Your Official NLDS Guide: Cubs vs. Brewers

A five-game series doesn’t always reward the most dominant team—it rewards the team with the clearest plan. We walk into Cubs–Brewers with one: use the schedule to weaponize our bullpen, keep Game 1 on a short leash, and make Milwaukee live in the dead zone between contact and damage. It starts with Freddie Peralta, because of course it does. We break down his true patterns—east-west to righties, vertical traps to lefties—and explain why the fifth and sixth looks change the calculus, even against an ace. Then we zoom out to the rotation picture, the injuries that nudged Priester into bigger moments, and how those ripple effects create leverage windows for Chicago in Games 2 and 3.

From there, it’s roster wars with substance. Michael Busch’s bat path against carry at the top of the zone. Nico Hoerner’s two-strike problem solving. Dansby Swanson’s run prevention in the margins. Seiya Suzuki’s current scorch and how it reshapes pitch maps. PCA’s range stealing extra bases and altering pitcher intent. We contrast that with Milwaukee’s calling card: disciplined at-bats, low strikeouts, steady walks, and a refusal to gift outs. That identity is real—and exactly why count control, early-edge strikes, and clean defense become the series’ hidden scoreboard.

We also talk bullpen reality. Milwaukee’s closer can miss bats in bunches, but Chicago’s depth and usage freedom—thanks to those well-placed off days—let us script innings three through seven without fear of next-day fatigue. Add the likely Wrigley takeover vibe in Milwaukee on a Saturday afternoon, and the mental game tilts just enough to matter. No chest-thumping, no clichés—just the edges, the risks, and the pivots we expect to decide it. Ride with us, share your X-factor, and if you’re feeling the plan, hit follow and drop a quick five-star review so more Cubs fans find the show.

Thanks for tuning in!

- Carl & Mahoney

Chapters

• 0:00 Solo NLDS Preview Setup
• 2:30 Programming Notes & Padres Recap Pointer
• 5:40 Sponsor Read: Thirsty Vaquero
• 8:10 Theme: Getting Ready for the Brewers
• 10:35 Schedule Advantage & Bullpen Strategy
• 16:00 Game 1 Starter: Ray or Assad
• 19:30 Lineup Expectations & No Big Changes
• 24:20 Fan Takeover in Milwaukee
• 27:50 Council vs. Murphy Narrative
• 30:20 What The Brewers Do Well at the Plate
• 36:40 Brewers’ Rotation State & Priester
• 41:00 Seeing Peralta a Fifth and Sixth Time
• 44:20 Cubs’ Bullpen Depth vs Brewers’ Back End
• 50:10 Call for Reviews & Community
• 51:50 Roster Wars: Infield Matchups
• 58:30 Roster Wars: Outfield & DH
• 1:03:30 Catchers, Starters, Bullpens, Bench
• 1:09:20 Manager Split & Context
• 1:13:40 Final Score, Edges, and Mindset
• 1:16:40 Closing Notes, Sponsors, Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Good morning, good afternoon, and evening Chicago Cubs fans. Welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show. Today is Friday, October 3rd, and the Chicago Cubs are about to play the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS, a five-game series to advance to the NLCS. It starts Saturday, 1 p.m. in Milwaukee. I am Carl, your host. This is a solo show. Mahoney is somewhere in Michigan right now doing an IT install, I believe. Our schedules just for the Friday NLDS preview didn't line up until about 8 30 p.m. tonight with first pitch at 1 p.m. Uh, you know, just executive decision. We're just gonna walk through some of the big ticket item stuff that we'd be talking about, anyways. We're trying to get this out as soon as possible. It's just me this time. We're gonna keep this around 40 minutes. I don't know why I say that off the top. I don't know why I give myself these expectations. What if I want to go an hour? What if I get the 30 minutes and I say I want to call it quits here? You know, we'll say 45 minutes. I think that's a fair barometer. Uh, I do have a lot of COVID. Like I said this before, I don't think people believe me, so I have to say it again. The amount of COVID I have is ground zero COVID. I was bit by the monkey that has it. Uh super spreader alert. Anywhere near me, you are getting sick. This is the sickest I've ever been. And I'm a sick guy. I'm a sick fuck. I get sick. You know, not like, you know, I don't get sick all the time. I'm not the most sick person. But when I get sick, I get sick. I'm really sick. I have COVID. And that's not holding me back from enjoying the Chicago Cubs in the playoffs. Now, some programming notes. If you go back last night, Mahoney and I sat down, we did a Padres recap. We recapped that series. We got very excited. We took, we went on some tangents last night, folks. The tangents are there. If you're interested in reactions to the Padres series, or you're surprised I'm not talking about more about the Padres series, did I see the scuffle with the umpires? What do I think of the strike zone? Nobody gives a fuck. Not right now. That's last episode. Plow matches, pizza smack. Um, you know, Mahoney's cousin started a picture with Paul Walker. If you guys didn't hear, it's a crazy episode. Last night, check that out. That's the Padres recap episode. This is the Brewers series preview. Now we'll be back after the conclusion of each game in the series. If it's just me, if it's Mahoney as well. He's got a big big IT build going, guys. You should support Mahoney's uh company. You guys should check it out. Upheld Technologies. I'm almost blanked on the name. Upheld Technologies. Tim Mahoney, president, chief operating officer, treasurer, IT installer. You have complex needs. Maybe you have limited resources. There's a solution out there. His name's Tim Mahoney. Uh maybe we'll be doing maybe we'll be doing two-man post matches. I'm just talking through the schedule. That's the first note that I have here. It says introduction, talk through programming schedule, then set a theme for the show. So if we want to set a theme for the show, it's we're getting ready for the Milwaukee Bros. By the time this comes out, we have about 24 hours. So I'm just, this is general preparation work. We're going to talk about Freddie Peralta, just kind of what makes these teams so different. Answer, spoiler, not much. They're actually very similar. Freddie Peralta would be one of the unique differences now that Cade Horton's out. And on the subject of which, Cade Horton will not be coming back in the NLDS. He's not eligible to come back until the fifth game. You have to declare the roster. I don't think you can change the roster before games. You got to declare the roster on Saturday morning. 10 a.m., I believe. Maybe it's tonight. Maybe it's Friday night. But you gotta declare a fucking roster here, folks. And I do not believe Kate Horton is allowed to be on that roster based on his designation of having a cracked rip or whatever that is. Somebody gets hurt, I think maybe you can bring him in. So maybe we get a phantom injury. Shit happens all the time in sports. Pro sports, highest level. We need Sioka. Now's the time, buddy. We're gonna bring him in, get hurt during warm-up pitches. As a tactic, game four, while we have a big lead. We're putting the champagne on ice. No, that doesn't make sense. We could use Kate Horton game five. Maybe that's a contingency plan. If we get that far. I don't want to talk too much about Kate Horton. I'd rather talk about the Milwaukee Brewers. See, this is what I just go off the rails a little bit here, guys. I'm excited. How excited am I? Theme for the show, we're getting ready for the brewers. Theme for the show. You, me, everybody. We're just getting ready for the brewers. Wife comes up to you. What are you doing today? You can just say, I'm getting ready. I'm getting ready for the brewers. You want to tell her you're getting ready for the brewers, that's up to you. You just want to say you're getting ready, you're preparing. You know, maybe proactively. Shoot her text right now. Or your buddies. Just say, hey, sorry, I might be a little too locked in for the next week. Might be too focused. Which reminds me, guys, this is the Monday Morning Cub Show. It is brought to you by Thirsty Vaquero, a Mexican-style soda with a signature spicy finish that will help you prepare for the Bruce. That will help you elevate your game every time it touches your fucking lips. That is a guarantee the signature spicy finish will have you coming back for more. This is all bite, no rattle. Until you have a thirsty vaquero, you will think I'm just doing this because they're a partner, fucking sponsor. You'll think I'm I'm being over the top when I say this is the number one beverage, period, on the market. No stimulants. I'm not saying if you I'm not sitting here saying have a thirsty vaquero and you will then be able to go dunk a basketball. She will go out with you. You'll get that promotion. You're not getting that promotion. However, with a thirsty vaquero, what you will have premium taste. I'm not that's the thing about a lot of beverages now. You make a beverage, you're in the market. You gotta be making promises to people about the consumption of this beverage. This will help you sleep better. I don't know. Thirsty vaquero will help you feel good because it tastes delicious. You'll feel like the smartest fucking guy in the room. Why? All bite and no rattle. 90 calories per 16 ounce. Thirsty vaquero. No, I a lot of people are gonna, they're gonna sell you a beverage. They're gonna go, drink this. Your erection will last for four hours. Rock hard. I don't have to do this with thirsty vacero. I don't have to talk about your boners, quality of your sleep, or the intensity of your focus over some project you don't want to work on. You got a test you need to study for, a project at work you don't want to do. Alright, just go to the convenience store and just gas what? Throw the taurine in there, the ginseng. You know, all that weird shit we put in our bodies to do stuff we don't want to do. Or alternatively, get a thirsty fucking vaquero. Get a thirsty vaquero, all bite, no rattle, Mexican-style soda that just tastes good, feels good to have it because it's because it's delicious. I'm trying to I'm trying to make this as clear as possible. And to be honest, the COVID's getting to me a little bit, and I like to use the ad read to kind of rev me up for a little bit because as I'm gonna get into the preview, we're gonna do a roster wars. I did a position by position breakdown, we're gonna talk about each position, player grouping, and how we stack up. Spoiler alert, favors the Cubs. I'll also get into some of the research I've done with the Milwaukee Brewer. I've gone into the trenches, I have burners on message boards. I don't post, I just read and I like and I comment a little bit. That's a lie. I don't comment. I don't comment on Brewers message boards. I don't stir the pot. But I did do research on them. I don't know why I told you. I don't comment on them. That's I would never do that. That's the weirdest behavior. No tangents here, guys. I will say Brewers fans are nervous, even though they're slight favorites. Minus 115, I believe, I saw Vegas put out. Vegas. That's but you get to say Vegas has it minus 115, which would then put the Cubs minus 105. So if you keep track at home. Maybe plus 100. So another thing just off the top, little nervous about the celebration the Cubs had. We're 0 for 1 in Clubhouse Celebrations this year. We are 0 for fucking 1 in Clubhouse celebrations. We got after it. Guys, we're taking baths. Champagne baths. Brute. Prosecco. What are the different forms of champagne? And what type I hope it's a it's a bitter one. What is that? The sweet champagne I don't fuck with. The stuff that makes its way spritz, Aperol spritz, your old lady's drinking those right now? No, thank you, my friends. That's puke city. That's it. I'm dr I'm hung over as I'm drinking that. If I'm in a clubhouse and we're sp spraying prosecco, I got big problems. It doesn't even have to be the nice shit. The Vuvoze, you know, the what have you's. But we gotta bounce back from that clubhouse celebration. And I saw a lot of Bud Heavy. For fuck's sake. If we're gonna do this, get the get the light domestics out. You think I'm joking. It's like I like a Budweiser. I don't I hate Bud Light. Budweiser, I don't mind. But these players, they can't handle either. Put a fucking thirsty Vacero in somebody's hand. Does that close the ad read? Put a thirsty vicero in these guys' hand. Get it on Amazon. I'll link. When I send this out, just go to Amazon, type in Thirsty Vacaro. Spelled how it sounds, my friends. Spelled how it fucking sounds. Alright. We have some stuff to get to. Hopefully by the end of this, we're all smarter about the Milwaukee Brewers, and we're just kind of more on the same page about what we're going to be doing as the Chicago Cubs, what to come to expect. So I guess we can just start with some Cubs observations. We'll move into Brewers' observations, and then I've got this roster war segment where I go position by position. Just talked about it. Done it before for the Padres. And this will be mostly game one stuff, you know, as we talk about Freddie. But then the other stuff will be general. So we come back in post-game and pregame, we do scout reports for future games and stuff. We just build off of this. This is so we're doing some building blocks here, and then in moments when we're talking about pitching, we'll be more specific about game one. Be more specific about matchups. All right, so here's just some quick observations for the Cubs. I think the schedule really benefits us, particularly the day off on Sunday. So if you guys are keeping track at home, our starting pitching is just a little fucked right now. Our starting pitching is just a little fucked right now because we use Boyd, we use Shoda, we use Jameson. None of those guys are going to be available for game one, you know, under normal rest. So we're kind of we're looking at the routes, we're going, do we use Colin Ray or do we use Javier Asad? And so that's a question. This is a package two-part observation. Is the question is who starts game one? But having the off day on Sunday. So let's talk schedule for the playoffs. The NLDS first game is Saturday, 1 p.m. Game two is Monday, 8 p.m. That's that's a full day and a half break in between games. I mean, that's almost 36 hours in between games. Meaning what? Well, if we can't use any of our qualified starting pitchers, I would say, then what does that mean? Then we can throw everybody. We can throw the whole bullpen. We can start. I'm not saying open with Kittridge or whatever, but the question back to Craig Council is like the three pitchers you can't use are Boyd, Jamison, Shoda. We'll get into those guys later as the matchups come out. Those guys aren't particularly specific to game one right now. But as we're talking generally here, Council can walk in. He can use he's got ten pitchers he can use. He's got nine pit how many pitchers can he use here? You know? He can use a lot of fucking pitchers, is my point. And that's just game one, and then we get the off day on Sunday. And when we get the off day Sunday, everybody gets another rest before we come back and we play Monday. And then guess what? Off day Tuesday. So we're off today on Friday, we play Saturday. We're off Sunday, we play Monday. We're off Tuesday, we play Wednesday. Started pitching, maybe not so much. You know, as far as advantages go, we'll get to with roster wars. But just this schedule, the way the schedule lines up. I think that's a crazy advantage for the Cubs. Because the depth of our bullpen. Like the Brewers have pretty like McGill's a good guy. We'll get to his close. Like, they have a good closer. They have a very tough closer, strikes a lot of guys out. But like if we're going to do this where we say, okay, well, we have to use six guys in the bullpen today, huge advantage for the Cubs. The depth of our bullpen, like our ninth, seventh, eight, ninth guy in the bullpen, our sixth guy in the bullpen, way better than the Brewers. Our fifth guy. Now they have a better closer. There was a little bit of this with the Padres, too, where I said up front, listen, I think the Padres have a very top-heavy bullpen. You saw how good Mason Miller and Robert Suarez were. But I also said we're going to see Jerry Estrada in some stressful situations where he's not cut out for it. And like that did kind of happen. I mean, I suppose. You know, you Darvish wasn't up for it. But just as we're going back, let's focus in on the Brewers here. Sorry, we're not going down tangents, focusing in on the Brewers here. I think for purposes of game one, it we are at a disadvantage because it's Freddie Peralta, opposite of who we're bringing to the table, which could be Javi or Sod or Colin Ray. But the real benefit is without any reservation to workload, Craig Council in the second inning, third inning, can just immediately go to Palencia. If it's like, you know what, fuck this. We're going to get two innings from Palencia today. Right? We'll get to Teal Bar. Well, you'll see Teal Bar in the fifth inning. What the hell is this about? We have a ton of depth to use. You know, you can get a Keller in the sixth, seventh inning. I don't care that he looked nervous, you would too, in the top of the ninth against the Padres. I'm over that. He can learn from that. He's a professional. He's never been in that situation before. My point is, I expect him to bounce back, and we could easily see him pitch the fifth, sixth, or seventh inning or something like that. You could see him and Plenty eat up the middle of the game on Saturday, game one, without any reservation because we're off on Sunday. And these guys are so fucking trained to bounce back after one day of rest. They're ready to go. Then you can roll their ass back out there Monday night when we do have a Boyd ready to go. And then they have all Tuesday off before coming home Wednesday. So like we can basically, Cubs observation number one be prepared. We can abuse the shit out of our bullpen based on this schedule. And I know fans don't like that we're not playing on Sunday. We're not going up against the NFL. I know the Bears are off this week. I don't care. You don't go up against the NFL. Take that Sunday off. Get fresh. That's such a benefit to the Chicago Cubs. Because again, we're going to see Freddie Peralta. All right, Freddie Peralta's awesome. Freddie Peralta is fucking awesome. When I scout him in about 15 minutes on the show, we will get into some serious shit about just how awesome Freddie Peralta is. However, the advantage, when you say, all right, well, if it's Freddie Peralta versus Javier Arsad, it's a Wednesday in August. Then the assumption is what? Javier Arsad, go as deep as you can. Here's an assumption. The starting pitching will go like one time through the lineup, I guess, on Saturday. Can you ask Colin Ray to go one time through a lineup? Can you ask Javier Arsad to go one time through a lineup? Which one of those guys will it be? Personally, I'd pick Colin Ray. You know, Javier Arsad just been out this whole year. I think if Javier Arsad was going for a full season, I love his attitude and composure, but there's too much between his ears right now. There's he just he doesn't have the reps where I would expect him to be as confident as Colin Ray. And in the margins in which this game is played, sometimes we have to go with that. So that's why I would just quickly pick Colin Ray. We don't need to spend too much time on who I would pick for game one. I think it's between those two. The alternative would be going full opener. But then the point there is it's not going to be Shoda, it's not going to be Boyd, and it's not going to be Jamison, who is sensational. Who is absolutely sensational, and I can't wait to see Jameson get the ball again, I believe, Wednesday at home, game three. Alright, lineup changes for the Cubs. This is another big talking point. As we just come on, we just say observations from playing the Padres as we prepare for the Brewers. I don't expect there to be any significant lineup changes. Not in the batting order and not in the people who are playing. I don't think Willie Castro is going to get reps over Matt Shaw now because of XYZ. Matt Shaw's solid in the field. We beat the Padres with our defense. Not saying just because we beat the Padres with the defense, now Matt Shaw plays, but it's just some context to like, well, Matt Shaw sucks in the box right now. Correct. He's nervous. He's a mental fucking head case. I can relate to this. I understand what Matt Shaw is going through. He wants to be, he wants to just do it all. And he can't right now. And he's trying fucking hard. And guys, again, we saw great pitching. We saw great pitching from the Padres. So, like, however, you want to complain, Ian Hap was 0 for 9 with six strikeouts to start the playoffs before I believe he doubled. A lot of way to point a fingers. We saw great pitching from the Padres. I don't think we're going to see as good a pitching from the Brewers. I think Freddie Proult is pretty fucking good. I think after that, they've got so many questions. I can't wait to talk about them. I can't wait to make you guys feel good about all the chaos that's going on inside Brewer Fandom. Do you know how nervous Brewers fans are? They're freaking out. They're so mad about this. They're mad about Craig Counsel. They're so mentally drained. You know, I can't wait to talk about that. I'm sorry, I'm excited. There's a couple other things we have to talk about first, though. No lineup. I would anticipate no lineup changes for the Cubs. I think you're just going to see Bush because we're going to see Peralta. You're going to see Righty Ready. You're going to see Peralta, you're going to see Quinn Priester. Game 1-2 and likely 4-5. That's their one-two. No offense to Quinn Priester. We've seen him a bunch of times. He's solid. He's solid. He's not scary. He's not dominant. He's solid. He could. He's solid. That's their number two and their number five. We'll get to him. More specifically before we play him, but just generally and when we do our roster wars, I'm still making my observations about the Cubs. And this I hate talking about this stuff here, but the fan takeover from Wrigley, because Milwaukee Brewers fans are just gutless pussies. So the ones who did win, and I'm sorry, you're not all you guys, but like as a whole, as a market, you are the smallest market in Major League Baseball. You guys are hosting the big bad boys down south. And if you go on Stub Hub or SeaGeek, the ticket prices there are like$450 average ticket,$375 to sit in the upper deck,$500 to sit in the box. Like just for Wisconsin, very high prices. They're selling them to Cubs fans. It's just like your markets buying your tickets. The inventory on secondary websites from Milwaukee is unbelievably high. I understand if it was a Monday 1 p.m. game, nobody can go to that. That's what happened with the Cubs. This is a Saturday 1 p.m. game. It's Saturday 1 p.m. in Milwaukee. The fan takeover, now again, I hate talking about this stuff because it's like not my expertise. We'd be much more, I'm much more prepared to talk about what a pitcher does, what our lineup can do. You know, here's here's a big subjective nugget, though. There will be so many Cubs fans taking over. Because the just the pool of Cubs fans is way bigger. The amount of wealth or the amount of wealthy individuals within Cubs fandom is significantly higher just because of by volume. I'm not throwing shade on Wisconsin industry. You know, that's a great fucking place to be from. You should be proud if you're from Wisconsin. You should be proud. Your dad worked fucking hard to put you through school. You know, your mom did the best she can. I can promise you that. Your parents love you very much. However, the baseball fans in Milwaukee are selling their fucking tickets left and right to the highest bidder without any consideration for what it's going to do for the environment. So I'll be the one to tell you guys the Cubs are taking that place over. Last observation, biggest storyline, burying a lead here, and that's because I think this lead blows, is Pat Murphy versus Craig Council. It's a five-game series. This will decide their legacy within large media market. This will this will absolutely Craig Council loses this. I mean, I'll be the fun, I'll be leading the charge. We pay this guy eight million dollars to take him from Milwaukee so that we could get him and then lose to Milwaukee in a playoff series. Are you are we out of our minds? Twice the high, twice as high payroll? You know, Joey Ortiz playing shortstop, barf. No, my friends. We cannot lose this series. No, I mean we can't. I mean, obviously we can. Milwaukee's good. But Craig Counsel. I mean, it's easy to live something. He'll never live it down. People say he'll never live it down. Yeah, eight million. Where's he living? Will Met on the lake? Nice walk to downtown restaurants. Kids can take the fucking Metro downtown. Go to a good school, you know. Will Met, eight million a year. Yeah. He'll never live it down. I'll guarantee you, Craig Council will live it down. I can absolutely promise you, the person who will be most okay with losing the series is the guy getting paid eight million dollars to do it. You know, I'm gonna I'm getting paid nothing by the Cubs. Nothing, not a nickel. I won't live it down. Do you know what I mean? And in so many of the maniacs, you guys won't. When we talk about this Craig versus Pat Murphy matchup, let's get one thing straight here, guys. Craig constantly said, pay forty million dollars to watch these baseball games. To consult the computer before making a pinch hitter. To look at a team of staff and coaches and say, what do you think of this shift? I think we should bring the infield in. Infield in. Craig's a genius. I mean, I know he's a fine manager. It's just, I'm only making this observation about the Pat Murphy versus Craig Council storyline. So who's a better manager? Save that for roster wars. Because I have just a couple Milwaukee Brewers' observations. As we get into the series, here's what they do well. They don't strike out that much. They walk a lot relative to major league average. So they're good at taking their watch. They don't strike out that much. They have a very solid identity. Now here's identity crisis. Pete Crow Armstrong, identity crisis. A good example. This guy swings so hard, swings through so many fastballs. Hey, at any point in time, Pete, you can shorten up there. I mean, we went on two and a half months, what, two month stretch? Now Pete was hot his last game. When that dude gets hot, just shut the fuck up and watch him play. But did you sit through a two-month stretch? Did I? Am I the only one who did? You didn't see Pete make one adjustment, right? He just kept swinging through everything. So the Brewers will like, they don't have anybody who's willing to do that. There's just nobody. They may pick and choose their spots in a game where like I'm going to unload here. But their basis, their average, their neutral stance as a hitter in Major League Baseball is to take what the pitcher gives them, to use the entire field, to not strike out, and to know your zone. That's a really unique. They've got a lot of guys who know their strike zone well and don't swing like assholes. Which is crazy. I mean, there's so many assholes. Go watch the Miami Marlins play. It's just that one asshole swing after another. What the fuck is this guy doing? Runner on third lesson to out. What the f does this guy even know he's playing a fucking baseball game? Some organizational stuff, crazy. They're brutal. Pirates, obviously, absolutely brutal. You know, the Cubs are sound. We're sound. We're not talking about the Cubs, though. We're talking about the Brewers. The Brewers are kind of similar to the Cubs in that they have really good approaches. They have they take it pitch to pitch. They're really fucking serious hitters. Now that's you may just assume some of this shit is like, yeah, no shit, dude. It's Major League Baseball. No, my friends. You know? No. Like Machado kind of played like an asshole. Tatis kind of played like an asshole. I you're not going to see some of the outs Tatis made were just such so unbelievably bad first pitch swinging, lollipopping. You know, you get beat on a changeup, swing over the top of it. This guy gets beat on a changeup. He's just fucking taps it back to the pitcher. Crazy. So the Brewers are just way more. What do they do? Well, they're very fucking competitive. And that's as a whole. You know, they platoon, they move their lineups mixed and matched. They have got a good veteran presence with Christian Yelich. But overall, when you look at this team, they don't beat themselves. So like that's a good example of how the Cubs with the Padres. We didn't beat ourselves in that. We played unbelievably sound defense. We made our routine fucking plays. We did all the stuff you have to do to play a good, clean baseball game. So the Brewers do that also just as well as the Cubs do. Like they're just a really solid fundamental. Hit the cutoff man, don't drop balls, always in the right position. You open down the roster, great at bats, guys who don't give it bats away, guys who are willing with two strikes against a slider to hit a ground ball in between the first baseman and the second baseman because they're able to change their mindset from saying, I want a ball up that I can drive, or I'm going to shorten up and take it the other way. Can a major league, the major league hitters that tap into both mentalities of that? We've talked a lot on the show about Anthony Rizzo being one of those guys forever who could just tap into I can swing for power or I can try and drive it. All right, two strikes, I'm going to shorten up, I'm going to use the entire field. The Brewers do that really well. At a time in modern baseball, no fucking people don't do that. People aren't doing that shit. I don't know why I just called out Cody Bellinger. So just stuff to think about generally in the lineup. So you're not going to see like the are you can't go out and dominate them to the extent of like 12 strikeouts and no walk. Like the that lineup isn't like that. They are going to draw walks. What they won't do is hit for extra bases. So just general observations about the Brewers. We'll get in them position by position. Okay, some other stuff here. The Brewers, as a general, I don't think they have a lot of respect for the Cubs bullpen. I think they think our bullpen sucks. Now maybe that's more Brewers fans. But there's a huge discrepancy in the quality of our bullpen and what they think of our bullpen. And they're going to see a lot of it on Saturday, and I would guess a lot of it on Monday as well. Game one and two should be heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy bullpen days for the Cubs. Okay. Remember Jacob Mizorowski? He might not even make the playoff roster. So just talking about the Brewers, they that Mizorowski kid would be the first person in Major League history. Excuse me. I have COVID. He'll be the first player in Major League history to make an all-star team and then be left off the postseason roster without being injured. Just for performance. He'll be the first ever performance-based. You were an all-star, you're not on our postseason roster in the history of baseball. In the history of the all-star game. They don't even know what to do with this kid. So important to say the Brewers, they've got two starting pitching pitchers going in the series. You know, at least the Cubs have three. They have two. Alright. So the two that they have are Freddie Peralta, who's very good. And the second one that they have is Quinn Priester, who came up with the Pirates and is from Cary Grove, Illinois. Probably grew up a diehard Cubs fan. And he got kicked around a little bit and has really found himself throwing a power sinker for the Brewers. He's their number two. Which, if Brandon Woodruff doesn't get hurt down the stretch, and if Mizorowski can like throw a strike, I don't think Quinn Priester is making a start in this series. Like if Mizorowski doesn't completely fall apart, and Brandon Woodruff doesn't get seriously injured, or I shouldn't say seriously injured, but injured enough to be left off the roster. There's no way that Quinn Quinn Priester is the number four. So now he's bumped up to the number two. So that's a good thing to think about as a Cubs fan. You feel good. Alright, whatever. If we're at a disadvantaged game one, we're going to be at an advantage in game two and game three. And then if they bring Freddie Peralta back for game four, that'll be the sixth time he started against the Chicago Cubs. He's got a 3.53 area against us in 24 innings. He's only given up 12 hits. But I want to say eight earned runs on three homers. With like 10 walks, which means, sure, we only have 12 hits, but we're seeing the ball well against them. We do see the ball well against Freddie. This will be his fifth start against us. So he starts game one, then game four. It's a sixth time you've seen a starting pitcher. I know he's good, but like, wow, that's a that's just huge advantage to the lineup. At that point, huge advantage to the lineup. Because there's only so much you can do as a pitcher. You can only show like and we'll get to Freddy's just he's really good at what he does. He only does three things to a lefty, three things to a ready. So like you see him, okay, this will be the fifth time we see him, then it'll be the sixth time we see him. Alright, fine. And then Quinn Pre. So now you got we have we'll have an advantage in the Quinn Priester game. We'll have an advantage at home game three huge. So if we split these first two games, we can get one in Milwaukee. I mean, I'll I'll say right now the Cubs on that Wednesday game at home against Milwaukee, minus one nine, two, minus two hundred. Which would mean I would expect them to win seven out of ten times. Comfortably, hundred times, seventy times. You know. That's how good I feel about them in that Wednesday game. And then there's, you know, you see Freddie Peralta game four, I would guess. And then you would see him for the six times. So these are my observations about the Milwaukee Brewers. Freddie Peralta, he's making his fifth start against the Cubs, you know. They've got a top heavy bullpen. Triver McGill's a good closer. I don't know much about Admiral Yuribe other than he stands out. Ashby's a funky lefty, and we do have some good lefties. But the nice thing is we always go lefty ready, lefty ready. We don't hit our lefties. And especially having PCA now hit seven if he's hot. That's great. Brewers still they Quinn Priestor stock game two. Game three could be Jose Cantana. And then they've got a rookie, Chad Patrick, who's actually pretty good. 127 strikeouts and 119 innings. Doesn't walk a ton of guys, has a good fastball, 95 range, not overpowering, but he it plays up really well. And he's a bulldog, Chad Patrick. So that could be just flagging Chad Patrick here, guys, for the Brewers observation. They do have a rookie who's like, he's okay. He could he is does have the makeup. He is the type of player where like could shine in October. I don't know why I'm calling Chad Patrick out, but it's in my notes. I did my homework. I told you guys. Um they've had the Brewers are four days off. They've been in cruise control for two weeks, haven't really played a ton of pressure baseball in a long time. I think that's an advantage to the Cubs. Also, no Reese Hoskins, which kind of blows, paying this guy almost$20 million. But he can't play first base and he's not a DH with Christian Yelich. You know, Andrew Vaughn and Jake Bowers, your DH platoon, I believe they use righty lefty. So just no Reese Hoskins, that's a weird situation. Or I believe they're they're making a decision, Reese Hoskins or Jacob Mizarrowski, who's taking the last, the 26th roster spot. There's nowhere for Reese Hoskins to play someone who's gonna be like, well, he could be a late pinch hitter for a home run. Like that's kind of a disaster scenario. You'd put somebody on the roster for. In case we're down two in the ninth inning, we need to pinch it someone to hit a three-run homer. I mean, like, that's a rare. And who you who you pinch hit him for? You pinch it Kristian Yelich, you're gonna pinch Reese Hoskins. It's been brutal. Um, that's it on observations. Freddie Perls is gonna start game one, he will start game four. It'll be the fifth and sixth time we've seen him. So I'm excited to do this roster wars with you guys. I want to thank everybody again. Just tuning in. If you guys get a chance, leave a review on Spotify. You just have to tap five stars or Apple because I'll do this shit till I die. I'll talk all the Cubs baseball. In I'll do so it during next season, I'll do fucking solo game breakdowns if you know after they end and shit. I'll fucking ride or die with this stuff. Just do me a favor in the meantime and just tap the five star thing because that helps when you're going to sponsors and you're saying, look at how many reviews I have. I have X amount up. C, and then you can compare it to other shows that are reviewed. So you can say, look at the engagement, people don't just like it, they don't just show up for it. We're actually we have a community here, they're called Maniacs. So the best way to do that, just tap five stars and get a Thursday McGarrow and Stirk Family Farm. I'm just kidding. You know. All right, roster wars. If you're not familiar with this segment, what I do is we just go position by position. We're gonna take the Cubs versus the Milwaukee Brewers. We're gonna go one by one. We're gonna start with the infielders, and then I score a rider cup style. When we tie, you get a half a point. A full point obviously goes to uh, you know, the better player, the better the team with the better player. And so I believe there's 15 points available. Last roster wars was against the Padres. We scored it 10 to 5. Now we're doing the Brewers. And hopefully the point of this exercise is to give Cubs fans just chew on something that is like, you know, you are probably nervous. I get nervous watching these games. I get nervous before the series starts. This kind of shit calms me down because, well, we have a better team. You know, they're good. And we will talk about how good they are, but we have a better team, and it starts with first base, and that's Michael Bush versus they have a they have a platoon situation, I believe. Andrew Vaughn was red hot. And Jake Bowers, who they like cut last year, and then he had to come back, and he's been back forth. Like, they don't even like him in the first place. That's a huge advantage to the Chicago Cubs. Now, I know Andrew Vaughn was hot in August. We've watched Michael Bush is playing extremely well right now. Andrew Vaughn was hot when they got him from the White Sox. He's the worst player in the history of the White Sox. He's also still has a negative 0.4 war on the 2025 season. That includes hitting 365 in July with an almost 1,200 OPS. Like that includes him having almost a 950 OPS in September and October. Andrew Vaughn for a solid eight-week, seven-week stretch was the best player, best hitter, hottest right-handed hitter in the National League for like seven weeks. He has negative wins above replacement this year. Because the entire makeup and body of his game is trash. It's trash. I don't do this to trash on Andrew Vaughn either. I don't enjoy shitting on Major League Baseball players. I think these guys are all fucking awesome. You're in the big leagues. He's in the big leagues. Who am I to talk shit about him? He's in the big leagues. You know? He's also four for his last 23 in the final week of the season to close it out. Do we care about that stuff? Do we care if he's just complete poo-poo pants? Now he did get hot for a little bit there. There's a stretch in September. Multi-hit, multi-hit, four hits here, one hit there. But we're just comparing this to Michael Bush. If the argument is, is Andrew Vaughn serviceable first baseman in the playoffs. You could make the argument. Andrew Vaughn's hot. Andrew Vaughn gets red hot. He had a good September. When he's hot, he's as hot as anybody. You can do all that bullshit. All right, Dundee had Michael Bush or Andrew Vaughn. Shut the fuck up. Michael Bush. One point to the Cubs. Michael Bush is so solid. And he matches up well because we're going to see righty from Freddie Peralta. We're going to see Righty from Quinn Priester. Now a question for the Cubs is what do you do that game three if Jose Quintana starts? And I haven't heard anybody in Milwaukee talk about this, but it'd be very sharp to start a lefty. I'd almost say start the lefty game two just to fuck with the Cubs lineup. Don't let them run the same lineup out five games in a row. But they won't. They'll start Quinn Priester. And you'll see Michael Bush one, Nico Horner, two, Ian Hap, three, Kyle Tucker, four, Sey Suzuki five, Carson Kelly, six, Peter Armstrong, seven, Danzig Swanson, eight, Matcha 9. You will see that. That is my that now I'm putting my head in that one. Now will Craig fuck me and put Willie Castro in there? I would be shocked. I would be shocked. What gives you the right to say Willie Castro is a better player than Matt Shaw at this point? I'd be shocked. We'll talk about that later. All right, probably the closest, the closest one we have still being awarded a point to the Cubs here is going to be second base. And it's Nico Horner versus Bryce Tarang. Bryce Tarang's good. He's very good. I mean, I don't know if he's a three-hitter in the big leagues, sub 800 OPS. I don't think he is, but they'll use him as such. He's good defensively. He's a tough player. Like, I like Bryce Tarang a lot. I don't want to shit on Bryce Tarang at all, in the least bit. 25 years old. You know, 121 LPS plus. 794 OPS, though. 794. Is their three hitter. And just a real, kind of like tough, gritty. I want to say he's from Inland California. I want to say, where is he from? He's from Corona, California. He's got this goatee that is only, it's like indigenous to inland California, and that is exactly where he's from. Holy shit, we got that right. Is this technically? People are going to say it's not inland. Is Riverside Cal is Riverside LA, it's not beachside. Maybe it's not inland. But Bryce Trang's goatee is gross. Corona, California. If you're specific to that area, if you know that area, your parcel that area, please clean up my verbiage here. But when I look at that, I think Sacramento. When I look at that, I think Bakersfield. When I look at that, I go, oh shit, this guy's from this guy's from halfway between Modesto and Fresno. This guy's from Cauchilla. You know what I mean? Just take one look at Bryce Durang. You think to yourself, this guy has done a lot of recreationals. He looks like the type of guy who kind of grew up a little tough. Maybe not. I don't know a shit about Corona High School. I know he's a good fucking player, right? I know he's a tough matchup. Now he does strike out a lot, 150 strikeouts on the season. That's about as high as a strikeout rate as we're going to get from the Milwaukee Brewers, which I do like when he hits in the middle of the lineup because of that reason. So like comparatively, statistically, he's like kind of similar to his splits, are kind of similar to, I want to say like Carson Kelly. Maybe he's like a it's not Carson, he's a better at bat than Carson Kelly, but I'm just preparing you for this Bryce Tarang fella, if you're not too familiar with him. Um, an extremely good defender. He's a lefty, he'll pull it, he'll hit it hard to left center. I don't want to say he has like a good two-strike approach because his strikeout rate is so high, but he's more willing on 1-0 if you if it's up and over the plate, he'll hammer it to left center. He's not trying to yank, is is a good way to explain him. I don't think he's he's very much a Yankee dandy, Yankee Doodle dandy. His stat line is pretty close to Carson Kelly's as well. This is Bryce Terrang with the shitty goatee. Nico Horner's a significantly significant what sound was that? That's the sound of a guy who's not prepared to say significantly better. Nico Horner's a better player. 6.1, 6.2 wins above replacement for Nico, 5.5 for Bryce Terrang. We're talking, I mean, it's a close comparison. The reason if Nico Horner was hitting seventh in our lineup and he was cherry-picking bullshit like he was in May and June when people were talking making this debate, like the thing that really stands out for Nico now is we've elevated him to hit second. We've asked him to do everything, and he actually does continue to get better. These guys are both good with runners and scoring position. You know, Nico's a better two-strike hitter. You can't really, this is as close as we can say, cross up and down the board without it being a tie. That I think Bryce Tarang is just a tick below Nico Horner. I've got a lot of respect for Bryce Tarang. 5'11, 190, tough fucking guy. Like, I like watching him play. You should enjoy watching Bryce Tarang play. He's a fucking really, really, really good player. You know, he's a first-round high school kid that the Brewers drafted, developed on their own. They build him up through this program. He comes up to be an impact second baseman. That's that's badass shit. You know. Cubs also did the same thing with Nico Horner out of Stanford, and he's awesome. So like he's just a little bit better. Third base. So this is 2-0 Cubs now. First base, second base. Third base, I'm going to call draw. That's Matt Shaw versus Caleb Durbin. And they're just basically the same kind of player. I think Caleb Durbin gives you more competitive at bats right now. Matt Shaw still swings like an asshole. Look, Matt Shaw swings like an asshole. Like his helmet falls off. He spins into the ground. His glove is sensational. And I think Durbin's good enough defensively. I don't think he's, you know. He's definitely not Matt Shaw. He is definitely not Matt Shaw defensively. But Shaw also, I think he's got a little bit more. What do you want to say? You want to say juice? Caleb Durbin slugging almost 390. That's very low. Matt Shaw is 394. A lot of that is from first half of the season. His second half of the season, he's slugging about 475, 480. Do we want to be specific on that? We should. I'll pull the number on it. Caleb Durbin has had a more complete, fulfilling season. Matt Shaw has been really good in the second half. Matt Shaw slugged 522 in the second half. Matt Shaw is awesome in the second half. Caleb Durbin, just a little bit more. What do you want to say here? I think he's a little bit more disciplined. 30 strikeouts or 30 walks to 50 strikeouts. You know, Matt Shaw 94 strikeouts. Met Shaw much higher strikeout rate. We're just comparing the two. Who has an advantage at third base? You know, I'm not saying in the long run, Mat Shaw's a much better player. I think comfortably, too, if you line him up and you just put him next to each other, you'd say Mat Shaw's a better player. The problem is at this point in time. Like Durbin's good defensively. He's solid defensively. Matchaw is objectively better. So I think the big difference there, Durbin doesn't strike out. It's a wash to me. This one's a wash. Matchaw's got a tick more power, and he's shown it more in the second half. I think Durbin's a better battle with two strikes. I think he's got more of an approach, and he's just a more advanced hitter at the stage, even if he's got a lower OPS. So I think situationally, two outs, runner in scoring position, you probably want Caleb Durbin up more at this point than you want Matt Shaw. But Matt Shaw is way more capable of going four for five with two homers, way more capable of impacting a game with his glove. Even though Durbin's solid defensively at third, he's not going to make mistakes. He ain't manny fucking Machado. But to me, this is just a draw. Undersized third baseman, NL Central, grinders, guys who just fucking love it. Guys who just absolutely love it. And if you're curious, you're out. Durbin came over in the Devin Williams trade from New York. Because the Yankees would never in a thousand years play Caleb Durbin. There's no place for a guy like not with Anthony Volte. You can't have Caleb Durbin and Anthony Volpe on the same town, same team. Also, born in Lake Forest. Is that closer to Milwaukee or Chicago? Someone look that up. All right, roster wars. We're two two and a half for the Cubs, two a half point for the Brewers. We're going to go to shortstop, not even close, Dansby Swanson versus Joey Ortiz. Do I have to do this? We're at 45 minutes. I promise you guys 45 minutes. I'm feeling good talking roster wars here. Do we have to do a Joey Ortiz versus Danzby Swanson thing, or do people trust me that Dansby Swanson is objectively better than Joey Ortiz? Joey Ortiz is major league average. And that's fine because you're paying him$700,000. You're paying Joey Ortiz. Joey Ortiz would probably play for a fucking bag of balls. Fourth rounder, New Mexico State. You know, 510, 183, creepy mustache. Career 233 hitter. You know. Career LBP under 300. Dancy Swanson also has an OBP this season under 300. Slug in 317 this season. I mean, you can't just Joey Ortiz, maybe he beat you if the game's nothing, nothing to nothing. It's 0-0 and he gets his single in 8th inning and you can go Joey Ortiz beat us. It's like it. Because there's no way, like, all right, well, if we don't score enough runs or it's 5-5 and Joey Ortiz does that, you didn't lose the game because Joey Ortiz beat you. You lost the game because I don't know. It's kind of not going to do a good job of explaining this in my head. I think he sucks, is what I want to say. I think Joey Ortiz sucks. If we're doing a comparison to Danzby Swanson, I think it's actually embarrassing to gotta sit here and compare Joey Ortiz to Dancy Swanson. Makes me uncomfortable. This one's probably a little bit more comfortable for people. Left field. By the way, that's now it's three and a half to half for the Cubs. I we're better at first base, second base, and shortstop by a mile. There's arguments for third base. There's an argument for second base, too. Bryce Turanks had a good year. Nico Order's better. Deal with it. Three and a half, two and a half. Left field. Alright, we're going to the outfield now. This is actually pretty close. But I have all spots going in favor of the Cubs. Ian Happ versus Isaac Collins. Esok. How do you say that? Is it Esok? I hate when people do that. That's Isaac mostly. That's Isaac. Do not Esok me. Isaac Collins. No, Ian Happ 4.0, wins a butt replacement. Isaac Collins 2.1. Isaac Collins is a rookie. I'm just gonna call him Collins because now it's in my head because I can't remember if he pronounces it Esok. You gotta be from like you gotta be from Utah to do that, right? He's from Omaha, Nebraska. He went to Creighton. No, he's from Minnesota. He went to Creighton. No one gives a fuck if he's from Omaha or Minnesota. Nobody. It has no impact where he's from. But he played at Creighton. So rookie status, first full season, 27, turning 28 years old. Just turned 28 years old. Turned 28 this season. So old rookie. Good strikeout to walk ratio. He just fits the box of exactly what we're talking about with the Brewers. He doesn't strike out as much as Major League hitters. He walks more than your average major league hitter. He plays solid defense. He sprays the ball over the field. You know, slugging 4'11, just enough. Just enough to be serviceable and be an everyday left fielder in the big leagues without doing anything really too spectacular. You know, Ian Haps objectively a better player by the metrics, strikes out a lot more than he does, also walks more, also hits for extra bases more. Um, you know, it'll be interesting to see defensively. You know, I don't have a ton of good things to say about Isaac Collins. I do think left field's kind of a weird position. It's hard to have good value in left field. So if you go by defensive metrics, but like he's a 28-year-old rookie. You know, if he was really good defensively based on his offensive profile, he wouldn't be breaking in the big leagues at 28. Like he obviously has limitations. He's obviously a guy you can throw on or you can run on. He's a fine player. He and Epp's better. All right, right field. Sal Freelich, fine player. He's a good player. Boston college kid, undersized guy, doesn't strike out, very tough, hits in the middle of the lineup, is just a real piece of shit to deal with. All right, I'll just say that right now. I fucking hate Sal Freelick, but I love him. I hate that he's on opposing teams. If he was on the Cubs, he'd be just about my favorite player in baseball. He is an extremely difficult out. He's just difficult, even though he's hitting what he's got a 750 OPS. He's hitting almost 300. Another guy who walks will take a walk. I shouldn't say he walks a lot. He will take a walk. He's not afraid. He's got about 50 walks on the season, which is solid, dude. Like that's solid shit. We got guys, you've seen guys play for the Cubs before don't even sniff. Don't even sniff a walk. But only 80 strikeouts. So we just keep going back to this. You can pick out every player in the Brewers lineup, except for Bryce Trang. You're gonna see this shit where it's like this guy, this guy's not afraid to take a walk. He'll stare at a 3-2 pitch on the corner. He also doesn't strike out that much. That's just everybody in the lineup. Sal Freelick's a perfect example of this. The difference is he's very good at hitting the ball the other way. He chokes up, he's very fucking fast. I gotta watch the F-words. I have a ton of respect for Sal Freelik. You know, he's just like an all-time gamer run through a brick wall. Whatever. Say Suzuki's better. Sorry, say Suzuki's red hot right now. Say Suzuki had three of the Cubs five extra base hits, six extra base hits against the Padres. Sail Freelik's a much better defender. Won a gold glove last year. Congratulations, Sale. If anything, they're okay fine, then we can have a little debate because Suzuki's defense is so bad. But Suzuki's slugging right now. Suzuki has what, six homers in the last six games? He's got ten extra base hits in the last six games. So, like I would say, if Sae Suzuki's doing that, he's better than just about anybody. Sale Freelick, if we were starting a fantasy draft, this is not a keeper league. If this was a keeper league, I might think Sale Freelick. But it says Suzuki, which then brings our total now to five and a half to a half. Now we'll go to center field. If PCA didn't go three for four in the last game, this is a draw. PCA is red hot. Jackson Churio is a very good player. 2.2 war, 130 games played. Probably didn't progress to the extent that they want to see. A little bit of injury stuff there. Still super young, dynamic player. Very fucking good. This is the problem when I do roster wars too. Because I'm the Brewers are all very these are all good players, except for Andrew Vaughn because he blows and Joey Ortiz sucks too. But Bryce Turang's good. Caleb Durban's a good player. Esok Collins, Isaac Collins. Why did I should have just looked that up? Why is this bothering me so much? I can't remember. I know there's an Esok that we have to face. Is it a pitcher? Hmm. This is bad. Podcasting. I apologize. We're almost done here, guys. Selfrelic Freelik? He's very good. Jackson Turio, very good. You know, very good. PCA's better. PCA's better. It's like if you had to look at the Brewers and say you're playing this team. Don't consider who you're just you're playing this team. How do you feel? You'd be like, this is a good team. But then, like, all right, look at your team. Look at our team. Look at my team. Look at the Cubs. Yeah, they're good. Jackson Cherryo is good. Collins is solid in left field. Sal Freelick's been very good since he broke into the big leagues. He's only getting better. 25 years old, gonna hit almost finish almost hitting 300 this year. 290. Gold glove last year at 24. Guys, awesome. Love watching him play. Say it's red hot right now. Say his foot is down. Say his smashing baseballs. You know, PCA's a legendary center fielder. Jackson Churro is a good center fielder defensively. Peter Armstrong's a generational, generational player. He'll go down as a top five center fielder all time defensively. What else? If you've watched this guy play, he shatters the metrics on difficult catches and outs above average and all that shit. He's just better than Jackson Curio. Alright, DH, Christian Yelich or Kyle Tucker? One of those guys is gonna get paid$500 million. Christian Jolich is good. This again, another example of you talk about the Brewers. It's easy for me to say we're better, we are in this situation. Kyle Tucker's better. Kyle Tucker's better. So I like Christian Jolich as a player. Kyle Tucker is better. And Christian Jalich is having an above-average season. He did fall off a cliff there for a second in 2021, looked to rebound a little bit in 22, has come back since then. And give him credit for playing 150 games. Almost all is DH. It's a nice life. And I believe he leads off. Because they'll mix and match their lineup, they'll do different stuff. But I think a big consistent is that Christian Yelich leads off. Even so, if I have to pick a DH before the series and you give me Kyle Tucker on one hand and Christian Yelich on the other hand, I'm taking Kyle Tucker. Am I a crazy person? Yes, I am. It's seven and a half to a half point right now. I haven't scored seven and a half to the Cubs. We're doing Ryder Cub style. Without being disrespectful, if a Brewers fan catches wind of this, I'm not being disrespectful to Brewers fans. And if I was, blow me. I don't give a fuck what you think. No, I'm being that's a little aggressive. But my point is, I'm not trying to disparage the Brewers and saying through eight rounds of this, we're up seven and a half to half. And our half is Matt Chauvers. You're half as Caleb Durban versus Matt Shaw. So we'll swing it a little bit. Starting catcher, William Contreras versus Carson Kelly. William Contreras is better than Carson Kelly. Carson Kelly's had a great year. He's hot right now, doing it in the playoffs, all that stuff. I got it. Hey guys, I got it. I sound like Colin Coward. We're good now. You can go home. You can go home, LeBron. Who do we have? Who is the guy? Who is that fucking bum? What is that guy's name? Ben Simmons. Ben's here. You can go home, LeBron. You can go home, Carson Kelly. Hey, it's good. Good run. I feel like Colin Coward right now doing that, doing that thing where he's telling LeBron to go home because Ben Simmons is here. I have that same level of conviction. I could be just as wrong as Colin Coward. I could be just as wrong as he was in comparing LeBron and Ben Simmons and Carson Kelly and William Contreras. My point is that Carson Kelly's been very good. It would be easy for me to put Carson Kelly as a sign that I'm not doing this as a biased exercise. I will admit William Contreras is a better catcher. He's a more dynamic hitter. He's fucking more dynamic. He plays a game just a shade harder. He's a psychopath. Um, you know, and Carson Kelly's been good. This could easily be a split here. This could easily be a split here. But what I'm trying to say is that I I am respectfully saying that William Contreras, who by the way, he had an article in the players' tribute and I hate these fucking things. I don't give a shit what Pete Carr Armstrong's doing before this game. I don't need to know any of this stuff. What you what you watch to get psyched up for the games, Pete. How about you watch a fucking scout report? How about you watch it? How about you watch a little strike zone discipline tutorial video so we're not swinging and missing? That's it. I mean, just get locked in. Don't win me over with your 2016 stuff. You were in fourth grade. You didn't give a fuck then. Alright, buddy. We'll just call a spade a spade. But William Contreras did a players tribune article where he outwardly admits when he got traded in Milwaukee, he asked his agent to have him traded back to the Braves right away. I'm not going to Milwaukee. Give the guy credit for admitting that. Which crazy thing. Before your first play, you guys haven't gone to a World Series ever. Won a World Series ever? Won a World Series ever. Gone to a World Series, yes. Have you? I'll get I'll get researched on that. In the meantime, William Contreras is just a very good player. Um I think it's more from like the batting average in the walks. You know, nearly 360 OBP. Carson Kelly's around 330. Carson Kelly slugs more than he does by by a considerable margin. Um, but I also think that Milwaukee has a ton from William Contreras. Like they'll let that he hits in the middle of the lineup. We've done a little bit of that with Carson Kelly, failed experiment. So and I could be wrong on this either. You know, this could be a coin flip, but Milwaukee's first full point in the roster wars comparison. Seven and a half to one and a half through the full batting order. We're looking at this objectively. Objectively. I've had a bunch of nice things to say about the Brewers. I have nicer things to say about the Cubs players. Starting pitching, they have an advantage. Freddie Peralta over whoever we're throwing game one. I mean, that's just we're doing this game by game, though. If their game one is Freddie Peralta, our game one is who's our number one for the series is gonna be like Colin Ray or Hassad because we had to play wildcard round. That's a huge advantage to the Brewers. Freddie Peralta's awesome. I'm gonna talk about him briefly. He's got three pitches that he throws to rehes, three pitches to lefties. He will throw his fastball and his change to both sides. To rightties he throws the slider, to left easy throws a curveball. One breaks more horizontally, one breaks more downward. So for lefties, he can get you to swing and miss with a change, and then he's gonna show you a curveball that spikes out of the zone. Starts in the zone, spikes on the plate. Usually where the catcher has to drop down to block it, or it's low and close to the ground. He will do, he will, he will absolutely feast lefties alive when he gets ahead because he'll throw change or curve, and he throws his curve off of his change beautifully, which is kind of like a little secret in baseball that not a lot of guys do as much as they should. Because typically when you throw a change up, you want to get the guy out on the next pitch. When I throw a changeup, I'm not necessarily, it's not necessarily for that changeup. It'd be nice if you swing and miss. It'd be even better if you hit that changeup weakly into play and you were just out. But the real juice and sauce and sweetness of a changeup is the pitch that follows the changeup. Because if I get you to look at an 84 mile an hour changeup and you lean over the plate and you're fucking tentative or whatever and you foul it off or you track that whole thing to the ground, now I've shown a difference if I can throw it up to 96 or whatever, I can make a mistake in the strike zone now. I can really challenge you with my fastball. Because just the timing and the tempo of you have seen that changeup of you having to track it into the other box. If you haven't to like really fucking lock in on that pitch and you see it dive, you you track that angle and the movement all the stuff the very next pitch you see not the second pitch not the third pitch not the rest of the bat there's just this little window in that competitive pitcher versus hitter thing where after a good changeup you can just fucking you can throw any pitch you not any pitch but you can basically if it's over the plate it's good it's hard it's challenging it's almost a guaranteed out. I mean it's just maybe not guaranteed but the the definitely not guaranteed but it's the pendulum swings in your favor so much more if you can throw a good change. So Peralt obviously has a good change. The crazy thing is he got a great curveball off the change because now I've seen a changeup I'm geared up. I'm like that's a good changeup he might throw that change again or I might get that fast. For whatever reason hitters and I think all hitters almost all hitters will agree with this that for whatever reason after you see a good change up you fucking blank on breaking ball the last thing you'll no you're not thinking breaking ball at all. You're just like well I just saw a good change up he could double up or he could get me hard in now because you just assume the pitcher is so what does Freddie Peralta do very well against lefties? He will throw you his change he'll throw you if he throws 1 0 if he throws a first pitch ball to a lefty he'll throw a change over the heart of the plate that'll get fouled off or swung and missed or put weakly into play. Now he has you one a lot of times you're saying just fucking throw me that good old fashioned fastball over the plate Peralta will throw you that curveball off that change up and he will put it in the plate it'll be a guaranteed out he will do that. He's very fucking good off of his change with his curve. His fastball's nasty throws it to the top of the zone commands at both sides of the plate like he'll be extremely frustrating more than Nick Pavetta so Nick Pavetta's frustrating because his stuff is so filthy it's hard to hit Peralta's stuff is filthy but he's just got much better control and command and he's got sauce he's got swag Pavetta does not have nearly the command or the presence because when you have command if I can throw the ball where I want to throw it I have a certain presence now around the mound right not just the swing and miss. Sure I get you to swing and miss I got presence but if I can locate my fastball in I can move you off the plate then I can throw it to the corner and you'll just stare at it like a like a bitch in a big moment. Now I've got confidence I got command I have presence I'm on the mound I own this shit right does this make sense because Freddie Peralta has all of this and this is why I'm it's just a huge advantage he gets to go game one. And why I'm trying to find a silver lining and say the Cubs could have a bullpen day game one because they're off today they're off on Sunday and they're off on Tuesday. So we could just unload everybody we don't would Daniel Palency go throw two innings you know Keller two innings Kittridge two innings we can be we can be whatever we need to be with our best guys. But Freddie Peralta creates that necessity so that's just a huge point for the Brewers to have Peralta game one and four counterpoints as I said before this would be the fifth and sixth time the Cubs have seen him and like righties he just pit he's gonna pitch in and then he's gonna get you once you're looking in he's gonna pitch away and once you're looking away he's gonna pitch in and his ability to move in and out against righties and then he's got this change up that'll just throw down the middle of the plate that just falls off a table so you're really mostly the game with righties against Peralta is in out and most of it with lefties is up and down. Does that make sense to you guys? Does that matter to anybody listening to this you know but it's vertical to lefties it's hor it's in and out to righties and it's up and down to lefties. He's awesome. Hopefully we only see him one time Matt Boyd's our second starting pitcher I got Matt Boyd in an advantage over Quinn Priester and I got Jamison Tayan in an advantage over Jose Quintana starting pitching Freddie Praalt is way better than our number one but similar to what I said with the Padres I like the guys going our guy our two matchup I like more our three matchup I like more Dylan Sease I was wrong about I was right about you Darvish you know and Jamison Tayan look sensational. So even though Freddie Pro Freddie Perlton better game one pitcher we have a much better pitcher for game two game three and if Peralta comes back for four fine whatever it'll be the sixth time we've seen him we have an advantage in game five we have an overall starting pitching advantage and we have a game by game starting pitching advantage they do have I'm gonna give I should do a coin flip on the bullpen I guess I'm starting to feel bad for him because I'm gonna give the Brewers the advantage on the bullpen just because I like McGill a lot. We don't have a McGill I mean McGill just strikes everybody out. So they have that I think Ashby's a tough lefty I want to see a rebay I don't know this should be a coin flip. I don't know why I marked this one for the Brewers I'm gonna change this one to a coin flip eh I'll leave it for the Brewers I'll leave it for the Brewers it's nine and a half to three and a half I'm not gonna go line by line in their bullpen and tell you everything about it. Their closer strikes a ton of people out they got lefty ready matchups and they've used everybody in a huge different role and just tons of opportunities like everyone's gonna be comfortable for the Brewers but I can say the same about the Cubs. We can say the same about the Cubs this one's tough because it should be a coin flip but ultimately the thing that puts me over the edge and just say the Brewers is I McGill's tough he's tough. I have a personal story with him I've hung out with him before he's a super nice guy quirky and really fascinated he asked me a thousand questions about my camera my microphone where was I I was filming a video in Arizona this is a sidebar just about McGill he's an interesting dude I like him I'm at slight advantage just because I think slight advantage and Keller I know I said I didn't give a shit about but like he kind of stumbled a little bit he did stumble just for a second and again reminder guys if you've made it this far I would ask it's pretty simple to throw a five star review on Spotify and Apple. Just dunk that please uh and maybe I will go line by line for the Brewers bullpen before game two. All right bench I've got to wash here I think we do have more talented players Willie Castro Biasteros and Turner all have either more experience or better body of career or just a better profile at the plate. The thing that I do like about the Brewers is that they use their bench way more in way more in starting roles and guys are just like way more comfortable coming off that bench so they had they're just going to be a little bit more quick to platoon and they use guys more down the stretch because they could because they didn't have fucking meaningful games so like they they definitely got their usage in of mixing matching guys. So I'm just giving them just a slight little edge you know like we're probably not going to see Danny Jansen he's a great backup catcher. Andrew Monasterio started a ton of games for them down the stretch hit 270 got a lot of playing time the last week Blake Perkins is a guy who's who's gotten more playing time in center field than I would have imagined platoon situation as a switch he's a guy who's kind of stepped in a little bit for Cherio and then Jake Bowers will play first base he'll play left field he'll play all over the place he'll DH I guess if Christian Jelich is fucking hurt you know the if the whatever reason they need I I should just say like he has DH'd a game that doesn't mean he will DH but whereas the Cubs are going Moises Ballesteros is a rookie Willie Cash who we traded for he's been terrible and Justin Turner's effective against left-handed pitching you know so like does Justin Turner start against Jose Cantana game three? If the Cubs are up 2-0 you know maybe that's a crazy thing to keep your eyes peeled for but I'm just still calling this a wash because I like the Cubs I think our players off the bench are better. I think Milwaukee's used them better for this moment so and then last and finally we've got manager we have manager the manager so I'm what am I inclined to say here I'm inclined to say that we're gonna overreact to the manager discussion I'm inclined to say that it sucks that the winner of this series will be viewed by many as the better manager. I think it's it is kind of sh it's five games you know it's five games who's the better manager Pat Murphy's won back to back division championships. Craig Council won the division championship before that Pat Murphy Pat Murphy's on the bench next to Craig Council for a lot of his success the clubs are as I go through this objectively better on paper right why didn't they win the division? Is it just because the Brew got super hot super hot like I didn't talk at all about Brandon Woodruff and who knows what Mizorowski the fact I get to go through the whole bullpen and talk about the Brewers and we don't even talk about Mizorowski's crazy and if Brandon Woodruff doesn't get hurt the the starting pitching is a landslide Matt Boyd is better than Quentin Priester. Matt Boyd is not better than a healthy Brandon Woodruff Jamison Taon then would not be better than Quentin Priester. Do you understand what I'm saying? There's a couple injuries here that like slide stuff down for the Brewers that is very unfortunate. Same respect we don't have Cade Horton for the series we do not have Cade Horton for the series but my question is we talk about the managers how can we have I have the scored what be 10 to 4 right now we're talking about the manager. I have it scored 10 to 4. This is the last point. And I'm gonna ultimately have this because I don't know who's a better manager. Is Pat Murphy you how much of the juices is in the tank to say Craig left you guys but I'm sticking around I can understand that for last year. This year what the Brewers did in August is like one degree removed from what the Oakland Athletics did 24 years ago that people still talk about. It's like one degree removed from 22 23 in a row. What did they go? They went 35 and 5 over 40 games I mean that's why they won the division okay but they're 18 and 20 over their last 38. Since they played the Chicago Cubs in a five game series they're eight since that first game they're 18 and 20 and they they obviously didn't have to play too competitively down the stretch but if you take out the last week of baseball too I think the winning record it's even worse. I think when there still was a competitive fight there you know to put the Cubs away and win the division they played 500 baseball down the stretch. You know so did the Chicago Cubs. It's not like we took it from them but a good thing to remember before the series starts 17 of the last 20 pennant winners 17 of the last 20 pennant winners that represent you go to the World Series. So the last 10 World Series of the 17 of the 20 17 of the 20 teams to make the World Series had a winning record in September. Above 500 I'm not saying 500 and above I'm saying above 500. 17 teams had above 500 records in September. The Brewers were 12 and 12 this September. They would be one of the three so do you understand how much that shifts it's a good indication of who's playing good baseball I believe the Cubs were 14-11 in September. What a janky way to say I like the Cubs in this series. But I'm just talking through this and giving you as much information that's in my head. Who's a better manager Craig Counsel or Pat Murphy? Maybe if I have to if I couldn't pick a tie I would say Pat Murphy because they won back to back championships without Craig Counsel and a much worse payroll than the Cubs and like I just did the exercise that said the Cubs have more talent on paper. So how do the Brew more games? And how do they do it two years in a row would be because of Pat Murphy. However Craig Counsel is the highest paid manager in baseball for a reason. Craig Counsel left the Brewers to go to the Chicago Cubs like if if Pat Murphy was better they would have had Pat Murphy as a manager instead of Craig Counsel and they could have picked between the two you'd be like well Murphy's a better manager so Murphy should be the manager. I understand the world doesn't work that way. But the sole reason we have to split this is because any Brewers fan wants to argue that Pat Murphy's better guys the Brewers had a chance like the Brewers picked counsel over Murphy. Don't come back now and tell me Murphy's better than counsel. If anything the best we can do is just say at this point it's a push and at the end of the series then I suppose we'll get to decide however unfair that may be to either manager to have their legacy defined against each other in a five game series. But this is the way baseball works. This is how sports work. Final score 10 and a half Cubs, four and a half Brewers Brewers are a great team we're better on paper at each position except for a few. So there's your roster wars breakdown. Hopefully that makes people feel better about the series. Okay last thing about this series I should say before we get this thing wrapped up this a long preview but we do have 24 hours before first pitch and I wanted to use them to the best of our ability here guys. All right we have advantages we have better players we've got more superstars we're gonna have more fans in the stands we have momentum from playing the Padres they've been off for a number of days. Freddie Prowalt's worst starts of the year come when he's got maximum days rest. They threw him two innings on September 29th to avoid this. They threw him two innings on September 28th to avoid the rust but they slowed him down at the end of the season. I think that's a huge advantage to the Cubs. I think the fact that we can dump our bullpen and we've got more depth on our bullpen based on these off days where their bullpen hasn't been working they've been doing split scrimmage all this stuff. So maybe they're not fucking ready for that fifth inning call that our guys are for the closest position you can argue is second base. And even then it's like I like Nico Horner more than Bryce Tarang. You know Christian Jalich has been around for a while fine we'll match him square up Kyle Tucker I mean what are we doing here? The point I'm bringing this up is don't be nervous. We should be excited to play the Brewers I think the advantage squarely falls in our favor and I think it's an opportunity for us to put the regular season bullshit to rest. They were hot in August are they a better team than the Cubs I don't think so nice thing is we get to find out for ourselves. And we all saw this shit coming I'm ready for the series I hope you guys are ready for the series I'll be back after game one with the post breakdown we'll put that up on Saturday night if I have to I think I got a birthday party Saturday a roller rink. But before I go to the roller rink we'll post a postgame I appreciate you guys for following listening supporting check out Thirsty Vicero available on Amazon. Don't be bashful check out Stirk Family Farms promo code MMCS will get you 20% off all orders as a listener of the Monday morning Cub Show. And obviously last call to action if you guys get a chance review the show means a lot I'll be back uh for more playoff content we're very lucky as Cubs fans we're very fucking lucky all right and let's go beat the shit out of the Brewers love you guys go cubs and we're gonna be able to do that