DBWI: The Brewers Dynasty of the 1980s does not emerge...

Looking over the 1980 and early 1990s, one has to be amazed at the Brewers dynasty. You arguably can trace it the acquisitions of outfielder Dale Murphy (for outfielder Sixto Lezcano in an even-up trade) and third baseman Cal Ripken (for reliever Frank DiPino, starting pitcher prospect Ricky Keeton, outfielder Kevin Bass, and shortstop Lenn Sakata), who ended up joining Paul Molitor and Robin Yount as the core of that dynasty, which won World Series titles in 1981, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988, and 1992 while also winning AL pennants in 1985, 1989, 1990, and 1991.

Yount needs little introduction - in 1980 he broke out as a legitimate run-producer, hitting 35 home runs and driving in 119 runs. He ultimately lead the majors in hits over the 1980s, hit 286 home runs and stole 278 bases, reaching the 30-30 plateau five times (1980, 1982, 1983, 1987, and 1988). He arguably re-defined what a shortstop could be, as well. Yount was Mr. Brewer until his retirement in 1995. He finished his career with 3,508 hits, 402 homers, and 411 stolen bases.

Molitor arguably was the decade's best leadoff hitter. He stole 131 bases in 1980, setting the AL record, and would break the century mark twice more, in 1982 and 1983. He got on base a lot, but his power was probably the surprise. From 1980 to 1989, he averaged 40 doubles, 11 triples, 15 home runs, and 79 stolen bases, with an average OBP of .398. Molitor stayed with Milwaukee until 2003, and ended his career with 4,113 hits and 1013 stolen bases. Arguably, Molitor's best year was 1987, when he broke DiMaggio's hitting streak (eventually reaching 59 games), and hit .404.

Ripken played third base from Opening Day 1981, and didn't miss a game - or an inning - in that decade, or the one after that. It was said that you could count on him to play 162 games, hit about .275, with 35 doubles, 25 homers, and 100 RBI. He was solid as anyone could have asked. His career ended the same year as Molitor's, and the Iron Brewer ended with 3,411 hits and 503 homers.

Murphy patrolled right field for the Brewers that decade, and he was just as reliable as Ripken. His consecutive games streak in the 1980s was longer than Ripken's, although Ripken has the reputation due to Murphy playing designated hitter for about 15 percent of his games. Murphy averaged 35 homers a season. He finished his career in 1997, DHing for the Brewers after the 1990 season. He had 3,012 hits and 494 home runs.

All four made the Hall of Fame. All four have had their numbers retired (Molitor's #4, Murphy's #3, Ripken's #8, and Yount's #19).

Orioles GM Hank Peters admits that the Ripken trade was a bad move for the Orioles, and he should have just stuck with the original proposal to send a reliever by the name of John Flinn to Milwaukee for Sakata. Ted Turner freely admitted that he bought Sixto Lezcano high, and sold Dale Murphy low, and admits that he should have listened to GM John Mullen's objections to the proposed trade, and was more hands-off after the Braves lost to Milwaukee in the 1982 World Series, where Murphy was World Series MVP.

Suppose the Braves and Orioles execs had listened to their doubts? Would another dynasty have emerged from 1980-1995? How well would Milwaukee have done with only Molitor and Yount anchoring the team? Would any of those four players have reached the same heights?
 
Murphy

1. Without Murphy, I don't think the Braves get to the playoffs in 1982, let alone the World Series. The Brewers beat the Cardinals instead.

2. Without those trades, I don't think that anyone else would have been a dynasty. Baseball would have had a lot of different champions in those years.
 
1. Without Murphy, I don't think the Braves get to the playoffs in 1982, let alone the World Series. The Brewers beat the Cardinals instead.

St. Louis may not be able to pull off the 1982 trade with San Diego that got them Ozzie Smith.

Figure instead, Atlanta moves Lezcano and second baseman Glenn Hubbard to Philly for Ryne Sandberg and Keith Moreland.

Moreland ends up taking over in right, hitting .290 with 20 homers, while Sandberg takes over at second base. The result: Sandberg becomes the 1982 NL Rookie of the Year with Atlanta, hitting .282 with 12 homers and 85 RBI. In the aggregate, they perform well enough to get to the playoffs.

Without Ozzie Smith, the Cards fall in five in 1982.
 
St. Louis may not be able to pull off the 1982 trade with San Diego that got them Ozzie Smith.

Figure instead, Atlanta moves Lezcano and second baseman Glenn Hubbard to Philly for Ryne Sandberg and Keith Moreland.

Moreland ends up taking over in right, hitting .290 with 20 homers, while Sandberg takes over at second base. The result: Sandberg becomes the 1982 NL Rookie of the Year with Atlanta, hitting .282 with 12 homers and 85 RBI. In the aggregate, they perform well enough to get to the playoffs.

Without Ozzie Smith, the Cards fall in five in 1982.

If they make the playoffs at all.

Although, the year before, without Smith, they did have the best combined record in the NL East. So, they still may have made it.
 

oberdada

Gone Fishin'
From reading the Thread title I thought this was a thread about beer and the Multinational Brewery Coorperations dominating the world beer market.:D
Apparently not, but I considering this missunderstanding to be funny enough to be worth posting.
 
If they make the playoffs at all.

Although, the year before, without Smith, they did have the best combined record in the NL East. So, they still may have made it.

Could be interesting.

Here is the big question: With Molitor, Yount, Murphy, and Ripken... do the Brewers become a destination for free agents? What happens to their profile in the national media as they dominate the American League? Do they get a national following? And what does that mean for them when the "Big Four" finally retire?
 
Suppose the Braves and Orioles execs had listened to their doubts? Would another dynasty have emerged from 1980-1995? How well would Milwaukee have done with only Molitor and Yount anchoring the team? Would any of those four players have reached the same heights?

The Oakland A's who competed against the Brewers in the playoffs for the AL pennant each year from 1988 through 1992, and LOST, would likely have won a couple of World Series and been considered something of a dynasty. I hated those guys, but they were plenty tough. We never swept them in a series, and twice they took us to 7 games.

The Red Sox and Tigers often had pretty good teams in this era. The Tigers even won the Series in 1984. But neither team had the consistent talent to have been ranked as any sort of dynasty.


Without Ripken and Murphy, the Brewers still likely would have won their division fairly frequently and made the World Series several times. Most of that would have happened in the early to mid 80s time frame. Starting pitching was never the true strong point of the team. And the pitching would have appeared weaker without gold glovers playing every inning of every game at Third and Right Field. We out bashed the other guys, almost always scoring 900 runs in a season, and over a 1000 runs twice. Also, if you remember in the mid 80s, the offense did slow as Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, and Ted Simmons passed age 35 and stopped being the hitters they once were. It took a couple years to come up with decent replacements for those guys. And frankly, if Molitor doesn't pull a Joe Williams/Ted DiMaggio in 87 and carry the team the whole year, no way do we even beat the Tigers to win the division, let alone make the World Series. Teddy Higuera and Dan Plesac were our only 2 decent pitchers that entire season.


I've never been a big believer that hitters somehow protect each other in a lineup, but in this instance, I almost have to believe it true. So without Ripken and Murphy in the lineup, maybe Yount and Molitor each lose a hundred or two hits and a little bit of their power through their careers as pitchers are better able to avoid throwing them something hittable. And the same goes for Ripken and Murphy if they'd stayed with the O's and Braves organizations. But basically, I don't see anyway how each one of these guys don't become a Hall of Famer regardless of where they played. Unless they got stuck in Cleveland or Texas or Seattle or something.
 
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With Molitor, Yount, Murphy, and Ripken... do the Brewers become a destination for free agents? What happens to their profile in the national media as they dominate the American League? Do they get a national following? And what does that mean for them when the "Big Four" finally retire?

Of course we became a "destination" for Free Agents, but we had to be careful in who we signed cause by the mid 80s the Big Four did suck up 50% of payroll. Salaries did start to exponentially increase in the late 80s. Luckily all our success let Bud, hallowed be his name, leverage a new stadium paid for by the state, county, and city governments. And the introduction of skyboxes in the first of the new retro stadiums helped generate annual revenues sufficient to keep us competitive till the 2000s.


Our national profile by the late 80s was incredible, and not just for a so called small market team. I think our profile was helped even more that the dynasty arose at the same time as ESPN. From April through October, Brewer highlights more often than not led off each 11pm Sports Center broadcast. Everybody, except in our competitors cities, loves to watch a dominating team ... well ... dominate the best available opponents. Maybe the Nation's love affair didn't quite reach that of the 50's and 60's Yankees, but the Brewers were the next closest thing in baseball history to it. Hell, when that UHF station in Chicago picked up a feed of our broadcasts and started getting better ratings than Cubs or White Sox games, how amazing was that!?!
 
No Brewers dynasty means that Cecil Cooper does not succeed Harvey Kuenn as manager in 1990. And Yount probably does not become manager in 2000.
 
Tigers

I thought that the Tigers and Blue Jays were going to pose a stiff challenge to Milwaukee, but the Brewers held them off every year except for 1984, when the Tigers beat Milwaukee at home in the one-game playoff.

I still remember coming home from school and watching the end of that game. Kirk Gibson, who was battling a strained hamstring, came in as a pinch hitter and hit the game-winning homer off of Rollie Fingers.

I still remember Al Michaels' call: There is nobody on and one out. Score tied at three. Bottom of the ninth. Fingers looks in. Here is the pitch, and it is...GONE, HOME RUN!!!! Kirk Gibson has sent the Tigers to the ALCS!!!! The fans all came out of the stands and mobbed Gibson.

That was a bright spot in a long era of boring Brewer dominance. That is why, though, that MLB should have added two additional teams to the playoffs after what happened in 1981. I can't believe they didn't jump on the extra revenue that those extra rounds probably brought. Maybe the Brewers don't win as many pennants. They were good, but I thought that there were more years where Detroit or Toronto could have defeated them.

In 1986, the Tigers started hot, but then lost Jack Morris and Gibson to the DL. In 1987, Toronto was getting close to Milwaukee when Dave Stieb and George Bell went down late in the season.
 
Does eliminating the Brewer Dynasty in the 80's also butterfly away the recent Cubs dynasty ?

I mean it had been a looooooooong time since the Cubs had won a series before they broke the curse in 2003.

Since then they've been so dominant that people joke about recreating the so called goat curse.

I know the events were 20 yrs apart but if you pull on thread does that eliminate another ?
 
The Oakland A's who competed against the Brewers in the playoffs for the AL pennant each year from 1988 through 1992, and LOST, would likely have won a couple of World Series and been considered something of a dynasty. I hated those guys, but they were plenty tough. We never swept them in a series, and twice they took us to 7 games.

The Red Sox and Tigers often had pretty good teams in this era. The Tigers even won the Series in 1984. But neither team had the consistent talent to have been ranked as any sort of dynasty.


Without Ripken and Murphy, the Brewers still likely would have won their division fairly frequently and made the World Series several times. Most of that would have happened in the early to mid 80s time frame. Starting pitching was never the true strong point of the team. And the pitching would have appeared weaker without gold glovers playing every inning of every game at Third and Right Field. We out bashed the other guys, almost always scoring 900 runs in a season, and over a 1000 runs twice. Also, if you remember in the mid 80s, the offense did slow as Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, Gorman Thomas, and Ted Simmons passed age 35 and stopped being the hitters they once were. It took a couple years to come up with decent replacements for those guys. And frankly, if Molitor doesn't pull a Joe Williams/Ted DiMaggio in 87 and carry the team the whole year, no way do we even beat the Tigers to win the division, let alone make the World Series. Teddy Higuera and Dan Plesac were our only 2 decent pitchers that entire season.


I've never been a big believer that hitters somehow protect each other in a lineup, but in this instance, I almost have to believe it true. So without Ripken and Murphy in the lineup, maybe Yount and Molitor each lose a hundred or two hits and a little bit of their power through their careers as pitchers are better able to avoid throwing them something hittable. And the same goes for Ripken and Murphy if they'd stayed with the O's and Braves organizations. But basically, I don't see anyway how each one of these guys don't become a Hall of Famer regardless of where they played. Unless they got stuck in Cleveland or Texas or Seattle or something.

Each of the Big Four had at least one MVP:
Yount in 1981, 1982, and 1989
Murphy in 1983
Molitor in 1987 and 1992
Ripken in 1985 and 1991

Ted Simmons - that trade that brought him and Rollie Fingers from St. Louis certainly had good moments, but it honestly could have been a dynasty killer. The Brewers sent David Green, Lary Sorenson, and Jamie Cocanower to get them. It was a bit of a high price, and Simmons did struggle. That was when Selig did two things: He decided to pump money into the farm system, figuring it would be better to develop the complementary pieces. He made the decision to hire Bill James as a consultant after the Brewers missed the playoffs in 1984. He rightly figured that the Brewers would need an edge.

James probably was Milwaukee's secret weapon. You want to know why Plesac was such a highlight in 1987? It's because Bill James convinced new manager Tom Trebelhorn (Harvey Kuenn's health was failing) to use Plesac in the high-leverage situations. Result: Plesac goes 14-3, with 22 saves, finishes second for the Cy Young. For a dynasty, the Brewers had managerial turnover: George Bamberger had the heart attack in 1980, then Buck Rogers just never really clicked, and resigned after 1981. Kuenn's health began failing after 1986. Trebelhorn held the job down from 1987-1992. After Trebelhorn left, the Brewers were good, but not as good as before.

One reason for their pitching staff woes in 1987 was because the "second ace" was out for ten weeks. Orel Hershiser had come to Milwaukee after the 1980 season for Jim Gantner (yeah, Hollywood Jim got his start with the Brewers). Hershiser was a little subpar in 1987, but that was because he sprained his ankle when he slipped going down the dugout steps after the first. Hershiser still went out there, tossed a three-hit shutout, but aggravated the injury. It wasn't as if the `87 Brewers didn't have good pitchers. Juan Nieves won 16 games and tossed a no-hitter, Chris Bosio was a rookie that year (he has 13 wins and six saves shuffling between the rotation and bullpen), and Chuck Crim was the "second relief ace" for the Brewers, and pitched 130 innings.

By the way, James still works for the Brewers as a consultant, and Rob Neyer became their GM in 2000.
 
Of course we became a "destination" for Free Agents, but we had to be careful in who we signed cause by the mid 80s the Big Four did suck up 50% of payroll. Salaries did start to exponentially increase in the late 80s. Luckily all our success let Bud, hallowed be his name, leverage a new stadium paid for by the state, county, and city governments. And the introduction of skyboxes in the first of the new retro stadiums helped generate annual revenues sufficient to keep us competitive till the 2000s.


Our national profile by the late 80s was incredible, and not just for a so called small market team. I think our profile was helped even more that the dynasty arose at the same time as ESPN. From April through October, Brewer highlights more often than not led off each 11pm Sports Center broadcast. Everybody, except in our competitors cities, loves to watch a dominating team ... well ... dominate the best available opponents. Maybe the Nation's love affair didn't quite reach that of the 50's and 60's Yankees, but the Brewers were the next closest thing in baseball history to it. Hell, when that UHF station in Chicago picked up a feed of our broadcasts and started getting better ratings than Cubs or White Sox games, how amazing was that!?!

That was incredible - that 1985 deal probably helped the Brewers not only keep Molitor, Murphy, and Ripken together from 1995-2003, it also meant that the whole country could have seen some of the iconic moments: Yount's 3,000th hit, Molitor getting steal 1,000, Murphy and Ripken hitting their 500th home run.

But ultimately, it also showed how the Big Four could work together. Who here doesn't remember how Paul Molitor's 59-game hitting streak ended? In the bottom of the eighth against the Twins, the score was tied 3-3, runners on first and third, one out. Molitor decided to go for the squeeze play, and executed it perfectly. Yeah, the score was 3-0 because Yount hit a two-run homer at the next at-bat, but Molitor sacrificing the hitting streak to get his team a run was just so poignant, because, as he put it, "We needed a run, and I didn't want to risk a double play. Frank Viola had been that good out there today. I'm at peace with the streak ending this way."

That attitude was contagious on that team, and you just saw it trickle down to the other players. Remember how Yount moved to center field in 1986? Ripken took over at shortstop and Dale Sveum held down third through 1988. Then, after Sveum got hurt in 1989, Ripken went back to third so Gary Sheffield could play shortstop. When Sveum returned, he offered to play first base, and the example was superb. When Sheffield missed two months with a stress fracture in 1989, and a broken hand in 1990, and Bill Spiers had been holding down shortstop very well defensively in those stints, while he had struggled defensively, his first question to Trebelhorn on returning in 1990 was, "Where do you need me to move?" Sheffield ended up as the DH that year, while Dale Murphy taught him how to play right field.

Sheffield didn't stay with the Brewers his whole career, he left as a free agent in 1993, getting lured away by a five-year, $20 million contract with the Yankees, but after that deal expired, he went back to Milwaukee.
 
I still remember Al Michaels' call: There is nobody on and one out. Score tied at three. Bottom of the ninth. Fingers looks in. Here is the pitch, and it is...GONE, HOME RUN!!!! Kirk Gibson has sent the Tigers to the ALCS!!!! The fans all came out of the stands and mobbed Gibson.

The call I remember? Uecker in the bottom of the 8th in that last series.

"Castillo on third, Surhoff at first. Plenty of speed, but with one out, a double play could be a killer. Viola's first pitch... Molitor bunts to the third base side. Castillo is easily going to score! The only play is to first... Gaetti gets Molitor, but the Brewers have taken the lead! Unless this game goes to extra innings, it it looks like Paul Molitor has just sacrificed his 59-game hitting streak to give the Brewers a lead!"

Yount then hits a two-run homer, and the Brewers win. IF there was a play that earned the AL MVP award, that may have been it, more than the .404 average.
 
Perhaps we wouldn't have seen the massive upswing in popularity of baseball in the UK. Didn't Channel 4 start showing a nightly highlights show in that era? I don't know if there were figures, but even now if you see someone in baseball merchandise in the UK it's probably Brewers half the time. Perhaps it's due to those exhibition matches, some of them at absolutely painful locations like that configuration at Twickenham in 1995 where the right field wall was only about 250 feet out or something. OK, they learnt from that and went to the Manchester Olympic Stadium (didn't Manchester only really get it when the Braves pulled out of the stadium plan and decided to move to Portland?), while it was a bit ramshackle with a temporary stand over one of the athletics track corners and some astroturf on the running track it certainly raise the profile of baseball in the UK.

OK, that lead to the somewhat silly attempt at the British Baseball Association, which, uh, didn't end well. ITV must have been kicking themselves after picking that up, washed out matches in front of 1,000 crowds at running tracks that lasted half a 30 round season ...
 
I was just thinking how the Minnesota Twins fortunes changed when they switched to the National League after the 1997 season. Then, they win 5 NL Central division titles and the 2007 NL Pennant.

Can you imagine the Brewers playing in the NL?
 
Yeah, that was fallout from the Braves to Portland move over not wanting to play at a converted athletics stadium for a few years (the city of Atlanta really wanted to host the world athletics championships in 1999, so they'd have to leave it in an athletics type configuration with a temporary stand in right field). The Twins swapped leagues with the Braves, the Twins going in to AL Central, bumping the Pirates in to AL East. The Texas Rangers then moved from AL West to AL Central, to make it so that each league had four teams in the west and five in Central and East.

Of course, that didn't last long until when we got the expansion teams that launched in 2000 - Washington and Tampa Bay. That 15-15 alignment only lasted, what, 3 years?
 
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Yeah, that was fallout from the Braves to Portland move over not wanting to play at a converted athletics stadium for a few years (the city of Atlanta really wanted to host the world athletics championships in 1999, so they'd have to leave it in an athletics type configuration with a temporary stand in right field). The Twins swapped leagues with the Braves, the Twins going in to AL Central, bumping the Pirates in to AL East. The Texas Rangers then moved from AL West to AL Central, to make it so that each league had four teams in the west and five in Central and East.

Of course, that didn't last long until when we got the expansion teams that launched in 2000 - Washington and Tampa Bay. That 15-15 alignment only lasted, what, 3 years?

They eventually moved Kansas City to the AL. But the talk is there will be two expansion teams, and a shift to four 4-team divisions in each league. Atlanta will likely get one, and it's said Las Vegas and Charlotte are the leading contenders for the other one.
 
Indianapolis is more likely than Charlotte and Vegas to get a club. In light of Indiana's baby boom of the 1980's and Peyton Manning winning a Super Bowl for the Colts and Reggie Miller getting an NBA Championship (For the Pacers)in the same year (2000).
 
One thing about expansion, it has cost the Brewers some stars who could have made the team more competitive. The 1993 expansion cost the team John Jaha, who went on to have big years for the Colorado Rockies. The next round of expansion, in 2000, cost the team Bucky Jacobsen, who emerged as a solid DH for most of that decade.
 
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