Wild Card round

@Cheezers posted:

With the Brewers all but locked into the #3 seed it's time to start looking at who we may be facing.

Mother Nature is clearly a Brewers fan.    Hurricane Helene postponed the last 2 games of the Mets-Braves series and they now have a DH on Monday.   We need to all root for Arizona to get the #5 seed or be knocked out of the playoffs completely.  It would be perfect to have either the Mets or Braves for the 6 spot.  They would have to play the DH on Monday and travel to MKE on Tuesday for the 1st game of the Wild Card round.    You would have to imagine both teams will be burning through their bullpens.

Interesting games this weekend on the NL side.  AZ and San Diego play each other.   Padres are looking like they'll be the #4 seed as the top wild card.   Do they rest players a bit, giving AZ and easier path the the #5 seed?

Braves play the Royals, who are still looking to clinch their own wild card spot.  In theory if the Braves get swept and are eliminated then the DH on Monday probably wouldn't happen, unless seeding is still in play.

And of course the Mets visit Milwaukee.   How much of a pain would it be for New York to play 3 here, have to fly to Atlanta for a DH on Monday, then fly back to Milwaukee for game 1 of the wild card round on Tuesday?

Should be interesting scoreboard watching this weekend.   Just need to hope things shake out in our favor!!

Burning through the bullpens is certainly something that could happen for the Braves/Mets. However, even more important is burning through their starting pitchers. The Mets and Braves may end up having to start their #4 or #5 starters in the first two games of the wild card round. That is huge.

If you face the Braves, it means you may not have to face Chris Sale at all. If you do face him, it's about 90% chance you will lose (Sale is 18-3 this year with a 2.38 ERA and will win the Cy Young).

The Brewers and Padres theoretically should have a huge advantage over the other wild card round teams as they are locked into the 3 and 4 seeds and can line up their starters they way they want. The problem is that it really doesn't matter much for the Brewers. None of their guys are aces that you can put out their Game 1 that the other team fears facing. The Brewers have about 4-5 guys that are interchangeable as starting pitchers. None of them are great, but none of them are terrible.

I'm a broken record on this, but knowing what they know now (a playoff berth), would the Brewers have traded Corbin Burnes for Ortiz and DL Hall. I know I would trade those two guys back to the Orioles in a heartbeat to have Burnes in the playoffs (even if he would have been gone for nothing but a comp pick after this year).

Might be a good place to debate who should be on the playoff roster.

Pitchers

Peralta, Myers, Rea, Civale, Montas, D. Williams, Ross, Megill, Ross, Koenig, Payamps, Ashby, Milner.

Left off: DL Hall, Mears

Position player

Contreras, Adames, Chourio, Turang, Ortiz, Frelick, Hoskins, Perkins, Mitchell, Monasterio, Haase, Sanchez, Bauers

Left off: Collins

Seems about right.    Peralta, Myers, and Civale should be the 3 starters for the wild card round.   Just read on today's recap that Civale is 6-1 with a 2.57 ERA in his last nine starts.  Pretty damn good.   Ross, Rea and Montas for long relief if one of the starters falters or pitch count gets really high (Peralta).

And Eric Haase with his .286 BA should be the DH for all the games.  He puts the ball in play. If I see Hoskins and Bauers back to back in the order I may have a coronary.  It is  just virtually giving the other team 2 outs in an inning when they are back to back.