Dan’s Playbook of Thoughts – 4/03/25

We are in the middle of the best time of the sports year. Opening Day in baseball has come and gone, we’re wrapping up college basketball, The Masters, the NFL Draft, and getting ready for NBA and Stanley Cup Playoffs.

So, I’ve got plenty that’s been on my mind!

• I think we’re going to see an epic Final Four and National Championship for both men’s and women’s college basketball. I hope sports fans soak it all in because it doesn’t happen very often that we get these incredibly talented teams all make it to this point.
• Turbo Bats are all the new rage. Honestly, I don’t think Major League Baseball will change any rules surrounding them unless we all of a sudden see home run records fall. But home runs put butts in the seats and get the attention, which in turn means, MONEY! Plus, chicks dig the long ball.
• It’s easy to panic about the Milwaukee Brewers start to the season, but I’m not there. They’re pitching reinforcements are coming very soon. If there’s one concern I do have about the Brewers after the first few games, is that they are showing an inability to hit off of left handed pitching again.
• First impressions of what we saw the first week of the MLB season? The NL West is going to be damn good. Besides the Rockies. They’re going to be the little brother that everyone else picks on.
• Less than three weeks away from the NFL Draft in Green Bay and I still have no good gauge of what the Packers will do with their first pick. But the one position I wouldn’t be surprised if they drafted with their first round pick that would upset fans, is offensive line. And that’s because they have three starters scheduled to be free agents next year and I think they for sure keep Zach Tom, but he’s going to be expensive. So the Packers need cheap talent in that group and the best way to do that is through the draft.
• Take away the basketball side of things, Damian Lillard suffering a blood clot is just awful and you hope it’s nothing that will affect his future. It doesn’t sound like it, but you never know. On the basketball side of things, it looks like another season of the Bucks making a quick exist in the postseason. I think at this rate, next season is going to be crucial for the Giannis and the Bucks to maintain their commitment to each other.
• Daniel Freitag leaving the Badger basketball team is weird. He has done nothing but speak glowingly of the Badgers and now there’s reports that the Badgers kind of ghosted him and that’s why he’s entering the transfer portal. Feels like there’s way more to this story that I’m not sure we’re ever going to get.