On Monday, April 4th, the gates of America’s national past time will once again open up to reveal the beacon of light that will guide us into summer bliss and beyond. In downtown Milwaukee, grounds crews mow outfield grass, attendants ready the home clubhouse, vendors prepare their brat stands, a mustached mascot tests out a massive yellow slide, five guys in sausage costumes finish up their rigorous training regimen, and a fresh-faced Milwaukee Brewers team prepares to hurl themselves headlong into the jaws of the most fearsome beast in baseball—the National League Central division.

Now this may sound like a gruesome scene from which you will want to divert your eyes to avoid emotional scarring, but I am here to tell you just the opposite. In fact, I will go as far as to say that if you do not bail on the Brew Crew and their 2016 season, you will be able to salvage a unique, relaxing, and enjoyable year of fandom that will ultimately bring you closer to the organization as a whole, and make their rise to success down the road all the more sweeter.

To understand where I am coming from you must understand my background in writing this. I was born and raised in Philadelphia as an avid sports fan (I know, pray for me if you get the chance, it’s been pretty rough), and despite adopting a keen interest in all Wisconsin teams since moving here, the special unshakable keystone of my sporting heart has remained devoted to the Philadelphia Phillies. I grew up with them toiling towards the bottom of the NL East, watched them build a new stadium, cultivate a delectable talent base, and rise to contention from quite literally the ground up. Their homegrown core led them to a five year run of dominance and national relevance, but then suffered through a two-year period of delusional decline and limited success. In 2015, the delusion gave way and management decided to blow up the whole operation and start again from the foundation. This resulted in a league worst 63-99 record. Now that you know that boring tidbit about my sports-obsessed life, here’s where the Brewers come back in:

The recent paths of the two franchises share staggering similarities. The Brewers were quite terrible from 1993-2006, then contended in some form from 2007 to 2011 during the Ryan Braun-Prince Fielder-era, then experienced the same agonizing fight against the quicksand of mediocrity that the Phillies did. Now, this season, they are the ones who have decided to blow it up, and are doing so while every team in the division around them is trending upward. The two ball clubs are on identical cycles, just one year apart. The Brewers 2016 campaign will essentially be the Phillies 2015 campaign, a campaign in which I invested hesitantly and ended up honestly enjoying as much the any sports season in my memory. If you can power through your fears and support your Brewers in their inevitably losing efforts of 2016, I can guarantee from experience the same for you, and can pinpoint the reasons why.

Reason #1: The Brewers will still win a lot of games…

Yeah, I know they will lose way more. They may even lose over 100. Don’t think about that though. Think about the fact that they will, in all likelihood, win at least 60. 60 wins! That’s a crap load of wins! Heck, the Packers haven’t won that many games in the last 5 years combined and we all worship them! This Brewers season will be 6 times better than the Packers’ 2010 Super Bowl season, you have to be excited for that!

I’m sorry, please stay with me. Underneath this bevy of logical fallacies that I have just presented to you lies a very real point. The thrill of winning is why we love sports, and few things bring more joy to someone than watching a team that they are emotionally entwined with win a sporting event. Baseball offers legitimate opportunity for this every single night because of the sheer volume of games and the fact that nobody on a baseball diamond is unbeatable. The amount of pure exultant triumph that I was able to enjoy through watching my god-awful Phillies last year was wonderful.

I saw a ragtag bunch of mediocre prospects and journeymen play the role of conquerers in back-to-back sweeps at the hallowed grounds of Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium. I saw Aaron Altherr and Cameron Rupp—exactly, you’ve never heard of them—each hit three-run bombs off of the untouchable Jacob deGrom and chase him from a game after just two short innings. I saw an order in which not a single person was hitting above .240 tag the flame-throwing Aroldis Chapman for four ninth-inning runs en route to an exhilarating walk-off win.

By not allowing these moments to be shrouded in the depressing veil of losing that surrounded them, I allowed myself to revel in uplifting experience after uplifting experience, the types of which you cannot even relate to the monotony of a winning season or the anguish of a season mired in averageness.

Reason #2: You’ll get to say some welcome goodbyes

I’ll do away with the veiled shots and get straight to the point. Ryan Braun is a stain on the entire Milwaukee Brewers franchise. Maintaining association to him means perpetuating the national perception that all of the organization’s recent success and current existence is tainted by Braun’s cheating, trust-breaching, and bold-faced lying. Although still one of the top bats at the corner outfield position, Braun will never be separated from his egregious transgressions that stole the 2011 NL MVP award and provided the baseball world with an infuriating flashback to the steroid era. The Brewers cannot truly label their new start as “fresh” until they can remove that number-8-shaped stain from their roster.

Outside of the moral argument, offloading Braun is clearly an advantageous baseball move and will inevitably happen at some point this year. He’s 32 years old, already past his prime in terms of production, and is owed a whopping $105 million over the next five years. Obviously no team will be wiling to take on that whole contract—although the New York Yankees have proven people like me wrong before—but if Braun is contributing similar splits at the plate as he did last year (.285/.356/.854), a contender will certainly look into eating up a large chunk of his salary and giving up some top prospects to add his bat to the middle of their order in a playoff push.

Purely baseball-wise, the Phillies experienced these types of trades with Cole Hamels, Chase Utley, Ben Revere, and Jonathan Papelbon. Although the departure of beloved stars (not Papelbon, he was and is the devil) was tough to take, the excitement over new crops of prospects, salary cap freedom, and new opportunities for younger guys outweighed the nostalgia.

Outside of Braun, look for potentially productive veterans like Jonathan Lucroy, Matt Garza, or any other pitcher having an above-average year to be moved with an eye towards the future, and relish the benefits that you get in return.

Reason #3: You’ll still get to watch your favorite players in the playoffs

When these types of trades occur, they occur 9 times out of 10 with a team that ends up in the playoffs. The MLB playoffs are the most exciting playoffs in pro sports, and it can be tough when your team has no shot of making it, but you can retain some of that passionate rooting interest through your stars that have moved to greener pastures. Last year, I fervently cheered on former-Phillies Hamels, Utley, Revere, Jimmy Rollins and Jake Diekman as their new teams fought for October glory. It was all the hope and happiness of success without any of the misery of failure, and I loved it.

This year, you can do the same for Lucroy and Braun (if you’re about that life, which I hope you aren’t) as they indirectly represent your beloved Brew Crew in crucial postseason at-bats.

Reason #4: The birth of a new star

Witnessing the origins of stardom in baseball is unlike any other sport. In basketball, football and hockey, a big-time prospect is watched by the eyes of every fan on national TV from the time he graduates high school to the time he is a professional star. When a stud enters his league through the draft, there is intrigue but no mystery. Guys like Jameis Winston, Andrew Wiggins, or Sidney Crosby are already better known than 90% of their new peers before they have set foot in a professional arena. In baseball it is much different.

As a highly-rated prospect works his way up through your team’s Minor League farm system, you mostly hear but don’t see. For years, whispers infiltrate your ears about the super-human speed, picturesque swing, cannon arm, or staggering power that a guy in your system possesses. As he slowly creeps up from rookie ball to Single-A to Double-A, tantalizing updates about his soaring OPS or rapidly multiplying stolen base totals catch your eye in the corner of your local paper. As he reaches the precipice of The Show, the occasional highlight of a diving stop, a mammoth home-run, or a 5-for-5 night emerges. The suspense builds to an excruciating level, and then one day out of nowhere, during your team’s woeful strife, he is sitting there in the middle of the lineup card. Thus begins the tale of a city’s new hero, and you are hooked to every second of it.

Last year, that tale for the Phillies began with rookie third-baseman Maikel Franco. His tantalizing talent at the age of 21 in the heart of the order made the league’s worst team a must-watch spectacle for me every night.

This year, you Brewers fans have a shortstop by the name of Orlando Arcia to look forward to, and he appears to be Franco and then some. He’s 21, outstanding defensively, lightning quick on the base paths, hits consistently above .300, has home-run power, and the maturity and discipline at the plate of a big-league vet. He’s starting the year down in Double-A, but look for him to take over for Jonathan Villar as the Brewers’ starting shortstop by the time the all-star break comes around. Scouts say he has the potential to develop into an everyday lead-off hitter as early as the middle of this season, and become so much more as he embarks on a long career.

If you commit yourself to this season you could witness every second of Arcia’s electric rise to MLB prominence. If you do just that, imagine how much sweeter and validating it will feel when that very same kid who you saw become a man this season is leading the Brewers to the playoffs year after year down the road, and maybe even to their first ever world championship. I know that is premature, but my point is that you won’t want to miss the origins of what could be something really special.

Reason #5: Baseball is fun, try to make it to as many games as possible

Regardless of the outcome of competition, a day out at the ballgame never fails to delight. Whether it is with your parents, kids, friends, family, teammates or coworkers, head down to Miller Park as many times as you can this year. Chow down on some brats, drink some beer, place friendly wagers on the sausage race, heckle opposing players, make new friends, and most of all, enjoy the sport for what it is. There is no more picturesque sight than looking down on a sunlit baseball diamond from way up in the crowd, and nothing better than seeing the best baseball in the world being played on top of it.

Go cheer on the Brewers, but also utilize the tremendous privilege of playing in the NL Central to go see the Cubs, Cardinals, Pirates, and the once-in-a-generation players that they have in their ranks. Last year at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, I was able to see both a Bryce Harper and a Giancarlo Stanton home run, sights that I will surely tell my grandkids about one day. You won’t want to miss that same experience with the likes of Kris Bryant and Andrew McCutchen.

Whatever reason best compels you to head to Milwaukee for a ball game this summer, use that reason to go to as many as you can. I guarantee you will not regret it. I certainly didn’t last year.