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In a recent article, Brewers officials again have talked about moving on and moving up in the baseball world following their historically awful collapse in 2014. Manager Ron Roenicke is quoted by beat writer Adam McCalvy as saying: “We need to move on and hopefully we can have the same kind of start, be in the same position we were, and by going through the experience we did, hopefully we can know better how to handle it.”
Only, the Brewers were off to one of the best starts in their history through the first month or so in 2014, and the odds are long that they’ll be able to have a similar beginning in 2015. In addition, they’ve offered a similar sentiment for years now. You know, the whole “experience should help us” thing. Well, the Brewers, as exemplified in 2014, have botched chances over the last five or six years to gain more meaningful experience that would have further battle-tested their core group. Additionally, they still haven’t learned enough from the experiences they have had.
Fans heard similar things in 2007, 2008 and so on. 2011 was also supposed to be a year in which the Brewers gained important experience. Then they fell backward rather than building constructively on that experience.
It’s still mightily unclear what caused the collapse in 2014. The offense, yes, was stagnant for an extended period. But a manager must know how to ambush a losing streak, by any means necessary. The Brewers’ play got tangled in such a miserable downward spiral last season that I, for one, couldn’t watch anymore. I wasn’t going to put myself through that horrorshow on a daily basis.
I don’t understand how the Brewers’ decision not to tear down completely and rebuild after the collapse is surprising. If they would have done that, they would have had virtually nothing to market to the fans in 2015. Hey, we blew it, and we’re just going to sell off everything and embark on a lengthy rebuild!
No.
Of course the Brewers were going to come back in 2015 to give it another go. They still have a strong and talented roster, but do they have the guts, leadership and expertise to get the job done rather than fade? They need true grit and lots of it.
Big questions remain because the team did little to beef up this winter. Can they play competitive ball even though they only added a platoon first baseman? What about losing the depth at starting pitcher when Gallardo was sent to Texas?
The team is relying on its players to perform perhaps more than in a long, long time. If things don’t bloom this time, it will be time to pluck the flower and re-seed the garden for a new crop.
If the Brewers crash and burn this year, major changes must come, and quickly. Principal owner Mark Attanasio, reportedly after careful consideration and discussion, chose not to make wholesale changes to the club’s on-field personnel, its coaching staff or front office.
That inactivity signaled the team felt it was better off not changing anything too drastically, that it felt major changes potentially could put the team further behind than it already was to start 2015. However, if the trend of the collapse continues, which it very well might, the Brewers should indeed tear it all down to the bare bones and start over. They will have little choice at that point.
In McCalvy’s article, Attanasio says: “Last year we were competitive down to Game 159.” That is a kind way of putting it. The Brewers spent the last month and a half of 2014 unable to stop the bleeding. They lost eight of 10 games to close August and were putrid in September. If they were competitive until Game 159, it was only through the kindness of other teams’ incompetence.
In 2015 the NL Central will be a beast once again, perhaps better with the Cubs improved. The Brewers played sub-.500 ball against the division last year as a whole, and only had a winning record against the Pirates.
The Brewers lost almost half their home games in 2014 (39). They finished six games back in the Wild Card chase. One hundred and fifty days in first place is meaningless now. Or rather it’s meaningful only in the sense that they threw it away.
The Brew Crew had to scrape and claw in the last month and finished only barely above the New York freakin’ Mets in the National League. In September alone, Milwaukee lost 15 (!) games to NL Central foes, including five each to the Cubs and Cardinals.
Those 150 days cumulatively were a hollow victory. Milwaukee had a winning record in only the months of March/April and June last year. They were under .500 in May, July, August and September, sometimes way under. In July they went 9-16 and in September 9-17. Wasn’t the experience supposed to kick in there somewhere?
I’m sure the Brewers’ brass means well. But intent only gets you so far and this is starting to sound like an echo chamber. The Brewers have enough of a veteran roster who have been to the playoffs and been through the “wars,” that they should have a pretty good idea how to manage the adversity at this point in their careers. I’d like 2015 to be the year our guys have the epiphanies about what it takes to be successful all the way into October.
The article also quotes Attanasio saying about the players: “They are very committed now to playing consistently this year and showing people that the first 150 days wasn’t a fluke.”
The sooner the organization stops referring to “150 days,” the better. No one should expect a 20-8 start in 2015 and no one should expect first place for 150 days. They had a special opportunity due to a rare start in 2014. That’s an endowment rarely bestowed upon our Milwaukee Brewers.
The stakes are high, which makes the upcoming season an exciting proposition. If the team flounders this year, I do want a rebuild or at least a serious retooling. I want Roenicke and Melvin fired. I want pending free agents like Kyle Lohse, Adam Lind and Aramis Ramirez, and maybe even Carlos Gomez traded for prospects. I’m sick of the excuses with this bunch. It will then be time to move on, for realsies. “150 Days” was fun while it lasted. But those days are gone.
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