Mariners to Sign Corey Hart -- latest: Corey's full-page goodbye letter in JS, post #97

[The stache]

If Loney is a Brewer at the end of spring training, I will shoot myself. I'd rather put a statue of Cecil Cooper at first base.

[fondybrewfan]

Hart may get another $5 Million out of this deal over what the Brewers offered but this can't possibly help him next offseason when he is trying to get a longer term contract. His power numbers will almost certainly be lower than if he stayed in MIL. Plus even with Cano in SEA; the Brewers offense still stands to be better which will give him more RBI chances (Not that I care about RBI's but I am sure GM's do)

[Warning Track Power]

Loney is known throughout baseball as a giant turd, and there is a reason beyond his miserable OPS that he is bouncing around baseball like a superball lately.....

Someone on BF had a terrible experience with Loney when he was on the Dodgers and I can't remember what the situation was. Anyone recall that story and who it was?

[Roderick]

Home town discount never really applied. Glad he is gone.

 

He would have been giving us more than the "hometown discount" to sign with the Brewers. More like the "Hometown clearance". I don't blame him for signing and I don't blame DM for not giving him the money.

 

I just think that some combination of Francisco/Halton/Morris/Green (even Gamel could be an option) would be able to give us a .730-.750 ops for $1-2M total instead of paying someone else to come in for a tick more production that costs millions more and/or prospects in a trade.

 

If the Brewers are still in a position for the playoffs in July they can always acquire a better 1B if all these guys bust. And if they bust, as least we have given them the chance and know it versus wondering what we have.

[torts]

I think its pretty clear that DM is not going to go into 2014 start of the season with a platoon at 1B and plans on getting an every-day 1B to start the season.

[Invader3K]

Just a note to everyone: Let's keep this topic about Corey Hart. There are other places to discuss possible 1B replacements elsewhere on the board.

[502 to Right]

I think this was a big mistake by Hart. Seattle is where bats go to die. This will not help his value for a multi-year deal after 2014. He should have had a good talk with Adrian Beltre before agreeing to this contract.

 

I really thought he would be back because it made so much sense for him to stay in Milwaukee given that it's a place he has had success and it's a hitter friendly park.

[JackNicholson1974]

Corey Hart missed all of 2013. He is coming of surgeries on both knees, the same surgery that has effectively ended Grady Sizemore's career. He took twice as much money from Seattle. It was a brilliant move on his part.

[monty57]

The Brewers did the same thing they did with Fielder, Sabathia and Greinke. They broadcast to the fans that they made an offer, while knowing the offer would be outbid on the open market. This is done in hopes that most fans won't look deeply into the numbers, but instead will blame the "greedy" player for leaving, while feeling the team is still doing everything they can to put a winning team on the field. It's a PR move.

 

This year, the Brewers have a good amount of money tied up in a handful of players, and they've seen their attendance drop by over half a million people over the past two years. Last year, they were planning on going to "fiscally conservative" route until Attanasio saw how poorly the ticket sales were, and panicked and signed Lohse. That probably hurt more than it helped, so I think Attanasio may listen to Melvin this offseason. I think there is a little money to apply some band-aids, but unless they can find a sucker to take Weeks, it won't be much. Therefore, I don't expect much in terms of a "fix" for our 1B situation.

 

After this season, Ramirez and Weeks will fall off the books, plus we'll probably make some mid-season trades (Gallardo, Lohse), and next offseason will be the time Melvin will have some money to spend. They could have done a Marlin-style rebuild, but they worried they would lose their fan base, so instead, they're doing a back-door rebuild and hoping the fans keep coming to the games. Hopefully some of the young players step up, and we'll have some decent players to build around. If they can pull it off without a long performance downswing and/or a huge drop in the fan base, I will consider the Brewer management to be geniuses.

[JohnBriggs12]

The Brewers did the same thing they did with Fielder, Sabathia and Greinke. They broadcast to the fans that they made an offer, while knowing the offer would be outbid on the open market. This is done in hopes that most fans won't look deeply into the numbers, but instead will blame the "greedy" player for leaving, while feeling the team is still doing everything they can to put a winning team on the field. It's a PR move.

 

This year, the Brewers have a good amount of money tied up in a handful of players, and they've seen their attendance drop by over half a million people over the past two years. Last year, they were planning on going to "fiscally conservative" route until Attanasio saw how poorly the ticket sales were, and panicked and signed Lohse. That probably hurt more than it helped, so I think Attanasio may listen to Melvin this offseason. I think there is a little money to apply some band-aids, but unless they can find a sucker to take Weeks, it won't be much. Therefore, I don't expect much in terms of a "fix" for our 1B situation.

 

After this season, Ramirez and Weeks will fall off the books, plus we'll probably make some mid-season trades (Gallardo, Lohse), and next offseason will be the time Melvin will have some money to spend. They could have done a Marlin-style rebuild, but they worried they would lose their fan base, so instead, they're doing a back-door rebuild and hoping the fans keep coming to the games. Hopefully some of the young players step up, and we'll have some decent players to build around. If they can pull it off without a long performance downswing and/or a huge drop in the fan base, I will consider the Brewer management to be geniuses.

 

 

I agree with your first paragraph, but I heard recently that every major league team is getting $26 million extra this year from the TV deal. They would have only "risked" $6 million of that on a player who was the longest tenured Brewer. It wasn't the kind of PR move that this fan base which is enduring the Braun fiasco really needed. When healthy, and apparently Seattle thinks he is, Hart's normal production is worth a lot closer to the max of $13 million being offered by Seattle than the relative paltry maxed out $6.5 million offered by the Brewers.

[LouisEly]

The Brewers did the same thing they did with Fielder, Sabathia and Greinke. They broadcast to the fans that they made an offer, while knowing the offer would be outbid on the open market. This is done in hopes that most fans won't look deeply into the numbers, but instead will blame the "greedy" player for leaving, while feeling the team is still doing everything they can to put a winning team on the field. It's a PR move.

Melvin was interviewed on the MLB network last night for a good 5-7 minutes. He said something that was actually very logical for the low offer on Hart - he was concerned that Hart would not be able to go on a day game after a night game, and the Brewers had over 30 day games after a night game last year so Hart could have potentially missed over 30 games. A very legitimate concern, given what happened last year with Ramirez. Melvin said that's not the case in the AL as Hart could DH during a day game after a night game, and Milwaukee being in the NL doesn't have that luxury.

 

So no, I don't think it was a PR move. I think it was a legitimate offer based on what Hart's value would be to the team factoring in that he might only be available to start less than 130 games next year.

[MNBrew]

Last year, they were planning on going to "fiscally conservative" route until Attanasio saw how poorly the ticket sales were, and panicked and signed Lohse.

Geez, Monty, are you that cynical and myopic about Attanasio that you can't see that the Lohse signing was so obviously a baseball decision more than anything - in combination with fortuitous timing for a quasi-reasonable contract for a proven guy who proved to be our best SP last year?

 

It was pretty darn obvious to pretty much everybody through spring training that most of the young SPs whom so many on this site (myself included) were saying deserved a chance weren't working out??? Fiers stunk. Rogers lost his velocity & ability to pitch worth a darn. Peralta didn't wow anyone in ST and earned his rotation spot partly by default. Thornburg showed in ST that he wasn't ready yet. That left Gallardo (and his WBC-affected lousy spring) and Estrada (another WBC guy) and a whole lot of prayers in the rotation -- not only a season-long death wish in the standings but also a horrible PR angle!!!

 

Back on topic, I don't believe Melvin plays the PR angles any more than any other GM. In the same MLB Network interview Louis Ely just cited (it was actually 36 day games after a night game), one of the hosts interviewing him lauded him as one of the most honest/open GMs in the business in terms of what he says to the media.

[danzig6767]

The Brewers did the same thing they did with Fielder, Sabathia and Greinke. They broadcast to the fans that they made an offer, while knowing the offer would be outbid on the open market. This is done in hopes that most fans won't look deeply into the numbers, but instead will blame the "greedy" player for leaving, while feeling the team is still doing everything they can to put a winning team on the field. It's a PR move.

Melvin was interviewed on the MLB network last night for a good 5-7 minutes. He said something that was actually very logical for the low offer on Hart - he was concerned that Hart would not be able to go on a day game after a night game, and the Brewers had over 30 day games after a night game last year so Hart could have potentially missed over 30 games. A very legitimate concern, given what happened last year with Ramirez. Melvin said that's not the case in the AL as Hart could DH during a day game after a night game, and Milwaukee being in the NL doesn't have that luxury.

 

So no, I don't think it was a PR move. I think it was a legitimate offer based on what Hart's value would be to the team factoring in that he might only be available to start less than 130 games next year.

 

I don't buy either that it was a PR move at all by Melvin and Attanasio for multiple reasons.

 

1. Pretending to be really interested in signing Hart would have zero impact. Fans aren't going to buy tickets because they heard the team tried signing Hart instead of not making any offer.

 

2. I've seen nothing during Melvin's tenure of him playing dumb games like Monty proposed happened, especially given there would be no payoff at all from doing this with Hart. On the Sabathia, Greinke, and Fielder situations, the Brewers did all they could. Make offers at the most they could afford, hope it would get accepted while knowing full well that the odds were against it.

 

3. There has been nothing in the media about multiple other teams making a strong offer besides the Brewers and Mariners who played Spring Training in Arizona as he wanted. In an interview, Melvin said that Hart never tried leveraging an offer from either team. So the team made an offer that they were comfortable with and Hart passed on the offer for a better one. This happens in free agency to teams countless times each offseason, including to bigger market teams who sometimes have their offer trumped.

 

4. Lastly, Melvin and the organization never once blamed the "greedy" player for leaving as Monty put it. He had only nice things to say about Hart as a person and as to how Corey/his agent handled the negotiations.

[Roderick]

After this season, ... Weeks will fall off the books,

 

I will not rest easy until it is impossible for Weeks to reach 600 at bats for the season.

[BarneyStinston]

Hart was far from guaranteed great year at the plate anyway. I just don't see him jacking 30 homers after a year of being idle. The big mistake was Melvin putting too much stock in potentially getting Hart, and letting Gamel go so easily. If you were going to bail on both of them, you should have done it a long time ago.

[Warning Track Power]

Hart was far from guaranteed great year at the plate anyway. I just don't see him jacking 30 homers after a year of being idle. The big mistake was Melvin putting too much stock in potentially getting Hart, and letting Gamel go so easily. If you were going to bail on both of them, you should have done it a long time ago.

Gamel tore his knee up in May 2012 and February 2013 and was let go almost immediately after the 2013 season ended. I don't think his release was a drawn out process. Similarly, why would you have let Hart go "a long time ago" when he was a 30 HR guy in 2012?

[TURBO]

I think that because Gamel was discussed here so much as a possibilty, it seemed to go on forever...

 

That page has been turned......FINALLY!

[502 to Right]

He took twice as much money from Seattle. It was a brilliant move on his part.

 

 

Not if he doesn't earn his extra $8 million in incentives.

[monty57]

Geez, Monty, are you that cynical and myopic about Attanasio that you can't see that the Lohse signing was so obviously a baseball decision more than anything - in combination with fortuitous timing for a quasi-reasonable contract for a proven guy who proved to be our best SP last year?

 

It was reported that he did it over Melvin's objections, so no, I don't think it is that obvious.

 

Back on topic, I don't believe Melvin plays the PR angles any more than any other GM. In the same MLB Network interview Louis Ely just cited (it was actually 36 day games after a night game), one of the hosts interviewing him lauded him as one of the most honest/open GMs in the business in terms of what he says to the media.

 

I never said Melvin was alone it doing it, or that he was bad because he was doing it, only that I believe he was doing it. From a business standpoint, being able to spin things in a favorable light is a good trait to have. Don't be so cynical and myopic that you believe that just because I say I believe someone did something that I believe it was a bad thing.

 

I heard recently that every major league team is getting $26 million extra this year from the TV deal. They would have only "risked" $6 million of that on a player who was the longest tenured Brewer.

 

The Brewers had 3.07MM in attendance two years ago. That number has dropped two straight years, to 2.5MM last year. After another lackluster year, when determining the budget, they will probably project for the attendance to drop again. Let's say they estimate (for sake of budget) attendance in the 2.25MM range. At only $50 spent per ticket (which is probably very low when you consider not only ticket price, but also things like parking and concessions), that is around $41MM less revenue than the team had in 2011. They also probably aren't considering the probability of playoff revenues.

 

When viewed in that light rather than in a vacuum, even adding the new TV money, they could be budgeting for less revenues than they had a few seasons ago.

 

I've seen nothing during Melvin's tenure of him playing dumb games like Monty proposed happened

 

I never said he played dumb games. I said that he spun bad news in a way that may make most fans view the team in the most favorable light. Pretty much the same thing anyone in the public light tries to do.

 

Lastly, Melvin and the organization never once blamed the "greedy" player for leaving as Monty put it.

 

No I didn't. I said the fans would view the player as greedy. There would be no reason for the team to say he was greedy... that could have negative effects. This board is filled with informed fans, and even some of those are blaming the player's greed, and getting upset about his "hometown discount" comments. It's not out of the question to think that many "average" fans will feel the same way.

 

The Brewers are in a precarious position, and they're trying to make the best of it. They could go out and say "we don't have money to add players because of the contracts we signed a few years ago," or they could trade away some of their good players for prospects, but they feel that either of these options would cause ticket sales to drop even faster than they're already dropping. They feel the current route of fielding a semi-competitive team with some "name players" while trying to rebuild on the fly is the best way to right the ship without losing the fan base. I may not agree with the plan, but at least I'm finally starting to see what the plan is. I just wonder if this was management's expected outcome a couple of years ago (as it should have been) or if they were surprised when things played out as they did.

 

I hope the best for Corey, and thank him for his time as a Brewer. I'm just not surprised that Hart is not a Brewer. I will also not be surprised if they don't make any "flashy" moves this offseason, but rather lay low, let the season play out, potentially trade some expensive guys this season, and start to add pieces next offseason when their financial condition should look better.

[trwi7]

He took twice as much money from Seattle. It was a brilliant move on his part.

 

 

Not if he doesn't earn his extra $8 million in incentives.

 

It was still a brilliant move because the Mariners offered him almost as much guaranteed money as he could've made in incentives with the Brewers.

[brewcrewdue80]

Monty about the Attendance numbers you're suggesting. 1 how much an impact do you think Braun being out the last 65 games or when he was on the DL prior affected walkup attendance? What about the 5 win May? To basically be out of the playoff picture before you've reached 60games?

 

I think that with Braun back/ARam back a surging Gomez/Segura/Lucroy that ticket sales will be in the 2.5mil range again this season if not higher should the team actually compete. Now if they drop out of contention within 60games then yes maybe they do reduce attendance. We discussed this in some other topic before but there's a large core of fans in Milwaukee that go to games just for the experience...tailgating, beer drinking, and after game bar hopping. I think having Marquette/UWM is huge help to the core fan base. So long as prices remain reasonable the fans will come.

[Eye Black]

Corey Hart's thank you ad is a classy way to move on from Milwaukee...

 

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/bcbdfmxccaesltx.jpg

[DuWayne Steurer]

He should have added "except for all the guys on Brewerfan that kept putting me in the trade rumors section for the last 4-5 years in every single trade proposal"

[TooLiveBrew]

http://i.imgur.com/k6h5hx4.gif

[SeriesFinale]

I know Rickie's still here (for now?), but jeez, this feels like the true end of an era I can remember us all excitedly awaiting here almost a decade back.