Category Archives: milwaukee brewers

Zack Greinke is our savior

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I had a crisis of faith this past season. A crisis of faith in baseball, the MLB and it's system, even the Brewers. I just got tired of it all. The playoffs featuring the big spending Yankees and Phillies, the "underdog" World Series champion with a $100 million dollar payroll, the bargain signings and the Fielder trade rumors. I was just tired of it. Tired of thinking about prospects. Tired of going for 85 wins and luck. Tired of myself. Tired of this town.

When the Brewers made their move for Shaun Marcum those thoughts were completely eliminated. I loved the Brewers again. I had a renewed sense of hope that I just didn't feel last year during the offseason. The Brewers were adding someone to their biggest problem that was a significant upgrade over the people he was replacing. This was huge.

I knew that the Brewers had about an extra 30% chance of making the playoffs with Marcum, but it wasn't going to be enough because even if they made it there were still teams with better pitchers. The Giants haven't changed, the Phillies have only gotten better by adding the best pitcher in the league and the Cardinals remain dangerous. There was always a chance, but it was going to be a serious uphill climb.

TheFightins, a wildly popular Phillies blog, closed earlier this year and I remember wondering if we should do the same. An "if they couldn't make it, what hope do we have?" kind of thing. We might have reached our plateau as far as traffic for a Brewers-only blog goes and the Brewers themselves looked as if they might be looking to rebuild if things didn't go their way this year, with Prince Fielder and my man crush Rickie Weeks likely moving on. Maybe it was time for me to move on too and do something else. I thought about it for about two seconds before deciding against it. I just couldn't do it. So, why does that matter now?

Because the Brewers got Zack Greinke! I mean, can you imagine? If we had decided to close this blog we'd be crawling back to you like a guy whose ex-girlfriend just got a boob job. I'd be begging to be let back into your life. BEGGING! I'd (blank) your (blank), man. I would never forgive myself for closing my Brewers blog right before the Brewers pulled off the greatest trade in the history of baseball.

On Sunday morning I woke up and did a "Zack Greinke dance" for about 15 minutes before my girlfriend threatened to record me and put it on the website. (Honestly, there is enough footage of me with my shirt off on this site.) I had to work that day, but all I wanted to do was stay home and write 3000 blog posts.

ZACK GREINKE! SERIOUSLY!

Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke Zack Greinke

I honestly can't remember being happier about a Brewers transaction in my entire life. I rank finding out the trade was official right up there with the greatest moments of my life. THANK YOU DOUG MELVIN.

Greatest moments of my life:

  1. Son being born
  2. Something involving my girlfriend*
  3. Zack Greinke becoming a Brewer

The point here is that I can't imagine what it felt like to want to close this site or to not like baseball anymore because I love this site and baseball and the Brewers more than anything in my life right now. I just want to write, watch and read about the Brewers every second of every day for the rest of my life. The Brewers are going to the World Series and then they are going to win it. We are about to see the greatest Brewers team of our lifetime. Everything that came before will seem like a joke.

Hey, 1982 what a season am I right? Yeah, what a season... FOR LOSERS! 2011 BITCHES!!!!

Remember when the Brewers traded for CC Sabathia and won the Wild Card? HAHAHA THAT WAS HILARIOUS.

Blah blah blah Pete Vuckovich, Ben Sheets, Jamie Navarro, blah blah blah. ZACK FRICKIN' GREINKE!!!!!!!!!11 *crotch chop*

This is the most wonderful time of the year.. Continue reading »

So, who should we embarrass now?

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Two days ago we did a post about the Milwaukee Brewers trade of Brett Lawrie for Shaun Marcum and within the post we posted some pictures from Brett Lawrie's facebook that made him look like a douchebag. Since then the post has blown up, yesterday alone saw over 20k hits and we nearly tripled our ad revenue over last month, the site has seen such massive amounts of traffic that the server took the site down for almost two hours last night. The post was mentioned on 620 WTMJ, ESPN radio in Milwaukee by Tom Haudricourt and Trenni Kusnierek, something called Girls of Philly (NSFW), numerous forums, twitter, facebook and even got it's own post at Deadspin. (Deadspin!) It was, by far, the most successful post we've ever done and since that post was so successful we obviously need to find another player to facebook stalk.

When we started doing the blog we didn't expect it to be much. We thought it'd be small, like a Brewers centric Deadspin, getting just a couple hundred hits a week and that sounded good to me. Just a nice little outlet for my Brewers thoughts. Then things got a little bit bigger than we expected and people were telling me that this was one of their favorite blogs so we thought "let's do the Deadspin thing, but mix it with a bit of Milwaukee's Bill Simmons" and we went with that. (It was perfect because we didn't need to update as much. *rimshot* -Ed.) As things went on we threw in little bits of all our favorite blogs; The Dugout, Kissing Suzy Kolber, Warming Glow and I think it's been pretty successful. People still say this is their favorite blog. We threw a party at Miller Park for over 50 people and almost broke even on it. We're almost at 1000 facebook fans. I think it's safe to say that this site's success has exceeded our expectations more than we ever imagined and we couldn't be happier about it.

And then this Brett Lawrie post happened and it threw all of that out of the window. Forget about the Pants Parties, the funny guides to St. Patrick's Day or hangovers (or Thanksgiving), the Bob Uecker tribute, the emotional Father's Day post, the Dugout-esque tribute to John Hughes, the sexual innuendos or even the time I blamed Ryan Braun for ruining my sex life; because that post with the facebook pics more than any of the other posts that I worked on was our biggest hit of all time. Why? Because people love pictures of athletes doing stupid things. I am not condemning this, heck I love it too. I read Terez Owens everyday, I loved watching Dong-gate unfold and even sent my dad a link to it when the story first broke which is kind of weird when I think about it. This stuff cracks me up, but it's only a momentary thing. It's a split second of my day. I much prefer to read Barry Petchesky give Cleveland the business than anything he's ever written about Jenn Sterger, I wish everything I read had ten or more Huey Lewis jokes like this Dugout post and my favorite Will Leitch posts were always about Rick Ankiel. That's my thing, stuff I can quote to my friends (and pass off as my own) or stuff that is just plain fun to read because the person writing it cares about it. Anyone can post a few embarassing pictures of an athlete. Anyone.

I guess what my point is that yesterday's Brett Lawrie post brought us more hits than we've ever had in the past and we don't blame the people that came here to see that for doing it. We do it too, but we hope that isn't the sort of thing that you expect from us because it's not who we are or what we want to be. We want to be better than that even if it means I have to keep living in my parent's basement. If you're reading this we hope it's because you like what we do. We want to make you laugh and care and think, but mostly we just want you to like us. We're shallow like that.

Now, let's find us a Brewer we can embarrass. Continue reading »

Brewers get Marcum from Toronto for Brett Lawrie, Lawrie revealed as tool

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Before I could finish my "What are they gonna do?" series, the Brewers went ahead and actually did something. Trading their top prospect, Brett Lawrie, to the Toronto Blue Jays for a proven starter in Shaun Marcum. This is a good trade for the Brewers and the trade is universally liked by experts, insiders and fans.

Shaun Marcum was basically the #1 starter for Toronto last season going 13-8 with a 3.64 ERA and, even better, a 3.74 FIP (a pitching statistic that takes defense out of the equation) shows that ERA is close to his true talent level. He's going to fit in nicely behind Gallardo and Wolf can move to a more natural spot behind him. It's going to be awesome. Everything falls into place. Brewers win the pennant.

Can you tell I like this deal? Here's four things you should know to like it too:

  1. Marcum averaged more strikeouts per 9 innings (7.60 to 7.40) and less walks per 9 innings (1.98 to 2.25) than everyone's favorite trade target this winter, Zack Greinke. (h/t Brewers Bar)
  2. Marcum versus non-BOS/TB/NYY: 2.74 ERA, 6.1IP/start, 8.0k/9, 2.0 bb/9, 0.9hr/9, 1.08 WHIP in 21 starts. (h/t Al's)
  3. If you put Marcum on last year's team he would have been the second most valuable pitcher on the team.
  4. Unlike all the people who take less money to sign with perennial contenders or California teams, Marcum is from the Midwest and might be convinced to sign long-term.

And he gives great beard!

Get excited! I have a total Marcumer right now.

As for Brett Lawrie the Brewers are losing their best offensive prospect which sucks, but on the bright side some scouts see him not fitting in the infield and needing a move to the outfield. If they are correct his value is much lower as a corner outfielder as compared to a second baseman. (I don't know, that's just what they tell me.) He should be a good offensive player someday and we'll miss that bat one day. That being said, I couldn't be happier to see him go because Brett Lawrie seems like a douchebag. Continue reading »

What are they gonna do? Plan #2: Do nothing

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What are the Brewers going to do this offseason? Who knows? Doug Melvin has seemed non-committal whenever he's asked about anything and nobody else is talking. Prince Fielder is yet to be traded. Rickie Weeks is yet to be re-signed. Eric Hinske chose the Braves over the Brewers. The Braves! What does it all mean? Did the top stop spinning at the end?

I don't claim to know what they are going to do or even what they could do, but I can idly speculate. That's why we're bringing you the series: What are they gonna do?

Doing nothing is what it has felt like the Brewers have done since CC Sabathia left. Sure, some of the players have changed, but the team has been basically the same. Seth McClung turned into Todd Coffey. Dave Bush turned into Dave Bush. JJ Hardy turned into Alcides Escobar. Mike Cameron turned into Casey McGehee. My 36 waist turned into a 38. The improvements have been minimal, if not non-existent, and the team has remained basically the same.

Of course, we are basically talking about two seasons here. Two seasons that were littered with bad luck, two seasons that might have gone better if pitchers could have hit their projections and two seasons where they didn't come close. Braden Looper had probably the worst season of his career. Manny Parra somehow managed to get worse at baseball, but somehow handsomer. Jeff Suppan was born. The only contribution Doug Davis brought to the team was looking like a douchebag. These weren't the best teams ever fielded, but they weren't as bad as they ended up. They should have been better. So maybe it's time for luck to be on the Brewers side. Maybe it's time to do nothing.

What would a "do nothing" team look like? Continue reading »