You’d think that baseball couldn’t get much sweeter than taking a commanding 3-0 lead in the NLCS — one win away from your franchise’s first World Series berth in over 40 years — on the road, against the two-time defending World Series champs. And yet, somehow that wasn’t the only gift the October gods saw fit to bestow on Milwaukee Brewers fans on Wednesday night.
Because while their favorite team was defying the odds once again at Dodger Stadium, some 2,000 miles away Craig Counsell was watching. It might seem petty to bring up old grudges at a time like this. But considering everything the Brewers have been through over the last few years, and all the grief they took when he took the money and left for the Chicago Cubs, you can’t blame the state of Wisconsin for taking a victory lap. Especially as their division rivals keep running into the same wall with their former manager.
The Brewers broke through while Craig Counsell searches for answers
It’s hard to remember now, but the narrative when Counsell switched sides and became the highest-paid manager in baseball was that the Cubs had pulled off a coup. The Brewers had made just two postseason appearances in the 21st century before Counsell took over as manager; with him at the helm, they made it to October five times in six years. Clearly, the thinking went, he was the secret sauce, a Moneyball savant who would be worth even more than Chicago was paying him.
Fast forward a few years, and it’s obvious that the Brewers’ recipe for success went far beyond one manager. They’ve continued to hone their brand of baseball under Pat Murphy and turned the NL Central into their own personal fiefdom. The one missing line item from their resume was winning big in October; going up 3-0 on the big, bad Dodgers, though, is as much proof of concept as you can possibly ask for.
Counsell, meanwhile … well, it turns out he was much more of a normal manager than everybody assumed. He’s by no means a disaster; the Cubs’ myriad pitching injuries, not to mention their personnel bungles under Jed Hoyer, have more to do with their inability to go deep into October than anything Counsell has control over. But Counsell has also made the sorts of mistakes that lots of managers make, from kerfuffles in the media to curious bullpen decisions. He’s mortal like anyone else, big contract or no.
Does Counsell regret his decision? Who knows; $40 million is a whole lot of money. The Brewers are a win away from getting the last laugh, though, regardless of what happens in the World Series. They never needed him in the first place. In fact, they never needed anything beyond what they already had. The Cubs, on the other hand, tried to paper over the cracks in their foundation by importing a shortcut to an entire organizational philosophy — and they’re still living with the consequences.
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