A year ago, with the Brewers coming off two straight failures to repeat their 2011 playoff run, the Fairly Detached Observers asked whether 2014 would be a “year of redemption.”
For five months it was, as the Brewers kept all their National League Central rivals in their dust. But in their final 10 series the offense collapsed and they went 10-22, barely finishing above .500.
And so the Brewers open the 2015 season Monday with some extra-special redeeming to do—after choosing to keep the starting lineup almost unchanged. Will they have the endurance to reach the post-season this time? The Observers are only half-convinced...
Frank: Last year I was the only person in Milwaukee’s print media—namely, us and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel—who pegged the Brewers for the playoffs. I was almost a genius!
Artie: The key word being...
F: Plus I cleverly took a stab at Kansas City as a wild card, and San Francisco, and look who made the World Series!
A: Still, I don’t recall...
F: Well, I wasn’t that clever. I had Washington beating Tampa Bay in the Fall Classic. You had the Dodgers beating Boston. But you nailed six of the 10 post-season teams, and I had seven.
A: Not too shabby, ain’a?
F: Now I’m doubling down and re-declaring a Milwaukee return to the playoffs!
A: My expectations will be met if the Brew Crew can find 70 or so wins.
F: I agree that they face plenty of questions. Several teams went all-out to upgrade: San Diego, the White Sox, Toronto, Miami, Seattle. But Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and GM Doug Melvin pretty much stood pat.
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A: Seven guys in the projected starting lineup and four of the five starting pitchers went through last year’s implosion.
F: Nagging injuries played a role, which is why two huge questions involve Ryan Braun’s surgically repaired right thumb and Aramis Ramirez’s soon to be 37-year-old legs. They desperately need those guys to resume their normal offensive production!
A: I’m worried that Jonathan Lucroy’s tender hamstring entering training camp might be an omen. And the back spasms that hit Adam Lind, the new first baseman, early in camp. He’s had back issues over the years.
F: And there’s Matt Garza, who also has a history of missing chunks of the season. Last year it was about a month with a strained side muscle.
A: We didn’t weep over Yovani Gallardo’s departure for Texas, but he was durable. The current rotation needs to stay intact! Garza, Kyle Lohse, Wily Peralta and Mike Fiers can do the job, but Jimmy Nelson has looked shaky in Arizona and most of their top pitching prospects are more than a year away.
F: Jean Segura needs to return to his rookie form after a rough 2014. He suffered through the tragic death of his infant son in July, but he was struggling before that.
A: There are questions about whether Scooter Gennett will hit left-handers and whether Ron Roenicke will even try to have Lind do it, or perhaps give Lucroy more time at first base against lefties.
F: And if so, will Martin Maldonado’s bat provide much? By the way, did you see that stat in Sports Illustrated that Lucroy is by far the best catcher over the last five years in “framing” pitches to get strike calls? More than 1,000 “extra strikes” to his name!
A: That’s a hot new stat, used with one called “runs saved” to gauge a catcher’s true worth. In theory, a catcher who doesn’t hit can make up for it by the runs he saves with his “framing.”
F: Speaking of defense, SI suggested starting Gerardo Parra in left field over the weak-armed Khris Davis.
A: I don’t see it because you’d lose power and as we know, chicks and Doug Melvin dig the long ball.
F: How about the bullpen, which as usual had a revolving door for Francisco Rodriguez. He exited as a free agent but returned after a few months—for the fourth straight year!
A: Also as usual, Melvin has “closer insurance,” this time Jonathan Broxton. You can’t make predictions; relievers all ride a roller-coaster and you just hope most of ’em are heading upward in a given year.
F: So a lot of things have to go right for the Brewers to finish what they started last year. One reason for hope is that with two wild cards per league, they don’t have to be a super-team to qualify. Tom Verducci noted in the SI preview that the 2014 World Series was the first between two teams with fewer than 90 regular-season wins.
A: What matters is being hot at the right time.
F: Sure, you want to aim for, say, 95 wins, but if you get to 88 you’re in the hunt. And 88 is just seven wins better than the utter mediocrity of 81-81.
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A: I see! You’re backing the Brew Crew because they don’t have to be all that much better than last year’s 82-80.
F: It’s too much to think they’ll race ahead again, but if they play well enough into July we know Attanasio and Melvin are willing to make some moves. Like last year, I’m picking them second to St. Louis but holding a wild card.
A: And I just think too many of the questions won’t have good answers.
F: We’re skipping the World Series predictions this year, but we have more to say about the division races, other baseball topics and the Wisconsin Badgers’ return to the Final Four.
THE DIVISION RACES
F: Are you with me, however reluctantly, in saying the Cardinals look like the NL Central winners?
A: This is a mighty tough division, and as much as I hate it I can’t pick against the Cardinals and Pirates for 1-2. If the Pirates still had Russell Martin I’d pick them for the title, but he’s a Blue Jay now.
F: As always, injuries could make huge changes. If Yadier Molina or Andrew McCutcheon went down for the season...
A: And of all the presumed contenders, I think the Cardinals are the most vulnerable in that regard because they’ve got some age issues.
F: Still, the Cards have had years where one of their top pitchers goes down—Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, whoever—and somehow they’ve always seemed to find new solid starters.
A: Last autumn they lost one of their premier youngsters, Oscar Taveras, who was killed in a car crash.
F; Tragic for sure, but as a rookie he hadn’t contributed much last season. And now they’ve gotten Jason Heyward from Atlanta. Also remember, Molina missed a long stretch last year and they still won.
A: Like I say, I can’t pick against ’em but I sure don’t like it.
F: And how about the cool and trendy choice for a renaissance, the Cubs?
A: I really hate to say this, but I think the Cubs with all their young prospects and Jon Lester on the mound will grab third.
F: I’ll believe the Cubbie phenomenon when it happens. I do recall that last year the Cubs helped ruin things for the Brewers, going 11-8 in the season series.
A: So I’ve got the Crew pegged for fourth, ahead of only Cincinnati.
F: Ahead of Cincy my order is St. Louis, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and the Cubs. My other NL division winners are the Dodgers and Nationals...
A: I agree.They both look mighty strong, especially in pitching. I think the Giants are in trouble because they lost Pablo Sandoval to Boston, Matt Cain is coming off some serious physical trouble...
F: Besides, it’s not an even-numbered year. And even though they won the Series last year, they trailed the Dodgers in the division. My other NL wild card is San Diego.
A: I’ll say Pittsburgh and Miami for my wild cards. I think the Mets will have a good year, but not quite good enough.
F: In the American League East I have Toronto because I refuse to say Boston and can’t say the Yankees, even in my wildest dreams. And I think Baltimore will be one of the wild cards. In the other divisions I have the White Sox and Seattle, with Cleveland being the other wild card.
A: And I’ll go with Cleveland, Baltimore and the Angels for division titles, with Toronto and Seattle as the wild cards.
F: So we both think the Royals were a one-year wonder. It was nice that Ned Yost and his guys got to a World Series, which allowed our old pal Ned to actually lighten up for a few days, smile and even crack a joke or two on national TV.
A: Are you sure it was really Yost? I thought whoever was in the dugout might have been an alien.
BASEBALL’S PACEMAKERS
F: Back to the departure of Mr. Gallardo. I don’t want to say it’s “addition by subtraction,” but it’s possible the Brewers’ bullpen won’t get quite as fried quite as quickly because there’s no Gallardo failing to get to the seventh inning, or out of the sixth inning, on a routine basis.
A: That’s the major plus. The down side is that at least Gallardo was always healthy.
F: But it also helps fans because they won’t have to sit through so many games that are 10 or 15 minutes longer than they need to be because Yo is throwing too dang many pitches.
A: We always seemed to draw the “Yo” straw when we went out to Miller Park. But now we’ll probably always get Garza, who’s another slow worker.
F: And in general, last year games hit an all-time dreary average of 3 hours 8 minutes. So what do you think of Major League Baseball’s new tactics to pick up the pace?
A: They’ve set supposedly strict rules on timing the between-innings changeovers, but it seems like the best that can do is hold the line on what they already allow for commercials. And with all the dang music that blares out between innings, it ain’t gonna seem any quicker to me!
F: I’ll be really interested in seeing how tightly they police the rule about batters having to keep one foot in the box between pitches. And in seeing all the contortions the batters will take to keep one toe on the chalk while still stalling.
A: And there will be plenty of exceptions, ain’a? Batters can “back out” if the ump grants time, or after swings and misses, foul balls or pitches that knock ’em back.
F: I think the best thing they could do is tell umpires that as soon as they hear the rasping sound of Velcro being torn apart to readjust a batting glove, yell, “STEE-RIKE!”
A: Even if that didn’t speed things up, it would add some entertaining brouhahas.
F: One of the big complainers is one of the biggest dawdlers, David Ortiz. I think “Big Papi” is mostly a big blowhard, but he makes a valid point when he says that pitchers should be held just as accountable.
A: But that’s not what’s happening, at least this year.
F: Minor leagues will experiment with a pitch count, and maybe the big leagues will follow. As we’ve noted many times, there already is a rule requiring pitchers to deliver within 12 seconds when there’s no one on base. But of course that never has been enforced, and when there are men on, anything goes.
A: Put a clock on ’em all!
F: A recent piece in The New Yorker reported that in 2014 games averaged about 290 pitches with 77 plate appearances, and the average time between pitches was 22.99 seconds. If that time could come down to even 20 seconds it would cut about 10 minutes per game. I know pitchers and hitters think every second of their “prep time” is vital, but hey, were players any less focused decades ago when the average game was a half-hour quicker?
A: They’re professionals, and they should be able to adapt to whatever the rules are—providing the rules are really enforced.
F: What do players always say about the variability of umpires’ strike zones? “Hey, all we ask is consistency; we can adjust as long as we know what to expect.”
A: So expect to pitch and hit a little more quickly.
F: And while we’re on the subject, I find myself asking why, if Bud Selig was always such a staunch advocate of a livelier “pace of the game,” that we had to wait for Bud to retire as commissioner and Bob Manfred to take over before we got these efforts to improve things?
A: Fine question.
F: About every three years he would wag his finger a little over the winter, say, “OK, we really mean it this time,” maybe appoint a new disciplinarian, but then nothing would happen.
A: Could it be that the owners really didn’t want quicker games so they could keep pulling more money out of fans’ pockets?
F: Oh well, maybe we’ll get an insight from the new exhibit at Miller Park this year, the “Selig Experience.” One Web report said this: “The main multimedia show builds to a surprising 3D encounter with the commissioner himself inside an authentic reproduction of Selig’s County Stadium office...”
A: Wow, a “Selig Experience.” But I think they have it in the wrong place. We still have prisoners at Guantanamo, don’t we? If they really wanted to make those guys “spill the beans” on terrorists, they should make ’em experience Bud.
THE BADGERS’ FOUR-PEAT
F: It’s two rematches down and one huge one to go for Bo Ryan and the Badgers. In reaching the NCAA Final Four again, they beat Oregon and Arizona for the second straight year.
A: And that gets ’em the showdown they wanted—another shot at Kentucky in the national semifinals. And they’d dearly love to pay the Wildcats back for the one-point heartbreaker last year by ruining the would-be perfect season one step short of completion.
F: But it won’t be easy. I hadn’t seen Kentucky much until their tournament game against Cincinnati, and wow, do those Wildcats play incredible defense! They must have had 15 blocked shots, and the Bearcats are bruisers who don’t back down to anyone. I was amazed at how Kentucky’s guys play together at both ends of the court.
A: Cincinnati could have used an outside shooter or two. And one thing about the Badgers is that they’ve got shooters.
F: It’s hard to expect UW to repeat the shooting they did in the second half against Arizona—almost 80% overall and 10 of 12 three-pointers!
A: And of course there can be games were everything turns cold. But I’d say that if the Badgers can have a relatively normal shooting night, they stand a good chance against Kentucky.
F: I’m thinking any team has to be hitting from the outside to compensate for Kentucky’s size and toughness inside.
A: Exactly. They’ve got all these shot-blockers like Willie Cauley-Stein and Karl-Anthony Towns, but in theory if you try to work it inside but then kick it out—and make a few—you might be able to draw those big guys out a bit.
F: And even if they’re only a couple of feet outside their defensive “comfort zone,” it can open things up for Frank Kaminsky, Nigel Hayes and Sam Dekker inside.
A: Plus the Badgers do have guys who can get to the rim. Yeah, they might get stymied a few times, but you’d hope they can get a couple of those hyphenated guys moving too much and get ’em in foul trouble.
F: But Kentucky is mighty deep.
A: They’re sure not unbeaten by chance. But the Badgers have some depth too, now that Traevon Jackson is finally able to give them something, even if it’s in short spurts.
F: The Badgers seem to have been walking the tightrope a few times recently. The Big Ten championship game against Michigan State, the Sweet Sixteen game against North Carolina...
A: And the previous one against Oregon. And yes, they were behind Arizona by three at the half, but this time they didn’t hesitate to get it together after the break.
F: So you could look at it one of two ways. Either they’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, or every one of these gritty comebacks gives ’em more confidence.
A: You know which view I’ll take.
F: A big factor for this UW team is that it has stayed together. Kaminsky, Josh Gasser and Jackson for four years, Dekker for the last three.
A: Plus these Badgers can control the tempo or step up the pace. Having scorers will do that for you.
F: Yeah, they’re not the “grind it out” Badgers of some past years. This season Virginia took most of the heat for allegedly slowing down the game, making it “unwatchable.” But do you suppose Virginia’s fans left their games complaining that the Cavaliers didn’t win pleasingly enough?
A: I sure was able to watch their games. They played the way they had to, because they’re short on genuine scorers.
F: Still, I do think the men’s game needs to drop the shot clock from 35 seconds to 30, which is the standard for women’s games. That in itself would produce more possessions and, presumably, more points.
A: Well, let’s hope that this year it’s the Badgers who score in their final possession and the broken hearts are in Kentucky.
Frank Clines covered sports for The Milwaukee Journal and the Journal Sentinel. Art Kumbalek expects little and is seldom disappointed.
