The Kyle Lohse Love/Hate Thread

[xisxisxis]

The funny thing is that the brewers have spent 70-75% of the cost of Greinke ( on a per year basis) by extending Gomez and signing Lohse. I advocated in the offseason that we should either go for Greinke or trade for Haren or another pitcher with top of the rotation potential instead of a couple years of a mediocre pitcher. While neither of these deals is horrible (no I don't think it kills us to sign Lohse), they clearly show an organization that isn't smart and that doesn't have a plan. That's fine if you have deep pockets like big market teams, but won't do for the smallest market in baseball. We have to be smart and ahead of the curve instead of stupid and following the crowd. A few years ago it was argued by several here we were following the twins model. I just have a bad feeling that might be too true and we can see where that has taken them......

[splitterpfj]

Lohse will open the season on the active roster, Melvin says they may carry 13 pitchers to open the season, until Lohse is at full speed.

[RockCoCougars]

The more that I think about this, the madder I get. Why do the Brewers always seem to sign the guys that no one else wants?I've seen the whole "he's better than Soup ever was" argument, but you have to also factor in that he is two years older than Suppan was when he signed. Bottom line, I would have been upset if they would have signed him to a one year deal. The fact that they gave him three is mindblowing to me. This is the epitome of a low reward high risk deal.... the only way it will be worth it is if he pitches close to the way he has the past two seasons AND stays healthy... good luck with that one. I was really looking forward to the first season in a long time without a middle-aged middle of the rotation albatross making eight figures too.

[splitterpfj]

Check out this Tweet from Tyler Barnes...

 

Average Brewers tickets sold per day this time of year is 7,000. With news of Lohse signing, team sold 34,000 today.

[rluzinski]

Lohse's career numbers in Miller Park (If you are faint hearted stop reading now):

 

44 IP, 56 Hits, 34 Runs all earned, 7 HR, 15 BB. 25 K, 6.95 ERA, 1.614 Whip, .890 OPS against.

 

There is no reason to believe he should perform significantly worse in Miller Park than similar pitchers, and a 44 a sample size is certainly no strong evidence to the contrary. Just white noise.

[adambr2]

13 - $4 million

14 - $11 million

15 - $11 million

16 - $ 2 million

17 - $2 million

18 - $3 million

 

Awesome. So we're going to be paying him for 3 years after his contract is up.

 

Good. This gives them flexibility should they need to make a mid-season move to improve the ball club.

 

Enjoy the flexibility while you can. Next year they already owe nearly 60 million just to Lohse, Yo, Ramirez, Gomez, and Braun. Thats without even considering what the other 20 guys on the roster will get, including high priced arby guys like Axford. Forget about retaining Hart or Aoki. Their practice of swiping the credit card and paying only the minimum balance until they have to is going to come back and bite them in a big way next year.

[xisxisxis]

It seems in past years we always heard about how good advance tickets sales were going, except I don't recall anything this year. Then we hear about the boost of signing Lohse and they jump. Sounds like the decision to sign Lohse was driven by an owner panicking that sales were poor this year and he needed a PR move to boost ticket sales. Sounds like a sound business plan. NOT!

[liveforoctober]

Check out this Tweet from Tyler Barnes...

 

Average Brewers tickets sold per day this time of year is 7,000. With news of Lohse signing, team sold 34,000 today.

 

With a conservative estimate of $18 a ticket and a conservative estimation that the average fan spends $10 at the park each time around .. $28 x 27,000 = $756,000 .. or 19% of Lohse' 2013 salary. That's not a bad day.

[logan82]

If it helps there is already speculation that the Brewers could very well play for contention and if not trade Lohse at the deadline by eating a small portion of his salary.

They will not try to trade him before his last year at which time he will probably be so bad we just cut him.

 

We heard the same thing when Suppan signed. We heard the same thing when Wolf signed. We heard the same thing when Ramirez signed. We heard the same thing when Gomez signed an extension. Trading guys and going with younger near equally talented guys is just not Melvin's MO.

[brewcrewdue80]

Question. Gomez/Lohse Boras players. Any chance he worked a discount in both contracts to get Lohse signed?

Maybe it took this long to work out the multiple years payment plan on the deal? And I won't lie, I'm not a fan of either signings. I hope the value in these deals results in added trade value and an actual positive return when those trades happen.

[brewmann04]

I have no issue with this move it gives the rotation another solid starter. There be alot of complaints if the brewers were losing with the young staff. I think it only improves our rotation. We still have an extra pick after round 2. We can also move him down the line .

[PrinceFielderx1]

I have no issue with this move it gives the rotation another solid starter. There be alot of complaints if the brewers were losing with the young staff. I think it only improves our rotation. We still have an extra pick after round 2. We can also move him down the line .

 

Exactly. I don't get all of the negative overreaction by half of the poster here.

[liveforoctober]

I have no issue with this move it gives the rotation another solid starter. There be alot of complaints if the brewers were losing with the young staff. I think it only improves our rotation. We still have an extra pick after round 2. We can also move him down the line .

 

Exactly. I don't get all of the negative overreaction by half of the poster here.

 

+3

[James Zumstein]

The Brewers might need to only pitch Lohse on the road like they did with Marcum a couple years ago, not only because of how he pitches in Miller Park, but I'm thinking a lot of fans are not going to give him any kind of a leash. One bad outing might be all it takes to lit the powderkeg.

[Funketown]

To me this seems like a slight to moderate overpay. If I were Mark A. I wouldn't want to hand this check out, but as a fan I'm okay with this deal. The team was in desperate need of another pitcher; I'm not comfortable with Peralta in the rotation yet (though if Narveson struggles I'm open to inserting him into the 5-spot), and this gives the team at least a near-average SP.

 

Lohse is a solid pitcher and a rotation of Gallardo-Lohse-Fiers-Estrada-Narveson could be very dependable this season.

 

Meh. It's an overpay and I hate the draft pick loss. But it does make the team better this season, so hopefully this turns out well.

[valpocrewsader]

Excrement! My personal nightmare continues ... it's unbelievable. I was excited to FINALLY have a season where a ticket to a game, or tuning into a game, didn't mean a 1/5 chance of seeing some lame, overpaid, old-fart, sad-sack bum pitcher on the mound like Suppan or Wolf. Holy bloody crap on a stick, I cannot escape this hell.

 

Doug just can't help but swoon over mediocre, no account pitchers who are over-the-hill and coming off a career year. Makes me want to scream and swear so badly. Now three years of this goon wasting space and wasting money. $33 million. I just don't believe it.

 

What an embarrassment. What a pathetic and desperate move. What a joke of an organization.

 

 

EDIT: Oh my god, we sacrificed a mid-1st round pick to sign this expensive, aging, pedestrian non-entity??? Inexcusable. This truly is a joke.

[brewcrewdue80]

I have no issue with this move it gives the rotation another solid starter. There be alot of complaints if the brewers were losing with the young staff. I think it only improves our rotation. We still have an extra pick after round 2. We can also move him down the line .

 

Wait, Wait just a second...do you hear yourself?

 

We Still have an Extra Pick after round 2?

 

 

How can one argue with that after the argument is, 17th pick in drafts/majority of players drafted are busts?!!!

 

And yet we are going to hit paydirt with the end of 2nd round draft pick? If you have that kind of mentality I'd be even more infuriated with losing that 17th pick. Since #70 is such a sure thing!

[brewmann04]

No I just mentioned we have a extra pick did not say it was going to be good or bad . The baseball draft is far from a sure thing.

[pebadger]

I honsetly don't have any reaction right now, but in its entirety this offseason/preseason has prompted me to nominate the following as the 2013 team slogan:

 

Brewers 2013: We'll see, I guess.

[adambr2]

No I just mentioned we have a extra pick did not say it was going to be good or bad . The baseball draft is far from a sure thing.

 

The entire farm system is far from a sure thing. It still needs to be utilized to build a team, or it's going to come back to bite you.

[DHonks]

I still don't like this signing. He's a career below avg pitcher who suddenly had his best year at age 33. Sorry, I'm not impressed. Kent Bottenfield ring a bell? How about Jeff Suppan?

[Eye Black]

Check out this Tweet from Tyler Barnes...

 

Average Brewers tickets sold per day this time of year is 7,000. With news of Lohse signing, team sold 34,000 today.

 

I was put in charge of buying a package of tickets for a group gathering later on this Summer and after finalizing the details with friends this past weekend I was all set to make the purchase today. After the signing was rumored I actually hesitated for a minute thinking maybe I should wait so it didn't appear to be excitement correlated with the Lohse signing, but then figured I was probably being crazy.

[brettac1]

Scott Boras is just awesome at his job.

[clancyphile]

Not horribly opposed to this signing.

 

It was looking like Gallardo - and pray for rain in the rotation. If it buys Peralta a year in AAA, it's worth it. Thornburg, Fiers, Rogers, and Peralta were all scuffling. If the team is to succeed in 2013, the pitching needs to take up its share.

 

In this case, I hope the Crew moves Lohse in the 2013-2014 offseason.

[rluzinski]

It gets old having to defend mediocre signings, only because a significant portion of Brewer fans seem to overact negatively.

 

13 - $4 million

14 - $11 million

15 - $11 million

16 - $ 2 million

17 - $2 million

18 - $3 million

 

Awesome. So we're going to be paying him for 3 years after his contract is up.

 

You need to consider the time value of money. This makes the deal a little better than if it was a straight 3 years, $11 mil/year. Spreading it out saves the Brewers around $1 mil over the course of the contract.