I'm guessing that if you are here right now that you've been reading my blog for quite some time. If not, then welcome to Pookon's Ill Blog. I used to write in here a whole lot, but thanks to Twitter (which you can read about my latest exploits on the right of this page) I usually talk about ill shit in 140 characters or less. But sometimes I have some shit to say that will take up a hell of a lot more space than that. One such idea was to do a blog series titled "25 Brewers in 25 Days." Basically I profiled each player who would be on the 25 man roster on Opening Day. I threw out some thoughts, personal stories and memories about that player and also a prediction of their 2010 stat line. I originally starting writing this at the All Star Break, which is about the halfway point of the season when you have a good enough sample size to properly evaluate the season. The trading deadline is July 31st and teams must decide whether or not they are sellers or buyers, which tells you about the direction of the team in that current year and in the future. And then I closed out my post back in July with this little rant. I really meant to do this blog entry during the All Star break but I just didn't feel like it. I know that isn't a good excuse but between settling into my new place, work, family events and the heat, I was just too tired to sit down and crank this sucker out. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but it does take a fair amount of work to get these blog entries written especially when they are about the Brewers. I put a lot of time and emotion into the Brewers, and so far this year my summer has been affected by their poor play. The Brewers have been under .500 for the majority of the season and have suffered a few bad losing streaks including a 9 game one back in May that prompted me to start a Hunger Strike until they won a game. You can read all about that in the post below. But I'm not here to linger on that, I'm mostly here to take a look at my preseason predictions and see how accurate I was.I'll start out addressing some bold predictions that I made for the team as a whole back on March 10 when I wrote the first article in the 25 Brewers in 25 Days segment. These are the 5 predictions that I made:
- The Brewers will finish in 2nd place (behind the St. Louis Cardinals) in the NL Central with a 88-74 record and win the NL Wild Card, returning to the playoffs once again.
- The Cubs will finish 3rd, Reds 4th, Astros 5th and Pirates 6th.
- The Brewers will once again draw over 3 million fans.
- Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Yovani Gallardo and Rickie Weeks will make the NL All-Star Team.
- Alcides Escobar wins NL Rookie of the Year
1+2. The Brewers finished in 3rd place in the NL Central at 77-85. Cincinnati won the NL Central at 91-71, St. Louis was in 2nd at 86-76 while Houston made a late surge to finish a game behind the Brewers at 76-86. Chicago tried to tank their season but ended up in 5th place a game behind Houston at 75-87. They tried to match Pittsburgh's record of 57-105 (with an uncalled for 17-64 on the road) as one of 2 teams (with the other being the Seattle Mariners) with 100 losses, but even the Cubs couldn't screw up that bad. I guess that 3rd place sounds better than 5th or 6th, but after finishing with records of 90-72 in 2008 and 80-82 in 2009, 77-85 is another step backwards. Despite not (arguably) having the proper talent to succeed, this 2 year slide ended up costing Manager Ken Macha his job, something that I will address when I doing my year end review of the Management.
3. The Brewers drew over 2.7 million fans (2,776,531 to be exact). Thanks in large part to being out of the pennant race early in the season and finishing with a home record 40-41 , the Brewers drew under 3 million fans. It could have been worse had they not rebounded from a terrible start to the season where they were 5-15 in late May, which at the time was worst in the Major Leagues. Their road record was 37-44, which isn't terrible but looks worse when they were under .500 at home. I know that 2.7 million fans is nothing to scoff at, as it still placed us just out of the top 10 at #11 out of 30, outdrawing larger markets such as the New York Mets, Chicago White Sox and the Atlanta Braves. All of which finished with a better record and one of which (Atlanta) made it to the Playoffs. Even though Miller Park resembles more of a house party than a sporting venue on some weekends, we do have some of the best fans in baseball, even if the majority of the fanbase isn't very knowledgeable and thinks we should sign Prince Fielder to a long term contract. I'll get into that more later, but thanks to their fan's wallets, the Brewers can afford to have a payroll around $85.3 million, something that was unheard of back in the early 2000's when the payroll hovered around the $40 million mark.
4. Only 3 Brewers players made the All Star team - Ryan Braun, Corey Hart and Yovani Gallardo. Prince Fielder had a very disappointing 1st half and Rickie Weeks got hot too late. to be noticed. But he did end up having a monster season and finally stayed healthy. Corey Hart made it by gaining the respect and the votes of his fellow players around the league. After a terrible last half of 2008 and all of 2009 (which was well documented on this blog) Hart made a great comeback in 2010 and deserved to be there. Sadly Gallardo would land on the DL with an oblique strain the week before the All Star Game and would be ineligible to pitch in the Midsummer Classic. One could have made an argument that Casey McGehee should have made the team as well, but other 3rd basemen such as David Wright, Placido Palanco and Scott Rolen were in larger markets and garnered more exposure. And even though Braun and Hart combined to go 0-4 with 3 strikeouts, it was the 1st time since 1983 (Robin Yount and Ted Simmons) that the Brewers had 2 positional players start an All Star game. In a season filled with disappointments, we had to linger on any shred of positivity.
5. Alcides Escobar did not win NL Rookie of the Year. I've been really high on Alcides Escobar for a long time. A lot of people got all uppity when JJ Hardy was traded, but it was done mainly to permanently open up the door at shortstop for Escobar. He was still pretty young (23) on Opening Day but he finished 2009 on a strong note (.304 avg, 1 HR, 11 RBIs in 125 at bats) that made it look like he would have a breakout 2010 season. I'll get into more details when I look back on his season as part of the review on the infield, but the NL Rookie of the year award will most likely go to Atlanta's Jason Heywood or San Francisco's Buster Posey. As you will see in a little bit, I was maybe too high on Escobar. But it also didn't help that Manager Ken Macha refused to "throw him into the wolves" by batting him in the 8th spot in the lineup for the majority of the year. I don't feel like he was given a fair shot to succeed in 2010.
I've just barely scratched the surface of what I have to say about the 2010 Milwaukee Brewers. Which is why there will be a lot more Brewers talk in the upcoming weeks. Since the Packers are 1 more injury away from calling players up from area High Schools, it's pretty safe to say that the season is over. I'm super high on the Milwaukee Bucks (Fear the Deer!) but their season will be in its infancy by the time you read this. So that means there is plenty of want and need to talk about the Brewers, especially since they are in arguable their most crucial offseason in recent history. From things like getting a new manager, to the will they/won't they trade Prince Fielder talks, to how to improving a pitching staff that once again finished at the bottom of the league in all statistical categories, there will be something to talk about. Whatever happens, you know I'm counting down the days (which stands at 115 as I am writing this) until Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training, which for me is the unofficial start of the 2011 season. I'll see you in a few days with the 2010 season review of the Milwaukee Brewers infielders.
- pookon -
www.pookon.com
email: pookondotcom@gmail.com
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