Brewers win negotiating rights to Japanese OF Norichika Aoki for $2.5 million. Latest: signs 2-yr deal

[monty57]

Pierre was also signed to a $10MM+ / year contract. It's one thing to pay a couple of million a year for Pierre's career line of .296 avg / .345 OBP / .363 SLG / .708 OPS with good CF defense. I would not be happy if we signed someone for $10MM/year and he put up that line. If the contract is taken out of the equation, I agree that Pierre gets a bad rap, especially from a group that normally preaches the importance of OBP over SLG.

 

If we are able to sign Aoki to a reasonable deal, and he is able to put up a .350+ OBP, batting against RHP & LHP, while playing good defense, then he will be valuable to this team. He could fill in for Braun to start the year, and it's not a bad thing to have an excess of talent when Braun returns. Someone could get hurt, or Morgan or Aoki could be traded for a position of greater need.

[brettac1]

The amount of praise and whatnot that Juan Pierre gets/got from color commentators and other journalists was a big part of the backlash. In turn, he got a ridiculous deal that was too high. He was really over-rated, and that's why there were Pierre "haters", such as myself. He was generally never completely terrible, but he should have been paid a lot less.

[gregmag]

I think there's a little bit of revisionist history going on in this discussion of Pierre. As Brettac said, part of the criticism of Pierre was backlash against his being overpaid and overrated. It's definitely appropriate to step back from that and say, yes indeed, he had value when he was at his best. Hitting over .300 and playing CF, from 2001 through 2004, he had a lot of value. Of course, the first two of those years were in Colorado, so you have to discount for that some.

 

The problem is when people start saying things like "if he gets 200 hits, then he must be good," or "if he gets 50 steals, then he must be good." In 2006, Juan Pierre had 204 hits and 58 steals, which sounds great. But he didn't do anything else even passably well offensively. He led the league in ABs with 699, which means he took 495 outs to get his 204 hits -- I'd be stunned if that 495 didn't lead the league. So he hit only .292, which is good, of course, but not good enough to be useful if a guy does nothing else. Pierre led the league in CS, with 20, which wiped out the most of the value of his 58 steals. He walked only 32 times, which is plain pathetic, so his OBP was only .330. He had one of his best power years, but his ISO was still under .100. So all he did, offensively, was hit .292 with virtually no secondary value while using up a huge percentage of his team's offensive opportunities. Pierre in 2006 did not help his team put runs on the board.

 

Then by 2008 he was starting to play LF, and he was getting hurt. The last two years he's been healthy, but he's hit in the .270s while playing LF full-time. But some people still say "look at all those hits and steals!" That's why Pierre gets a "bad rap" -- because at his best he was a borderline all-star, but that ended in after a few years, in 2004, and since then he's been horrendously overrated and overpaid.

[Baldkin]

He signed a 5 year 44 million dollar deal. If the Brewers would've signed him to that deal, people would've wanted Melvin crucified. Heck, people want to run Doug out of town for Cory Hart, who is about 2x the player Pierre is.

[AdvantageSchneider]

So how much of a spike in attendance and revenue will we see if we sign this guy?

 

 

http://www.physorg.com/news184955531.html

[Schlitz001]

So how much of a spike in attendance and revenue will we see if we sign this guy?

 

 

http://www.physorg.com/news184955531.html

I wish they would have provided a link to that study, because it seems to me like a classic case of "correlation does not imply causation". Winning drives ticket sales, and a lot of times good teams are built by expanding and bringing in talent from around the world. But who knows, maybe if the Brewers bring in the entire It's a Small World ride, attendance will go through the roof.

[monty57]

Winning drives ticket sales

 

It's more complex than that, or else the Tampa Bay Rays would sell out every game. Revise that to say "a team's record generally plays a significant factor in ticket sales" and you would be more correct. That said, I too would like to see the underlying data used, the article makes it sound like a pretty simple economic model, which didn't factor in anything other than team revenue and the number of foreign-born players. That wouldn't hold much credibility, as anyone could see that there's more to the difference between the Yankees' and Royals' team revenues than simply the number of foreign-born players on the roster.

 

Problems I see right off the bat with the article:

 

From the article: "The preference peaked in 2000 when each international player added approximately $595,632 to ticket sales, the study showed"

 

Dollars from ticket sales seems like a poor way to judge a cause / effect relationship. The Brewers sold 3MM tickets last year and plan on raising ticket prices and are still selling them at a record pace. If they sign Aoki, this study would state that Aoki was the reason we bring in more $ in ticket sales next year, when the rise would have likely occured whether he was signed or not

 

fans showed a prejudice against international players

 

Nothing in this study could "show prejudice." Do they have pictures of people with signs containing racial slurs? Were people throwing rocks? Just my opinion, but when I see the term "shows prejudice" regarding a study which doesn't actually "show prejudice," then I start to believe that the authors may be trying to slant the article to show their own prejudices.

 

The average MLB team that season showed 10.8 foreign-born players on its roster and garnered an average of $6 million in additional revenue, the paper said.

 

Versus what? Did they have zero foreign-born players and then suddenly put 10.8 foreign-born players on the team? Does inflation or economic conditions have any effect when comparing 1985 to 2000?

 

That season, some teams fielded as many as 14 and as few as seven international players, the paper said. This translated into a $4 million difference in revenue among teams with the most and least number of international players.

 

Does he mean "teams ranged from seven to 14 international players," or "one team had between seven and 14 international players on the roster throughout the year"? Could the Yankees having 14 foreign-born players garner more revenue than the Rays with 7 foreign-born players? In a subset of 30 teams with 25-man rosters, with billions of dollars of revenue, $4MM in revenue seems like a pretty insignificant amount, even if I could figure out the exactl meaning of the poorly written sentence.

 

University of Michigan research also suggests that owners' profits could increase by recruiting more international players.

 

Are we talking profits or revenue? The whole article discusses revenue, not profit. Maybe setting up international facilities and paying $50MM posting fees could eat up a little of that $4MM revenue increase they're touting.

 

The study only looked at revenue from ticket sales but if the same effect happens on television, the revenue increases would be even greater.

 

Maybe they could have actually looked at data rather than saying "if." As I mentioned earlier, revenue from ticket sales is probably not a good measuring stick, particularly if they are using nominal versus real (inflation-adjusted) data... something the article doesn't note. If a ticket cost $10 in 1985 and the same ticket cost $20 in 2005, then it should be a pretty reasonable conclusion that the team would generate more nominal revenue in ticket sales in 2005, even if they sell less tickets. Plus, some teams have added seats, and some have new stadiums, factors which don't seem to matter in this study.

 

"The one thing that I thought was kind of interesting is it seemed like American sports are trying to get more international players and a more international audience, but in Europe and even in Canada they seem to be trying to get more domestic players," Winfree said, referring to policies that limit the number of foreign-born players in certain sports, such as football in Canada or soccer in Europe.

 

This may explain partly why American fans like international players - because they're still a novelty, Winfree said.

 

Sounds kind of like opinion there Mr Winfree. Maybe you could look at revenue from ticket sales in Europe and Canada and see if they rose during the massive economic boom from 1985-2000.

 

 

 

I should note that the article was written by someone other than the authors of the study. Since the authors were college professors, and not 10-year-olds learning Excel, I'd hope that they used something more complex than the article showed. I'm sure there would be some boost from signing a foreign-born player, and a good economic study would help Melvin determine whether there may be some off-the-field benefits of signing Aoki.

[JohnBriggs12]

"Nothing in this study could "show prejudice"

 

Were you not on here reading the over the top ranting over Cuban SS Yuni Betancourt? You think if his name was Joe Smith from Omaha, that the attacks on him would be so personal?

Or if Clint Barmes were Juan Gomez, do you actually think fans would consider him to be a huge upgrade?

 

Over the years I've noticed that Latin players the Brewers have had are never quite embraced like their American counterparts. JJ Hardy was awful his rookie year but still considered a hope for the future and a fan favorite. On the other hand people were quick to point out Escobar's limitations before he even became the starting SS.

[monty57]

Yovanni Gallardo is pretty well liked, but I wasn't saying that there are no prejudices in baseball or in life in general. What I was saying was that a study of increases/decreases in ticket revenue in MLB would have an awfully hard time proving that baseball fans are racist. When an author uses a study which doesn't prove something, and then uses the phrase "fans showed a prejudice against international players," I believe the author may have an underlying motive.

 

Note the final paragraph of the article:

 

The paper, "Discrimination and Demand: The Effect of International Players on Attendance in Major League Baseball" is set to appear in the March issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly.

 

I think maybe they're trying to play on an emotional response (racial tension) in order to sell their wares. As I stated, there's probably an increase in fans when a player from a foreign country signs with a particular team... just look at the Japanese media which follows some of their star players, there has to be increased viewership and merchandise sales. The linked article just seems to have some flaws.

[Funketown]

"Nothing in this study could "show prejudice"

 

Were you not on here reading the over the top ranting over Cuban SS Yuni Betancourt? You think if his name was Joe Smith from Omaha, that the attacks on him would be so personal?

Or if Clint Barmes were Juan Gomez, do you actually think fans would consider him to be a huge upgrade?

 

Over the years I've noticed that Latin players the Brewers have had are never quite embraced like their American counterparts. JJ Hardy was awful his rookie year but still considered a hope for the future and a fan favorite. On the other hand people were quick to point out Escobar's limitations before he even became the starting SS.

I think that can be attributed more to the "You can't walk off the island" approach of a lot of latin players. Jeff Francoeur hears a lot of the same garbage as Yuni, but he's certainly not Latin American.

[RightFieldCoder]

Were you not on here reading the over the top ranting over Cuban SS Yuni Betancourt? You think if his name was Joe Smith from Omaha, that the attacks on him would be so personal?

Yes and yes.

Or if Clint Barmes were Juan Gomez, do you actually think fans would consider him to be a huge upgrade?

I hope we don't sign guys with last names like Gonzalez or Izturis to play short. I hope we don't replace white boy McGehee with someone named Ramirez. I was upset when we traded for a pitcher named Rodriguez last year. He did nothing for us.

Over the years I've noticed that Latin players the Brewers have had are never quite embraced like their American counterparts. JJ Hardy was awful his rookie year but still considered a hope for the future and a fan favorite. On the other hand people were quick to point out Escobar's limitations before he even became the starting SS.

We embraced JJ because of the shortstop(s) that came before him. Like the white Counsell. We were coming off more than a decade of losing seasons, so we weren't going to be more upset with players who had upsides.

Escobar was replacing an offensively struggling All Star SS, yet had shown nothing in his career that he'd be anything besides a defense only SS. We were expecting to compete for the playoffs every year when this happened. This is why some wanted to stay with JJ longer, or at least not trade him when his value was at an all time low.

[JohnBriggs12]

Yovanni Gallardo attended HS in Ft. Worth so it's a stretch to say he's a foreign player and he's also the ace of the staff. Still, how many people do you see with Greinke jerseys compared to Gallardo? Prejudice shows up more with role type players. The Betancourt stuff was disgraceful. Yeah he has limitations as a player. Most do. But the vile directed toward him (by some, not all) was way out of proportion to his level of play or to any negative effect it was having on a franchise record breaking team that won 96 games.

[thumperden]

I would've liked to have seen the study focus on the effect of Japanese players only in respect to ticket sales/revenue. The Japanese effect is more pronounced than, say a Canadian...no offense, eh!

[brettac1]

I feel like I hurled the same amount of invective at Betancourt as I did with Suppan, McGehee, Kendall, Clark, Mench, Moeller, or any other white guy that sucked. I don't care if a guy is white, black, purple, or green... If you suck, you suck.

[homer]

I would hate Betancourt even more if his name was Joe Smith.

[homer]

I feel like I hurled the same amount of invective at Betancourt as I did with Suppan, McGehee, Kendall, Clark, Mench, Moeller, or any other white guy that sucked. I don't care if a guy is white, black, purple, or green... If you suck, you suck.

This.

 

 

Are we saying that if Suppan was named Juan Sanchez that we would have stalked him with pitchforks and torches?

[gregmag]

"Nothing in this study could "show prejudice"

 

Were you not on here reading the over the top ranting over Cuban SS Yuni Betancourt? You think if his name was Joe Smith from Omaha, that the attacks on him would be so personal?

Or if Clint Barmes were Juan Gomez, do you actually think fans would consider him to be a huge upgrade?

 

Over the years I've noticed that Latin players the Brewers have had are never quite embraced like their American counterparts. JJ Hardy was awful his rookie year but still considered a hope for the future and a fan favorite. On the other hand people were quick to point out Escobar's limitations before he even became the starting SS.

I'm hypersensitive to what I consider signs of racial bias, maybe to a fault. I've posted here on multiple occasions when I've perceived bias against African-American and Latino players. So I may just be missing something, but I feel like I'm on pretty solid ground when I say that this is the single most baseless post I've ever read on Brewerfan. It especially annoys me because thoughtless, indefensible accusations of racial bias just make it easier for people to deny racial bias when it actually happens.

 

It feels silly to have to point any of this out, but Clint Barmes pretty much is Alex Gonzalez, and comments here have (rightfully) portrayed both as mediocre players who represent substantial upgrades over the awful Yuni Betancourt. As for Hardy and Escobar, people had more faith in Hardy's offense because he hit better in the minors than Escobar did, and we were in a rebuilding mode where we were pretty jazzed about all of our young players. I'm one who has been dubious about Escobar, because of his lack of secondary offensive skills even in his better seasons, and so far he has shown no signs of developing into an MLB hitter. OTOH, people around here, myself included, can get overexcited about players who hit in the minors and don't develop. What was that one fan favorite's name . . . oh, yeah: Hernan Irribarren.

 

I get that you've chosen to define yourself as a martyr for the honor of Yuni Betancourt, and that you feel that choice entitles you to question the integrity and character of anyone who dares to criticize him, as you have done over and over again. But this one really crosses the line.

[danzig6767]

"Nothing in this study could "show prejudice"

 

Were you not on here reading the over the top ranting over Cuban SS Yuni Betancourt? You think if his name was Joe Smith from Omaha, that the attacks on him would be so personal?

Or if Clint Barmes were Juan Gomez, do you actually think fans would consider him to be a huge upgrade?

 

Over the years I've noticed that Latin players the Brewers have had are never quite embraced like their American counterparts. JJ Hardy was awful his rookie year but still considered a hope for the future and a fan favorite. On the other hand people were quick to point out Escobar's limitations before he even became the starting SS.

Half of the reason that Hardy became such a fan favorite was 16-25ish year old girls who wanted either JJ to date them or just get in bed them. I wouldn't doubt if roughly 75 percent of JJ Hardy jersey sales came from females.

 

As for this nonsense about fans hating Yuni because he was a Latin player, but it wouldn't have happened if he was white, did you lose the ability to read here when a white guy like Suppan was stinking up the joint? Forget to read the threads last year blasting McGehee and blasting Melvin for not replacing Casey? The hate thrown at Loe when he was blowing leads left and right? The hate most fans here had for signing Kotsay and Roenicke ever playing Kotsay in CF over the black Morgan or the Latin Gomez? In fact, it was you that continually ran to the defense of Doug signing Kotsay from the many people you claimed were unfair in their treatment of Kotsay.

 

With the silly Barmes/Juan Gomez reference you made, did you forget to read the thread about Doug signing the Latin shortstop Alex Gonzalez instead of Barmes, where the vast majority preferred getting Gonzalez over Barmes?

 

Yovanni Gallardo attended HS in Ft. Worth so it's a stretch to say he's a

foreign player and he's also the ace of the staff. Still, how many

people do you see with Greinke jerseys compared to Gallardo?

Come on, are you really that naive as to why there were so many Greinke jerseys bought? Forget the sea of Sabbathia jerseys bought after Doug traded for CC?

 

Anytime a team trades for or signs a big name player, especially in a small market, fans will tend to rush out and buy their jerseys. I still remember the thread immediately after Greinke was acquired, many people here mentioned how they couldn't wait to get a Greinke jersey. Those same fans weren't in a rush though to buy a Marcum jersey after his trade and if you had a clue about the nature of many sports fans you would understand why. Greinke was a recent CY Young winner who waived a no-trade clause specifically to come to Milwaukee, that's always going to generate massive excitement. Had it been say Felix Hernandez instead of Greinke that Melvin had traded for, you'd have to be nuts to think that there wouldn't have been a similar rush by Brewers fans to go out and buy King Felix jerseys, just as fans bought tons of Sabbathia jerseys, not Ben Sheets or Dave Bush jerseys.

 

All it came down to was that Betancourt sucked big time before Melvin foolishly acquired Yuni and he sucked for the Brewers. The anger was just as much at Melvin for being dumb enough to ignore all the stats, views of people in baseball media, and proclamations of people who were stuck watching Betancourt play for them. Yet, just because you chose to be one of the few people following baseball who thinks Yuni isn't terrible as a starting shortstop, it must be racial bias that caused the loathing of his place on the Brewers roster? Please. Go to a Royals forum and see how their fans felt about Betancourt while he was their starting SS and now that he's back. They wanted to throw a parade when Yuni was traded. Then again, in your mind, they must be clouded by racial bias also and don't like Latin players.

[Ennder]

Hardy was embraced because of the big finish he had to his season more than anything else. Unless the player acts like a tool I don't even pay attention to his race and I embraced Hardy and not Escobar. Though I'd rather have either of them than Gomez or Betancourt.

[brettac1]

From Haudricourt:

 

I just spoke via telephone with Brewers general manager Doug Melvin about the workout Sunday that the team held for Japanese outfielder Norichika Aoki in Phoenix.

 

Melvin said he and his staff have not yet decided whether to pursue signing Aoki.

 

"We're still in internal discussions," said Melvin, who was getting ready to return to Milwaukee. "We'll discuss it over the next few days to see if he's a fit for us."

 

The Brewers won the right to negotiate with Aoki by posting a winning bid of $2.5 million with the Yakult Swallows, for whom he has played in Japan. The Brewers held an 11 a.m. workout at their Maryvale training facility to get their first in-person look at Aoki, who did fielding and throwing drills from center field, took batting practice and ran the bases.

 

Melvin was accompanied by manager Ron Roenicke, coaches Jerry and Johnny Narron, director of pro scouting Zack Manasian and special assistant Dick Groch. Team principal owner Mark Attanasio also flew in from Los Angeles to monitor the proceedings.

 

Melvin declined to get into Aoki's skills in particular other than to say, "It was a good workout. He's probably the kind of player you'd expect, coming from Japan."

 

Aoki was accompanied by a trainer, translator and agent Nez Balelo, who is representing him. The Brewers have until 4 p.m. CST on Jan. 17 to sign Aoki. Otherwise, they will have their posting bid refunded and Aoki returns to Japan.

 

Melvin said he and his staff would make a final decision later in the week as to whether to pursue signing Aoki.

 

"We'll determine that in the next few days," he said. "We've got to make sure he's the right fit. We liked him. He has a good personality. It's just difficult to tell exactly how the Japanese performance will translate into play in the United States.

 

"We'll do more analysis, discuss his skills and decide if we want to make a proposal."

 

Melvin said there was no discussion as to what kind of offer the Brewers would make should they decide to try to sign Aoki. The player might want more than a one-year deal to leave Japan.

[Patrick425]

The feeling I get from that is that the Brewers will not make him an offer.

[brettac1]

Yeah, that was how I read it as well.

[joepepsi]

The payroll must be stretched to its limit. They're already a couple million bucks invested in Aoki, and presumably will have to fork over another few million. Could it be his skill set just isn't impressive enough to justify the investment? Maybe they're thinking it's more prudent to bring up one of the young OF'ers to ride the bench or offer an NRI to a grizzled vet, and just save the couple of million.

 

It sounds like Aoki isn't enough of a difference maker to be worth the risk.

[patrickgpe]

The feeling I get from that is that the Brewers will not make him an offer.

i agree, the problem is that if melvin believes that braun will get a 50 game suspension, there aren't many other in house options to help the brewers in april and may. Aoki would atleast be able to help in left and still allow gomez and morgan to platoon in center.

[monty57]

Melvin said he and his staff have not yet decided whether to pursue signing Aoki.

 

"We're still in internal discussions," said Melvin, who was getting ready to return to Milwaukee. "We'll discuss it over the next few days to see if he's a fit for us."

 

The Brewers won the right to negotiate with Aoki by posting a winning bid of $2.5 million with the Yakult Swallows, for whom he has played in Japan. The Brewers held an 11 a.m. workout at their Maryvale training facility to get their first in-person look at Aoki, who did fielding and throwing drills from center field, took batting practice and ran the bases.

 

 

This just isn't the type of thing to do to a person. If you didn't think you were going to "pursue signing Aoki," then don't post a bid. Aoki made the tough decision to uproot his whole life and play in America, and now there's a good chance he'll have to wait a year just because Melvin decided on a whim to post an offer he probably wasn't going to act on. To throw a little salt on the wound, they made him fly all the way to Arizona for a tryout, which apparently won't factor much into the ultimate decision. There's nothing Aoki can do about it, because that's the way the system's set up, but not a good way to treat a person.