Brewers to break team record for payroll in 2014

[MJLiverock]

But he didn't go to Mark. Mark went to him.

Right, because Melvin assumed Garza was out of their budget so he hadn't even bothered to investigate until the owner said it was OK.

[FVBrewerFan]

People blame Melvin for blowing the farm on trades, but Escobar, Lawrie, Brantley, and Odarizzi? All nice players, but I can't say DM has made a real bone-headed trade for quite some time, and the Greinke and Aoki sales were solid. Lawrie/Marcum is the worst, but Lawrie's 2011 in the minors and majors is looking more like an anomaly

 

Yea, and even the Marcum deal looks bad only in hindsight. If Marcum's arm didn't tire at the end of the year, the Brewers may have very well won the WS that year.

 

While I don't agree with every move they make, I generally agree with the approach. Try to field a competitive team every year, then make decisions in the 2nd half of the season based on how things are going. I would be in the camp of tearing it down and rebuilding if/when this organization ever proves it can develop pitching.

[logan82]

Yea, and even the Marcum deal looks bad only in hindsight.

I think the trade looks better in hindsight than it did at the time and only because we made the playoffs. I didn't like the trade at the time it was made and I still don't like the trade. You might see a post from TheCrew07 telling you how they should have used Lawrie to trade for a younger, cost controlled arm instead. I would agree with him.

[jerichoholicninja]

The Marcum looks good too because Lawrie has not developed into the all star that everyone thought he would. He's certainly a major league caliber player and would probably be starting somewhere for the Brewers but he has no where lived up to his hype.

[danzig6767]

I don't think Melvin or Attanasio are dumb. I think they had a good franchise and then decided to give themselves the best chance to win in a "window," which is designed to sacrifice future for present. Many believe that this is the only chance for a small market team to win, but the success of teams like the Rays, Twins (under Terry Ryan), A's, Cardinals, etc would seem to have busted that myth. I would rather see them try to build a franchise for the long-run rather than for a "window."

 

Since then, it seems that Melvin has tried to show restraint and get the franchise back in order, but Attanasio has kept pushing for a big name signing each offseason. I think this is done more to keep fans coming to games than it is done to win games/make the playoffs. That's a valid business strategy as the team needs revenue, but my personal preference is to do what will most likely lead to a continually successful franchise.

 

As to the success of the free agent signings, first they can't be done in a vacuum. If the player "lives up to" his contract, but the team still stinks, is it worth the money spent, or would they have been better off going another route? Secondly, the signings can't be judged until the contract is played out. I figured Ramirez and Lohse would do well in their first season, but worried age could catch up with them.

 

All in all, I'm sure Attanasio and Melvin want the best for the Brewers. On multiple occasions, they've said something like "you have to weigh the present with the future and sometimes you have to give up some of the future to make the present better." I just wish the reverse of that would be acted on a little more often.

 

While teams like the Cardinals and Rays are better run overall than the Brewers, don't forget to keep in mind at least one very basic difference why, both have simply drafted much better than the Brewers, especially since Seid took over.

 

A big reason why the Cardinals have not only been able to avoid having to sign free agents pitchers or trade for pitchers as the Brewers have is evidenced by their roster and farm system. Nearly all of their very good stable of pitchers have been drafted by them and not with top 5-10 picks either. The Rays have also drafted pitching so much better.

 

I'm sure Melvin would much rather just call up a Garcia, Miller, Kelly, Rosenthal, Lynn, Martinez, Wacha, Siegrist, etc etc from the minor league system and plug those guys in vs having to mostly acquire pitching from elsewhere because the amateur scouting department has been so poor at drafting and then developing pitching. Same for Tampa.

 

Granted, it was Doug who hired Seid to replace Zduriencik, so he shares in the blame, but the failure by Seid to hit more with his draft picks and especially the high picks is a pretty big reason why the team hasn't been able to just grab high quality pitching from the minors as say the Cardinals have. I've said it before, but Melvin hiring Seid after Zduriencik left could easily end up being the biggest mistake of his tenure as GM.

[monty57]

While teams like the Cardinals and Rays are better run overall than the Brewers, don't forget to keep in mind at least one very basic difference why, both have simply drafted much better than the Brewers, especially since Seid took over.

 

Whenever one business continually beats another, there are many reasons, but the finger has to ultimately be pointed at those at the top. I agree that drafting/developing players has been bad, but we have an owner who makes the statement "Your farm system is currency for trades." That says a lot about Attanasio's feeling about not only the drafting / development process, but also about trading established players for prospects. It's no wonder with that mentality that we are driven by signing free agents and trading prospects for "proven" players, while our drafts have often focused on getting guys who could be in the majors quickly (or who could be used as trade fodder) rather than guys who could actually be good MLB players.

 

Well run teams seem to always have talent throughout the system. They use free agency and the draft to bring in talent, but they are also willing to trade both for "proven" talent and for prospects. The draft is one big reason we have one of the worst farms in baseball. The reluctance to trade "proven" for "unproven" is another.

 

Not having a talented farm means we have to be more reliant on free agency, which leads us to having a record payroll for a team that is unlikely to make the playoffs. With a talented farm, we would have good players forcing their way onto the MLB roster, allowing us to trade "proven" players for more talented prospects. It also allows us to have young stars who are worthy of signing long-term extensions, giving us eight seasons for less than we're paying for three years of a "proven" second-tier free agent.

 

At some point, we need to stop making excuses, and just state the facts that we have one of the worst farms in baseball and a mediocre MLB roster with a record payroll. Looking in that light, the person/people responsible for this situation need to be blamed. When the owner shoulders much of the blame, it's hard to believe things will change any time soon.

 

Attansio bought the Brewers in 2004, at a time when we already had a pretty good farm system (Fielder, Gallardo, Weeks, Hardy, Hart, etc already in the system with some high picks upcoming) and a rock-bottom MLB payroll. Great time to buy. He was easily able to increase payroll, and had loads of pre-arby talent playing like All-Stars. With that scenario in play, it would've been tough not to make the playoffs a couple of times. Unfortunately, those days are long gone, and we are where we are. I'd have to say it was bad management that got us here, because with good management we could be one of the franchises other people would look at and say "I wish we looked more like them." I don't think any fans anywhere are sitting back right now saying "I wish we were more like the Brewers."

 

Final Note: It was 2003 when the Rays and the Brewers had the #1 & #2 picks in the draft. Both MLB teams were laughing stocks, and the Brewers actually got the better of that draft. Since then, the Rays have had more success at the MLB level, have a MLB payroll around 60% of the Brewers but have a better MLB team, and still have a boatload of young talent on the farm. Which team has been managed well and which team hasn't?

[TheCrew07]

I don't want to go on at length about the player's traded away again, I think I've adequately covered my opinions on that topic in great detail in dozens of posts over the years, so I'll try to sum up a series of linked ideas as succinctly as possible in a single post.

 

1) It doesn't matter what the players who have been traded away ultimately do. They had an established value at the time of the trade, we aren't getting them back, so the only thing that matters is our ultimate return. As such 1 productive season (or less) of any particular MLB player doesn't push the organization over the top, I'll address that idea in more detail a bit later.

 

2) Trades do not exist in a vacuum, all moves are linked. Therefore part of the fallout from the Sabathia trade was the horrible pitching staff in 2009 and 2010. People want to dissociate those 2 events, but they are irrevocably linked. In the fact the Brewer's pitching issues go all the way back to the Overbay and Carlos Lee trades. Every trade builds off of what came before it, therefore all trades are ultimately linked together. I will never be convinced that quantity is better than quality, I've put way too much thought into organization building over the years to buy into quantity deals. Had the Brewers adequately addressed the rotation prior to the Marcum trade then that trade wouldn't have been necessary at all and Lawrie could have been used for a different resource or kept. Once again no trade exists in it's own vacuum so it doesn't matter if we're talking Overbay, Marcum, Sabathia, or Greinke, the ultimate result was a tiny blip on the radar followed by more of the same.

 

3) Young #2 pitchers are the best value in baseball, therefore they are pretty much the only type of pitcher I'm looking to acquire. I'm looking to build a robust talent base which will ultimately maximize the talent on the MLB roster for a given year, not try to solve MLB roster issues through FA which the Brewers will never really be players in, or short term acquisitions of MLB talent. I'm looking to plug injury holes with legitimate talent from the minors, letting those players get their feet wet in short stints, but players who project to be average or better MLB types.

 

4) Talent flexibility is really the only thing that truly matters while most people are focused on payroll flexibility. The two ideas are not the same, and while flexibility of talent can have a positive impact on payroll flexibility, the reverse is not true. Payroll flexibility is a surface issue, it's not a core issue, talent is and always be the core issue surrounding any franchise in any sport. The more talent you have, the stronger you are, and not just at the highest level of your organization.

 

5) What's best for the MLB roster isn't necessarily what's best for the organization as a whole. For example, if you never permanently plug a hole with a legitimate player, then you constantly have to keep revisiting that position, which is why long-term solutions are actually better for the health of the organization than short duration solutions. If you are constantly expending resources to fix the same problem, whether it's just dollars, talent, or both, you are mismanaging your resources.

 

For example the Brewers pitching staff has been a joke forever, the organization isn't adept at developing pitching, nor can it sign impact pitching in FA, so the only real option left is to trade for it. However, if you only trade for short term solutions then you are just spinning your wheels, the organization isn't moving forward because the same cycle is going to have to continually repeat itself. Instead of going after Sabathia, Greinke, and Marcum, or even quantity deals like Overbay, the organization would have been better served trying to make prospect for prospect trades when SLG, OBP, and OPS was the trend in baseball. We expended an avalanche of resources for approximately 4 full seasons of 3 pitchers; Sabathia, Grienke, and Marcum... not taking health into account. Doesn't it stand to reason that we could have possibly done better by targeting other players and we could have filled 3 rotation slots long term, 4 with Gallardo, and not been on this revolving door of FA pitching acquisitions?

 

The Rays turned around that organization with 3 prospect trades for pitching, there's no reason other organizations couldn't do the same, it's just counter intuitive to how baseball teams typically operate. Those prospect deals aren't always going to be out there but when they are the Brewers should have/must be willing to pounce. Ultimately baseball is all about pitching, pitching > hitting, and there's no such thing as "good enough" pitching in the post season.

 

6) For a small market team to remain competitive on a yearly basis they have to be out in front of market trends, not following the market. The Brewers have proven be to an extremely conservative follower of the market, only looking to adopt proven measures and trends. While the core issue is always going to be pitching, there are inefficiencies in every market that can be exploited... right now pitching is so highly valued that you can trade a guy like James Shields for Montgomery, Myers, and Odorizzi... a trade like that wouldn't have been possible 3-4 years ago. This means sometimes the Brewers need to be willing to be sellers, not just buyers, and not just when it's convenient to be a seller at the trade deadline. All that does is arbitrarily limit the number of possibilities available. If you can flip a 4 WAR player and get back at least 4 WAR in that first season, and maybe as much as 8 or 9 WAR in future seasons, then it's a good idea to make the trade regardless of the status of the MLB standings.

 

7) The organization needs to be willing to take risks, not just operate on proven talent or sign FA contracts. Sabathia, Greinke, and Marcum weren't bold moves, they were incredibly conservative moves because the organization knew exactly what it was getting back. If the player flopped or got hurt, the fans would have forgiven the move like they did with Marcum because the organization "tried to do something", there's literally no downside for the organization on the surface, which is where most fans are going to focus. In addition the organization has to be willing to take on risk to buy wins far below market value, that means the organization needs to be aggressive about approaching young & productive players to long-term deals which buy out a year or 2 of FA with some additional option years. Not just any productive player like McGehee and Helms, rather legitimately talented and productive players like Segura. If the player won't sign that's fine, but then they shouldn't be considered part of the organization's future, and should be considered a trade candidate if the return is good enough.

[danzig6767]

While teams like the Cardinals and Rays are better run overall than the Brewers, don't forget to keep in mind at least one very basic difference why, both have simply drafted much better than the Brewers, especially since Seid took over.

 

Whenever one business continually beats another, there are many reasons, but the finger has to ultimately be pointed at those at the top. I agree that drafting/developing players has been bad, but we have an owner who makes the statement "Your farm system is currency for trades." That says a lot about Attanasio's feeling about not only the drafting / development process, but also about trading established players for prospects. It's no wonder with that mentality that we are driven by signing free agents and trading prospects for "proven" players, while our drafts have often focused on getting guys who could be in the majors quickly (or who could be used as trade fodder) rather than guys who could actually be good MLB players.

 

Well run teams seem to always have talent throughout the system. They use free agency and the draft to bring in talent, but they are also willing to trade both for "proven" talent and for prospects. The draft is one big reason we have one of the worst farms in baseball. The reluctance to trade "proven" for "unproven" is another.

 

Not having a talented farm means we have to be more reliant on free agency, which leads us to having a record payroll for a team that is unlikely to make the playoffs. With a talented farm, we would have good players forcing their way onto the MLB roster, allowing us to trade "proven" players for more talented prospects. It also allows us to have young stars who are worthy of signing long-term extensions, giving us eight seasons for less than we're paying for three years of a "proven" second-tier free agent.

 

At some point, we need to stop making excuses, and just state the facts that we have one of the worst farms in baseball and a mediocre MLB roster with a record payroll. Looking in that light, the person/people responsible for this situation need to be blamed. When the owner shoulders much of the blame, it's hard to believe things will change any time soon.

 

The Cardinals didn't trade proven vets to get prospects and that's why they have such a talented roster and farm system, they've simply drafted better. In fact, they've made some youth for veterans trades instead, one of which helped them win a ring in 2011. Most Cardinal fans were irate over that Corey Rasmus trade when it first went down. Look up and down their current roster though, especially the pitching staff, it's just a bunch of guys who they've drafted everywhere from the first round through later rounds. On the flip side, the Brewers whiffed on way to many picks, especially early round pitchers.

 

So i don't know if there is so much of a big philosophy difference between the two teams as much as the Cardinals have a better amateur scouting department and director than the Brewers do because for the vast majority of teams, it's the amateur scouting departments who are going across the country scouting countless kids, not GM's and owners. They are also the ones mainly pulling the trigger come draft time in 50 round drafts because they are the people who have actually seen all of these kids play.

 

Maybe Melvin and/or Attanasio have some input when it comes to who gets taken in the first round of drafts, but i question how much they interfere even on first round picks. After that though, i really doubt that they are telling Seid who to pick from that point on and that goes for most general managers in baseball who simply don't have the time to scout say 500-600 kids for each draft.

 

While Seiid was drafting Jungmann, Bradley, Arnett, and other nobodies early on, the Cardinals landed Miller and Wacha. Kelly in the 3rd round. Rosenthal 21st round. Garcia was a 22nd round pick. Lynn came from their farm system. Bullpen cogs last year like Siegrist 41st round and Maness 11th round. Matt Carpenter was a 13th round pick. Allen Craig 8th round. Matt Adams 23rd round. Wong was the 22nd pick in the 2011 draft we took two crappy pitchers. Their amateur scouting departing has simply been much better at hitting on talent, not so much some fabulous philosophy instead on team building. We could have drafted many of those players St. Louis took.

 

As for Tampa, they are the best run team in baseball and Friedman arguably the best GM , not easy to replicate that. So even if the Brewers tried to copy what Tampa has done, the results wouldn't be likely to be anywhere near as good given their whole overall scouting staff and front office wouldn't be here. It's their bright minds making the moves. That said, Matt Moore was an 6th round pick. Cobb 4th round. Hellickson 4th round. That's just in their current rotation.

[FVBrewerFan]

For example the Brewers pitching staff has been a joke forever, the organization isn't adept at developing pitching,

 

That's 90% of it right there. By and large, the brewers have done a good job over the years drafting and developing position players. Not quite as good the last few years, but still not horrible. It's all about pitching, and I can't figure out how much of that is darfting poorly or a void in knowing how to develop them. I'm sure it's a combination.

 

It's why I've been advocating a new position- Senior VP-Pitching. This person would report directly to Melvin, and even have a dotted line direclty to Mark A. Find someone froma strong pitching org, pay them a lot and give them unlimited responsibility to build a scouting dept, pitching development staff, and whatever tools are needed. One thing I've learned over the years is doing something like this is more than symbolic. When you put a laser focus on something, it is more likely to improve.

 

Sorry, OT rant over.

[monty57]

When the Brewers started getting better at the MLB level, they began focusing on "high floor/low ceiling" guys who they thought could make it to the majors quickly or be traded for MLB help. Now we have an over-abundance of these type pitchers in the high minors, but the organization doesn't think they're good enough, so they keep signing veterans for the MLB team and keeping the prospects in the minors. It does seem there has been a shift in focus to "high upside" guys recently so hopefully that pays off. The actual players drafted are on the scouts, but I think the focus comes from higher up. Melvin seemed to change his tune and start talking more about the future of the franchise last offseason and again this offseason, but agents now bypass him and go to Attanasio, who they know will tell Melvin to forget about the plan and instead sign the veteran.

 

So I do think there has been a "team philosophy" that has us where we are. Dean Taylor inserted his philosophy to shift the team's resources from the MLB level to building up the farm. It was unpopular, but it worked. He got canned before it fully kicked in, but Melvin took over and continued this philosophy. Attanasio bought the team when this philosophy was just starting to pay off, and the "team philosophy" started shifting to "win now / prospects should be used as trade fodder to give the MLB team the best chance to win in a window." Melvin seems to understand that we need to shift the philosophy back to building up the farm, but Attanasio hasn't made this shift, and might never make that shift.

 

So yes, poor drafts have hurt us badly. This is probably a mix of bad scouting, bad development and putting the focus on "High floor / low ceiling" players. We have also traded away prospects for "proven," which has been gone over in great detail on this site, and we have rarely traded a tradeable "proven" player for young talent which is always blown off as "those trades don't exist." We live in the "B-caliber" free agent market and eagerly accept a horrible final year or two of a free agent contract as long as we got one or two good years from the player. We extend every "name player" who will sign the extension and wonder why they don't pan out, while the elite players walk in free agency. The idea of trading a good "name" player prior to the trade deadline of their final year is alien to management.

 

The Brewers are on a path where they will continually be expensive and not that good. The second wild card gives playoff hope to teams that are not that good, so it keeps fan interest up, which allows the team to have enough revenue to continue on with the strategy. Meanwhile, every other team in the division seem to be embracing a model which allows for a good MLB team along with a strong farm, so I don't see the situation getting better... I just see Brewer fans getting excited that they have a new "name player" to cheer on every offseason, and wondering why they never win consistently.

 

What the Rays (and others) do is not some voodoo magic that no one else can do. They are willing to make moves that may be unpopular and ridiculed by the talking heads on TV, but that add young, cheap talent to the system. It's not easy for management to stick to this strategy, because those in management generally want to be cheered by the fans and lauded by the media. The Pirates are getting jeered for not spending their resources this offseason, sacrificing the future for the present. I applaud their management for not doing this, and think they have a far better future ahead of them for not giving up tomorrow for today. I lived most of my life seeing the Brewers at the bottom of the standings, had a brief glimpse of a team filled with the potential to be a perennial contender, and have watched that vision get smashed by a "win now" mentality. Now I just have to hope all the stars align on a given year, and the expensive-yet-not-good roster can somehow squeak into the second wildcard, with the realization that it's more likely they will once again be near the bottom of the standings and I'll have the same conversation next year after another "B caliber" free agent is signed to a multi-year eight figure salary.

[logan82]

You need stars to compete at the MLB level. We can't afford stars through free agency so we need to develop them. We don't have any future stars in the minors.

[danzig6767]

Now I just have to hope all the stars align on a given year, and the expensive-yet-not-good roster can somehow squeak into the second wildcard, with the realization that it's more likely they will once again be near the bottom of the standings and I'll have the same conversation next year after another "B caliber" free agent is signed to a multi-year eight figure salary.

 

Simply draft better and the vast majority of your complaints go out the window.

 

Outside of Ramirez, pretty much all of the free agent signings/trades you complain so much about have gone to starting pitching because the team has failed so miserably to draft/develop pitching for decades now.

 

Like i said earlier, look at the Cardinals great pitching staff, it's almost entirely from their farm system and like the Brewers, St Louis hasn't been drafting in the top 5. If Melvin and/or Attanasio could just grab cheap high quality pitching prospects from the minors as the Cardinals are doing and as have the Rays for years now, i'm sure they'd much rather do that than pay free agents 10 plus million per. I'm mean come on, do you really think they've rather pay Wolf, Lohse, or Garza 10 plus million per or instead simply grab a Matt Moore, Wacha, or Miller from the minors?

 

If you should be really upset with any one thing in particular above all else, it should be hiring Seid. His inability to draft better pitching and also Zduriencik is by far the biggest reason that the Brewers have continually had to find pitching via trades and free agency, unlike the Cardinals, Rays, and so many other teams who have drafted better. By just simple odds, when you think of how many pitchers the Brewers have drafted over a long period of time, it's pretty amazing how few quality pitchers the Brewers farm system has produced, that includes even just bullpen arms. Throwing darts while blindfolded at available pitchers in those many drafts likely would have produced better results.

 

The Pirates are getting jeered for not spending their resources this offseason, sacrificing the future for the present. I applaud their management for not doing this, and think they have a far better future ahead of them for not giving up tomorrow for today.

One interesting thing about the Pirates success last year is that a number of people questioned them acquiring veteran guys like Burnett, Wandy Rodriguez, and Liriano, yet all three were very important in their surprising season. Now they also have a quality farm system to turn to going forward, but that really should be the case given they've been picking in the top 5-10 of each round forever. It's crazy how many high picks they've blown in the past. For as much as Zduriencik did to turn around our system, it has to be remembered that Weeks, Fielder, and Braun were top 5-10 picks. They also are refraining from making other moves not only because of some set philosophy, they also have a notoriously cheap owner who enjoys filling his bank accounts with healthy profits.

[Patrick425]

3.4 billion dollars from the Dodgers deal goes into revenue sharing. 34 percent of these teams deals do in many cases. So..I'm pretty sure I'd call that a large chunk.

 

 

I just never heard this (34%?). I just tried searching, but couldn't find anything that talked about how much teams share from their TV contracts. So, I'm not sure where you are getting this from. I found this article from 2012 that states: "The money from each team’s local TV deal is mostly kept by the team. "

 

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/pa/pdf/cba_english.pdf

 

on the top of page 121

 

34 percent of every teams local revenue is put in a pot and evenly distributed among every team

 

also the top 15 markets forfeit and increasing chunk of their revenue sharing money as the years go on. It was 25% last year, 50% this year, 75% next year and all of it in 2016, so the Brewers are getting an increasingly large chunk of that money as time goes on.

 

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps the lower revenue teams are starting to get larger relative chunks of the revenue sharing pie than they were before. However, it still seems as if it's better to be a team that contributes "big chunks" to revenue sharing than a team that receives "big chunks" from revenue sharing. Until I see teams like the Brewers, Royals, Twins, Pirates, etc mentioned in the same breath as the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers, Rangers in the off season as being in the hunt for top free agents it's going to be hard for me to believe that revenue sharing is truly working. Year after year it's the same story. We compete for the likes of Suppan, Wolf, and Garza.....those are our "big" signings. It would be nice not to have to mortgage the farm system for guys like Grienke and Marcum. Until this happens, it will be hard for me to believe that these "large chunks" that are being received are doing anything more than helping the Brewers keep up with the inflation of baseball.

[danzig6767]

 

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps the lower revenue teams are starting to get larger relative chunks of the revenue sharing pie than they were before. However, it still seems as if it's better to be a team that contributes "big chunks" to revenue sharing than a team that receives "big chunks" from revenue sharing. Until I see teams like the Brewers, Royals, Twins, Pirates, etc mentioned in the same breath as the Yankees, Angels, Dodgers, Rangers in the off season as being in the hunt for top free agents it's going to be hard for me to believe that revenue sharing is truly working.

 

There really is no point waiting for some panacea of a time where all teams in baseball largely are working under equal financial footing as happens in football for the most part. It's just never going to happen.

 

That said, at least MLB has made changes over the years which has given non-major markets a better chance to compete than the past, so long as those teams make good decisions. Hell, the Brewers made the playoffs twice in the last 5 years and were two games from the World Series in 2011. Last year, the Reds, Pirates, Indians, Rays, and A's all made the playoffs, while big market teams like the Yankees, Mets, Nationals, Angels, Phillies, Giants, etc all watched from home. Sure, some really good young to 30ish year old players are still leaving small to mid market teams for huge money on rich teams, but a decent amount are also staying now. It's no longer a near lock that those type of players will be gone.

 

Plus, we are only seeing the beginning of a number of these monster long term deals blowing up in the faces of teams who made them. It's going to keep happening as each year goes by and these teams who handed out 7-10 year huge deals for already veteran position players and big 5-6 year deals/extensions for starting pitchers start finding themselves with guys owed say 15-25 million per over multiple seasons that no longer are close to being the stud they signed. Some teams could end up with 2-3 of these albatross type of contracts on their books. Look at the Angels for example with Pujols and Hamilton, both still owed over 300 million combined and looking in major decline. Fielder walking could end up being a blessing in disguise if last year wasn't an aberration.

 

Things are far from perfect financially for small to mid market teams, but no longer dire as used to be the case.

[monty57]

danzig, I agree with you that the Brewers have been bad at drafting players. As I mentioned, I think part of that is bad luck, part is bad judgement, part is bad development, and part is that they went for "high floor/low ceiling" guys in hopes they would quickly rise through the minors and be with the big league team during the "window" when they still had good position players. The first rounders flopped, but we have some "low ceiling" guys we drafted in this period that are MLB ready #4/5 starters, but they'll either be in AAA or the MLB bullpen.

 

However, there are other ways to stock the farm. A big one is trading "proven" players for prospects. Had we made some of these moves in the past, we may have taken a few wins off the MLB team over the past few years, but we'd have a much better farm right now. Instead, we have traded from our system, and most trades have been to help the MLB team right away instead of looking for a higher upside player that isn't quite ready for the majors.

 

When you draft for "low ceiling/high floor" and you don't trade for high upside prospects, it isn't surprising that you have a farm which everyone says is full of guys who could have a major league career but has very little star talent. I'll defer to Logan's quote "You need stars to compete at the MLB level. We can't afford stars through free agency so we need to develop them. We don't have any future stars in the minors."

 

Recently, the Brewers have started to draft high upside guys, so hopefully this will help turn things around, but the whole system changed last year. By giving up their pick for Lohse, they not only didn't have that pick, but the Brewers were handicapped financially because of the new "pool" rules, and ended up picking high upside for Devin Williams and then a bunch of guys projected to be bullpen guys from the get-go. If we continue to draft for upside, and don't give up any more picks, we will eventually have a better farm. However, this will be a long process, so as long as we continue to try to tread water and make free agent moves to sell tickets at the MLB level, I don't think we'll be a good franchise for a long time. If Attanasio truly believes that prospects are trade chips, then I don't think we'll ever have a good farm, and therefore will never have a system in place to be continually good.

 

Finally, as to the "notoriously cheap owner who enjoys filling his bank accounts with healthy profits," that's why it's tough to run a strategy that is proven to work for small market teams. Owners who implement this strategy get panned by the media and fans as "notoriously cheap," while owners like Attanasio who try to run a small-market team like a big market team are praised by the media and loved by the fans, who choose to point fingers at everyone but him when the MLB team continues to fail and the system is devoid of talent.

[danzig6767]

I don't agree that the Brewers have set about with a plan to draft mostly low ceiling guys as you say. They've drafted their share of say hard throwing high school arms and high school position players, those kids simply have rarely panned out. It's not like they've only just drafted college kids with high picks. In the end, it hasn't mattered whether they drafted high school arms or college pitchers, very few have panned out over a long period of time.

 

Plus, just look at how many good players and pitchers on teams like the Cardinals and Rays weren't high picks. Besides Miller and Wacha, Kelly in the 3rd round. Rosenthal 21st round. Garcia was a 22nd round pick. Lynn came from their farm system. Bullpen cogs last year like Siegrist 41st round and Maness 11th round. Matt Carpenter was a 13th round pick. Allen Craig 8th round. Matt Adams 23rd round. Wong was the 22nd pick in the 2011 draft we took two crappy pitchers. The Rays last year in their rotation had Matt Moore who was an 8th round pick. Cobb 4th round. Hellickson 4th round.

 

All of those success's weren't because of some grand philosophy differences by the Rays and Cardinals come draft day, just simply better scouting. The Cardinals weren't trading proven players for prospects either. Instead, they've traded prospects for veterans. Because they draft so much better though, they've been able to avoid having to sign pitchers in free agency.

 

Tampa is a different situation. Their fan base sucks, so they have no choice but to have a low payroll. The Tampa owner is lucky though to have hired the best GM in baseball, who also hired a great amateur scouting staff. This has allowed the team to win 90 plus games a year on a small payroll. Trying to replicate that though would be very difficult without hiring the whole Tampa front office because it's no so much their philosophy which has lead to 90 plus wins a year on the cheap, it's their brain power or else almost everyone in baseball would do the same thing.

 

Pittsburgh is finally seeing the fruits of picking high in the draft year after year after year, more so than some extra great plan. At some point they eventually had to start seeing the benefits of top 5-10 picks in each round.

 

We see all of the time in various pro sports where 1-2 teams have a lot of success doing things a certain way, so others try to emulate it, but fail mainly because they find out it wasn't the philosophy as much which made those other teams so successful, it instead was the smarts of guys pulling the trigger on numerous decisions. Friedman IMO is the most valuable and underpaid commodity in all of baseball. Beane not far behind. Both should be making 10 million per at least. We've seen multiple of Beane's underlings over the years get GM gigs of their own and end up faring much worse because understanding Beane's basic belief systems is a lot different than being able to also successfully pull them off to win games as he has.

[DoubleSwitch]

Looking back at old drafts I don't think it's really clear that Zduriencik favored more high ceiling guys. Of course what immediately jumps out at you is that he had a lot of high picks. Rickie Weeks and Ryan Braun were both very safe picks, who ended up being good picks. It's hard not to look at the '11 draft and not be upset especially considering the pitcher who got picked between them. I will point out though that probably Seid's two best picks were Thornburg and Nelson, a pair of college arms taken the year before who advanced through the system quickly.

[TheCrew07]

All of those success's weren't because of some grand philosophy differences by the Rays and Cardinals come draft day, just simply better scouting. The Cardinals weren't trading proven players for prospects either. Instead, they've traded prospects for veterans. Because they draft so much better though, they've been able to avoid having to sign pitchers in free agency.

 

I agree that in the Cardinals case, better scouting has played a key role, they've pulled more gems later in the draft than anyone.

 

However in the Rays case they miss as much they hit, the difference is that they continually draft high upside players throughout their drafts, which is a major difference in philosophy from the Brewers in particular. I find that you're being rather dismissive of the varying nuances here and just trying to paint with a broad brush, which may be your impression of what's happened, but I don't necessarily agree is factually true.

 

Last year the Brewers drafted 2 HS kids with relatively high upsides then went extremely conservative and didn't draft another HS kid until the 13th round, and didn't take another HS pitcher until the 29th round. This is a pattern that largely existed under Jack Z as well, he'd take his shots at high upside players early, then go conservative, mostly taking his later round high upside risks with the draft and follow process (which no longer exists, Manny Parra was key hit from that strategy).

 

TB historically has sprinkled in high upside HS school kids all throughout their drafts and they make up for in volume what they lack in precision. The Brewers have had neither the precision nor the volume, in addition the Rays haven't been afraid to hand out big bonuses to players later in the draft, such as WI native Kevin James in the 9th round. Historically the Brewers haven't gone over the recommended slot value pretty much anywhere, preferring instead to focus the majority of their player budget on the MLB payroll, leaving little wiggle room to be creative in either Latin America (international FAs) or the Amateur Draft. I've pointed this out numerous times but 1 season of Wolf or Suppan was worth 5-6 international/overslot draft signings.

 

There have been other strategies being utilized by other teams which would have been worth pursuing for the Brewers, they just haven't been willing to go down that road. This last international signing period was a good start, hopefully they will be actively engaging all means to acquire impact talent in the future rather than what they've done in the past with the amateur draft. I can understand if people don't want to follow the minor league side including the draft and international signings, that's a huge time commitment to be somewhat educated on just the Brewers, let alone what's being done around baseball as a whole.

 

However if posters don't truly understand what a big deal losing a 1st round pick is to an entire draft because of the slotting process, then you probably shouldn't be commenting on that aspect of Lohse signing at all. It's not just about losing that first round pick and the potential talent, it's about losing that pool money which severely limited the Brewers to the talent they could chase later on in the draft. It actually affected every aspect of the Brewer's draft in those first 10 rounds, that why you saw so many easy signs/college relievers taken. No mid to small market team should want to put themselves in that position, which is why it is taking so long for FAs with that kind penalty attached to be signed. There are much deeper issues in play here than how Lohse pitched last year or will pitch in the future.

 

A small core of posters has been beating the drum about ultimate value over the last handful of years and yesterday BA posted a nice article in which it was mentioned how many teams are shifting their view of what's truly valuable. Over the years there have been a litany of excuses proposed for the organization's short comings, I would have hoped they would dry up as the end result has rapidly become more obvious. We haven't been haters crusading against the Brewers because we personally dislike the decision makers, the crusade has been about a strategy that never was sustainable. For example and I pointed this out at the time but the Brewers could have easily used Wolf's money to sign Chapman instead of the Reds getting him, which player had greater upside and which proved to be more valuable over the course of their contract?

 

To me that's the core issue here, the ultimate value out of the dollars spent, the Brewers have chosen to spend their money out front on middling FAs for the MLB roster, when it would have better spent developing a larger talent base to draw MLB players from. Creating a larger talent base should have included trading players like Hardy or Hart at their peak value for replacement players, and no 1 good year from Gomez doesn't make the Hardy trade a good deal. Everything the Brewers have done roster wise has been very linear in natur, the best GMs in baseball, like Freidman in TB, don't think or operate that way. They understand that the talent at the bottom of the pyramid is equally as important as the talent at the top if you are going to sustain success. Even a larger market team like the Rangers will regularly buy and sell prospects to recycle the talent base.

 

I've seen just about rationalization possible on this forum as to why something would work for other teams but not the Brewers, however in the end that's all just bunk. The Brewers have had the same opportunities as any other organization to work outside of established protocols but haven't because they are operated by a conservative management team with a singular focus on the MLB roster. A great many posters have gotten exactly what they wanted out of the Brewers and so I understand they will wholeheartedly support what DM and MA have done, but that doesn't mean those actions were the best possible course to be taken, every move made also had and will continue to have a cost associated with it.

 

I still firmly believe it's better to give up a 1 or 2 wins now and gain 4-5 wins in the future than hold onto someone to get those wins when the team wasn't truly competitive. '09 & '10 were the cost of '08, '12 & '13 were the cost of '11, and the root cause here is that the Brewers have never had enough talent in house to sustain the franchise. Posters can rationalize whatever excuses they choose but the proof has been in and continues to be in plain sight. Ultimately DM and MA are responsible, they hired everyone beneath them... we can blame the scouts, but who put them there in the first place? We can blame the developmental staff, but who hired them? Who do we blame for the Brewers failing to acquire talent through as many different avenues as possible over the years? Why no overslot signings in the draft? How did we manage to only develop Peralta and Escobar in all these years out of Latin America? The marquee signings were generally around the cost of a 1st round draft pick's signing bonus, why not go after 1-2 legitimate impact international talents every year?

 

The bottom line is incredibly simple; if a team isn't drafting impact talent, isn't able to sign impact talent, and isn't able to develop impact talent, then that kind of talent needs to be traded for in order to cultivate enough depth to sustain the franchise. The Brewers only made that kind of trade 1 time, selling Greinke to the Angels, and their hand was basically forced to do so. Constantly buying players with prospects isn't necessarily a bad thing if players with some longevity are targeted, players you have a chance to control 3+ years, instead the Brewers focused on temporary patch after temporary patch so the same roster holes continually keep coming back around.

[DoubleSwitch]

A couple things I want to comment on. First the Rays haven't put together a good draft since 2007. Guerrieri looks like a nice player, and he'd be their first good in house pitching prospect in a while. I like Andrew Friedman, he's forward thinking in a lot of the way that Doug never will be, but a lot of his best moves are major league stuff. I think it's pretty clear that in the early to mid 2000's there was something special going on in the Rays scouting dept. and a lot of that took place before Friedman was even in charge. I'm almost more impressed by the high school guys they drafted and couldn't sign than the guys they actually got. Mike Pelfrey, Jacoby Ellsbury, Kris Medlen, Tommy Hunter, Wade Miley, Ike Davis and Mike Minor were all originally taken by the Rays in mid to late rounds during that time. You see the other side of that strategy in the post 2007 drafts. Tim Beckham and Chris Sale were two high profile flops, but those drafts pretty much missed from top to bottom. Just like when things turned bad for the Brewers this was when the Rays started winning and stopped picking in the top 5 every year. Over Seid's tenure the Rays have drafted much worse than the Brewers.

 

Secondly I'd disagree that the only worthy way to spend your prospects is on are guys with 3+ years left of control. Nobody is giving up pre-arb major league pitching. It's the most valuable commodity in all the game and Corey Hart and JJ Hardy weren't going to get it done. Also I'd say the Greinke trade was a great move, even based on what we knew about those players when we traded them. Doug may not be great, but I think he's learned from some mistakes and gotten better. We haven't seen things as baffling as Carlos Lee for Francisco Cordero in years. Every time you're really frustrated with the Brewers just remember you could be a DBacks fan. They turned Three talented young players into Mark Trumbo and a bad closer, and then gave 23.5 million to Bronson Arroyo.

[danzig6767]

 

Ultimately DM and MA are responsible, they hired everyone beneath them... we can blame the scouts, but who put them there in the first place? We can blame the developmental staff, but who hired them?

Who here doesn't blame Melvin and/or Attanasio for hiring Seid, who then hired his scouting staff? I've yet to see anyone here blame someone else and for myself at least, i've said multiple times that it very well could end up being the biggest mistake of Doug's tenure, assuming he made that call instead of the owner. Those people pulling the trigger on draft picks each year are arguably the most underrated people in all of baseball.

 

and no 1 good year from Gomez doesn't make the Hardy trade a good deal.

Last time i checked, Carlos is still on the team, is in his prime, and signed to an extension that Fangraphs called arguably the best big league signing at that time. If he performs anywhere near how he did last season, Gomez will be one of the bigger bargains in baseball outside of kids still in pre-arby years.

 

The bottom line is incredibly simple; if a team isn't drafting impact talent, isn't able to sign impact talent, and isn't able to develop impact talent, then that kind of talent needs to be traded for in order to cultivate enough depth to sustain the franchise.

The problem there is teams think they are going to draft well, it's why the spend all of the effort, time, and money evaluating hundreds of kids each year. Then it often takes varying degrees of time for kids playing in the minors before knowing if a draft ended up doing well or poorly. It's not like teams conduct a draft and a day after it's over, they say well this batch of players is going to suck. Look at the Cardinals and just how many quality players on their big league roster were drafted from say the 3rd round through the 25th. After some times in the minors, a number of those players developed better than expected. Not so much for Seid's picks and it's hurt badly. If things don't get much better and quickly, sticking with Seid could prove to be a bigger mistake than first hiring him.

 

Oh well, it's probably pointless to keep debating this stuff. You seem to believe that anyone here who doesn't constantly bash nearly anything Attanasiio and Melvin do in running the team as you do, that then those posters agree with almost everything they do, when that is far from the case. For example, plenty of people who don't dislike Attanasiio and Melvin as much as you were against the Suppan and Wolf signings. Weren't fans of multiple other decisions. Have wanted the team to be more invested in international signings. Cringe a bit reading the Attanasio interview where it shows just how heavily involved he is in major free agent moves, instead of leaving that to his general manager.

 

It is what it is though. Attanasio has clearly shown and stated out loud in interviews that he has no intention of trading off a guy like say Gomez for prospects as i'm sure you'd want to do. It's simply not in his DNA to sell off productive players for prospects unless his hand is forced by a guy like Greinke making it clear he won't stay. If the farm system isn't producing talent, he's going to sign free agents because in his heart he will almost always think win now first unless things look so bleak he has no choice but to concede that a season is going nowhere.

 

So i'm just going to watch the upcoming season and hope the team does well, regardless if i have issues with some of the decisions made by the team given i don't get to tell Attanasio what to do. If my memory is correct, you stated once that you couldn't enjoy the 2011 season at all when the Brewers won 95 games and were only 2 games from the World Series simply because you hated how that team was put together. I just can't think that way and to be honest, hope i never do because that was the most fun i had as a Brewers fan since i was a little kid watching the team in the early 80's and trying to bat like Robin Yount in little league.

[sveumrules]

Not only have we set a team record in payroll ($$$ = wins right?) but we just beat the World Series Champz. I know its early, and I don't wanna jinx anything, but...well, you guys can figure it out.