Brewers Lose Possible “Easy Wins” With MLB’s Cancellation of Games

Milwaukee Brewers fans, not to mention every other team’s, dreaded that a certain moment would come ever since the offseason began. Sadly, that moment came right around 4pm CST on March 1st, 2022.

The first set of games for the 2022 MLB season were cancelled.

The league had originally set Monday, February 28th as the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement to be reached without any regular season games being cancelled. Though that deadline passed without an agreement, negotiations finally appeared to be headed in the right direction, and the deadline was pushed forward a day.

Perhaps Brewers fans would soon get to finally read some news about the upcoming season, see the team go out and make some moves, and look forward to some spring training games.

Unfortunately, negotiations did not continue to progress as everybody hoped earlier today. So, at 4pm, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred held a press conference where he announced that the first two series of the 2022 season would be cancelled, and the lockout would continue.

Every baseball fan is hoping that these will be the only games taken off of the schedules. In the case of the Milwaukee Brewers, their fans now potentially miss the chance to see their favorite team get out to a hot start in 2022.

Cancelling the first two series of 2022 may have deprived the Brewers a chance at some early “easy” wins.

Last season, the Brewers had the task of opening up their season against a 2020 divisional champion in the Minnesota Twins. This year, that opponent was hopefully going to be less daunting as the Arizona Diamondbacks were coming to town for Opening Day.

2021 was an abysmal year for the Diamondbacks. At 52-110, they tied for the worst record in all of MLB with the Baltimore Orioles while their -214 run differential was third worst, behind just the Orioles (-297) and the familiar Pittsburgh Pirates (-224).

To be fair, expectations might be a little higher for Arizona in 2022. FanGraphs’ ZiPS projections has the team projected to finish with a 72-90 record, 4th in the NL West. That probably didn’t keep most Brewers fans from dreaming of a sweep to start the 2022 season, though.

As easy as the first series appeared, however, the second series looked to be much more of a challenge, at first glance anyway. That’s when the San Francisco Giants, the owner of 2021’s best record at 107-55, were coming to town.

The 2022 iteration, though, is a different looking one than the version the Brewers took four of seven games from last year. Gone is ace pitcher Kevin Gausman, fellow starter Johnny Cueto, free agent pickup Kris Bryant, and the recently retired, potential future Hall of Famer, Buster Posey.

As a result, those ZiPS projections over at FanGraphs have the Giants projected as an 81-81 team as they currently stand. The likelihood that San Francisco is done adding players for 2022 is low, but a series win still may have been more achievable than originally thought.

But all of that is now moot, and Brewers fans will now be praying, for similar reasons, that additional games don’t get cancelled. Five of the seven other series in April featured games against the Orioles, Pirates, and Chicago Cubs – three teams that had losing records of their own in 2021.

Losing a chance at “easy wins” would be a tough pill to swallow for Milwaukee Brewers fans. But let’s be honest, just knowing that any number of games are being played in 2022 will be sweet to hear, once we actually know there’s a season to be played.