Bud bristles a lot actually, but I still think he's a (mild) improvement over Weiss, who never got fired up over anything and wasn't good at managing the pitching staff. 

Expectations are a funny thing. I would have been okay with 81-81 going into the season, but in a very down year for the NL (only three really good teams) and after a 47-26 start, .500 would now feel like an epic failure--especially since we don't know if we'll be keeping LaMahieu, Blackmon or Arenado beyond 2018 or '19.