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We are playing really well, and hopefully if we stay healthy we will stay in the top tier.

Record wise, yes, but that may last what maybe one more day?

The best team this year to me is the Red Sox. The Brewers have only outscored there opponets by 13 runs and play in the very sad NL Central. While the Red Sox play in, well, generally the best or 2nd best division although no one else is currently over .500 and have outscored there opponets by 40 runs. Cleveland is also up there with the Red Sox, but for some reason I'm giving the Sox an edge. With the Mets probably being the 3rd best team this year.

Outscoring means nothing.Boston plays in a bandbox.Miller Park isn't huge,but runs are harder to get in the NL.

Total runs ≠ run differential

Braves would have the best record if Bobby stopped letting Mark Redman start after his first terrible start. He's 0-4 with some 10+ ERA.

It doesn't matter any more who the best team in baseball is. Since twice as many teams make the postseason as should be permitted, all that matters is which one of those teams is healthy and can get hot in October.

This is extremely clear to Cardinals fans. In the last few years we've seen our team have great seasons only to lose a short postseason series to someone we had clobbered for the previous six months. And we saw last year's team steal a championship away from at least a couple of better teams.

Also: stay off his lawn, you whippersnappers.

No no, whipper-snappers are welcome on my lawn if they have something interesting to say and bring along some beer.

What, you think it's a good thing that a 162-game season is now fairly meaningless and that the World Series is played in 40-degree weather at Halloween?

Yea, we could still tank and this may not last another day...

but seriously, this has got my a little freaked out:

mizzoupacers wrote:No no, whipper-snappers are welcome on my lawn if they have something interesting to say and bring along some beer.

What, you think it's a good thing that a 162-game season is now fairly meaningless and that the World Series is played in 40-degree weather at Halloween?

Compared to other sports baseball has the lowest percentage of teams making the playoffs. Adding a wild-card team to each league has not taken away anything from the game, especially given the expansion of baseball over the past three-and-a-half decades.

The awesome thing to look forward to is that David Bush is going to put up killer numbers here on out. He

It would be a good story if they came out of that division and made the playoffs. Its not their fault what division their on, they play who's on their schedule and are winning games thats what its all about.

Basketball Jesus wrote:Compared to other sports baseball has the lowest percentage of teams making the playoffs. Adding a wild-card team to each league has not taken away anything from the game, especially given the expansion of baseball over the past three-and-a-half decades.

I respectfully beg to differ.

Baseball's present postseason format takes away the significance of being the best team in your league during the regular season. This is important--and unfortunate--for two key reasons: (1) baseball is a more evenly contested sport than football or basketball (when is the last time you saw a baseball team finish the regular season with an .800 winning pct.), (2) baseball plays far more regular-season games than the other major professional sports leagues.

Thus if you make baseball's postseason more like football's or basketball's (exactly what has happened), then you are making it far more likely than in the other sports that the best team will not end up as the champs. Also, you are diminishing the importance of a far greater number of (regular-season) games.

Adding a third division in each league plus a wild-card playoff team has its merits too--the system is not all bad--but it isn't true that there are no demerits.

Which system you prefer is a matter of opinion.

P.S. Sorry, Brewers fans, for semi-hijacking this thread. Your team is probably going to run away with the NL Central, no one else in the division is nearly as good. I predict 90+ wins and as good a chance as anyone else in the annual crapshoot that is baseball's postseason.

I don't think the Brewers are clearly the class of the division. I mean, the Cubs have a better run differential but have 7 less wins because of how unlucky they've been thus far.

The Brewers run differential is bad because of some bad blown out losses:
3-9
2-10
5-11
1-10
(11-40) -29 differential.

crkone wrote:The Brewers run differential is bad because of some bad blown out losses:
3-9
2-10
5-11
1-10
(11-40) -29 differential.

"blow out wins"
7-1
7-1
12-2
9-4
(35-8 ) +27 differential

It works both ways. And if you don't want to get "blown out" play better baseball. The only reason the Brewers have a + differential is because they just got done playing the sad Cardinals team.

don't give a **** about run differential. If we win 2 games by 1 run each and lose the third game by 6 runs all year I'll be totally fine.

Some one pinch me, is this **** real!

They ran into St. Louis at a good time. St. Louis is thinking about a fallen player and they are just trouncing on them.
I wouldn't want to face this St. Louis team later in the season.

I'll worry about run differential when that's how they start deciding playoff teams.

After a 25 year drought, in baseballs insane economic system, it would be a good story for the Brewers to make the playoffs. And Milwaukee has a pattern going here. Every 25 years 1957 Braves, 1982 Brewers, 2007...

There will be losing streaks and injuries as there are in every 162 game season, we'll see how they do over the next 5 months.

I live in the area so I'm certainly biased but it is good to see teams on top based on scouting, drafting, shrewd trades rather than by opening a checkbook.