Milwaukee Brewers

Power Rankings

Date	Ranking	Previous
01/26/2012	18	16
Good business: Aramis Ramirez doesn't help the righty/lefty balance, but he remains a credible middle-of-the-order bat. Bad business: Replacing Yuniesky Betancourt with Alex Gonzalez is like replacing a gently stewed diaper with a decaying ferret. Shortstop may not be the easiest position to fill nowadays, but come on. Prognosis as of 11:14 a.m. GMT on Jan. 26, 2012: It would be a lot rosier if undercover Cardinals operatives didn't frame teetotaling family man Ryan Braun by slipping all that synthetic testosterone into his soup.
10/31/2011	16	5
2011 eulogy: 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Offseason to-do list: Make a token effort to re-sign Prince Fielder, then take a deep breath and hand over the first-base gig to Mat Gamel and his little hands of concrete ... Then spend the rest of the offseason fretting about the defense, which disintegrated spectacularly during the NLCS. You can't have it both ways, I know ... Inquire as to Jose Reyes' price tag. Hey, why not? Should he take the bait -- a delicious wedge of Wisconsin cheddar atop a stack of non-sequential hundred-dollar bills -- hope that the medical staff that kept the Brewers mostly healthy in 2012 can work its magic on Reyes' knotty hamstrings ... Odds of achieving Cardinals-like glory in 2012: Obviously we're dealing with a tiny sample size, but the way the starters got knocked around during the postseason doesn't inspire confidence.
09/28/2011	5	5
What went right: They redefined their relationship with the Cardinals, from victim/bully to gremlin/tetchy old coot who doesn't like gremlins ... Braun/Fielder/Weeks is the best trio of NL regulars still standing ... Nobody expected John Axford and his 'pen pals to conform to the restrictive mandates of the strike zone, much less mow down righty and lefty hitters alike. What went wrong: I count four terrible players in the likely NLDS Game One starting lineup ... The rotation guys proved more horse-y than ace-y, which could prove more of a problem during the postseason than it did during the first 162. Regular-season epilogue: What a fun bunch -- and the locals embraced them with a spirit and enthusiasm nicely captured by a Power Rankings reader who identifies him/herself as "Toilet Overflow": "Larry its about time you give the Brew Crew some love, but we are not little girls or boys up here. We are hard working lunch pail people who know the true meaning of what hard work is. Don't mean to make you spill your latte on your wall Street Journal, while getting your feet rubbed. The Brewers are right now one of the best, if not the best in baseball. You need to give the Brewers more coverage on your site. Its ok they will still let you in the racket ball club for scrumpets and tea on Tuesday mornings." Hear, hear.
09/20/2011	5	6
Personally, I find the Brewers' shtick -- beast mode, Nyjer Morgan's social disorder, etc. -- to be good-hearted and whimsical. But last week, when Francisco Rodriguez chirped about his role and Prince Fielder acknowledged that he's in his final weeks as a Brewer, it felt less like "personality" and more like egomania. This ain't the time. ... Should it trouble us that the Brewers have, like the Tigers, gotten fat on the weak sisters of their division? Take away the 31-10 mark and plus-86 run differential against the Astros, Pirates and Cubs, and their statistical profile looks less impressive. You can only play the teams on the schedule, I know. It still bears noting.
09/13/2011	6	4
The more I watch them, the more I worry. For a team of supposed mashers, they sure seem to have problems turning fastballs around nowadays. ... At least Rickie Weeks is back, just in time to divert attention from the Superfund site that is the non-Braun/Fielder/Hart parts of the lineup. ... Since a random point in the recent past -- say, Aug. 10 -- Yuniesky Betancourt (.205/.230/.342) and Nyjer Morgan (.268/.345/.371) have reverted to form, rendering the offense flat. Granted, the recent competition may have had something to do with this. ... As for Morgan's social-media dispatches, in which he or one of his five swaggery alter-egos picked a fight with dignified courtesan Albert Pujols, they might be infantile but ultimately they're harmless. Baseball is a game. Games are fun. Let boys be boys.
09/06/2011	4	4
That St. Louis series was a reality check -- not so much for the Brewers, who realize they're playing for postseason seeding, but for Brewers fans who believe that Miller Park is an entranced faerieland that robs opponents of their skills, wit and composure. Home-field advantage is a myth wrapped in a legend stuffed deep in the womb of lore ... Of all the Brewers players in history likely to hit for the cycle, you'd probably have ranked George Kotteras 2,249th, right between Dave Krynzel and Trent Durrington. But it's an accomplishment nonetheless, so good on ya.
08/30/2011	4	4
Here's an observation you won't read anywhere else: It appears to me, based on the evidence at hand, that the Brewers don't lose very often ... If I'm a Brewers fan, I spend the next three nights in front of the television, a medieval scythe in one hand and an uncooked boar shank in the other, screaming, "FINISH THEM! FINISH THEM!" ... After the Brewers end the Cardinals' season this week -- a single win in three games should ice it -- they should rub a little salt in the wound by filing a random series of protests based on arcane and unwritten rules, La Russa-style. In no particular order, they should take issue with the granularity of the foul-line chalk, the hemline of Albert Pujols' trousers and the P.A. guy's lilting contralto. Alright, on the count of three, shift your phasers to "taunt."
08/23/2011	4	5
They've won 21 of 25 games since Rickie Weeks went down. That's astonishing, even if they do play in an enchanted home ballpark that vests them with secret, mystical powers of winnitude. ... Remember all the talk about how the schedule-maker totally screwed the Brewers -- lots of interleague fun against the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees, while the Cardinals got to play the Royals and Orioles? Well, it's all evening out now: The Brewers play 17 of their final 32 games against the white-flag quartet of the Astros, Pirates, Marlins and Cubs. Unless something biblical happens during the six remaining games against the Cardinals -- think lightning strikes and foul-pole impalements -- they'll waltz into October. Separately, it'll be fun listening to Tony La Russa try to come up with a way to complain about this ("whatever happened before September happened before September. The schedules should be reset to maintain competitive equality").
08/16/2011	5	5
If they played the Pirates every day, they would go 162-0 and win the pennant and the World Series and probably some kind of technical-achievement Oscar and all the little boys and girls of Wisconsin would be so very happy ... The Brewers fans who wrote me are right: Whether or not they've fattened up on the league's ninnies, they've wiped the floor in recent weeks with whoever's in front of them -- including the Cardinals. Teams get no bonus points for degree of difficulty ... Along those lines, you have to like the way they responded to Tony La Russa's whining and needling. They didn't start winging brushback pitches willy-nilly or respond to his complaints about the molecular consistency of the batter-box chalk. They just shut up and played. Smart.
08/09/2011	5	9
Dear Mom: So far, the road trip is going OK, I guess. It's lonely and I think there might be ghosts under my bed, but at least the guys have remembered how to hit in stadiums other than our own. See you on Friday. Love, Bernie Brewer. P.S. Tell Stosh I said hey ... Here's hoping round two against the Cards is 1/20th as entertaining as round one. We need more rivalries where there is palpable dislike between the participants, as there appears to be here ... Small sample size/arbitrary end point/blah blah blah, but Yuniesky Betancourt has just been killing it since the All-Star break (.388/.405/.575). He still can't field. He still won't take a walk. But still.