Brewers Creating "Truss Club" for 2027

(image courtesy of Brewers.com and Ramlow/Stein Architecture)

The Milwaukee Brewers finally gave their fans a peek behind the curtain last month and let us in on what all the secret construction has been going on at the stadium - a new premium club slated to open in 2027.  This doesn't seem like a real statistic, but supposedly the Brewers and A's are the only MLB teams that do not have a premium area tied to the seats behind home plate, so this is their proposed solution to that problem - think Champions Club in Minnesota, Lexus Club in Texas, Truist Club in Atlanta, etc.  The unique challenge in the Brewers' case is that there is obviously not enough room to add a 20,000 square foot space into an existing stadium, so this club will actually be an addition in the right field corner that is not directly attached to the area it serves.  This project will be the most significant exterior change to the stadium since it opened in 2001, and is being funded primarily by the contentious budget bill that passed in late 2023, which has vague language in it that requires the stadium district to fund projects that will "keep it within the top 25% of major league ballparks."

Putting the public money part aside for now, for the most part I'm a big fan of this project.  It's certainly needed and looks beautiful aside from the disgusting green brick, I don't understand that choice at all.  Yeah I get it's the Truss Club and the trusses are green...so just paint the steel green then and use a normal brick that exists in nature.  I like that the Brewers are making lemonade out of lemons with the outdoor space opportunity.  If they can't fit this thing inside the footprint of the stadium and these people have to walk from the club to their seats, then it should absolutely have outdoor seating and views as a trade-off, that was a good move to set them apart.  Upgrading the seats behind home plate as a part of this makes a ton of sense.  I also like the inclusion of valet parking and the private entrance, and I like that they are not replacing more seats inside the park with a group area like they have been over the years (although most have been very successful).  My major complaint is that it's only available for season ticket holders and regular people can't buy tickets here.  I'm not going to go so far as to say that it should be an all-fan access area, but they should set aside a certain amount of tickets for regular fans to splurge on these.  Erik and I have shifted our preferred sitting area slowly over the years from nosebleeds and bleachers to first level and premium clubs like this one, and it is a fantastic intimate way to experience a ballpark that you might only go to once in your life or very occasionally.  The Twins and now the Brewers are the only parks I can think of where only season ticket holders have access to their home plate clubs.  If they are going to use taxpayer dollars to fund this thing, then all taxpayers should have a chance to enjoy it.  I know a lot of season ticket holders are also complaining about basically either being forced into this option at double the cost or to change their seats they've had for 25 years, so I'm sure many everyday fans would welcome the chance to tap in and experience this club once in awhile.

The 2027 schedule was released during the All-Star Break and as of now it looks like the Brewers' home opener aligns with Easter weekend, so if by some miracle we don't have a lockout that impacts games, I hope to be able to find reasonable tickets on a third-party site for Opening Day.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/28/26:

Brewers 66-40, +6.0; 3 @ Giants, 3 @ Angels, 4 v. Pirates, 3 v. Twins

Twins 53-54, - 3.0, -1.0 WC; 3 v. Royals, 3 @ Mariners, 3 @ Royals, 3 @ Brewers

2026 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 7

Peter - 22

Major Anniversaries for Brewers

(photo of Borchert Field, Milwaukee ca. 1911)

It feels like the USA Semiquincentennial has been capturing the minds and spirits of Americans for most of this year (and rightfully so).  With that event now come and gone, I wanted to draw attention to a couple of significant baseball anniversaries happening this year in Milwaukee that I feel have gotten lost in the excitement of America250.  The first of these is the 25th Anniversary of the opening of what is now referred to as American Family Field.  This technically occurred on April 6th of this year, but is being celebrated with an Alumni Legends Game on July 24th.  At least one member of the Brewers from the last 25 years will be represented in this game, and it is a follow-up to the extremely popular Alumni Homerun Derby that occurred for the 25th season last summer.  The headliner will undoubtedly be Ryan Braun, who to this day remains one of the most popular and greatest Brewers of all time, still my favorite player of all time, and not to mention is still on the Brewers payroll and an important part of the Milwaukee community.  He is 42 years old, but looks like he could suit up tomorrow and not be much worse of a DH than Christian Yelich is right now.  This event features $2.50 beer and brats and I really wish I could attend if I weren't working at German Fest.  I would be shocked if this doesn't become a semi-annual event, so I'm sure I'll get there one day.

The other lesser known but still important milestone occurring for the Brewers this year is the 125th Anniversary of the original Brewers major league franchise.  Most Brewers fans probably know that the current iteration of the team began as the Seattle Pilots in 1969.  Many Brewers fans probably also know that the current Atlanta Braves had a stint in Milwaukee from 1953-1965 at County Stadium, winning it all in 1957 for the city's only baseball championship to date.  There may even be some fans old enough to remember that Milwaukee had a minor league team - also called the Brewers - for half a century until the Braves came to town, who played at old Borchert Field, which has since been paved over as present-day Interstate 43.  However, it takes a particular baseball weirdo like myself to know that for one season in 1901, the Brewers briefly existed as a major league franchise in the newly-formed American League.  In fact, the American League was actually founded as a major league at a former hotel in Milwaukee, and there is still a plaque on MLK & Kilbourn commemorating this event.  Following the 1901 season, the Brewers would relocate to St. Louis to become the Browns, and would eventually go on to become the modern-day Baltimore Orioles.  So technically, if it wasn't for Bud Selig moving the Pilots in 1970 and saving baseball in Milwaukee, we might all be Orioles fans, or Braves fans, or God forbid maybe even Cubs fans.  May 6th 2026 marked the 125th anniversary of our original major league hometown 9 and it is a milestone worth celebrating.  If you want to get even more in the weeds, there were also some minor league versions of the Brewers that date back to the 1880s, but let's just stop our lesson at 1901 for today.

Stay tuned next week for a full report on Tour 2026!

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/6/26:

Brewers 55-33, +6.0; 5 @ Cardinals, 3 @ Pirates

Twins 44-47, - 4.0, -1.5 WC; 3 v. Guardians, 3 v. Angels

2026 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 3

Peter - 16

Brewers' "Uecker Magic" Ends in Deflating NLCS Sweep

(image credit: OnMilwaukee.com)

Another MLB season is in the books, and another year has been shed off my life watching another heartbreaking Brewers playoff exit.  I honestly don't even want to write a reflection this year, so I'm going to keep this one brief.  The pain is still fresh from the loss (especially since the Dodgers won again) and each year gets harder than the next to reflect on.  I was literally texting friends just a couple of weeks ago about World Series travel plans, so this year hurt for sure.  I also don't really want to be writing this because you can just go back in the blog and read last year's reflection which was almost identical to 2025.  A team that was not expected to even be competitive, let alone have the best record in baseball and 4 wins away from the World Series, made for another season that was both surprising and disappointing at the same time.  Another year of an elite coaching staff, stellar defense littered with Gold Glove nominees, and another year that we successfully piecemealed a rotation together.  And another year of the same offseason holes to fill.  If you replace Garrett Mitchell in my 2024 post with Caleb Durbin, it was a remarkably similar season ending in the same result.  Barring an unexpected fire sale or a large influx of cash from ownership, I expect 2026 to be another year of growth for the young players, another offseason of difficult trade decisions, and more of the same of the 2024 and 2025 seasons.  Hopefully next year, we can squeeze that last bit of "Uecker Magic" out of the tube, and finally make it to The Dance.  The exciting thing to watch for next year will be that - you would think - as an organization we will finally garner some respect nationally after two very prosperous seasons, and the NL Central is rapidly improving around us, so it will be fun to watch how the team steps up to that challenge of higher perceived expectations.

Erik and I already have a general framework for next year's trip, so stay tuned this winter for an announcement on that.  Until then, stay warm, and dream about the 2026 Caribbean Series coming up in a long, dark 87 days.

FINAL 2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 10

Peter - 31

2025 MLB Postseason

It's a wrap on the 2025 regular season, and the playoffs begin tomorrow with a week of quadruple headers - a big reason I am a huge fan of the expanded playoff format.  The other reason I am a big fan of the expanded field is that it creates drama for pretty much the entire month of September because there are so many more teams with a chance to snag one of those 3 Wild Cards in each league.  If this were 4 years ago, the Tigers would been sent home, and the baseball world would have been denied seeing likely Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal pitch in the postseason, and we also would have seen the NL playoffs largely decided over a month ago.  Because of the 6-team field, we got to see a remarkable comeback for the Guardians to overtake Detroit to win their 3rd AL Central title in the last 4 years, only for the two of them to be matched up against each other in the first round.  Cleveland channeled the 2024 Tigers to give them a taste of their own medicine, erasing a 15 1/2 game deficit, the largest in MLB history.  The 6-team field also let us witness another catastrophic Mets implosion, which allowed the Terry Francona-led Reds to sneak into the playoffs for the first time in a full season since 2013, despite having a sub-.500 record in August and September.  As a Brewers fan who was completely devastated by the Mets defeating us in the playoffs last year, I am immensely enjoying bathing in the schadenfreude of their misery.  Pete Alonso announced he was opting out of his contract for next year less than an hour after their season ended, which is just very on brand for the Mets.  The Blue Jays had the 2nd best record in all of baseball after Memorial Day (#1 was the Brewers), and the Mariners had a stretch of 17 wins in 18 games en route to their first division title since Ichiro's rookie season in 2001.  The Cubs finally decided to be decent this year, and the entire country outside of Texas is rejoicing for the Astros missing the playoffs.  And, of course, we can't put a bow on the 2025 season without mentioning the 97-win Brewers.  They locked up their 4th division title in the last 5 years, and their 7th postseason berth in the last 8 years, while also breaking the franchise record for wins in a season.  This team's preseason projected win total was 80, and they were once again counted out by everybody to not even have a chance to sniff the playoffs, and Pat Murphy and Crew yet again proved everybody wrong.  He should be a lock to repeat as NL Manager of the Year.  I know I say this every year, but this feels like a year the Brewers can make a deep run, if they can just get everyone healthy in time for Saturday following their well-earned first round bye.

I picked the Dodgers and the Rangers to go to the World Series before the season.  Obviously I was way off with the Rangers, but it's hard to bet against the Dodgers with that lineup and their postseason acumen.  I would also like to note that I picked the A's to beat the over of 71 wins and they did so by a healthy margin, finishing up with a record of 76-86.  So I'll have a nice chunk of change this fall to either celebrate with, or console me, depending on how far the Brewers go.  Either way, beer will be involved.

PLAYOFFS START 9/30/25
NL Wild Card Round - #3 Dodgers host #6 Reds, #4 Cubs host #5 Padres
NLDS - #1 Brewers v. 4/5 Winner, #2 Phillies v. 3/6 Winner

AL Wild Card Round - #3 Guardians host #6 Tigers, #4 Yankees host #5 Red Sox
ALDS - #1 Blue Jays v. 4/5 Winner, #2 Mariners v. 3/6 Winner

World Series Prediction: Brewers defeat Yankees in 7
Rooting for: Brewers v. Blue Jays

Preseason Predictions:
#1 Phillies
#2 Dodgers
#3 Brewers
#4 Braves
#5 Diamondbacks
#6 Reds

#1 Red Sox
#2 Rangers
#3 Royals
#4 Yankees
#5 Rays
#6 Mariners

Preseason World Series Prediction: Dodgers defeat Rangers

FINAL STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 9/29/25:

Brewers 97-65, +5.0, 1st NL Central; NLDS v. 4/5 Winner

Twins 70-92, -18.0, 4th AL Central; eliminated

Athletics 76-86, -14.0, 4th AL West; eliminated

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 10

Peter - 31

Brewers Enter September With Best Record in Baseball

Labor Day is always a bittersweet day on the baseball calendar.  It serves as the unofficial end to summer with cooler temps starting to roll in, which is always a little sad from a baseball attendance and travel perspective knowing that the season is nearing the end.  However, it also kicks off the most exciting couple of months' worth of action of the entire year.  The "dog days of summer" are fleeting fast, and teams summon every last bit of strength and grit to make it through the final 25 games of the regular season - and for 12 lucky teams, the postseason.  My Milwaukee Brewers are in the midst of their most prolific regular season in franchise history, in which we are on pace for 100 wins and are all but certain to be one of those 12 playoff teams once again in 2025.  I say this every year around this time, but it bears repeating just how impressive an era of Brewers baseball we're in right now, and I try to savor it every day.  Barring some unforeseen tragedy, this is going to be their 7th postseason berth in the last 8 years, with at least 4 and hopefully 5 division titles during that span - and for a team that is dead last in market size and consistently in the bottom third in team payroll, that is nothing short of remarkable.  The Brewers are 4th in all of MLB in total wins since the start of 2017.  We're at a point in Brewers history where we expect to win, and given all of the horrible years we struggled through during my formative years, I try not to take this stretch for granted.  The fact that I'm still steaming from back to back losses to the Jays and Phillies, who are the 2nd and 3rd best teams in baseball right behind us, when we still have a miniscule magic number of 10 with a month left to go in the season, and coming off a 21-9 August which included a 14-game winning streak, tells you all you need to know about expectations this year.  Being a Brewers fan nowadays is about balancing being grateful that we have gotten to watch competitive baseball for nearly a decade with no signs of a window closing, with the fact that simply making it to the postseason is no longer good enough.

We are in an era of Brewers baseball that emphasizes run prevention and fundamentals over strikeouts and homeruns, and it finally feels like every team with a payroll under $300M is starting to catch up to that philosophy.  That was especially evident these last two days watching us play the Blue Jays and Phillies.  The Jays are pretty much a carbon copy of the Brewers - play great defense, great rotation pitching to contact, run the bases really well, high on base percentage with not a lot of slug, a fair amount of positional versatility and depth, and the bullpen is just a who's who of castaways that are kind of the weak link.  The Phillies on the other hand are a bunch of beef cakes set in their positions who mash their way to victories and are loaded with arms that can strike you out, and lots of big name free agents and trades.  Neither way is necessarily wrong, it's just that the Phillies way of doing things costs a lot more, because homeruns and strikeouts still equal WAR, which equals a big pay day.  The Brewers simply cannot afford to go out and sign Kyle Schwarber, and they have to win in the aggregate and in the margins with speed, taking the extra base, and doing the little things right.  They lead all of baseball in 4+ run innings, and a large portion of those have just been hits strung together rather than one or two homers.  It can't be overstated how difficult it is to win that way in today's game with everybody throwing 95+ with movement, but the Brewers do it consistently.  Other than our bullpen, there are just not a lot of holes in our team, and their style of play is fun to watch and very "next man up" mentality.  I think Pat Murphy is the perfect manager for this team and has installed a work ethic and mindset on this team that makes you feel as a fan like they're always trying, they're always in the game, and they're always having fun, which is all you really want as a fan.  Nobody likes to pay hundreds of dollars to go to a game to see people strike out 4 times, or not hustle running to first, to lose their focus in the field, or to get blown out 10-1.  I can't even remember a year where I never wanted to miss an inning or ever turn a game off, because I always feel like they have a chance to win.  And if I can feel that through the TV as a fan, then you know the other team feels that too, and that's kind of the point.  "Relentless" or "undaunting" or "pesky" as Murph would say.

I'm not even sure anymore what my point was when I started writing this post other than just brain-dumping how proud I am of this organization, but I guess I'm just trying to say that the Brew Crew has a style of play that matches up well with anybody, and it gives me higher hopes than in recent years that we can make a deep run in the playoffs.  Hindsight is 20/20 and I've probably said that before, but I sincerely believe it.  It's been interesting to watch how the team's core strength has shifted from hitting during the late 00's/early 10's, then shifted to a dominant pitching staff during most of the Craig Counsell era, and now is starting to shift back towards hitting with stellar defense mixed in during the Pat Murphy era, all while quietly ascending to the #2 overall farm system.  If we can just keep this team bandaged together and hungry the last few weeks of the season, I'm really excited to see some Uecker Magic this October.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 9/2/25:

Brewers 85-54, +5.5, magic number 10; 3 v. Phillies, 3 @ Pirates, 3 @ Rangers, 3 v. Cardinals

Twins 62-75, -17.0, -10.5 WC; 4 v. White Sox, 3 @ Royals, 3 @ Angels, 3 v. Diamondbacks

Athletics 64-75, -12.5, -9.5 WC; 3 @ Cardinals, 3 @ Angels, 3 v. Red Sox, 3 v. Reds

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 9
Peter - 28

Return to Milwaukee

All photos of American Family Field available on Flickr.

My family and I just got back from a whirlwind 9-day return visit to Milwaukee this past week.  We went to Summerfest, we hung out with friends and family, we visited many parks and beaches, we ate frozen custard, and we imbibed at restaurants and bars both new and old.  But one of the highlights was of course returning to American Family Field.  It's interesting every time we come back to my home ballpark now to see it through a fresh set of eyes.  I don't want to say I ever took it for granted when we lived in Milwaukee, but I definitely get much more excited for the limited opportunities I do get to go to Brewers games now, and I have a newfound appreciation for the comforts of home and all its quirks.  I tend to be much more observant and live in the moment when I go to new or seldom-visited ballparks, and I definitely felt that internal shift in my mindset during our two games at AmFam Field.  Tuesday night's affair pitting young phenom Jacob Misiorowski against the old battle-tested Clayton Kershaw was probably in my top 10 regular season MLB games I've ever witnessed in person, and something that was made even more special by the fact that I was a tourist instead of a resident.  It's weird to write a post entitled "Return to Milwaukee" when I lived there for 75% of my life, but this was really my first time at a Brewers home game that I truly felt like a visitor, so I think the title is fitting.  It was an odd feeling to be sure, but being around those two huge crowds was also very rejuvenating, and it was nice to be among my people and remember why I am a Brewers fan.

It certainly didn't hurt that the Brewers are playing so well right now.  They just finished a perfect 6-0 homestand to end the first half at 56-40, which is the most wins a Brewers team has ever had at the All-Star Break in its 57-year history.  I could digress for hours on the Brewers' long-term strategy for success - and in fact I did edit out multiple paragraphs from this post - but needless to say, it's impressive that this team is still breaking records in the midst of an 8 1/2-year run the likes of which this franchise has never known.  They've been doing it primarily with defense and pitching the last 5 years or so, and myself and 38,000+ fellow Brewers fans got a glimpse of the franchise's future pitching star on Tuesday night with a dominant 12-strikeout performance against a future Hall-of-Famer (I think that term is used way too loosely but I don't think anybody can deny Kershaw will have a plaque in Cooperstown).  It was only Miz's 5th career start, but it was so impressive that I think it was the cherry on top that earned him a controversial selection to the All-Star Game.  Megan and I also went to Friday night's beatdown of the Nationals.  Christian Yelich and electric newcomer Andrew Vaughn both homered in this win, with DL Hall and Quinn Priester combining to complete all 9 innings with only 3 runs allowed between them.  The walk back to the car in the pouring rain never seems to bother you after a big win, and feeling that energy in the parking lot is one of the things I missed most about American Family Field.

Speaking of energy in the parking lot, one thing I am certainly guilty of taking for granted when I lived in Milwaukee is tailgating, so we took full advantage of that Friday night.  There just aren't that many places where drinking in a parking lot is not only allowed but encouraged, and it was a sight for sore eyes.  It was really more of a "beergate" as Erik and I used to say, because we didn't want to grill anything and be too full so we could explore some of the seemingly perennial food upgrades at the ballpark.  Concessions and audio-visual enhancements would make AmFam Field nearly unrecognizable to anyone who has not been there in the last decade.  This year's newest addition comes in the form of a new bar and food truck park in the left field corner on the loge level, which was previously a dead zone that will not be missed.  I thought the food in the 3rd Street Market Hall in right field was still much better than this area, but I liked the intimate vibe here, and it's a really cool bar that has at least a partial view of the field, which you can't say about many other bars at this ballpark.  I appreciate that the Brewers make every effort to work with what they have and constantly improve the fan experience, which they know is so important as a revenue generator.  There's only so much they can fit within the bones of this 25-year old retractable-roof park and it will always pale in comparison to the Target Fields of the world in terms of modern design and amenities, but the food, drinks, intangibles, and atmosphere - not to mention the team - are near the top of just about any other MLB experience you'll have.  I made the comment to Megan on Friday night as we were leaving that I still like Target Field better as a stadium, but the palpable vibe and energy at AmFam is way better, and ultimately what good is a beautiful stadium if it doesn't have atmosphere?

With each passing visit, I feel a bit more disconnected from Milwaukee as "home," and it gets a little bit more surreal every time we go back.  We had a lot of great memories there, but we unfortunately had to move away rather suddenly due to circumstances I won't get into, and that in and of itself will never make Milwaukee feel the same.  But the common thread, besides family and friends, is and always will be the Brewers.  Sometimes it only takes a fleeting experience to make something feel familiar to you all over again.

See below for an update to my American Family Field rankings for the first time since 2017.

updated park rankings
(see also previous rankings from 4/11/17):
aesthetics - decreases to 6 (interior is starting to feel outdated)
views from park - decreases to 3 (becoming more and more obstructed)
view to field - 4
surrounding area - improves to 4 (discovered lots of great places when we lived nearby)
food variety - 9
nachos - 9
beer - decreases to 7 (better variety, higher price)
vendor price - 7
ticket price - decreases to 9
atmosphere - 8
walk to park - 6
parking price/proximity - improves to 7
concourses - decreases to 7
team shop - 10
kids area - 7 (added category since 2017 - you can race a sausage!)

best food – Story Hill BKC burgers or 3rd St Market Hall
most unique stadium feature – roof, Bernie's slide
best jumbotron feature – Roll Out the Barrel 7th inning stretch
best between-inning feature – Johnsonville Sausage Race

updated field dimensions - 342/400/345

starters - Clayton Kershaw (LAD) v. Jacob Misiorowski (MIL); Mitchell Parker (WSH) v. DL Hall (MIL)
opponent - Los Angeles Dodgers; Washington Nationals
time of game - 2:17; 2:15
attendance - 38175; 35057
score - 3-1 W; 8-3 W

Brewers score that day - 3-1 W; 8-3 W

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 7/14/25:

Brewers 56-40, -1.0, +4.0 WC; All-Star Break, 3 @ Dodgers

Twins 47-49, -11.5, -4.0 WC; All-Star Break, 3 @ Rockies
Athletics 41-57, -16.0, -11.0 WC; All-Star Break, 3 @ Guardians

2025 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 7
Peter - 22

Another Similar Offseason for the Brewers

If you asked two separate Brewers fans to reflect on the 2024 season, and one person referred to it as a surprising success, and the other referred to it as a disappointing failure, they'd both be correct.  The Brewers were written off and cast aside by just about every publication and pundit in the baseball industry before Spring Training even began, and even I had my doubts.  I thought that they'd be better than projected, but certainly not a playoff team on paper.  They had a new manager, they had a lineup comprised mostly of 1st and 2nd year players and one notable veteran reclamation project in Rhys Hoskins, and it was difficult to fathom how a rotation that lost 6 starters to either injury or trade (Burnes, Woodruff, Lauer, Miley, Houser, Teheran) would even be able to cobble together enough innings to get through a season, let alone be productive.  So the fact that this team managed to win 93 games and basically coast through the division for almost the entire season was nothing short of miraculous.  Brice Turang shunned off a sophomore slump and took a major step forward to become a potent leadoff man who was 3rd in baseball in steals and led all defenders at any position in defensive runs saved, which garnered him his first Gold Glove yesterday.  Outfielders Sal Frelick (another Gold Glove winner), Blake Perkins (Gold Glove finalist), and Garrett Mitchell seemingly took turns making highlight reel plays in the outfield on a nightly basis and helped make run prevention a key component to the team's success.  Newcomer Joey Ortiz, who was the major piece of the Corbin Burnes trade with Baltimore, was a big part of that defense as well, and should slide into shortstop nicely next year when Willy Adames is almost certainly gone.  Two of the most encouraging signs for 2025 and beyond were that William Contreras continues to be the best catcher in the game, and Christian Yelich returned to his near-MVP form before a back injury ended his season.  Put all of those things together, and you can't help but say that a 6th playoff appearance in 7 years was an unmitigated success.  It's approaching the point where it's expected for the Brewers to make the playoffs and the word "dynasty" would not be a stretch, and I never thought I would be saying that in my lifetime.  

However, with continued success comes greater expectations, and another first-round exit in the playoffs also makes this season extremely disappointing and a failure to take that next step.  Yes, the playoffs are largely a crapshoot, especially given the 12-team format now.  Any given team can win on any given day and even the best teams only win 55-60% of the time, which is what makes baseball so great.  The Yankees certainly would not have won as many championships as they have if they had to play 4 rounds of playoffs in the 1930s.  But you take enough shots and you expect to eventually make one, and that just hasn't happened for the Brewers for whatever reason.  They certainly had the offense and bullpen and defense this year to put the pieces together, and it just didn't happen.  One of the greatest closers in Brewers history gave up a homer on his signature pitch, to a guy who had not homered off of a changeup nor to the opposite field all year, and sometimes that just happens in baseball.  It was gut-wrenching, and it took me a good week to get over the loss, and each year gets harder to take when we don't advance.  But I also can't help but be proud of this team, and I try not to take it for granted that I am a fan of a team that has been pretty much continuously competitive over the last 8 or 9 years.

I mentioned Willy Adames earlier, and he is just one of the many looming hot stove questions this team always seems to have.  Hoskins picked up his option so that clears up first base a little, but besides Adames' inevitable departure, the biggest story will be whether or not Devin Williams is traded.  The team recently declined his $10.5M option, but he is still arbitration eligible for one more season, and he would likely be coveted by a lot of teams.  What we would get in return for a 30-year old reliever who recently had back surgery remains to be seen.  The Brewers unfortunately for whatever reason seem to have a little bit of a sleazy track record lately for how they're treating their outgoing players - Cain, Burnes, Hader, Colin Rea, and now Williams as recent examples - and are very focused on the bottom line.  Which a small market team should always be, but not at the expense of a healthy clubhouse or reputation.  Bullpen pieces are a dime a dozen these days, but how hard we go after another infield bat and some starting pitching will be interesting.

Welp, another season in the books, and I'm happy to report that I crossed the "30 games attended" threshold for the first time since I became a parent.  Time to catch up on my TV shows for a few months and brush up on my Spanish on the Dominican League broadcasts.  Other than that, stay tuned for Tour 2025 news, and only 108 short days until Spring Training!

FINAL 2024 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 7
Peter - 32

2024 MLB Postseason

The 2024 season featured 6 division winners that were all largely decided by August 1st, but the final two wild card spots in each league were thrilling to the very last pitch of the season - a season that was extended by an extra day with an epic Mets-Braves winner-take-all doubleheader.  All is right with the world as the huge-payroll Yankees, Padres, and Mets are all returning to the postseason this year.  Once again, the Brewers won the NL Central despite being written off by every baseball analyst in the country - just as they were last year - and this will be their 6th postseason in the last 7 years, including 4 division titles in that stretch.  The Crew has the 6th most wins in all of baseball since the start of their run of success in 2017, so it really makes me wonder when they'll start to be taken seriously.  Even I wrote them off in Spring Training this year, and I hope I can eat my own words as I watch them hoist the World Series trophy in a month.  With repeated success comes expectations, and the years of just being happy with making the postseason are long gone.  There's no reason to think this team can't make a deep run in a softer playoff field than I can remember in recent years.  Almost every team in the playoffs, especially in the American League, has either limped in, or has a ton of injuries, or some discernable flaw, and no team won 100 games.  The two possible exceptions to the "soft" playoff field are the Brewers' first round opponent of the Mets, and the Detroit Tigers.  Both teams came out of nowhere to snag the final wild card spots in their respective leagues, and the Tigers were even sellers at the trade deadline.  They overcame a 10-game deficit in the final 6 weeks of the season, becoming the first team in MLB history to overcome a double-digit deficit that late in the season.  This historic stretch can be greatly attributed to the embarrassing collapse of the Twins, who went an abysmal 13-27 in their final 40 games.  A similar collapse also occurred in the AL West, where the Astros started the year just 7-19 and were below .500 at the All-Star Break before erasing a 10-game deficit to surpass the Mariners in route to yet another division title.  You can't put a bow on the 2024 regular season without mentioning two things - Shohei Ohtani and the Chicago White Sox.  Shohei created his own category of player by achieving the first 50/50 season of all time, and might very well become the first full-time DH to win an MVP award.  Shockingly, in his 7th MLB season, this will be his first time in the playoffs.  And the lowly White Sox went 41-121, thus surpassing the 1962 Mets with the most losses in a season in the Modern Era.  I'm not sure why everyone in baseball is so shocked that the AL Central - widely considered the worst division in baseball - fielded 3 playoff teams when each of them got to play the White Sox 13 times.

I picked the Braves and Orioles to go to the World Series before the season, and while technically that's still a possibility, I'm not feeling super confident about either of those teams right now.  It took the O's sweeping the Twins over the weekend just for me to push on my preseason bet over 91 wins.  Here's hoping the Crew plays deep into October so that I can make it back for a playoff game.  There are a lot of really intriguing matchups in the Wild Card round, and I can't wait for it to start in just 3 short hours.

PLAYOFFS START 10/1/24
NL Wild Card Round - #3 Brewers host #6 Mets, #4 Padres host #5 Braves
NLDS - #1 Dodgers v. 4/5 Winner, #2 Phillies v. 3/6 Winner

AL Wild Card Round - #3 Astros host #6 Tigers, #4 Orioles host #5 Royals
ALDS - #1 Yankees v. 4/5 Winner, #2 Guardians v. 3/6 Winner

World Series Prediction: Phillies defeat Astros in 7
Rooting for: Brewers v. Orioles

Preseason Predictions:
#1 Braves
#2 Dodgers
#3 Cubs
#4 Phillies
#5 Padres
#6 Reds

#1 Orioles
#2 Astros
#3 Twins
#4 Yankees
#5 Blue Jays
#6 Rangers

Preseason World Series Prediction: Braves defeat Orioles

FINAL STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 10/1/24:
Brewers 93-69, +10.0, 1st NL Central; NL WC v. Mets
Twins 82-80, -10.5, 4th AL Central; eliminated
Orioles 91-71, -3.0, 2nd AL East; AL WC v. Royals

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:
Erik - 7
Peter - 32

First Brewers Opener as Minnesota Residents

All photos of 2024 Brewers Home Opener available on Flickr.

As the title of this post suggests, a little thing like moving 400+ miles away wasn't going to stop us from attending another Brewers home opener this week.  The timing and circumstances of the opening game this year just were too good to pass up - it happened to fall during Spring Break a couple days after Easter, and the Crew was playing our new hometown Twins!  It stands to reason that it will never align that perfectly again, so we took advantage of attending another Brewers home opener while we could.  We got into Milwaukee on Friday afternoon and stayed with my parents in Oak Creek and the game itself was on Tuesday afternoon.  Sleeping in my parents house for that length of time again is very surreal, but I'm grateful for these opportunities to visit my family and the city I still and will always love.  And going to AmFam Field in addition to that just put a nice cherry on top of our stay.

The weather was very ominous on Tuesday and it was one of the worst weather forecasts I can recall for an Opening Day - upper 30s temps, a heavy rain that changed to snow during the game, and 30+ mph winds.  These conditions should have made tailgating damn near impossible, but Megan, my brother Nick, and I, along with tens of thousands of other brave fans, sat in our cars with the heat on, pounding Lites and whatever food we could muster sans grill while waiting for the gates to open at 1:10.  The poor weather overshadowed what was probably the biggest change at the ballpark for the offseason - the new parking system.  The Brewers are the first baseball team in the country to implement a new system that does not involve scanning parking passes, but rather works sort of like paying for meter parking.  You are supposed to either activate a pre-paid parking pass on your phone via the MLB Ballpark app and enter your license plate number, or you can also do the same thing by scanning a QR code posted on signs strewn throughout the parking lot.  There are also some kiosk options for those who haven't yet paid on their phones, again sort of like paying at a parking meter station.  As I watched dozens of people grumpily shaking their fists at the QR signs in the cold rain, I knew this change was not going over well and would likely experience some hiccups and pushback.  And in fact, the team did announce during the game that the QR codes experienced "connection issues" and no citations would be issued that day for unpaid parking.  Apparently the Brewers did not realize that 20,000 people all trying to access one website at the same time would be a problem, but I do believe that once that gets rectified, people will find this system incredibly easy, and more importantly it gets you into the parking lot nearly instantly with no stopping or long lines.  I'll say again, for anybody who has used a parking meter in the last decade, this system will come very natural.  Although I like it, I will say that I don't understand what the Brewers motivation is to implement this.  The people that formerly scanned your tickets are now just called "parking ambassadors" and point you where to go so it's not like they're saving money hiring less people, and the only days of the year where there is a logjam getting into the lot is Opening Day and the playoffs.

You know you're getting old when you talk about weather and parking in great detail for an entire paragraph, so I'll move on.  Inside the stadium, there were two major changes for the season.  The first is the enormous new jumbotron.  The new model is over 12,000 SF, which more than doubles the old screen and is the 2nd largest in MLB.  For anybody who's visited AmFam Field, you'll remember that the old scoreboard was flanked with static advertising on 3 sides.  That advertising is now shown on the actual screen most of the time, so even though the screen is huge, the actual footprint is not noticeably larger.  The times you really notice are when full-screen replays or videos are shown.  There is also a second smaller digital scoreboard that was added above the Johnsonville Party Deck in right field that is used primarily to show stats.  It's pretty common for teams to show things like the pitch sequence per at bat or "inside baseball" types of nerdy SABR stats, so this was a welcome addition for an avid fan like myself.  The second major change in the ballpark was the addition of the 3rd Street Market Hall on the loge level in the right field corner.  This area takes its name from the same food hall that exists in the old Grand Avenue Mall downtown and features several grab-and-go style food options provided by popular Milwaukee restaurants - Kompali Taqueria, Anytime Arepas, and Kawa Sushi to name a few.  I was skeptical of how this area would function in a sold-out crowd because it is in a very cramped area where they've already jammed a very popular craft beer bar and craft cocktail bar the last few years.  But given the type of "quick" food and how they've laid it out, it worked surprisingly well.  There are several enclaves of tables in previously dead space, and the food stands face all sorts of directions in an organic fashion to allow for easy queueing.  We shared a sushi roll and an order of crab rangoons from Kawa and both were exceptional restaurant quality.  Kompali and Anytime are two of my favorite eateries in the city as well, so I'll for sure be stopping back to the Market Hall on any future visit.

Our seats were on the club level for the game, which is par for the course with the Nagel family.  We paid our customary respects to the club level bartenders and settled in to our 4th row seats behind home plate to take in an amazing win that brought the Crew up to an undefeated 4-0 at the time (they have since dropped their first game of the season).  Former Giant and 29th round Royals draft pick Jakob Junis got the ball for Milwaukee and tossed an effective 4 innings with 4 Ks.  Elvis Peguero was the bridge man who got the next 2 innings and was dominant, giving up only 1 unearned run en route to earning the win.  Abner Uribe picked up his 3rd save of the season in an uneventful 9th that I mostly remember.  On the offensive side, Brice Turang continued his torrid start to the season with 2 more hits, an RBI, and 2 more steals to add to his league-leading total of 6.  Christian Yelich added his 2nd homer of the season in the 3rd inning as well.  The hallmarks of this young team from last season - speed and defense - look to not only have continued under new manager Pat Murphy, but are even exceeding last year to this point.  The Brewers ran wild on the Mets this past weekend, and it seems like we have half a dozen guys who could be Gold Glove finalists on this team.  This team has a lot of energy and chemistry and it will be exciting to see how the season plays out, particularly the newcomer of 20-year old and #2 overall prospect Jackson Chourio, who became the youngest Brewer to make an Opening Day roster since the venerable Robin Yount.  The question mark of this team will be the starting rotation.  We lost over 500 innings out of the rotation this past season due to trades and injuries and replaced those innings largely with journeymen, and not that much waiting in the wings in AAA.  The first turn through the rotation was solid, but let's see how this holds up over 162 games.

I'm hoping to make it to another Crew game when we come back to Milwaukee in late spring, but otherwise it will be an exciting season of Minnesota baseball and following the Crew on MLB.tv.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 4/4/24:

(note: I am also tracking the Orioles this year because I have a substantial bet on the over...)

Brewers 4-1, +0.5; 3 v. Mariners, 4 @ Reds

Twins 3-2, -1.5; 3 v. Rays, 3 v. Guardians, 3 v. Dodgers

Orioles 4-2, -1.5; 3 @ Pirates, 3 @ Red Sox

2024 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 1