5 Things Brewers Fans Have To Be Thankful For In 2020

On this Thanksgiving, there are several things for all of us Brewers fans to be thankful for.

Since everything started shutting down back in mid-March, it may not seem like there’s been a lot of positive things this year to be thankful for. In terms of the Brewers, a lot of things didn’t go right, but there were a lot things that did.

We should take this time to reflect and be thankful for what we have here in Milwaukee.

Here are five things the Brewers and Brewers fans have to be most thankful for in 2020.

1. A Third Straight Postseason Appearance

You can try to discount the postseason streak all you want. The Brewers barely scraped into the playoffs as the 8th seed with a 29-31 record, getting swept out by the Dodgers. In 2019, the made it as the second Wild Card and lost that game. 2018 was the only year of the three where the Brewers won a postseason game.

But still, this is the first time in franchise history the Brewers have made three consecutive postseasons. Only once before had the Brewers made consecutive postseasons, all the way back in 1981-82.

The Brewers have made the postseason seven times now, and three of them have been in the last three years. That’s nearly half of the franchise’s entire postseason history all happening in the last three years.

If you’re a pessimist, you might think about how sad that is, that they’ve only made the postseason so few times.

But this is a time to be thankful. Think back to the Brewers of the 1990s and of the early 2000s. Those were some awful teams that never even came close to postseason contention. Now Brewers fans are at the point where just being in the Wild Card round is a disappointment.

This isn’t the storied history of the Yankees or the Cardinals, but it’s growth. We’ve grown from a cellar-dwelling team to a team making the postseason three years in a row and it has become expected that they make it, instead of expecting to finish at the bottom of the standings.

That is something to be thankful for.

2. The Timing Of The Christian Yelich Contract Extension

The Brewers held the press conference announcing Christian Yelich‘s contract extension on Friday, March 6th. MLB shut down spring training and the rest of sports shut down on Friday, March 13th.

Just one week later.

If Yelich and the Brewers had taken an extra week or so to agree on a contract extension and it wasn’t done by the time things got shut down, that deal might never have gotten done. Once it became clear the 2020 season, if it happened, would have fewer games and no fans, the Brewers would have known they would be losing a bunch of money in 2020 and the idea of giving Yelich a $215MM extension might no longer be palatable.

In all likelihood, if it didn’t get done in early March, that extension still might not be done. It might not ever have gotten done. This is all pure speculation, of course, but it would be difficult to see the Brewers really pushing for an extension of this magnitude directly after coming out of a season with no fans and almost no income.

The Brewers might have tried to wait until after the 2021 season, when they had more money, to re-engage in extension talks and at that point, Yelich would just be one year away from free agency. Once he’s that close, would Yelich still want to stay or would he want to test the market?

Thankfully, Brewers fans don’t have to worry about those hypotheticals anymore because Yelich already signed his extension. And he did it just in the nick of time. That gives us plenty to be thankful for.

3. Brent Suter

How can you not be thankful that Brent Suter is on the Brewers?

From his Summer Camp impressions of Ed Sedar, to his bullpen party crew, to his somersault down the mound, we all have more joy in our lives this year because of Brent Suter.

Of course, who could forget his role in the Brewers “Back to the Future” spoof?

Brent Suter is a treasure to have on this team.

Be thankful for Brent Suter.