Tag Archives: randy wolf

Brewers no longer hungry for the Wolf

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The Brewers released Randy Wolf today. A curious move considering they are about to shut down two starters, but an understandable move nonetheless. Randy Wolf has not been very good in 2011. He has been unlucky, but luck can only account for so much. Anyone who has watched him pitch this season knows that no matter how hard he worked or how well he was throwing, he was always hittable. I don't want to throw around the S word because Wolf was a lot better than that dude, but there was the same sense of "the Brewers are going to need to score a lot of runs today" when he pitched. Fair? Probably not, but that's the way it worked out.

When the Brewers signed Randy Wolf here is what we said:

Is it too many years? Not really. You can expect Wolf to be average to above average this year with a slight drop off next year and then anything can happen in the third year. (Hopefully.) He could age well or he couldn't. I've been staring at his Baseball Reference page like it was the Carrie Prejean sextape for about two weeks now trying to figure him out and I think I'm getting there. Randy Wolf has only been awesome twice, last year and 2002. Don't expect him to be awesome. Yet he's only been crappy twice, his rookie year (doesn't count) and 2006 when he was recovering from Tommy John surgery. Don't expect him to be crappy either. After that every season of his career has been average to slightly above average and if he can do that, the Brewers will be extremely happy and you should be too.

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Blame it on the bullpen

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I will not admit that this Brewers season is over because we're probably going to see a NL Wild Card that wins 85 games and that number does not seem impossible and I will not give up on the Brewers season because, seriously, what else am I going to do for the next three months? With that being said I will say that this season has still been incredibly disappointing, no fun and not at all what we thought it would be. But what did we really think it would be?

Vegas set the Brewers pre-season over/under win total at 84.5. They weren't ever going to be a team that ran away with the division. Did last season's 96-66 record distort our expectations? Probably, but we should always remember that team had +6 wins over it's Pythagorean record (or expected record) and was a league best 30-18 in one run games. Those are two things that are really hard to repeat. For the Brewers to make a return trip to the playoffs this year they once again need a lot of things to go right and thus far this season almost nothing has. This isn't a lack of "drive" or a team that doesn't "mentally have it", this is baseball. You play more games than any other sport and less teams make the playoffs than any other sport. A lot has to go right for any team to succeed.

Thus far they haven't succeeded and a lot of reasons have been thrown around as to why. Here are a few of the most popular:

  • Rickie Weeks. :(
  • Injuries, man. Injuries.
  • Not clutch.
  • Offense is worse than last season.
  • Randy Wolf.
  • The bullpen.

And while there have been a myriad of problems with this season there really is only one thing that has kept the Brewers from being "in it" and that thing is the bullpen. No, seriously, it's not Rickie Weeks. It's the bullpen. It's not injuries. It's the bullpen. That's it. Seriously. Continue reading »

Milwaukee Brewers 2011 Year In Review DVD Is Awesome

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The Brewers are 4-6. Last season at this time they were 5-5. They have a -14 run differential and have given up 50 runs. OMG WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! ARE THEY DONEZO!? Let's try not to worry about it because it is ridiculously early to worry about anything and take a trip down memory lane to the 2011 season as we review the Milwaukee Brewers' "The Next Step" DVD.

The 2011 Milwaukee Brewers season was the best, everything about it was the best. I loved the pitching, the hitting and the defense (okay, maybe not the defense.) I loved the coaching (okay, maybe not the coaching either.) I loved Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Yo, Axford, Tony Plush, Beast Mode and everything else. 2011 was a year when everything seemed to go right for the Brewers and it truly was a magical regular season. The recently released Brewers DVD "The Next Step" given to fans last Sunday at Miller Park sets out to capture the feeling of last season and does a pretty strong job of it, hitting a lot of the key moments of the season that brought us so much joy a year ago with a cast of talking heads who enjoyed it just as much as we did. Continue reading »

What Your Shirsey Says About You

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A lot of people don't really like the shirsey (t-shirt jersey), but I have personally always been a fan of them. It's a good way to casually date a player before committing and making it facebook official. Plus, it's a great way to support a player that you know will only be with the team for a short time. Like when the Brewers made the trade for K-Rod last year. You can support him because he's pretty freakin' awesome, but you also don't have to blow a bunch of money when you know there is no way he'll be back in 2012. (Wait, what?!) It also works great for when you want to support an underutilized bench player that could be released or sent down at any moment. (I don't know why, but purchasing that Brad Nelson shirsey really seemed like a great idea at the time.) Shirseys are fun and an MPD approved fashion item.

However, I should warn you about them. While shirseys are cool they also say a lot about you as a person. Anyone can get a Ryan Braun jersey and remain a relative enigma to strangers (because it's freakin' Ryan Braun), but the purchase of a specific player's shirsey tells people things and opens you up to a whole mess of assumptions about your character. I want you to be ready for that, I want you to know what your shirsey says about you so you can purchase accordingly and that is why I made this list. See what a nice guy I am? Continue reading »

The Brewers lost: How They’re Handling It

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Are you over the Brewers elimination yet? I know I'm not. Last night was the first game 1 of the World Series I didn't watch in my entire life. Seriously, I used to turn off Sesame Street to watch that sh-t. I didn't even gamble on it! I just want to pretend it doesn't even exist. It's a weird feeling being this depressed for this long, but I'll be over it eventually. It's like breaking up with someone really. Only if when you broke up with them you knew you were going to get back together in a year, you could check in on them whenever you wanted, they were going to make changes to make themselves better and that neither of you were going to see anyone else for the whole time you were apart. So, you know, the complete opposite of what every girl who has ever broken up with me does.

Still, it's good to know I am not alone in this. Plenty of other Brewers fans have been feeling this same sense of loss and pain. It's good to be together through this, isn't it? Glad you're here. Couldn't do this without you. What's even better to know is that the Brewers themselves are going through some of the same depression that we are and thanks to my standing as the Milwaukee area, baseball specific TMZ I have the pictures to prove it. As you'll see the funny thing about depression is that no two people handle it the same way and the Brewers are no different. Continue reading »