby to to catch a couple innings at some point.

Post #2 » by **humanrefutation** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 3:29 pm

There are literally few things I find less interesting than watching terrible baseball. It gives me a massive headache to even consider it, even as I know that rebuilding for the future is the right approach.

This is going to be a long, long summer.

Happy Opening Day!

coolhandluke121 · Post #3 » by **coolhandluke121** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 3:41 pm

ReasonablySober wrote:
I think this season is going to be fun. I want to see the young guys simply not fall on their faces, Lucroy to bounce back in a big way, Braun to have an OPS over.850, and get a couple pleasant surprises along the way.

Totally agree with this. They're really not much worse than they've been since 2011 in my opinion. The last 4 years have been wasted by keeping players not only past their prime, but past the point where they even belong in the majors anymore - not to mention paying them 8-figure salaries most of the time. I'll take a bunch of journeymen in their physical prime and young guys looking to make a name for themselves over that every time. Roster construction looks a little better too.

Besides age, injury, lack of up-and-coming homegrown talent, and bad payroll structure, things like defensive shortcomings and terrible base-running consistently caused the team to under-achieve, sometimes by a wide margin. It was infuriating to watch for years. This is gonna be a breath of fresh air, even if the results are the same or even slightly worse.

Kerb Hohl · Post #4 » by **Kerb Hohl** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 3:41 pm

I'd think there was a solid chance if Wily wasn't facing some good lefties today. Belt, Crawford, Panik will feast. Might be a higher scoring game than expected. Glad baseball is back and I will be monitoring basically ever player's trade stock or long-term viability with the team for fun this year.

Outlander · Post #5 » by **Outlander** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 3:58 pm

You will still see defensive shortcomings, this infield defense is real bad in my opinion. Outfield should be a step up though. Based on some things said about Villar I don't expect terrible base running to disappear either.

Wisky4life · Post #6 » by **Wisky4life** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 4:08 pm

I think we start the season with a Bang!!! 8-2 for the win and then things go down hill.

coolhandluke121 · Post #7 » by **coolhandluke121** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 4:16 pm

Outlander wrote:You will still see defensive shortcomings, this infield defense is real bad in my opinion. Outfield should be a step up though. Based on some things said about Villar I don't expect terrible base running to disappear either.

Yeah but it would be hard not to improve. I mean, we've had guys like Yuni, McGehee, Prince, and Ramirez. Weeks and Overbay were big liabilities on defense once they aged too. Carter's -dWAR is mostly from the outfield. Villar is solid. Hill should be better than Ramirez. Gennett is no worse than before, and I have hopes of him being traded to play Walsh and Perez. The outfield is better even without Gomez, who had lost a step and was also routinely having mental lapses in cf by the time he was traded.

As for baserunning, it would be even harder not to improve. I know they led the majors in TOOTBLAN's by a wide margin at least once since 2011, and probably more times. Wouldn't be surprised if they have the record for teams this century. It's gonna be so nice not to ever have to see Gomez get thrown out at 3rd or home with nobody out in a Brewer uniform again. Ditto for Segura getting picked off.

I'm probably just rationalizing my excitement. Can't help but be excited for opening day no matter how bad the team is expected to be. That's baseball for ya. I don't have this problem in any other sport.

Post #8 » by **ReasonablySober** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 4:29 pm

I think the record, bad as it probably will be, will come down to inconsistencies. At the plate, in the field, on the base-paths. Lots of streakiness. The talent will be evident, but not all at once, and not consistently awful. I can live with that if the flashes show up often enough.

Ill-yasova · Post #9 » by **Ill-yasova** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 4:39 pm

It's all about starting pitching this year. Time for Peralta to put up or shut up.

Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Kerb Hohl · Post #10 » by **Kerb Hohl** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 4:45 pm

I think the offense is actually reasonably solid in this day in age of defense/pitching winning. The pitching staff is just awful, awful trash (and that's OK, they're rebuilding).

Honestly, maybe Nelson as a mid-rotation guy and Jeffress/Thornburg. Those are the only guys I can see ever being a factor for a contending Brewers team in 2-3 years and hell, even being in the majors 3-4 years from now. Smith will eventually be traded when healthy and Anderson/Davies will be decent pieces as swing starters, but if we can get trade value out of basically anyone that throws a pitch early in the season, I see that as a plus.

crkone · Post #11 » by **crkone** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 5:40 pm

crkone · Post #12 » by **crkone** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 5:41 pm

crkone · Post #13 » by **crkone** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:05 pm

Spoiler:

Big pic

crkone · Post #14 » by **crkone** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:07 pm

Turk Nowitzki · Post #15 » by **Turk Nowitzki** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:28 pm

Making MadBum work for it right out of the gate at least.

Turk Nowitzki · Post #16 » by **Turk Nowitzki** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:33 pm

Nice work Hill. I think I'm going to learn to hate him.

Turk Nowitzki · Post #17 » by **Turk Nowitzki** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:02 pm

Peralta is horrible.

Post #18 » by **ReasonablySober** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:07 pm

Turk Nowitzki wrote:Peralta is horrible.

There can't be many worse opening day starters, if any.

Turk Nowitzki · Post #19 » by **Turk Nowitzki** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:09 pm

ReasonablySober wrote:
Turk Nowitzki wrote:Peralta is horrible.

There can't be many worse opening day starters, if any.

There's no way any team is throwing out an Opening Day starter worse than Peralta, no way in hell.

Kerb Hohl · Post #20 » by **Kerb Hohl** » Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:12 pm

Turk Nowitzki wrote:
ReasonablySober wrote:
Turk Nowitzki wrote:Peralta is horrible.

There can't be many worse opening day starters, if any.

There's no way any team is throwing out an Opening Day starter worse than Peralta, no way in hell.

Hellickson and Tillman aren't far off.

However, if a team knows that they can put out a bunch of decent lefties (and the Giants can) then you have the worst Opening Day starter in a long, long time.