General thoughts on the franchise.

[xisxisxis]

If the Brewers would have traded Fielder for Hudson they would have nothing to show for it - Hudson blew out his elbow 9 games into 2012 and hasn't pitched since.

 

What you are ultimately stating is your belief that each of us only has one future path we are on. So as I read your post and type a response while riding into work it is completely irrelevant what I do or the other passengers on my train do we will either get to our destination or not no matter the actions we take. What happens is just a preprogrammed plan for my life. Implicit in that is that I don't have free will, but oddly enough I do seem to think I can make decisions to alter my life. I guess if I walk into work today and resign then that is just me playing out my programmed future. And I guess Hudson's elbow was going to blow out no matter what team he played for since that's obviously his one path....

[homer]

If the Brewers would have traded Fielder for Hudson they would have nothing to show for it - Hudson blew out his elbow 9 games into 2012 and hasn't pitched since.

 

What you are ultimately stating is your belief that each of us only has one future path we are on. So as I read your post and type a response while riding into work it is completely irrelevant what I do or the other passengers on my train do we will either get to our destination or not no matter the actions we take. What happens is just a preprogrammed plan for my life. Implicit in that is that I don't have free will, but oddly enough I do seem to think I can make decisions to alter my life. I guess if I walk into work today and resign then that is just me playing out my programmed future. And I guess Hudson's elbow was going to blow out no matter what team he played for since that's obviously his one path....

 

 

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

[TheCrew07]

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

 

Does it matter since he left anyway? I didn't view making the NLCS like some organizational stepping stone, not the same way I felt when the Packers finally beat the 49ers on their ascent to a Super Bowl in the 90s where we had a realistic expectation that we would continue to get better. I knew Fielder was leaving, I knew our pitching issues were far from solved, and I didn't have any confidence that everything would break the Brewers way again from an MLB performance standpoint as it had in 2011.

 

I didn't enjoy 2011 at all from a fan standpoint, we had nothing in the minors behind the MLB team and I spent the entire year fearing it would all come tumbling down. The Marcum and Greinke trades were my low point as a Brewer fan, I was so optimistic in the early to mid 2000s but then when I realized how wrong I had been because the organization didn't have the pitching. I kept hoping Melvin would make trades for young pitching to extend the competitive window but he just continually went with short term solutions which ensured the window was closing much quicker than it needed to. I'm not really any happier now that 2012 and 2013 have happened, I've just made my peace with the FO strategy and I prefer to focus elsewhere.

 

For me it's always been as simple as I would rather have a young, cost controlled MLB pitcher than another positional prospect in the minors. I would have traded Fielder as far back as 2008 for pitching and went with Gamel at 1B, X and I argued that point against a myriad of posters. Fielder's defensive issues severely limited his overall value, he made the entire IF defense worse and by extension the pitching staff as well. All of those missed scoops over the years didn't affect his defensive numbers, rather the defensive numbers of his IF partners. Melvin has never been a great judge of pitching talent, and there were only going to be so many Sabathia deals, so I was willing to give up some offense for impact pitching and better IF defense. Then I made the same pitching arguments regarding moving Hardy in the off-season prior to 2009 and fought the same people on that idea.

 

If we never make a move to acquire young impact pitchers, how will Milwaukee's fortunes as an organization ever turn around? Clearly the Brewers haven't drafted/signed young pitching and developed them or our MLB pitching wouldn't have been so dire over the last decade, we can't afford impact pitching in FA, what else is left? If the Brewers were to can Seid what meaningful change would occur if an in house crosschecker was promoted to take his place? Losing all those scouts and Z didn't hurt from a developing pitching standpoint, that hurt because the positional talent dried up and Melvin ran out of easy trade options.

 

The only way to be competitive year in and year out with our current FO is change the trades the organization is wiling to make. We aren't going to draft better, we aren't going to develop better, we aren't going to sign more impact players internationally, and young pitching would save the Brewers from themselves as there would not be a need to sign the continual stream of averagish aging starting pitching in Free Agency. Everyone in the front office has an established track record now, they are who they are, either Melvin needs to change his organization philosophy, which I sincerely doubt he will, or we'll need to clean house if we want to reach that next level as a franchise.

 

If people are happy making the playoffs here and there by acquiring some short term pitching solutions and having seasons like 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 in between I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've always been aiming higher and wanted more than that. I'm old enough to remember 82 and everything between then and 08, I know the pain of being a yearly doormat, but being psuedo competitive is just a small step up in my opinion. We're in the middle slowly sliding backwards, stuck in neutral, whatever other adjective you'd like to use...

[Oxy]

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

 

I didn't enjoy 2011 at all from a fan standpoint, we had nothing in the minors behind the MLB team and I spent the entire year fearing it would all come tumbling down. The Marcum and Greinke trades were my low point as a Brewer fan, I was so optimistic in the early to mid 2000s but then when I realized how wrong I had been because the organization didn't have the pitching. I kept hoping Melvin would make trades for young pitching to extend the competitive window but he just continually went with short term solutions which ensured the window was closing much quicker than it needed to. I'm not really any happier now that 2012 and 2013 have happened, I've just made my peace with the FO strategy and I prefer to focus elsewhere.

 

The only way to be competitive year in and year out with our current FO is change the trades the organization is wiling to make. We aren't going to draft better, we aren't going to develop better, we aren't going to sign more impact players internationally, and young pitching would save the Brewers from themselves as there would not be a need to sign the continual stream of averagish aging starting pitching in Free Agency. Everyone in the front office has an established track record now, they are who they are, either Melvin needs to change his organization philosophy, which I sincerely doubt he will, or we'll need to clean house if we want to reach that next level as a franchise.

 

If people are happy making the playoffs here and there by acquiring some short term pitching solutions and having seasons like 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 in between I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I've always been aiming higher and wanted more than that. I'm old enough to remember 82 and everything between then and 08, I know the pain of being a yearly doormat, but being psuedo competitive is just a small step up in my opinion. We're in the middle slowly sliding backwards, stuck in neutral, whatever other adjective you'd like to use...

 

They won 96 games in '11, and easily had the talent to win the World Series. I'm genuinely sorry that you couldn't enjoy that. Anticipation is great and all, but the real thing is better. It sounds like you had more satisfaction following the team from '99 to '04 than you did enjoying the realization of the anticipation of those years. Which is a little bizarre, I have to say.

[clancyphile]

I think there have been some mistakes.

 

The Greinke trade was a good one to make, no doubt about it.

 

Lawrie for Marcum... not so good.

 

The Weeks extension was a good idea at the time, not so much now. But if the team had stuck with JJ Hardy, there may have been an option to replace Weeks with Segura.

 

Right now, if I were Doug Melvin, aside from Braun and Gallardo, I'm open to a fire sale for prospects or young players.

 

As for the farm system, the money needs to be there - especially to keep picks in the fold. If we draft a pick, he has to be signed. I really wish the comp system had not changed, that would have been very helpful as well.

[monty57]

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

 

We'll never know, but we still would've had a good team with a legitimate shot at the playoffs, plus we would be in much better shape as a franchise at this point.

 

 

If the Brewers would have traded Fielder for Hudson they would have nothing to show for it - Hudson blew out his elbow 9 games into 2012 and hasn't pitched since.

 

That's still 9 more games than the Brewers got for Fielder after 2011. Hudson had Tommy John surgery, which isn't uncommon for a SP, and he should be back this season. He's 26 and still has (I believe) three more seasons of "team control" remaining. Meanwhile Detroit fans are enjoying Prince's HR's while we're fighting for the #1 draft pick.

 

But, it's not about Hudson in particular. I just used him because using any name that wasn't specifically named in a "valid source" as having been offered will get someone chastised for making things up and being unrealistic about "what's out there." Melvin insisted on receiving two MLB-proven SP in return for Fielder. Since Fielder only had one year remaining, he would only be traded to a perceived contender, and what contender could trade two SP from their rotation? Melvin's expectations were unrealistic, so instead of trading him for one young MLB starter or probably two not-yet-MLB-ready SP, we settled on destroying the future of the franchise for one playoff appearance.

[clancyphile]

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

 

We'll never know, but we still would've had a good team with a legitimate shot at the playoffs, plus we would be in much better shape as a franchise at this point.

 

 

If the Brewers would have traded Fielder for Hudson they would have nothing to show for it - Hudson blew out his elbow 9 games into 2012 and hasn't pitched since.

 

That's still 9 more games than the Brewers got for Fielder after 2011. Hudson had Tommy John surgery, which isn't uncommon for a SP, and he should be back this season. He's 26 and still has (I believe) three more seasons of "team control" remaining. Meanwhile Detroit fans are enjoying Prince's HR's while we're fighting for the #1 draft pick.

 

But, it's not about Hudson in particular. I just used him because using any name that wasn't specifically named in a "valid source" as having been offered will get someone chastised for making things up and being unrealistic about "what's out there." Melvin insisted on receiving two MLB-proven SP in return for Fielder. Since Fielder only had one year remaining, he would only be traded to a perceived contender, and what contender could trade two SP from their rotation? Melvin's expectations were unrealistic, so instead of trading him for one young MLB starter or probably two not-yet-MLB-ready SP, we settled on destroying the future of the franchise for one playoff appearance.

 

NOT signing Prince is one of the worst moves Melvin and Attanasio made. Fielder is the kind of player - with Braun - who is a franchise cornerstone. Offer a 7-year, $184 million deal - and use deferred salary the way the Brewers did with Braun.

 

The three biggest mistakes over the least five years, IMO, were as follows:

1. Not signing Fielder.

2. Losing patience with JJ Hardy

3. Trading Lawrie for Marcum.

[narwhalattack]

Well, if we don't trade Hardy, we don't get Gomez. Gomez provides quality defense at centerfield and his bat is finally coming around. We also managed to get Segura at SS so Hardy would've become obsolete anyway.

 

No Marcum, no Greinke. No Greinke, no Segura, Pena, and Hellweg.

[3and2Fastball]

Saving $$$ on Suppan, Wolf, Marcum, and all the other unnecessary signings (Hart/Ramirez/Weeks/Lohse/etc) would have allowed the Brewers to extend Fielder. That probably should have been priority #1

[Bombers]

 

The three biggest mistakes over the least five years, IMO, were as follows:

1. Not signing Fielder.

2. Losing patience with JJ Hardy

3. Trading Lawrie for Marcum.

 

Replace #1 with either not trading Fielder or not signing Sabathia. Not signing Fielder isn't # 1

[paul253]

Well, if we don't trade Hardy, we don't get Gomez. Gomez provides quality defense at centerfield and his bat is finally coming around.

Logan Schafer can provide quality defense in CF as well. Maybe not as good as Gomez but certainly still high quality. I hated the Carlos Gomez deal. Yeah he's doing well so far this year but before this year his "breakout" year included a .260 BA and a .305 OBP. I think Melvin looked at his 19 HRs and overvalued that. Logan Schafer could easily hit .260 and have an OBP of .305 and he could do it at 1/8 of the cost of Gomez. I would have preferred DM let Gomez play out his final year and offer him a QO. That would have allowed the Brewers to get a draft pick if he turned them down. It's not like Milwaukee doesn't have a ton of outfield options to replace Gomez.

 

We also managed to get Segura at SS so Hardy would've become obsolete anyway.

 

Manny Machado didn't even make Hardy obsolete so there is no guarantee Segura would have. I think the more likely scenario though is that either Segura would be in AAA right now and Hardy would be traded for pitching eventually, or the Brewers wouldn't have needed Segura and could have looked for better pitching prospects in a deal for Greinke.

[danzig6767]

 

I didn't enjoy 2011 at all from a fan standpoint, we had nothing in the minors behind the MLB team and I spent the entire year fearing it would all come tumbling down. The Marcum and Greinke trades were my low point as a Brewer fan, I was so optimistic in the early to mid 2000s but then when I realized how wrong I had been because the organization didn't have the pitching. I kept hoping Melvin would make trades for young pitching to extend the competitive window but he just continually went with short term solutions which ensured the window was closing much quicker than it needed to. I'm not really any happier now that 2012 and 2013 have happened, I've just made my peace with the FO strategy and I prefer to focus elsewhere..

 

They won 96 games in '11, and easily had the talent to win the World Series. I'm genuinely sorry that you couldn't enjoy that. Anticipation is great and all, but the real thing is better. It sounds like you had more satisfaction following the team from '99 to '04 than you did enjoying the realization of the anticipation of those years. Which is a little bizarre, I have to say.

 

No kidding

 

It's one thing to disagree with how a front office builds a roster, but to care so much about that to where a person was unable to enjoy at all watching a team win 96 games, win a thrilling 5 game series vs Arizona, and then be two games from a World Series berth is also bizarre to me.

 

I know someone like that in regards to the Packers. He hated Ted Thompson before the year Green Bay won it all. He'd complain that Ted was cheap and wouldn't go after more free agents like Ron Wolf did. He regularly whined that McCarthy was clueless and TT was an idiot for hiring a head coach with weak credentials. Well, he'd spend so much time complaining about how he thought the team was wrongly run that until the actual Super Bowl, he didn't enjoy the ride much at all and IMO at least, that ride getting there was as much or more fun than winning the Super Bowl was.

 

Maybe some people simply take sports way more seriously than i do and thus they just can't enjoy even success unless that success is done in a fashion like how they wanted it to be done. FWIW, i've also had some issues with how both Melvin and Attanasio have gone about doing things from year to year, but no way in hell was that going to prevent me from greatly enjoying the two playoffs runs, especially the 96 win season and NLCS ride. That was by far the most fun i had watching a Brewers team since i was a kid in 1982. In fact, i'm a huge Packers fan, more than a Brewers fan, yet i was more nervous and then thrilled during that Game 5 vs Arizona than i was the Packers Super Bowl victory.

[igor67]

Bothered by the Lawrie comment. 2011 .953 OPS in 150 ABs

2012 .729 OPS in 494 ABs

2013 .642 OPS in 139 ABs

 

In the alternate universe where we don't get Marcum we are staring at a potential arby decision already after the season on this guy. Yes he could still turn things around, but he is starting to get into that danger territory where he becomes another never will be. The actual production traded away during the win now years ends up not being that much. There is still plenty of room for debate, but it is wrong to judge Melvin on the major league results for the players he traded for and not apply the same standard to the ones traded away.

[narwhalattack]

Well, if we don't trade Hardy, we don't get Gomez. Gomez provides quality defense at centerfield and his bat is finally coming around.

Logan Schafer can provide quality defense in CF as well. Maybe not as good as Gomez but certainly still high quality. I hated the Carlos Gomez deal. Yeah he's doing well so far this year but before this year his "breakout" year included a .260 BA and a .305 OBP. I think Melvin looked at his 19 HRs and overvalued that. Logan Schafer could easily hit .260 and have an OBP of .305 and he could do it at 1/8 of the cost of Gomez. I would have preferred DM let Gomez play out his final year and offer him a QO. That would have allowed the Brewers to get a draft pick if he turned them down. It's not like Milwaukee doesn't have a ton of outfield options to replace Gomez.

 

We also managed to get Segura at SS so Hardy would've become obsolete anyway.

 

Manny Machado didn't even make Hardy obsolete so there is no guarantee Segura would have. I think the more likely scenario though is that either Segura would be in AAA right now and Hardy would be traded for pitching eventually, or the Brewers wouldn't have needed Segura and could have looked for better pitching prospects in a deal for Greinke.

 

IMO Segura is much better than Hardy as of right now. Sure, Hardy has more pop with the bat, but he's getting older would probably get expensive. Segura provides great defense at a premium position, provides good enough bat, is young, and is still cheap. And there's little chance the Brewers could've come up with a better package for Greinke. Why would anyone give up a premium pitching prospect for a half-season rental?

[bill hAll Star]

That was what I was saying a few pages back. I think, yes, Fielder for a young prospect or Cain (who would be gone now) and/or trading Lawrie, LaPorta, etc. for guys with more service time doesn't guarantee we would have been as good or would have anything coming through.

 

Say we had gotten Minor for Lawrie. Would our team plus Mike Minor be better right now? The Lawrie trade is the only one you can "subtract" from 2011 and have it be pretty similar, though who knows how well we'd have filled out that rotation.

 

Trust me, I am one that wants to build through the minors and get guys with service time, but I think that even if we had made some shrewd trades for pitching, unless every single one panned out, we'd still be sitting in mediocrity right now.

 

As much as they could have evaluated and attracted some young talent in their trades, Melvin has nailed his MLB trades, giving us a few years of fun success.

 

The minor league system has been so barren, I'm not sure that even if Doug nailed 2 trades for younger pitching prospects would be that much different. We are getting absolutely nothing out of our own drafting and foreign signings (other than Aoki).

[vegasbrewcrew1993]

 

I didn't enjoy 2011 at all from a fan standpoint, we had nothing in the minors behind the MLB team and I spent the entire year fearing it would all come tumbling down. The Marcum and Greinke trades were my low point as a Brewer fan, I was so optimistic in the early to mid 2000s but then when I realized how wrong I had been because the organization didn't have the pitching. I kept hoping Melvin would make trades for young pitching to extend the competitive window but he just continually went with short term solutions which ensured the window was closing much quicker than it needed to. I'm not really any happier now that 2012 and 2013 have happened, I've just made my peace with the FO strategy and I prefer to focus elsewhere..

 

They won 96 games in '11, and easily had the talent to win the World Series. I'm genuinely sorry that you couldn't enjoy that. Anticipation is great and all, but the real thing is better. It sounds like you had more satisfaction following the team from '99 to '04 than you did enjoying the realization of the anticipation of those years. Which is a little bizarre, I have to say.

 

That 2011 season was magic for me. That team felt like a team of destiny. Everything about that year was great. The massive turnaround in July and August was fun to watch. My heart stopped beating when Arizona tied it in game 5. I went nuts when Nyjer Morgan hit the walkoff. I was crushed when we lost the NLCS to St. Louis. I was sad watching that final Prince Fielder at bat. I will never forget that season. Great year for the Brew Crew!

 

No kidding

 

It's one thing to disagree with how a front office builds a roster, but to care so much about that to where a person was unable to enjoy at all watching a team win 96 games, win a thrilling 5 game series vs Arizona, and then be two games from a World Series berth is also bizarre to me.

 

I know someone like that in regards to the Packers. He hated Ted Thompson before the year Green Bay won it all. He'd complain that Ted was cheap and wouldn't go after more free agents like Ron Wolf did. He regularly whined that McCarthy was clueless and TT was an idiot for hiring a head coach with weak credentials. Well, he'd spend so much time complaining about how he thought the team was wrongly run that until the actual Super Bowl, he didn't enjoy the ride much at all and IMO at least, that ride getting there was as much or more fun than winning the Super Bowl was.

 

Maybe some people simply take sports way more seriously than i do and thus they just can't enjoy even success unless that success is done in a fashion like how they wanted it to be done. FWIW, i've also had some issues with how both Melvin and Attanasio have gone about doing things from year to year, but no way in hell was that going to prevent me from greatly enjoying the two playoffs runs, especially the 96 win season and NLCS ride. That was by far the most fun i had watching a Brewers team since i was a kid in 1982. In fact, i'm a huge Packers fan, more than a Brewers fan, yet i was more nervous and then thrilled during that Game 5 vs Arizona than i was the Packers Super Bowl victory.

[brewcrewdue80]

My look in to trade deal would likely have gone Oakland's Trevor Cahill for Lawrie. That's the value the team should have sought.

 

Ok - so who's to say Melvin didn't inquire about that and was shot down? That goes back to my argument of possible trade scenarios in poster's minds that turn into strawman arguments, because nobody knows what was on the table and what was considered/pursued aside from the moves that were actually completed. So far, Lawrie hasn't exactly profiled to be a perennial allstar, either - more along the lines of a talented prospect that isn't making the most of his tools because he's a headcase.

 

.

 

Ah yes. But the trade scenario I'm proposing is what it should have taken to trade away Lawrie. Not settle for Marcum. If he proposed that deal and was shot down, and he proposed other deals and was shot down. Then he should have just known to stand pat. Just because he thinks he has a Propect other teams want, doesn't mean he has to trade him away. That's all I'm implying. He didn't seek the kind of value in return for Lawrie he should have sought. He settled it appears to me on what he could get just to trade Lawrie in the timeframe he wanted to trade him. He should have waited it out, Let Lawrie's appeal grow as the closer he appeared to be ready for the Majors..and it would have been at that point he likely would have used Lawrie instead over the struggling McGehee. And who knows then what happens?

The point is, if Marcum is all he could get for Lawrie, he should of turned the other way and said to himself the organization is better off with Lawrie than what Marcum provides. Some day a club will realize what Lawrie possesses in talent and I'll get that kind of talent in return for him. Or, I'll just use it.

[Fear The Chorizo]

you can't view that trade in a vacuum though - standing pat that offseason likely meant not having one more shot at a world series with Fielder on the roster. Could he have gotten more for Lawrie had he waited for him to develop or just hold onto him and give him a shot in Milwaukee? Absolutely - but that would also imply that Melvin should have traded Fielder that offseason to maximize his value to the organization instead of going for it in 2011.

 

And, as other posters have pointed out, the longer Lawrie has been in the big leagues, the less valuable he's looking as a player. He's still young and could easily develop into a great player - but it's just as likely he's going to be an average MLB regular that isn't a franchise cornerstone.

[adambr2]

I think a better question is: would the Brewers have won the division and made it to the NLCS without Fielder?

 

We'll never know, but we still would've had a good team with a legitimate shot at the playoffs, plus we would be in much better shape as a franchise at this point.

 

 

If the Brewers would have traded Fielder for Hudson they would have nothing to show for it - Hudson blew out his elbow 9 games into 2012 and hasn't pitched since.

 

That's still 9 more games than the Brewers got for Fielder after 2011. Hudson had Tommy John surgery, which isn't uncommon for a SP, and he should be back this season. He's 26 and still has (I believe) three more seasons of "team control" remaining. Meanwhile Detroit fans are enjoying Prince's HR's while we're fighting for the #1 draft pick.

 

But, it's not about Hudson in particular. I just used him because using any name that wasn't specifically named in a "valid source" as having been offered will get someone chastised for making things up and being unrealistic about "what's out there." Melvin insisted on receiving two MLB-proven SP in return for Fielder. Since Fielder only had one year remaining, he would only be traded to a perceived contender, and what contender could trade two SP from their rotation? Melvin's expectations were unrealistic, so instead of trading him for one young MLB starter or probably two not-yet-MLB-ready SP, we settled on destroying the future of the franchise for one playoff appearance.

 

NOT signing Prince is one of the worst moves Melvin and Attanasio made. Fielder is the kind of player - with Braun - who is a franchise cornerstone. Offer a 7-year, $184 million deal - and use deferred salary the way the Brewers did with Braun.

 

The three biggest mistakes over the least five years, IMO, were as follows:

1. Not signing Fielder.

2. Losing patience with JJ Hardy

3. Trading Lawrie for Marcum.

 

I very strongly disagree on #1 and #2.

 

First of all, the absence of Prince Fielder is not why we are 15 games under .500 this year. We're a bad team without him, we'd be a bad team with him. Same as when we had him -- we were good when we had pitching, bad when we didn't.

 

And on that, Prince isn't even the kind of player that you offer that kind of money to. 7 years/$184M? Over $26M per season. That's franchise crippling. Prince is a 4.5 WAR player last year with a .930 career OPS who is a liability defensively and will be a much worse one in the coming years. That's a very good player. It's not the kind of player that you make the highest paid one in baseball. For perspective, Aramis Ramirez was more valuable than Prince Fielder last year.

 

On Hardy, we didn't lose patience. He was approaching free agency and we had the heir apparent already in the system. That's part of the way a small market team should build. We got, as it turns out, a very good player for Hardy.

[Invader3K]

And on that, Prince isn't even the kind of player that you offer that kind of money to. 7 years/$184M? Over $26M per season. That's franchise crippling. Prince is a 4.5 WAR player last year with a .930 career OPS who is a liability defensively and will be a much worse one in the coming years. That's a very good player. It's not the kind of player that you make the highest paid one in baseball. For perspective, Aramis Ramirez was more valuable than Prince Fielder last year.

 

And of course that all ignores the 9 year, nearly $250 million deal he got from the Tigers. I don't know why people ever acted like we had any realistic shot to re-sign him. It's not like Attanasio and Melvin didn't try, either. He didn't take Scott Boras on as his agent to try and negotiate a team friendly renewal.

[adambr2]

Saving $$$ on Suppan, Wolf, Marcum, and all the other unnecessary signings (Hart/Ramirez/Weeks/Lohse/etc) would have allowed the Brewers to extend Fielder. That probably should have been priority #1

 

Some of the players that you listed are good players. Some were and really aren't anymore, and some, like Suppan, were indeed mistakes. Ramirez, for example, last year was a more valuable player than Prince. People don't really appreciate how good Ramirez really was last year.

 

I'm frustrated as any with the direction of this FO, but I don't understand why so many Brewer fans carry this illusion that we dropped the ball big time by letting Prince Fielder walk.

 

We could not afford to pay Prince Fielder $25M a year. If we had done that, we would be in worse shape than we are now. We would still be a bad team this year. A duo like Braun and Prince will only carry attendance so far. The bottom line is winning.

 

If we had signed Prince, we would be a bad team with some crippling contracts. Even deferred, the end years of Prince's contract would probably carry some devastating backloaded salaries. We wouldn't be looking at a 2-3 rebuilding plan. We would be looking at a 5-7 year rebuilding plan.

 

Prince is gone. We are in a bad enough position with crippling contracts right now. We are not a 29 year old Prince Fielder away from competing. Add a Prince Fielder contract to our current situation and our future outlook becomes less optimistic.

[3and2Fastball]

We could not afford to pay Prince Fielder $25M a year. If we had done that, we would be in worse shape than we are now.

 

We pay Rickie Weeks $10 million

We pay Corey Hart $10 million

We pay Kyle Lohse $11 million

We pay Aramis Ramirez $10 million

 

That is $41 million just for those 4 guys in 2013. I would argue that yes, we should have overpaid Prince. Kept our #17 overall pick instead of signing Lohse, traded Hart & Weeks and have a stronger system as a result of selling high on those guys, and yes we would indeed be better off for now and in the future.

 

We're paying Gallardo 7.75 million, he's another guy we could have sold high. We're paying Axford $5 million, that is another stupid signing

 

The only reason we "could not afford Prince" is because we way overpaid for overrated players

 

Aoki

Segura

Braun

Fielder

Gomez

3B that we would've had millions left over to spend on

Lucroy

Gennett/Bianchi platoon

 

with a much more solid core of young players (including pitchers) from trading Weeks, Hart, Gallardo, Axford when their stock was high would indeed be a much better Brewers team for now and into the future

[3and2Fastball]

I would add: if we had saved all of that money on Gallardo, Weeks, Hart, Axford, Lohse, we'd have even been able to still sign Ramirez

 

How does this lineup look?:

 

Aoki

Segura

Braun

Fielder

Ramirez

Gomez

Lucroy

Gennett/Bianchi platoon

 

Or, we could've spent the Ramirez signing on pitching. Either way

[adambr2]

We could not afford to pay Prince Fielder $25M a year. If we had done that, we would be in worse shape than we are now.

 

We pay Rickie Weeks $10 million

We pay Corey Hart $10 million

We pay Kyle Lohse $11 million

We pay Aramis Ramirez $10 million

 

That is $41 million just for those 4 guys in 2013. I would argue that yes, we should have overpaid Prince. Kept our #17 overall pick instead of signing Lohse, traded Hart & Weeks and have a stronger system as a result of selling high on those guys, and yes we would indeed be better off for now and in the future.

 

We're paying Gallardo 7.75 million, he's another guy we could have sold high. We're paying Axford $5 million, that is another stupid signing

 

The only reason we "could not afford Prince" is because we way overpaid for overrated players

 

Aoki

Segura

Braun

Fielder

Gomez

3B that we would've had millions left over to spend on

Lucroy

Gennett/Bianchi platoon

 

with a much more solid core of young players (including pitchers) from trading Weeks, Hart, Gallardo, Axford when their stock was high would indeed be a much better Brewers team for now and into the future

 

So you're upset about paying Aramis, and yet you completely ignore what I said about Aramis being a BETTER player than Prince last year.

 

Aramis is at the tail end of his career, but Prince is going to be 30 next year. He's probably peaked, and decline can be expected in the near future, particularly defensively.

 

The idea that Prince Fielder is worth $25M+ per season is absolutely ludicrous IMO.

 

Should have sold Gallardo high? C'mon man, you're just trying to re-write history here and playing the hindsight card on every single player on the roster. Gallardo was a young ace when Prince left. The idea of trading Gallardo to free up money for Prince was never ever on the table. Traded Hart, traded Weeks? All 100% hindsight. We had no idea that Aoki would pan out in RF full time, and Gennett and Bianchi were nowhere near MLB ready players when Prince left.

 

That still doesn't change the fact that such a contract for Prince is a horrible value and would cripple us financially even with the rest of the roster. It's also a huge assumption to think that the prospects we "got" for Gallardo, Hart, Weeks, and Axford would fill out the rest of the rotation and roster and give us the pitching we need now. Our problem hasn't been a lack of pitching prospects, it's been the fact that for whatever reason, they aren't panning out in our system.

 

You speak of overrated players, but as Brewer fans, we really tend to overrate Prince Fielder and look at him like a top 5 MLB player that he isn't, simply because he was a product of our organization.

 

Prince is a solid player with one really good asset -- his bat. He's 275 pounds and every other part of his game will soon become a deficiency -- on the bases, with the glove, etc. I can't fathom why anyone would think it was worth not only paying what Detroit paid him, but MORE. Prince was not going to take a hometown discount to stay here. That's not what Scott Boras clients do.

 

Look at the Angels with Albert Pujols. That contract is going to devastate them for years. No matter how you feel about Prince, the chances are he's going to be right there with him in a few years. People look at Prince Fielder and think that he would look really nice in the lineup right now, especially with our first base situation so far this year. They don't look ahead at all.

[logan82]

We had no idea that Aoki would pan out in RF full time, and Gennett and Bianchi were nowhere near MLB ready players when Prince left.

Bianchi was still a KC farmhand when Fielder left.