Rolling Bob Uecker Anecdotes - 2017 Milwaukee Brewers Still Rebuilding Thread

Crack open a Summer Shandy, because it's almost that time of the year again.

So between Villar and Broxton the team was actually pretty fun to watch last year. Kind of excited for this year, too. This may be the year Stearns finally offers a timeline for when we might realistically contend. And if nothing else his boom-or-bust offseason signings should guarantee some home runs. Go crew.

This will also be the default thread for posting pictures of Keon Broxton's cool dog

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3w3atIVMAAocOE.jpg

was hoping we'd be able to offload Braun this offseason. I'm not sure why they're holding on to him, or if they just haven't found a willing trading partner (which seems unlikely, given that he's still on a somewhat team-friendly contract).

My understanding is we are not very motivated sellers. It's a good contract for us, and it's now pretty reasonable to think Braun will still have value in three or four years, so he could be a part of our next window.

He was the one guy I was kinda hoping we wouldn't trade. He's been on the team for as long as I've been a fan, and I love the idea of seeing him in the playoffs again. That being said, I could totally see us flipping him in July if he's as hot as he was last year

by then he'll be 36-37. I think he'll hold up as well as any baseball player can reasonably be expected to, but there's also the possibility he'll fall off a cliff in a couple years. I still like him but at this point I don't think there are any contracts worth holding on to.

yeah, I agree. If somebody offers us a haul, there's no doubt we should take it. But I like that Stearns isn't moving him just to move him. Also there are all sorts of team records he's set to break if we hang on to him, and those are always fun to watch during seasons that don't offer much else to be excited about

pecota has the brewers finishing one game behind the cardinals btw. should be interesting with arcia, thames, etc

i don't know what the terms are, but one key to the season should be not letting matt garza's option vest

lol killing garza's option is a top priority imo

One thing that is exciting about this team is that you know that if they seriously begin to click, if there are any signs of life at all, Attanasio will push the button and sign whatever help we need to get to the off season. If we somehow are ahead of the Cards by the all star break it's gonna be on

something's not right there, Vegas has Milwaukee at 70.5 wins and St. Louis at 83.5. I think Milwaukee can overperform though - I thought they could lose 100 last year but they wound up with 73 wins.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2017-top-100-prospects/

Brewers got 7 of the top 100....not bad

Just checking in to say "Get up, get up, get outa here...GONE"

:)

yeeesh

http://deadspin.com/brewers-reliever-sent-to-triple-a-id-rather-have-a-9-1793939951

Nothing lowers your expectations for a Brewers season quite like opening day

I thought it was a good battle-back situation.

Villar at second base is a problem

last year they lost 9-0, I can handle this

This looks like it could be a very fun lineup to follow all season, and in the near future.

this Travis Shaw guy seems alright

eric thames huh?

yea was gonna say he's been working out fine

Eric Thames is now in the lead for the official 'Bill Hall Cup' presented to the Milwaukee Brewer who feasts the deepest padding his stats on Reds pitching.

Yeah Thames is crushing any and all expectations. Not a total surprise the guy can slug—he's built like an '80s action hero—but he plays every at bat so well.

well yeah. he's an absolute beast

http://i.imgur.com/U5k32RG.jpg

big week coming up, 3 @ the Cubs and then 4 vs. the Cards. hoping the "Cards rebound after slow start" narrative isn't about to begin.

Cecil Fielder was able to parlay a trip to Japan into a nice MLB career, so Thames could follow on.

Big thing that Chris Welsh was talking about in the games last weekend about Thames was that before he went to Korea, he could be be gotten out with slow and off speed stuff as he could always hit the fastball. Korean baseball pitching uses a lot of off speed pitching, so that is not really a problem for him now.

Brewers have the early MLB HR lead, and they're padding it tonight

I know we're not even 10% into the season but still, wasn't expecting that

HRs in 5 straight games for Thames, damn

He didn't even look like he got a good swing at that one.

Feliz! What a nail biter!

Damn Cubs are good. But those were some hard fought games

knebel's 3-2 curve to strike out almora in the eighth was a thing of beauty

I thought we got rid of K-Rod !??

omg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9y5dRaUMAAIz5M.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9y5eD6VoAAQyZ9.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9y5eoRUIAADLfa.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9y5fP4VwAALQYU.jpg

ok that is one tradition that definitely needs to come to America

ha! that's awesome! what does the text say?

ha no idea, but it's more fun that way probably

does shaw crush pitches like that with any regularity or was that a one-off? 458' and it felt longer than that

omg eric thames

Awesome, he had been slacking lately

lol

Honestly, if this is what rebuilding looks like, I can get behind it. I know we'll probably fall far behind at some point and then Stearns will start pawning off the team (Feliz and Aguilar both seem like great trade candidates already, and the usual Braun trade rumors will surface), but for now we're playing great ball (even our loses look great) and we've got the greatest story in baseball crushing it with a historic start. This is so fun.

yeah for me the question is, how many more years are the Cubs gonna be a powerhouse team

there is definitely something fun about rebuilding years (as opposed to the "running out of gas and by the way how many years left on Suppan's contract??" years), especially when you've got a lot of potential everyday players in the minors. feel like we're at roughly where the Royals were in 2012.

Cubs are gonna be a powerhouse for ages, right? That team is so young

cubs' hitters are young, but their pitching is not. and arrieta will be a free agent at the end of the season.

how do you guys feel about counsell?

local guy, popular with fans and apparently players. Nobody gripes about him the way they did Roenicke. Since there's no expectation of the team contending, he's free to do whatever he wants. It would take a lot for fans to turn on him.

Sometimes his use of challenges bugs me, but that's just back seat driving. I don't see him having any glaring flaws. I even like how he's sticking with Broxton and Villar, painful as it's been to watch them this month

head scraching

Not sure what makes him a better manager than Ron, but yeah I like him because he's a Wisconsin guy and an ex-Brewer.

For the record I thought Roenicke got a raw deal. I still think it's really dumb to fire your manager after like 20 games, though not as dumb as it is to fire one when you're in the last 2 weeks of a playoff chase.

I have a cousin who lived in Whitefish Bay and he said he used to jog past Counsell's house all the time, and he'd often see him doing yard work. Kinda funny picturing the dude mowing his lawn in the morning and then showing up for practice

Roenicke's firing was retroactive for the massive tanking the team did at the end of the 2014 season. We'd been near locks for the playoffs, then everything went to hell, so Roenicke was on very thin ice going into 2015 (there was big talk he wouldn't be resigned). Attanasio was pissed and wanted him out; reporting said it was Melvin who fought to keep Roenicke's job.

The rumor I always used to hear was that Counsell biked down to the stadium from his home (nice ride), which is a fun character detail but I dunno if it's true

If nothing else, Counsell seems a lot more flexible than Roenicke was. Roenicke often seemed stubborn about certain things (for instance, he always had an "eighth inning guy," even tho that pitcher wasn't always right for the situation). Counsell seems more open to mixing things up, changing things around a bit, seeing what works and what sticks, without being erratic about it. I think that approach is serving him very well this season

there's definitely a difference in managing a team that could potentially make the playoffs and a team that is actively tanking, I feel if you've got the latter you can go hog wild and try all sorts of weird things (as the Reds are now). It'll be interesting to see what happens in a year or two when the Brewers actually have a shot at competing.

in other news, nice to see the home crowd give Scooter a big round of applause, even though he was kinda shit for us

also wow @ Thames, again

how many more games against the Reds do we get?

Huge win today

Not a drill, y'all. It's September and we are playing meaningful baseball. I expect we'll flame out in a week or two... but maybe we won't. Gotta savor this.

ouch

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20648616/milwaukee-brewers-right-hander-jimmy-nelson-miss-remainder-season-rotator-cuff-strain

yea unbelievable, that's the second major injury to a starter as a result of an at-bat

huge game today, if they can win I'd say the division is up for grabs

it may be!

yea they could be playing for the division two weekends from now, I'm stoked

go brew crew, like these guys a lot

can tie for WC2 with a win tonight

do it for Jimmy, boys

Despite last night's disappointment, they've won 9 of 12. Be nice to win 3 of 4 in this Cubs' series, but two of their starts are given to guys named Suter and Woodruff.

those two have been good!!

Yeah, i just don't know em

that's really been the surprise of the season, they've been able to cobble together a decent rotation despite losing their opening day starter and having to demote both Peralta and Garza. losing Nelson really sucks. kinda like how Counsell is just going for it right now, he's managing like they're in the playoffs already. it's even more amazing because this team is really not all that good. I don't think anyone could've thought they would have a legit shot at making the playoffs heading into the final week.

It seems pretty likely that a not-all-that-good team from the AL, and possibly the NL, will make the tournament.

man this is probably the best game of the year so far

welp, gotta win the next 3 to have a prayer in the division

wow that was frustrating. crowd was about to explode in the bottom of the 9th. gonna suck if the whole season comes down to who hit the bag first there

it was a crazy game. the cubs got lucky a few times.

though jeffries came pretty dang close to giving up three HRs in the 10th instead of just one. i'm still not convinced that rizzo didn't get one.

the atmosphere at Miller Park for these games has been incredible. love it.

i honestly regret the pirates winning that game on wednesday

I know they're lucky to be in this but holy shit those were some brutal back-to-back-to-back losses

@keithlaw Don't you love the IBB to load the bases followed by the walk forcing in the winning run for the Cubs? That's #smartbaseball

— John Martini (@doctorjohn1) September 23, 2017

wow we're really gonna lose three straight in extras aren't we

OR NOT!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAhA!!!!!!!

this has been a great series so far

great baseball

It speaks to the beauty of baseball that this has been both an amazing season and a heartbreaking season

I don't think we're gonna make it, but damn we were so close and with just a fraction of luck (something we had none of this season) we'd all but have a wild card locked up

no kidding, they really felt like the team of destiny until this last week

hey if they can sweep the Reds at home while Colorado loses 2 of 3 to Miami, they go into the last weekend 1 out of the WC2. (and Rox finish vs Dodgers)

i was impressed by their lineup of talented young no-name starters. i knew about davies but hadn't seen any of the other starters pitch yet, and they all acquitted themselves pretty well.

Just doing the fan math here... Rockies are all but sure to win today. But if the Brewers can somehow win tonight, then win tomorrow night, too (when the Rockies have off), they'll be just 1 game back. That means to tie the season they'll need to win two out of three against the Cards this weekend, and the Rockies will have to lose two of their final three games against the Dodgers.

It's.. doable, I guess. But man that's no room for error.

Dodgers are probably gonna be sitting guys too

It's nice that they still have a chance, but the Cubs series kinda crushed my hopes. Wish the Rockies would stop winning games.

well what a shitty last 4 days of the season

hold on! win tom'w and you have a meaningful Saturday

Battling to the end, love it.

man, within one game of a playoff. sucks because we lost so many close ones down the stretch, but whatever, this was a really fun team to watch, which I was definitely not expecting looking at that roster on opening day.

signing yovani gallardo and jhoulys chacin is a little underwhelming for a team that missed the playoffs by one game

yea they basically have no contracts except Braun, I kinda thought they might go after Yu Darvish or something

I dunno, I see the logic in bargain pickups. Gives the team plenty of room to make a trade mid-season if they're in the race, or make a big offseason pickup next year when the window is hypothetically wider. Gallardo looks like a really solid bounce-back candidate (his velo is back up) and Chacin stabilizes the rotation with Nelson out. Can't complain.

i admire your positivity

gallardo turns 32 in february and has been genuinely awful the last two seasons; chacin was dominant at petco last year but horrendous on the road. i mean, they might be okay! and they're not terribly expensive. but it seems more like moves the pirates or braves would make rather than a team on the edge of contending

Teams on the edge of contending usually have more than 3 solid starters. and even then...Nelson's coming off an injury, Davies is still young, and Anderson has really just had the one good year. I like both these moves, though obviously I hope there's a few more to come. as for Gallardo...he comes super cheap and I think there is some precedent for struggling pitchers finding renewed success with their old teams - Jeffress was a total bust in Texas last year, but he did well in Milwaukee

sullivan thinks chacin could have another gear: https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jhoulys-chacin-will-be-a-fun-brewers-project

Stearns' track record is good enough at this point that I give even his most suspect decisions the benefit of the doubt. He doesn't fall for pricey, shiny objects the way Melvin used to.

The implicit messaging in these moves is "we're NOT contending, everybody chill out," which is a little disappointing, but I do like that they leave open the option of making bigger moves if the window opens.

O.o

Might start the 2018 thread earlier than usual, because it's... been quite an offseason.

Thread title suggestions? Rolling Young, Controllable Talent, or Rolling Sausage Sponsorships?

they may not be done, don't jump the gun

yeah I think there's more to come. I am very cool with Stearns gobbling up anything on the market he perceives to be a bargain

I like the threads that pun off a players name FYI