Aramis Ramirez to Brewers - 3/$32 + $4M buyout for 2015

[brettac1]

I would rather have Ramirez because I don't think Rollins can hit.

[Ennder]

Put me down as someone who would prefer Aramis over Rollins as well.

[sveumrules]

Rollins implied that we offered more money/guaranteed years but that the difference wasn't significant enough to leave Philly.

[DHonks]

I think his side basically screwed up. They were trying to use the Brewers as leverage to get the Phillies to go 4 years, and instead they drove the Brewers to go to plan B, thus leaving the Phillies to get him for less of a commitment

[Baldkin]

I think his side basically screwed up. They were trying to use the Brewers as leverage to get the Phillies to go 4 years, and instead they drove the Brewers to go to plan B, thus leaving the Phillies to get him for less of a commitment

Rollins got a 4 year deal, the question is, if it will be for 38, 41 or 44 million.

[RWeeksFan23]

Had we signed Rollins, we'd have to give up a first round pick; i'd rather have Ramirez without giving up that first round pick

[dlk9s]

Rollins implied that we offered more money/guaranteed years but that the difference wasn't significant enough to leave Philly.

I heard on MLB Network the other day that the Brewers offered him 4 years.

[RightFieldCoder]

I think Rollins got that little of a deal because he wanted to stay in Philly and the other major SS shoppers (Cardinals, Brewers, Marlins) already made their holiday purchases. If we hadn't made the moves in our IF yet, all we would have done would drive up his price. Philly would probably keep him in the end and we'd be looking at Yuni/McGehee for 12. That is a ticket I cannot get behind.

[pretendastronaut]

This is Rollins' quote from McCalvy's write up;

 

Rollins wanted a four-year deal all along, and he told MLB.com over the weekend he was offered one by Milwaukee. While he didn't mention the Brewers by name at Monday's news conference, he did make several references to "the blue and gold."

 

"I had a four-year deal on the table, but it wasn't necessarily with a team that I could have seen myself playing for," Rollins said.

[fondybrewfan]

This is Rollins' quote from McCalvy's write up;

 

Rollins wanted a four-year deal all along, and he told MLB.com over the weekend he was offered one by Milwaukee. While he didn't mention the Brewers by name at Monday's news conference, he did make several references to "the blue and gold."

 

"I had a four-year deal on the table, but it wasn't necessarily with a team that I could have seen myself playing for," Rollins said.

Turd. I am glad he didn't take the offer. Enjoy growing old with the rest of the Phillies roster.

 

 

[gregmag]

This is Rollins' quote from McCalvy's write up;

 

Rollins wanted a four-year deal all along, and he told MLB.com over the weekend he was offered one by Milwaukee. While he didn't mention the Brewers by name at Monday's news conference, he did make several references to "the blue and gold."

 

"I had a four-year deal on the table, but it wasn't necessarily with a team that I could have seen myself playing for," Rollins said.

Turd. I am glad he didn't take the offer. Enjoy growing old with the rest of the Phillies roster.

Agreed; that quote puts Rollins on my list. It's one thing to decide you don't want to play in Milwaukee, or anywhere else; that's why they call it free agency. It's one thing to reveal that you turned down somebody's offer; nobody (presumably) signed a confidentiality agreement. But it's another thing entirely to boast about a generous offer and then say you couldn't have seen yourself playing for the team. It's basically, "Yeah, she asked me out, but she's ugly."

 

I guess all that money does its work on a guy's ego. But when your skills are declining, and you were just lucky enough to have your number come up at the right time, you might be better off just expressing your gratitude and then shutting up.

[monty57]

I guess all that money does its work on a guy's ego. But when your skills are declining, and you were just lucky enough to have your number come up at the right time, you might be better off just expressing your gratitude and then shutting up.

 

I have a feeling that if someone turned down a bigger offer from another team in order to remain a Brewer, we'd all be pretty happy, and would think he was a pretty stand-up guy to give us a "home-town discount" instead of taking the most money. That said, I'm glad Melvin moved on and signed Gonzalez right away. Other than the Braun deal, I'm pretty happy with this offseason.

[TooLiveBrew]

Rollins has played his entire career with the Phillies -- going back to being a 2nd round pick in 1996. I can see how that might affect how hard it'd be to play for another team.

[monty57]

monty57 wrote:

 

What is worth discussion is that we now have four players (Braun, Weeks, Yo, Ramirez) making a combined $48.25M in 2014. Plus, barring extensions Lucroy, Axford and I believe Gamel will hit arby that year and Morgan and Narveson will be in their final year of arby. We could probably still fit a Greinke extension in there, but things would start to get tight. Less tight than if we had signed Fielder, but still tight.

2014? i guess my thought on this discussion is that is two years out we could also have guys like Tyler Thornberg, Willy Peralta, Taylor Green, Logan Schafer, Caleb Gindl, Taylor Jungmann, Jed Bradley contributing to the the MLB roster, or some combination of these players and other prospects. I also wouldn't be at all shocked if guys like Morgan and/or Narveson are gone by then. Brewers have a great roster Right Now. They have had a lousy team for practically my entire life. I am not that worried about sacrificing 2014 budget a for an opportunity to succeed in 2012, when the window of opportunity seems better than it's been for decades. That is not to say I'm conceding 2014, I think they could be good then too, but I guess I'm not that worried about the 2014 budget right now. Who knows what the budget amount will even be by then. It seems like every year Brewers fans assume this team is still living in the Selig days, like we don't have any money to spend, but check it out the 2012 payroll is going to be $100M.

Yes, 2014. That's only three seasons (two offseasons) away. I too am glad that we should have a pretty good team this year, but that doesn't mean we should forget about the future. We are seemingly moving away from a strategy of developing our own players from the farm to the MLB level. The signing of Ramirez (which blocks Green) and potential signing of Aoki (blocking Schafer and Gindl) is more proof of that. A few years ago, we made the playoffs with a mostly home-grown team. Since then, Lucroy is about the only new home-grown guy who's played any significant role for us, with Gamel probably getting a shot this year. We have a limited budget now (although it seems to be growing a lot this offseason) and will have a limited budget in 2014, when four players will be earning $48.25MM. Adding one rookie every two seasons from the farm won't be enough to keep the budget down.

 

Melvin knows a lot more about our finances than I, but it seems that at some point, we're going to hit a wall if we keep signing high priced FAs and trading our prospects for high-priced veterans. We nearly made the World Series last year, and have a pretty good shot at the division this year. Maybe that's worth the probable sell-off we'll have to have at some point in the future, maybe not.

 

I have faith that Melvin knows what he's doing, but as I said, I do think it's worthy of discussion. Honestly, I think the worries of the 2014 budget will cause us to have a fairly quick trigger finger to have a massive fire sale this year if we're not leading the division come trade deadline, and at the very least having four players making around half your payroll will make it more difficult to extend players like Greinke, and could very well mean that we'll lose 3/5 of our starting rotation after this year. Like you, I think we have some good pitchers coming up, but will we be able to replace Grienke, Marcum and Wolf from our farm and still believe we have any hope of success over the next few years? Or, will we sign a 2nd tier FA pitcher, which has not been Melvin's forte in the past? Or, do we extend Grienke and have around $65MM locked up in five players in 2014 with a relatively weak minor league system trying to fill the other twenty spots? Or, do we trade away more of our farm to keep the MLB team running? All of these options have "warts." I hope it ends up being worth it.

[RockCoCougars]

"I had a four-year deal on the table, but it wasn't necessarily with a team that I could have seen myself playing for," Rollins said.

 

Bullet dodged. If Melvin really did offer Rollins a four year deal, he's certifiable. Though I'd say it's 50/50 that Ramirez will be a bust, it's almost a guarantee that Rollins will not earn his salary. I will say that he's gotten a lot of mileage off his MVP season, which is really the only great one that he's had.

[Menace II Sobriety]

Melvin knows a lot more about our finances than I, but it seems that at some point, we're going to hit a wall if we keep signing high priced FAs and trading our prospects for high-priced veterans. We nearly made the World Series last year, and have a pretty good shot at the division this year. Maybe that's worth the probable sell-off we'll have to have at some point in the future, maybe not.

I agree with all of your post. For a team that won 96 games last year it is amazing that they could have 4 new starters in the field this year. Individually you can look at each piece and see how it could or should be an upgrade, but that is a lot of new pieces to a team that has been hesitant over the last few years to make major changes.

 

This is no longer the team that had all of those home grown players that we rooted for at league minimum. With the way the team is structured currently I would like to work in 1 new position player per year, 1 rp per year and a SP every 2 years. I realize this isn't possible but in theory this would allow you to have control of 6 positional players at a time with 3 being in arbitration and 2-3 starters under team control during their first contracts.

[JohnBriggs12]

FanGraphs has ranked the Brewer signing of Ramirez as the 7th worst transaction in the offseason. To quote FanGraphs: "he's a lousy defender who is headed for his age 34 season ...was basically replacement level in 2010...and blocked off Taylor Green...who could have provided some value at 3B and allowed the Brewers to spend their money upgrading at shortstop or first base".

 

They went on to say he's probably worth the money in 2012 but that "they have locked themselves into declining performance at the position..."

 

Amen to all of that. I couldn't agree more.

[DuWayne Steurer]

Interestingly, Bill James has him putting up a .285/.350/500 slash line, and roto champ a .289/.351/.489 slash line. Zips isn't quite as generous, .278/.340/.476, but no matter how you slice it, he's going to be just fine in the middle of the order.

 

It's certainly debatable that he's blocking Green, and that the money was better spent on SS, but Green's ZIPS slash of .324/.423 isn't exactly awe inspiring either.

 

And the SS's that the money *could* have been spent on have the exact same age and/or injury concerns that Ramirez carries.

[monty57]

I think Ramirez will be fine this year, and we'll have a pretty good offense, especially when Braun's in the middle of it. I like Green, and I think he'll get his opportunities this season when Ramirez and/or Weeks get injured.

 

The worry comes in year two, and especially year three of the contract when an old Ramirez will make around $16MM. I doubt that contract will be tradeable, and I don't think it will go over too well with the fans or ownership if $450k Green ends up starting while $16MM Ramirez is a RH bat off the bench. The contract's signed, so we'll have to hope he stays healthy and productive for a few years.

[xisxisxis]

Interestingly, Bill James has him putting up a .285/.350/500 slash line,

and roto champ a .289/.351/.489 slash line. Zips isn't quite as

generous, .278/.340/.476, but no matter how you slice it, he's going to

be just fine in the middle of the order.

 

Stop with the irrelevant stats. How many RBIs will he get? Not nearly as many as prince and we all know that's the only thing that matters.

[TooLiveBrew]

"was basically replacement level in 2010"

Crazy, you'd think that coming off of a major injury to his shoulder, he would've been firing on all cylinders. What's more relevant is that he rebounded in 2011 back to career norms, showing full recovery from the injury. Not that an injury derailed a player's performance.

RoCo & monty have summed things up nicely imo.

[MVP2110]

Weren't people contemplating the 3rd year of Wolf's deal to. Now some people(atleast I am) are thinking that maybe that 4th year option isn't such a bad idea. Ramirez could definately go that route as well imo. Hes alot more like a wolf then a suppan type signing to me.

[Warning Track Power]

FanGraphs has ranked the Brewer signing of Ramirez as the 7th worst transaction in the offseason. To quote FanGraphs: "he's a lousy defender who is headed for his age 34 season ...was basically replacement level in 2010...and blocked off Taylor Green...who could have provided some value at 3B and allowed the Brewers to spend their money upgrading at shortstop or first base".

 

They went on to say he's probably worth the money in 2012 but that "they have locked themselves into declining performance at the position..."

 

Amen to all of that. I couldn't agree more.

And who would we have spent this money on exactly?

 

SS:

1. Jimmy Rollins: We would have had to have a bigger contract than Ramirez' (3 years $36m) to get Rollins (3 years $38m) out of Philadelphia

2. Jose Reyes: We most certainly would've had to top the 6 years $106 million Miami gave to Reyes.

 

Anyone else who was a FA at SS is on par with Alex Gonzalez.

 

1B:

1. Prince Fielder: I somehow doubt A-Ram's deal precluded us from offering Prince the equivalent Detroit deal. In other words, I doubt that we offered 9 years $178m to Prince and the $36 million we gave to A-Ram made Prince go to Detroit.

2. Albert Pujols: HAHA!

 

So who were we supposed to spend this money on to upgrade SS and 1B?

 

 

[RockCoCougars]

I'm not a huge fan of the Ramirez deal, but the same guy has the following as the best moves (so take his ranking of Ramirez in context).

 

5. Edwin Jackson for $11 million - This is kind of bleh for me, as I don't think he's anything more than a mid rotation guy. Not a bad deal, due to being only one year, but nothing to get excited about either

 

4. Roy Oswalt??? -I guess he's assuming that Oswalt will sign for peanuts somewhere (and finds the Fountain of Youth)

 

3. The Padres trade of Latos - Time will tell, but unless Volquez reverts back to his one good season form, I think the Reds will win. I think I found the origin of all the Yonder Alonso love though...

 

2. Marlins sign Reyes for 9 figures - Two words. Contract year. I'd be willing to bet that he never has another year like 2011 (and he couldn't stay healthy then).

 

1. Cardinals sign Beltran - Older than Ramirez, but I guess that he's not due for a regression? I guess the fact that he did absolutely nothing for the Giants until they fell out of the race, doesn't count?

[Ennder]

I think that article was just terrible. I don't think Aramis is one of the 10 worst deals though, it certainly isn't one of the 10 best either. He is likely a 3.5 win player when healthy so he'll give us 3, 2.5, 2 WAR or something around there. 7.5 WAR is worth around $37.5M. They pretty much paid him exactly his value. Even if we keep him the 4th year and he drops to 1.5 WAR that year isn't too bad. Obviously he could age better than -0.5 WAR per season in which case we gain value or he could get hurt and tank his value so the deal can easily go either way. I would have liked 3 years and like $32M myself but this deal is hardly terrible.

 

Next add in the fact that we are probably a bubble team and the value of a win grows as you approach the playoffs and as long as we stay in that might make the playoff range he is the type of move that you can afford to overpay for.