It was so frustrating to see so many people saying “well there’s nothing we can do, it’s a good pitcher, I guess we just have to get fucked.”, and then watch every other playoff caliber team go out and take the approach that our fans seem to think is impossible. Honestly feel like we’ve been seeing shitty at bats and approaches for so long that our fans are conditioned to this garbage.
Where’s the idiot that was in almost every thread at the end of the regular season talking about, “your approach at the plate is basically God given. Being mad about it is like being mad at Matt Olson for being slow or Bryce Elder for not throwing 100mph.”
Motherfucker didn’t even stop to think that plate approach and batter’s eye might be two completely separate concepts.
He does have a bit of a point in that our team is built to slug while the Brewers are built for contact. The Brewers hit 50 less HR than we did in the regular season.
The point they're trying to make is that we're never going to look like the Brewers with this lineup. Some guys hit for average, others for power. We predominantly feature power hitters.
I dont understand the thinking around a lot of teams hitting with all the focus going to slugging. Small ball wins games too. Brewers are probably the best Small ball team in the league
Not entirely clear that there’s a fix coming either. Harris and Albies while great are not high OBP guys, and Riley may never be again. Acuna hopefully bounces back and Olson will be consistent.
Yeah, as constructed, we will never, "EVER" be a grind out piles of pitches team and hoping for guys that are on the team to change to do so is hoping against hope.
If you want that to change and for us to become more "Brewers-like," it'll have to come in getting players that aren't in the organization that are known for working 7, 8, 9 pitch ABs constantly, because a guy like Harris literally can't do it consistently with his F tier eye, even if he's just simply seeking contact for the base hit instead of swinging for it all.
Ironically...Profar has shown ability to do it at times, sigh.
Not that the other teams at the top of the list are dominant, but interesting that Brewers are close to top of the league in pitches seen per plate appearance
The team that hit the most home runs has won every series so far this postseason. We beat the Phillies by hitting more home runs than them. The Dodgers cruised to victory against us without doing anything on offense besides hit home runs. The Brewers are outslugging the Dodgers right now.
The players had great OBPs but only went base to base and needed to string four base hits together to score a single run. The current team with a lot more slugging and overall team speed to take the extra base (if not base stealing) is a correction to the shortcomings of those teams. Maybe a bit of an overcorrection.
playoff baseball has way higher velos and pitching quality so hits overall drop way more compared to the regular season
usually the slugging teams that luck their way into a couple homers end up scoring the most runs. it’s unironically a more consistent strategy than trying to string together singles against a team’s 4 best pitchers every single game, even if it’s frustrating to watch. simple fact is playoff baseball is a literal lottery in a way that other sports (besides maybe hockey) are not
that’s not to say “small ball” teams CANT win in the playoffs at all, just that the margins are slightly more difficult to win with
Yeah but the last few times weve been in the playoffs our team has been hot all year then playoffs come and they are so inconsistent with the hitting. Id rather have small ball average hitting teams that can string some hits together then relying on the long ball
the small ball hitting teams fizzle out of the playoffs too… the boom or bust Braves have been objectively more successful in the playoffs over the past ten years than the Rays/Guardians/Brewers (not including all the small ball teams that don’t make the playoffs)
the most important postseason method is good pitching. nearly every single playoff team will have the offense get worse in October, that’s why the teams that can hit some homers are more likely to do well because a homer is the only way to guarantee a run
I agree but im tired of getting in the playoffs and see all of our hitters try to hit homers and have sub .200 averages. Every time drake swung at the ball was to try to hit it over. Our two hottest hitters are more contact guys in harris and ozzie. The long ball looks nice but its hard to win championships that way
that’s how baseball works man. I’ll redirect you back to the fact that the Braves have had that formula work out for them at a better rate than 27 other MLB teams in this decade
Harris and Ozzie won the WC series literally by hitting tanks, not because they were being contact hitters. And Game 1 is only a win because Mr Swing and Miss Austin Riley finally found his barrel into one
In the regular season i agree, playoff time comes around and we always die. We had a magical run in 21. Other then that everytime we get in the playoffs our offense just runs cold
Yeah thats how baseball works man. 90% of teams that make the playoffs die no matter what their rosters look like because that’s the nature of the playoffs
There are exactly 2 other teams in the MLB this decade that can say “our team always chokes in the playoffs except for that one run where it all came together”. and then you have the Dodgers, who won like a dozen division titles in a row with only one chip to show for it until 2024. EVERY other team choked in the playoffs without a chip to show for it. The Astros built one of the best sustained playoff rosters in recent memory and got 2 titles over the span of 6 years, and they cheated their way to one of them. Consider the Braves lucky to get one
Except I think when I looked it was something like 9 of last 10 world series winners were top 10 in home runs. I assume OBP would also be high for a lot of winners which Milwaukee has
LOUDER for the people in the back! I’m not saying we need to transform into a small ball team… just would love to see more selective at bats from some of our bigger contract guys 👀
Well the Braves have been a homerun or nothing team all season. That wasn't gonna magically change in the playoffs. Unfortunately for us it was nothing
His first at-bat was for contact, not power, when he was facing Yama. He did just enough to drive in the runner. Then when the relievers came out, he hit for power. That's smart baseball. I just can't believe we traded him for Murphy.
He was basically this hitter for us the big difference was defense. In 2022 he was a pretty bad defensive catcher and there were real questions around if he could stick at the position. The Brewers taught him how to frame.
I think part of it is just role players and having players who can do both. Players getting down in the count but working a walk or getting a slap hit to keep the inning going for the power hitter.
We choked against the Dodgers, we should’ve beaten them. They’re an aging and not so great team this year, not sure why the majority of Braves country seemed to rationalize losing to them or consider this season a successful one.
The way teams are so obsessed with pitch count, I don’t see how the Brewers approach is not the norm. Force a starter to throw extra pitches and labor a bit and you’ll get to their bullpen very fast.
Exactly my thought. Nowadays, most starters don’t statistically average a quality start across the MLB, I would guess. So if guys are gonna throw high velocity for five innings, you need to wear them out with patience and contact hitting.
What’s funny about this is i thought we had a ton of good AB’s in the postseason that resulted in nothing. We just couldn’t get the big hit or the guy with 2-on would then have the only terrible, 1-pitch AB of the inning to let the starter off the hook. That’s the issue when we don’t have guys (or a hitting coach?) who value singles in any meaningful way.
Austin Riley, in particular, had a lot of very good at bats and just had nothing to show for them. His approach was great, just couldn’t get anything going after working counts.
Some of the other guys (Drake, Ronald) were the exact opposite.
You only had to watch a few innings of this to see how the Braves hitters are simply not this caliber, and just running it back will get you more of the same.
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u/antihero_84 2d ago
If the Brewers would only swing for the fences on the first three pitches thrown, regardless of location, they could be us.