Non-Cub Playoff Megathread Chit-Chat

[squally1313]

Add in the fact that MIlwaukee (the town) rocks and is filled with generally cool people and St. Louis is a garbage town filled with garbage people. 

I've generally softened my hatred of 'rivals' over the years, and as Jason said, it's more fun when there's someone to compete against. But the Cardinals and their seemingly unending ability to generate NPC outfielders that hit 34 goateed home runs in a season while praising the troops and then never be heard from again deserve all of the criticism they get, and then some. 

[Tryptamine]

These playoffs have basically been a complete nightmare for the baseball needs a salary cap team. A nightmare that keeps getting worse each round. 

[mul21]

1 minute ago, squally1313 said:

Add in the fact that Milwaukee (the town) rocks and is filled with generally cool people and St. Louis is a garbage town filled with garbage people. 

I've generally softened my hatred of 'rivals' over the years, and as Jason said, it's more fun when there's someone to compete against. But the Cardinals and their seemingly unending ability to generate NPC outfielders that hit 34 goateed home runs in a season while praising the troops and then never be heard from again deserve all of the criticism they get, and then some. 

My only gripe with this is that you haven't accounted for the fact that these people (I'm allowed to say that because I live in Milwaukee now 😜)  are also Packers fans and therefore scum of the earth.  Milwaukee is objectively a cool town and light years ahead of STL in every way though.

[Jason Ross]

1 hour ago, Outshined_One said:

Comparing the Cardinals to the Brewers as 2000s-era WWE villains, though, you were more likely to watch when The Rock was top heel compared to when Randy Orton was top heel.

It's like, sure, Orton was and is a perfectly capable villain, but it's just not the same.

I don't know. I kind of hate the Brewers' and their "Oh shucks, no one knows who we are" schtick right now. That annoys the ever loving hell out of me. 

But I probably don't dislike the Brewers more than the Cardinals and it's just recency bias. I don't usually get too wrapped up in hating anyone or anything any more. And hate fuels views.

[Jason Ross]

10 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

These playoffs have basically been a complete nightmare for the baseball needs a salary cap team. A nightmare that keeps getting worse each round. 

In a way it's why I'm rooting for it to end up being Brewers vs whomever. It's really hard for the owners to cry about salary caps when the Rays or the Guardians are playing the Brewers. And as someone who hates the idea of owners getting richer and ruining the sport more than they can, any egg on their face is something I'm in favor of.

[Soul]

6 minutes ago, mul21 said:

My only gripe with this is that you haven't accounted for the fact that these people (I'm allowed to say that because I live in Milwaukee now 😜)  are also Packers fans and therefore scum of the earth.  Milwaukee is objectively a cool town and light years ahead of STL in every way though.

Yeah I can’t account for the Packer fan crossover. I’ll need to think on that. There’s this whole rabid rural fan base with the Packers that just makes me roll my eyes.

[squally1313]

3 minutes ago, Soul said:

Yeah I can’t account for the Packer fan crossover. I’ll need to think on that. There’s this whole rabid rural fan base with the Packers that just makes me roll my eyes.

I mean, it's hard for me to blame the people of Milwaukee (again, generally cool) for cheering for the closest football team to them. Agree that the rest of the state, with a couple exceptions, are filled with backwoods weirdos, but whatever reason the Brewers seem pretty centric to Milwaukee, whereas the Packers have this whole Wisconsin-wide vide, if not bigger....I'm sure everyone in Chicago knows a couple people who are weirdly Packers fans. 

[mul21]

16 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I mean, it's hard for me to blame the people of Milwaukee (again, generally cool) for cheering for the closest football team to them. Agree that the rest of the state, with a couple exceptions, are filled with backwoods weirdos, but whatever reason the Brewers seem pretty centric to Milwaukee, whereas the Packers have this whole Wisconsin-wide vide, if not bigger....I'm sure everyone in Chicago knows a couple people who are weirdly Packers fans. 

I have a good friend who grew up in Pleasant Prairie and is a Cubs and Packers fan, but that probably has more to do with the fact that he was like 9 or 10 during the summer of Sammy in 1998 and that was also peak Brett Favre era.  I was shocked at how many female Packers fans around my age there are in STL and I can only attribute that to Favre as well.

[Soul]

There a lot of Packers/Cubs fans. It comes from the era when WGN broadcasted Cubs games everywhere. You couldn’t get the Brewers. It’s amazing how that has echoed through the decades. It helped create the large fan base the Cubs have that a lot of other teams don’t have.

[We Got The Whole 9]

If the Brewers keep this up for another 5-10 years then you will hate them as much as the Cardinals. From where I sit that is a real possibility. They have a pitching staff that we would kill for that is anchored by pre-arb players for several years, and a farm where even if half of them totally bust theres still plenty that will likely hit and supplement a very good core. 

 

This is a tremendously pivotal time for Jed to get his team back in that race. I think he's going to fall significantly further back. 

[gflore34]

It appears to me Contreras has stepped up the obnoxiousness, he's going out of his way to be a demonstrative a**hole.  Yesterday, Snell blows him away and he stars down Snell walking back to the dugout.  Why?  I don't recall him doing this nonsense in the regular season.

[gflore34]

7 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

If the Brewers keep this up for another 5-10 years then you will hate them as much as the Cardinals. From where I sit that is a real possibility. They have a pitching staff that we would kill for that is anchored by pre-arb players for several years, and a farm where even if half of them totally bust theres still plenty that will likely hit and supplement a very good core. 

 

This is a tremendously pivotal time for Jed to get his team back in that race. I think he's going to fall significantly further back. 

Perhaps true, what's to keep the Cubs from developing pitching?  Can't that happen?  Or is it only the Brewers?  I'd like to give the Cubs last draft some time before I condemn it and the Cubs as failures.

[We Got The Whole 9]

2 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Perhaps true, what's to keep the Cubs from developing pitching?  Can't that happen?  Or is it only the Brewers?  I'd like to give the Cubs last draft some time before I condemn it and the Cubs as failures.

Theres just so many draft-eligible prospects in baseball that I dont even pay attention to more than a few leading up to the draft but once our class was set I was not very enthused by their reports. Time will tell but it seemed like a lateral move. The focus was different from years past but there still wasn't a lot to get excited about IMO. 

[gflore34]

13 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Theres just so many draft-eligible prospects in baseball that I dont even pay attention to more than a few leading up to the draft but once our class was set I was not very enthused by their reports. Time will tell but it seemed like a lateral move. The focus was different from years past but there still wasn't a lot to get excited about IMO. 

Fair enough.  I think to assume the Brewers will experience nothing but developmental success while, at the same time, assuming the opposite of the Cubs is incorrect.

[Soul]

Admittedly I don’t follow the draft but 100 MPH+ is a base expectation now. If the Cubs don’t have that in the pipeline they are going to fall behind, and quickly. I mention it because right now the Cubs have already fallen behind, so they’ve already got some catching up to do.

[Jason Ross]

21 minutes ago, We Got The Whole 9 said:

Theres just so many draft-eligible prospects in baseball that I dont even pay attention to more than a few leading up to the draft but once our class was set I was not very enthused by their reports. Time will tell but it seemed like a lateral move. The focus was different from years past but there still wasn't a lot to get excited about IMO. 

The draft is definitely different. And it was very much a gamble. This was a draft very much about Tyler Zombro and giving him the types of pitchers he wants. If Zombro is the guy the Cubs think he is, it's likely a class that will produce some of the pitching we want. If Zomrbo isn't, it probably won't be good. 

But that's what you kind of have to do when you promote someone like Zombro the way they did. Either let him cook, or it's a waste. 

I doubt it'll be a lateral move though. Because it feels like it either will push the org forward or likely suggest they're just not capable of developing pitching with this regime. For better or worse.

[Outshined_One]

I'll put it this way with respect to the Cubs' pitching on the farm, this time last year you'd be justified giving it a D-, and holding back on giving it an F only because Jaxon Wiggins existed.  This year, it's more like a C-.

It's still bad, but it's improving, and it's likely to continue improving next season when we actually see guys like Townsend in-game.

[gflore34]

To the pitching scientists - With velocity becoming more common, I believe, sooner or later, hitters are going adjust and start to hit it hard.  What will be next?

[mul21]

1 minute ago, gflore34 said:

To the pitching scientists - With velocity becoming more common, I believe, sooner or later, hitters are going adjust and start to hit it hard.  What will be next?

I'm not sure they ever really will because of the nature of reaction times.  Once the ball is moving at a certain speed and you have to commit to swing (or not), there's a limit to what hitters are capable of.  

[gflore34]

3 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I'm not sure they ever really will because of the nature of reaction times.  Once the ball is moving at a certain speed and you have to commit to swing (or not), there's a limit to what hitters are capable of.  

Forgot about this aspect.  There's also a physical limit on how hard one is able throw a baseball as well.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

I think Tom House said the physical limit of a human would be around 110.

[Outshined_One]

34 minutes ago, mul21 said:

I'm not sure they ever really will because of the nature of reaction times.  Once the ball is moving at a certain speed and you have to commit to swing (or not), there's a limit to what hitters are capable of.  

There also have been substantial advances on the hitting side of baseball science that have significantly cut down on the movement/velocity tradeoff.  If you remember your Steve Stone days with guys like Zambrano, he would harp on Z needing to work low-90s to get the most out of his two seam fastball, but the problems are (a) velocity is much easier to repeat than extreme movement; and (b) data and technological advances have made it much easier for hitters to recognize those pitches and pound them in the zone.

It's possible we see MLB rule changes to help tilt the advantage back to pitchers, but the best way to counter good hitting is velocity for the time being.

[Soul]

Sorry for the AI slop but I've had ChatGPT tracking velocity.

MLB velocity update — October 1, 2026

The verdict is clearer now: velocity is still rising, and 2026 was another substantial step upward.

• Average four-seam velocity finished at a record 94.8 mph, up from 94.5 in 2025 and 91.9 when pitch tracking began in 2008. That's the sixth straight season with a new record. Even more suggestive of what's coming: pitchers age 25 or younger averaged 95.9 mph.
• Triple-digit pitching exploded. MLB recorded 5,687 pitches at 100+ mph, versus 3,701 in 2025 — a 54% increase in one year and more than 26 times the 214 recorded in 2008. Jacob Misiorowski alone threw 1,115 of them, smashing Jordan Hicks' previous single-season record of 673, and reached 105.5 mph. Baseball Savant's 2026 leaderboard also shows eight pitchers averaging at least 100 mph on their four-seamer among pitchers with 100+ pitches.
• The biomechanics/training story increasingly looks like “raise the floor,” not merely “raise the ceiling.” MLB's analysis found that since 2008 the average pitcher's minimum fastball velocity rose 5.1 mph, while average maximum velocity rose only 1.2 mph. In other words, modern development has made pitchers capable of operating much nearer maximum effort pitch after pitch. MLB also notes the continuing role of biomechanical measurement, data-driven efficiency work and velocity-focused development throughout the minors; Triple-A four-seam velocity is already up from 92.7 mph in 2022 to 93.6 in 2026.

Bottom line: definitely rising, not plateauing. And the most striking change since our last check is the final count of 5,687 triple-digit pitches. That isn't a tiny incremental increase — it's a huge one-year jump.

The statistic I'd watch most closely in 2027 is that 95.9-mph average among pitchers 25 and younger. If that cohort replaces older, slower pitchers as you'd expect, the league-wide average has room to climb further even without anyone discovering how to throw harder than today's 104–106 mph extreme.

 

[Jason Ross]

Yeah velocity is definitely a great place to start. 

I do think that the next "frontier" is going to be big repertoires and ways to keep hitters off tilt. While I doubt velocity will become "easy" we're seeing the barrier for entry to the MLB go beyond just velo. Antoine Kelly would probably have been a dude 15-20 years ago and now he can't find an MLB organization to stick in. Hitters will adapt to just velo. So you have to do something more than just throw hard.

It's probably a bit because of my own recency bias, but Kaima Taira feels a bit "next gen" in this. He throws seven different pitches. He's super data driven. In a lesser sense, Janson Junk as well. He doesn't do anything particularly great except throw a lot of different horsefeathers. He's not a star but I'd guess he probably isn't capable of sticking around if he threw four pitches. 

[ILMindState]

Has Jed figured out velocity is good yet?