T-Minus 37 Days Until Beer Thirty

37 days until the Brewers start their march towards their inevitable World Championship (It is happening. Don't argue). I'm in my spot where every year I'm a little depressed about the NFL being done, I'm not at all excited about the NBA, and College Basketball is a few weeks away from turning into an obsession. Plus, baseball is the perfect sport to scoreboard watch while you are doing taxes on a Thursday afternoon. I'm fairly certain that the afternoon early April Brewer games have prevented me from killing myself with a industrial strength stapler at least a dozen times.

Anyways, the Crew looks to be pretty solid. I want to play the game that I do every year where I check out the team on Baseball Reference and see if they are good or not based upon historical comparisons. This will mean nothing in the long run, but I'm bored. I'm going to take the most interesting name from the list of comparables at their age. And I'm not going to hyperlink all of these, because that will take a long time and I'm lazy.

Starting Staff:

Zach Greinke: Ben Sheets (!) Let's hope that the comparisons end here...

Yovani Gallardo: Kerry Wood. Ugh, seriously. Rich Harden is also on the list.

Shaun Marcum: Chris Young. Which is not at all interesting.

Randy Wolf: A.J. Burnett. So he's an overachieving dick I guess.

Chris Narveson: Nobody 've ever heard of. So I will go with Hal Brown of the 1952 Chicago White Sox just because.

Bullpen:
Manny Parra: Jorge de la Rosa. Which means he will go on to have 200 Ks for some other team next year.

Kameron Loe: Roy Face from the 1955 Pittsburgh Pirates. Just because. I think his dad's name was Richard.

Takashi Saito: Brian Shouse. Seriously? I thought this guy was supposed to be good?

Zack Braddock: Legitimately NO comparison. I think this means he will end up moving into the rotation and winning 400 games.

LaTroy Hawkins: David Weathers. Nuff said.

Sean Green: I have no idea if he will make the team. But I've heard that his contract gives him a head start: Scott Proctor.

Mike McClendon: Ditto. No comparisons, but his middle name is Melton, which is awesome.

John Axford: Also no comparison. So he's what happens when Rollie Fingers and Mariano Rivera make love.

Position Players:

Prince Fielder: Darryl Strawberry. When he leaves, I hope his career ends up the same. For now, I would settle for 35 HRs and 125 RBIs. I feel like a year ago this was Babe Ruth or Lou Gerhig or something insane.

Rickie Weeks: J.J. Hardy. I'm not making that up.

Yuniesky Betancourt: Dick Groat from the 1959 Pittsburgh Pirates. Dude won an MVP at age 29 (Yuni is 28). I've still heard he blows.

Casey McGehee: Corey Koskie. I'm just picking out former Brewers and funny names now.

Ryan Braun: Manny Ramiarez. I'll take it. Less the crazy.

Carlos Gomez: Roland Office from the 1977 Atlanta Braves. In other words? Terrible.

Corey Hart: Kirk Gibson. That is pretty interesting. And Kirk Gibson wasn't that good, but still.

Jonathan Lucroy: No comparisons. Johnny Bench crossed with Pudge Rodriguez.

George Kottaras: No comparisons. A homeless man's Mike Soscia.

Craig Counsell: Hall of Fame (Manager) Leo Durocher. Also, himself. He's played so long that he is who he is. Can't wait to see his one homer this season juuuust over the wall in right.

Chris Dickerson: No comparisons. I'll go with Tim Raines just because.

Mark Kotsay: Al Cowens from the 1985 Seattle Mariners. Not Al Cowlings (I'm A.C. dammit!). Not NBA Hall of Famer Dave Cowens. But fucking Al Cowens. We totally needed to sign him.

CONCLUSION

That took way too long and stressed me the fuck out. I guess a rotation of still good Ben Sheets, uninjured and starting Kerry Wood, not shitty A.J. Burnett wouldn't be terrible. I shouldn't have done this. I'm still excited to get drunk at Miller Park. Enjoy your week.

Is the Glass half empty?

I had even more time to waste than normal today, so I figured I would use it to participate in my favorite activity as of late: bitching about the Brewers and their current slump.

I made the mistake of heading over to Baseball-Reference.com today (seriously, it is the best site ever, so unless you have like 6 hours to blow, don't do it) and thought it would be interesting to do a study on how good statistically these Brewers "stars" really are compared to others historically at the same point in their careers:

1B: Prince Fielder
- Most Similar By Age: Don Hurst, 1B, Phi.: Career Stats: .298, 115 HR, 610 RBI
-Other Impressive Comparisons at same age: Lou Gehrig, Willie McCovey, Hank Greenberg, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray (all HOF's!!!)
-Impression: Hopefully he ends up better than who ever the fuck Don Hurst is. The other names on that list look good. Too bad it will likely be in another uni.

2B: Rickie Weeks
-Most Similar by Age: Denis Menke, Utility player from 1960's: .250, 101 HR, 606 RBI
-Other Impressive: Dale Svuem (!), Jeff Blauser (!), Shawon Dunston
-Verdict: Pretty much.

SS: J.J. Hardy
-Most Similar: Jim Lefebrve, 2B, LAD: .251, 71 HR, 404 RBI
-Others: Rich Gedman, Jeff Blauser (!), Dave Nilsson (!!!!), Rickie Weeks (!!!!!!!!!!)
-Verdict: They should probably think twice before giving him any money.

3B: Billy Hall
-Most Similar: Kahlil Green (active), Fernando Tatis (historically): .260, 94HR, 327 RBI
-Others: Rich Gedman, Matt Nokes, Miguel Tejada, Gabby Hartnett, Marcus Giles
-Verdict: Mixed bag. Tejada is pretty good, that Hartnett guy was in the HOF I guess. I think his one good year inflates this a little.

LF: Ryan Bruan
-Hasn't played in enough games yet. I think he's got potential to be amazing. Still does things like hit 500 ft pop ups straight up with the bases loaded and one out like last night.

RF: Corey Hart
-Most Similar: Bill Nicholson, OF, 1940's: .268, 235 HR, 948 RBI
-Others: Ivan Calderon, Jim Edmonds, Matt Holliday, David Justice, Tim Salmon
-Verdict: That looks like a pretty solid list. He's worth it, and the only one on the team that hits over .300

P: Yovani Gallardo
-Most Similar: Tom Morgan, 1950's: 67-47, 3.41 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 64 SV
-Others: Blue Moon Odom, Oyster Burns, Johnny Kucks
-Verdict: I have no fucking idea what that list means. He has only pitched about a half a year, and most pitchers aren't in the league at age 21, so I am dubious.

P: Big Ben
-Most Similar: Reggie Cleveland, 1970's: 105-106, 4.01 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 25 SV
-Others: Brad Penny, John Lackey, Melido Perez, Pete Harnisch, Daryl Kyle (RIP)
-Verdict: I don't like this list at all. Isn't Reggie Cleveland the guy from Bill Simmon's Reggie Cleveland All-Stars?

This was an absolute waste of time as you can see. Although it was kind of interesting. Clearly Fielder has the best comparables at his age. He was the only one that was that impressive. It doesn't really matter what they do with the roster as long as Neddy has that gigantic collection of naked pictures of Attanasio and Melvin's underage daughters.