After another long and unforgiving winter, spring has sprung. With the new season comes the return of baseball. The crack of the bat! The smell of the grass! A ramshackle squad likely to lose about 100 games! Those are but a few of the things Brewers fans can look forward to this season. However, unlike the team’s recent lackluster campaigns, new general manager David Stearns has made no secret of his plan to dismantle the team and rebuild it using a blueprint for long-term success. Still, what’s left of the Milwaukee Brewers must take the field in 2016. But it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, there’s a sort of newfound excitement and optimism surrounding the organization that harkens back to the early 2000s.

Ramie Makhlouf—co-host of “The Big Show” on 105.7 The Fan—is no stranger to this process. The lifelong Cubs fan saw a similar plan finally begin to pay off last season. The sports talk radio personality and stand-up comedian came to Milwaukee Record headquarters to tell host Tyler Maas his 2016 Brewers predictions, draw parallels between Chicago and Milwaukee’s rebuilds, and discuss the ups and downs of making something he loves into his career.

As always, this episode is brought to you by our friends at Ale Asylum. Music in this episode comes courtesy of Piles (“Blue Glue”) and WORK (“Something Happened What Is It”). Subscribe to On The Record via iTunes or Stitcher (for free!).