Milwaukee Brewers Season Preview

On June 28th, 2014 after the Brewers defeated the Colorado Rockies 74, they stood atop the NL Central with a record of 51-32. It all went downhill from there. The Brewers collapsed in the second half of the season with a 31-48 record that left them just two games above .500 and sitting at home for the playoffs yet again. The Warning signs were there that this team and it's roster were barely held together by tape and with no real change the following offseason, the results last season were predictable. The Brewers began the 2015 campaign by going 4-17 out of the gate and never recovered, limping their way towards a 68-94 record. That performance, combined with the atrocious farm system led to the firing of GM Doug Melvin before season's end.
Baseball season is back and that means another summer of tailgating, listening to Bob Uecker on the radio, and Brewers baseball. So what can we expect from the team this year?


Projected lineup:
SS Jonathan Villar
C Jonathan Lucroy
LF Ryan Braun
1B Chris Carter
3B Aaron Hill
RF Domingo Santana
2B Scooter Gennett
CF Keon Broxton

Starting Rotation:
RHP Wily Peralta
RHP Jimmy Nelson
RHP Taylor Jungmann
RHP Chase Anderson
RHP Matt Garza


If you don't recognize a lot of the above names, don't worry, there has been a ton of turnover from last years team. New GM David Stearns was busy in the offseason trading away players like Adam Lind, Khris Davis, Francisco Rodriguez, Jean Segura and others after the team had already traded away Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Gomez, Mike Fiers, and Gerrardo Parra during the season. It was clear the Brewers needed to rebuild their roster and acquire young talent to restock the farm system in order to compete in the future.
The Brewers actually had one of the best offseasons in all of baseball, not by improving the team on the field, but by replenishing the farm system with talent. One year ago, the Brewers farm system was one of the five worst in all of baseball, now it's one of the top 10 and some might even say top 5. This was all without trading arguably their best chip in Jonathan Lucroy. Lucroy had a down year in 2015 and struggled with some injuries but because he is only owed about 10 million for this season and the next, a genuine steal if he can perform like he has in the past. It's almost a 100% certainty Lucroy will be traded at some point this season, maybe even before then. Until he is, the Brewers need to hope he remains healthy and performing at a high level to increase his trade value.

If you were hoping for the Brewers to surprise some people this year, you'll probably be disappointed. The Brewers infield has to be one of the worst in the majors. Aaron Hill,who was acquired in the Jean Segura trade from the Dbacks is on the wrong side of 30 and posted a .230/.295/.345/.640 (batting average/on base %/slugging %/ on base + slugging) slash line. That's not very good. Jonathan Villar is one of the players acquired from Houston in the Carlos Gomez trade. He's 25 and has limited playing time in the big leagues. He has posted a career .236 average in 638 plate appearances (about a full season's worth) and strikes out a ton. Scooter Gennett can hit right handed pitching but struggles vs left handed pitching and isn't the best defender in the world. Chris Carter has a powerful bat but not much else. He hit 37 home runs in 2014 with the Astros but is a career .217 hitter and strikes out more that Leonardo DiCaprio at the Oscars.

In the outfield, the Brewers of course have Ryan Braun, who had a bounceback year last year, but still hasn't returned to his MVP level, and I'm not convinced he ever will. He has dealt with a ton of nagging injuries throughout his career, and of course was suspended for PED use in 2013. Braun will move back to left field this season, which should suit his defensive abilities a little better. Domingo Santana was acquired through the Carlos Gomez trade and played 38 games for the Brewers last year. He showed promise which for a guy getting his first real chance in the majors (he had only played in 20 games the previous two seasons with Houston) that's about all you can ask for. Keon Broxton was acquired from the Pirates in exchange for Jason Rogers. Broxton only had 2 AB's with the Pirates but does have some speed and has shown an ability to take walks in spring training. I would expect an average around .250 or so with an OBP above .300, nothing special but solid.

Four of Milwaukee's starters return from last year, Peralta, Nelson, Jungmann, and Garza. Garza had a horrible 2015 and will look to rebound this season. Best case scenario is that Garza performs well enough to become a trade asset, though it's unlikely given he has 25 million remaining on his contract through the next two years.Young starters Peralta (26), Nelson (26), and Jungmann (26) will form the core of the Brewers rotation this year. Peralta struggled last season dealing with a strained left oblique, but was inconsistent even before the injury. The Brewers need him to get back to the form he showed in 2014 when he won 17 games and posted an ERA of 3.53. All three starters figure to be a part of the Brewers long-term plans, so while the team might struggle, let's hope they don't. Chase Anderson is the newcomer to the rotation. Anderson was the other acquisition from Arizona along with Aaron Hill the the Jean Segura trade. He posted solid lines last year but nothing too impressive with a 4.30 ERA in 27 starts, though it was only his second year in the big leagues.

The Bullpen might be in disarray especially after Will Smith tore his LCL trying to take off a shoe (CLASSIC Brewers). Smith was really the only left handed option in the pen would have probably assumed the closing role along with flamethrowing Jeremy Jeffres. Now? I worry about our bullpen's ability to get left handed hitters out in late game situations. However if Smith stayed healthy, he likely will have been on his way out of town in a trade, so while this hurts the team on the field, it hurts even more because he has lost his trade value.

Overall, This will season be a struggle, but the season wont be defined by the Brewers performance in terms of wins and losses, rather by the performance of the young prospects both in the majors currently and those in the farm system. It'll be interesting to see if players like SS Orlando Arcia, SS Yadiel Rivera, OF Brett Phillips, OF Trent Clark, and others make it to the big leagues this season. I fully expect the Brewers to battle the Rebs for last place in the NL Central and am expecting something in the neighborhood of 60-65 wins for this club.

2016 NCAA tournament: How the bracket was built

 March Madness is finally here! Since the brackets were revealed on Sunday night, there has been a lot of talk about what the Selection committee did wrong. While I can't sit here and defend some of the decisions they made in their seed list, like which teams made it into the tourney and which teams didn't, I can take a look at the seed list and piece together how they built the bracket from that. 

Typically, the question of "did the committee create match-ups for ratings purposes" gets brought up every year. While most assume that is the case, it Ideally never happens like that. Take for example, the potential Indiana/Kentucky match-up in the second round. By following the bracketing rules, it's easy to see that this was not created for ratings or anything like that, but just by the rules and how they are set up. There is one puzzling case, however, and that lies with yet another potential Virgina & Michigan State match-up which I discuss below.

I won't give an in-depth description of the bracketing rules here, as this will already be a long-enough post, but anyone interested can read them here. Today I will go through the seed lines 1-8/the top 32 teams on the seed list. Before the games start on Thursday, I will go through seeds 9-16, so stay tuned for that! On to the bracket building!

KANSAS - Sent to closest Region (Chicago and Louisville almost equidistant apart - committee opted to send them to Louisville) Not sure why they did this as Louisville is closer to Virginia and would have made more sense for them. The only reason I can come up with is that the committee realized that Michigan State (the top 2 seed) would be sent to Chicago. Perhaps they tried to avoid the #1 overall seed facing the top #2 seed in the regional final? Sent to closest pod site (Des Moines)

NORTH CAROLINA - Sent to closest remaining region (Philadelphia). Sent to closest pod site (Raleigh)

VIRGINIA - Sent to closest remaining Region (Chicago). Sent to closest pod site (Raleigh- site now full)

OREGON - Sent to last remaining Region (Anaheim). Sent to closest pod site (Spokane)

MICHIGAN STATE - Sent to closest Region (Chicago). Sent to closest pod site (St. Louis)

OKLAHOMA - Can't be sent to Chicago because of Kansas (same conference). Sent to closest remaining Region (Anaheim). Sent to closest pod site (Oklahoma City)

VILLANOVA - Can't be sent to Philadelphia (Played 3 home games at regional site). Sent to last remaining region (Louisville). Sent to closest pod site (Brooklyn)

XAVIER - Sent to last remaining region (Philadelphia) Sent to closest pod site (St. Louis - site now full)

WEST VIRGINIA - Can't be sent to Louisville because of Kansas (same conference) or Anaheim because of Oklahoma (same conference).  Sent to closest remaining region (Philadelphia). Sent to closest pod site (Brooklyn - site now full).

MIAMI (FL) - Can't be sent to Philadelphia because of UNC (same conference). Can't be sent to Chicago because of Virginia (same conference). Sent to closest remaining region (Louisville). Sent to closest pod available (Raleigh, St. Louis, and Brooklyn sites already full – sent to Providence)

UTAH – Can’t be sent to Anaheim because of Oregon (same conference). Sent to last remaining region (Chicago). Sent to closest pod site (Denver).

TEXAS A&M – Sent to last remaining region (Anaheim). Sent to closest pod site (Oklahoma City – site now full).

DUKE – Can’t be sent to Philadelphia because of North Carolina (same conference). Can’t be sent to Chicago because of Virginia (same conference). Can’t be sent to Louisville because of Miami (same conference). Must be sent to only remaining region (Anaheim). Sent to closest pod site available (Raleigh, Brooklyn, St. Louis all full – sent to Providence – site now full).

CALIFORNIA – Can’t be sent to Chicago because of Utah (same conference). Anaheim is already filled by Duke, but Cal couldn’t play there anyways because of Oregon (same conference). Sent to closest remaining region (Louisville). Sent to closest pod site (Spokane – site now full)

KENTUCKY – Anaheim already filled by Duke, but couldn’t be sent here anyways because of Texas A&M (same conference). Kentucky would have been sent to Louisville but Iowa State must be in a different region than fellow conference members Kansas (Louisville), West Virginia (Philadelphia), or Oklahoma (Anaheim) so Iowa State must be sent to Chicago leaving Kentucky to be sent to the last remaining region (Philadelphia). Sent to closest remaining pod site (Des Moines – site now full)

IOWA ST. (See Kentucky) Sent to Chicago. Sent to last remaining pod site (Denver).

Note: 5 seeds must be placed in same 1^st/2^nd round sites as the 4 seeds. Those sites are Denver, Des Moines, Spokane, and Providence.

INDIANA – Sent to closest pod site (Des Moines) which feeds into the Philadelphia regional.

PURDUE – Because Baylor played Kansas 3 times during the regular season they cannot meet until the Elite Eight, so they must be placed in a different region. Baylor also cannot be placed as the 5 seed with Iowa State as the 4 because they met twice in the regular season. This leaves only Providence for Baylor. Providence was the closest remaining site for Purdue – now sent to next closest site (Denver) which feeds into the Chicago regional.

MARYLAND – because Baylor must be place in Providence, Maryland sent to last remaining site (Spokane) which feeds into Louisville regional.

BAYLOR – (see Purdue) sent to Providence which feeds into the Anaheim regional.

Note: 6 seeds must be placed in same 1^st/2^nd round sites as the 3 seeds. Those sites are Oklahoma City, Providence, Brooklyn, and Denver.

TEXAS – Sent to closest pod site (Oklahoma City) which feeds into the Anaheim regional. Oklahoma is the 2 seed in this region so the teams could meet in the Sweet Sixteen, but since they only played twice in the regular season/conference tournament, it’s allowed.

NOTRE DAME – Sent to the closest remaining pod site (Brooklyn) which feeds into the Philadelphia regional.

ARIZONA – Closest remaining pod site is Denver. Utah is the 3 seed in that pod and the teams played only once in the regular season/conference tournament so this would technically be allowed, but the committee opted against this and sent them to Providence which feeds into the Louisville regional.

SETON HALL – Sent to last remaining pod site (Denver) which feeds into the Chicago regional.

Note: 7 seeds must be placed in same 1^st/2^nd round sites as the 2 seeds. Those sites are St. Louis (twice), Oklahoma City, and Brooklyn.

WISCONSIN – Sent to closest pod site (St. Louis). Michigan State and Xavier are both 2 seeds in St. Louis and because Wisconsin has played Michigan State twice, they cannot be in the same pod. Therefore, Wisconsin was sent to the other St. Louis pod featuring Xavier, which feeds into the Philadelphia regional.

DAYTON – Sent to closest pod site (St. Louis) which feeds into the Chicago regional.

IOWA – Brooklyn and Oklahoma City both about the same distance from Iowa. Committee opted to send them east to Brooklyn to make travel easier for Oregon St. Brooklyn feeds into the Louisville regional.

OREGON ST. – Sent to last remaining pod site (Oklahoma City) which feeds into the Anaheim regional.

Note: 8 seeds must be placed in the same 1^st/2^nd round sites as the 1 seeds. Those sites are Raleigh (twice), Des Moines, and Spokane.

TEXAS TECH – Can’t be sent to closest pod site (Des Moines) because of Kansas – the teams played twice in regular season. Could be sent to either of the Raleigh pods or Spokane. Committee opted to send them to Raleigh in Virginia’s pod which feeds into the Chicago Regional. Honestly, I’m not sure why they chose to send them to this pod, sometimes it’s just a judgement call.

COLORADO – Can’t be sent to Spokane because of Oregon (both teams played twice in regular season). Sent to next closest pod site (Des Moines) which feeds into the Louisville regional.

USC – Can’t be sent to Spokane because of Oregon (both teams played twice in the regular season). Sent to only remaining site (Raleigh). Because Texas Tech was sent to the Raleigh Pod with Virginia, USC was sent to the pod with North Carolina which feeds into the Philadelphia regional.

SAINT JOSEPH'S – Sent to last remaining pod site (Spokane) which feeds into the Anaheim regional.

As you can probably see, geography plays the biggest role in determining where to send teams and the individual match-ups that that creates. Stay tuned for the rest of the seed lines tomorrow!

NCAA Tournament: How the Bracket is Built

Last week I began to take a look at the NCAA selection committee and explain how they put together the seed list of every team in the tournament from 1-68. But what happens after the seed list is compiled? How does the committee build the bracket every year? Keep reading to find out!

Contrary to popular belief, the committee does not create match-ups for ratings purposes. For example, Last year Kansas faced Wichita State in the second round of the tournament. The two schools are both located in Kansas and are only separated by about 160 miles. This game only happened out of pure luck, not because the committee decided it would be a good potential match-up.

Let's walk through the process. The committee begins by placing the top 16 teams into the bracket in the seed list order, i.e. the number 1 overall team gets placed in the bracket first, followed by the number 2 team all the way down to 68. Each of the first 16 teams are placed in the closest geographical region. For example, Last year the top 4 seeds were Kentucky, Villanova, Duke, and Wisconsin in that order. Kentucky was placed in the closest regional site (Cleveland), Villanova was placed in the closest regional site to them (Syracuse), Houston is further away from Duke than Cleveland or Syracuse but because those sites were already filled they were sent to the closest remaining site (Houston), and Wisconsin was sent to the last remaining regional (Los Angeles). This continues until the first 16 teams are seeded.

There is one rule the committee has to follow when placing the first 16 teams into the bracket. Teams from the same conference cannot be placed in the same regional. If a conference has 5 teams in the top 16, the committee must relax the rules, because there are only four regions. Each team is then placed in their first/second round sites, which is again done geographically, keeping in mind that a team cannot play any games in their home court. Marquette for example, will not play any NCAA tournament games in Milwaukee even though it's obviously the closest site because they would be the host school in that scenario.

Once the committee has placed the first 16 teams in the bracket, they will check the relative balance of each of the regions to ensure that one region isn't stronger or weaker than the rest. After they check the balance, every other team is then placed into the bracket.

The way the bracket is set up plays a role in how teams are placed. For example, the 1 and 16 seeds play in the first round and the winner of that game will meet the winner between the 8 and 9 seeds. What this means for bracketing purposes is that the 1, 16, 8 and 9 seeds in a region must be placed in the same first and second round sites.The same goes for the 4, 13, 5, and 12 seeds and so on and so forth. Last year the 4 seeds were sent to play their first and second round games in Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville and because they would match-up with the 5 seed in a potential second round game the five seeds must also be sent to those four sites.

The committee follows a few rules when placing the teams in the bracket. First, they try to avoid rematches of non conference games and match-ups from the previous 2 tournaments in the first round. Secondly, teams from the same conference may meet as early as the second round if they played only once during the regular season and conference tournament. If they played twice, they could meet as early as the Sweet Sixteen. Three time, they could meet as early as the Elite Eight.

At no time does the committee change these rules to create a match-up like the Kansas-Wichita St game I mentioned earlier. I wrote an article last year detailing how the bracket was put together if you are interested. Thanks for reading and I hope this helped explain how the tournament bracket is built every year!

How does the NCAA Tournament selection process work?

Every year after the brackets come out on Selection Sunday, the decisions by the NCAA selection committee are poured over by college basketball fans everywhere. Did the committee try and create matchups for ratings? Why did team x get put in the bracket of death or why did they miss the tournament entirely? So how does the selection and bracketing process work? It's a complicated process so I'm going to split this into two posts. For now I'll talk about how the committee selects the 68 teams that will be playing in the NCAA tournament

The committee is comprised of 10 members, typically athletic directors or conference commissioners. Each member keeps tabs on a couple conferences throughout the season, and updates the other members on a weekly conference call to discuss injuries and other situations that might affect a team's performance. Whenever a team is being discussed from a certain conference, that conference's commissioner must not be present for the discussion. The same goes for the athletic director of a school being discussed. Athletic directors of other schools in a conference can provide factual information about other teams in their conference but cannot provide opinions.

In the week leading up to the tournament the committee meets in Indianapolis to put together the final seed list 1-68, and the bracket. Every member is given a list of all 351 teams in division 1 basketball and are asked to select 36 teams they believe should be at-large selections. They must then choose other teams that should also be considered for an at-large selection. There is no limit to the number of teams that can be added to this list.

If at least 8 of the 10 committee members include a team in their initial ballot of the 36 teams, then they are automatically moved into the tournament field. If a team received at least 3 votes on either ballot, then they are moved to the "under consideration" category. Teams who won or shared their conference regular season title are also moved to this category.

The committee then begins to evaluate the teams in the under consideration category. If there are 20 or more teams in this category, each member will select 8 that they believe should be at large selections. If there are 14-19 teams remaining, each member will select 6 teams and if there are 13 or fewer teams, each member will select 4 from the list. The teams selected by members are ranked in a points system, i.e. the best team gets 1 point, 2nd best 2 etc. If 8 teams are being considered, the 4 with the fewest points will be entered into the field and so on and so forth until all 36 at-large bids are filled.

From here, the committee adds in the teams who received auto-bids for winning their conference tournaments and the seeding process begins. I'll cover how that process and the bracketing process work in another blog post later this week, so stay tuned for that!