What Could Go Wrong? Brewers vs. Padres NLDS Preview
I’ve written a lot of playoff series previews over the years. You can go about them in a number of ways. Highlight some key players from each team, perhaps, or touch on one particularly interesting matchup. If you’re feeling frisky, series previews can tell a narrative story, or even get experimental and weird. But one thing I don’t think I’ve ever tried before is looking at the series through the lens of failure.
That sounds negative, defeatist, not in keeping with the kind of escapism we come to baseball for. But that’s only if you don’t think about it too long – because one team’s failure is another team’s success. If the Padres get eliminated, the Brewers don’t, and vice versa. It’s a zero-sum game. So let’s figure out how things could go wrong for the San Diego Padres and the Milwaukee Brewers, and use that to shine a light on what each team will be trying to do to the other as they square off in the NLDS.
How the Brewers Might Fail
Milwaukee has the best starter in baseball in Jacob Misiorowski, and by virtue of earning a first-round bye, they’ll deploy him on full rest to open the series. That means he’ll also be available to pitch on five days’ rest in a potential Game 5. It’s a huge advantage right from the jump; Milwaukee’s ace is better than San Diego’s ace, Michael King, and King won’t appear until Game 2 of this series.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
I think the weaknesses are clear.
For SDP it’s the starting pitching which, if the hooks are too quick by choice or neccessity, puts the dynamite bullpen at risk. Not just for exhaustion but also to overexposure. If the series goes long (which I think it has to for SDP to emerge on top) the Brewers lineup is going to get an awful lot of looks at the same relief arms game after game.
For MIL there really isn’t one. They are a more complete team. There is not, I don’t think, a systemic point of failure or obvious vulnerability. If they lose it will be because players fail to perform (it happens) or because the randomness inherent in a sport that relies on a round bat striking and guiding a round ball overwhelms everyone from time to time.
MIL might have the best 1 SP and Henderson might be a really good 2, but it drops off real quick from there. They have a pretty top-heavy bullpen, so if (when) one of those lesser Ps gets a quick hook, it’ll take a bit of navigation.
They’re not great against sliders/splitters/sweepers.
They’re probably the best team left in the playoffs, but every team has weaknesses.
Really like the what could go wrong format. Too often a preview is all sunshine and roses.
Padres fan. Very smart analysis and reinforcing my sense of dread that is sneaking through the euphoria of the Cubs series.