Braun Hurt on Opening Day

[monty57]

While calling him overpaid, keep in mind his initial extension was so cheap that he was being paid like 5mil per year during his glory years. Yes he'll be overpaid as he gets older but he was massively underpaid until basically now so it balances out, that's how MLB works.

 

Extending good pre-arby players is one way mid-payroll teams like the Brewers can compete. They transfer the risk from the player to the team, so the team gets a discount. I love these type of deals, even though I know some of them will not pan out, as the player will flop.

 

Braun seems pretty knowledgeable about this, and knew that whatever happened, he was guaranteed $40MM to play baseball. During this period, it was often reported that he was a big proponent of extending early, and advised his teammates to take extensions when they were offered.

 

I generally dislike extending players in their final contract (or final arby) year, and dislike having to fill in key players through free agency, as this almost always means you are paying top dollar for players, and (in the case of older FAs) paying them for what they have done rather than what they are likely to do while you are paying them. From a Brewer standpoint, Braun's first contract was a great signing, but the second deal was pretty much doomed to be an overpay. They were looking for a "face of the franchise," or "another Robin Yount," in order to give fans someone to idolize (and buy tickets), and not necessarily doing it because they thought he would live up to the contract.

 

The whole pre-arby process "massively underpays" players in their first six years. It sucks for the players, but teams like the Brewers couldn't survive without it, and it is what allows veteran players to sign massive deals. If MLB teams had to pay rookies like other sports do, a team like the Brewers would probably not be able to afford to have a $10,000,000 player on the roster.

[tmwiese55]

I actually think it makes perfect sense. That was the deal that was made by both parties, team will underpay you when you're young and overpay when older. Both sides agreed to it, not that we're at the overpay side we all think we're getting hosed. Have to keep it in perspective. It would be the equivalent of having a deal to do some landscaping work (or whatever similar project) where you pay half up front and half after completion, but then saying its BS you have to pay the second half of the money since the work is already done.

 

While I agree that ideally the extension would have gone through 2018 instead of 2020 (age 35 instead of 37) I see why they did it and at least it isn't as bad as all the other ones out there paying guys through their age 41 or 42 seasons. The problem here is he didn't live up to his end by getting caught in the scandal thus killing his marketability and now production. The team couldn't have know that was to happen and unfortunately there's no way out of it. The deal itself was sound, just couldn't plan on this BS happening with him

[monty57]

I actually think it makes perfect sense. That was the deal that was made by both parties, team will underpay you when you're young and overpay when older. Both sides agreed to it, not that we're at the overpay side we all think we're getting hosed. Have to keep it in perspective. It would be the equivalent of having a deal to do some landscaping work (or whatever similar project) where you pay half up front and half after completion, but then saying its BS you have to pay the second half of the money since the work is already done.

 

While I agree that ideally the extension would have gone through 2018 instead of 2020 (age 35 instead of 37) I see why they did it and at least it isn't as bad as all the other ones out there paying guys through their age 41 or 42 seasons. The problem here is he didn't live up to his end by getting caught in the scandal thus killing his marketability and now production. The team couldn't have know that was to happen and unfortunately there's no way out of it. The deal itself was sound, just couldn't plan on this BS happening with him

 

Long term MLB deals to aging free agents are more like getting into a 10-year cell phone contract, being happy you got the free phone at the start, but still having to pay for ten years even if the phone company stops providing coverage to your area, technology makes your plan useless, or the "free" phone stops working. Whatever the reason you're eventually sorry you signed the deal, you should know that the odds are seriously against your getting "fair value" from the contract. It could happen, but far more of the deals end up being bad than good.

 

To your landscaper analogy, it would be more like them doing the initial work for cost, which you are really happy with, but making you sign an "iron-clad" contract where you have to pay them to take care of the property for the next decade. They can take good care of it or not, and you still have to pay them. Even if you sell the house, the contract remains intact, giving negative value to your home sale if they are doing shoddy work. It doesn't matter if they show up drunk, or say that they can't do the job because they're not feeling well, you still have to pay them. At some point, you will have to pay someone else (on top of the guy under contract) to assist or replace the original landscaper, and you just hope the guy under contract will do any work at all, so the you can pay a little less for the replacement.

[tmwiese55]

But he wasn't signed at age 30 like all these deals the Yankees give out that backfire so that's why I don't blame them and consider it a fair deal. This was to convince him at a young age to give up free agency and commit to us. You have to give something to him to make him give up going to free agency. Without the PED problem and now injuries it was perfectly reasonable to expect him to be a high level player into his mid 30s, of course he can't be a near 1.000 ops guy all the way through but that he'd still be solid. Heck, he still might as we're only a few games into the season

[monty57]

This was to convince him at a young age to give up free agency and commit to us.

 

Actually, Melvin has said that Braun came to him and said he wanted to sign a deal that would make him a Brewer for life. I agree that his deal is much better than many of the deals being handed out these days, but any time a team signs someone to a deal like that, they are taking on a tremendous amount of risk and are probably not going to be happy with what they're paying later on in the deal. I loved the first Braun extension. I didn't hate the second one, but figured they would be way overpaying at the end of the deal, when he may just be sitting on the bench collecting a lot of money. I still don't hate that they signed it, but it could be a drag on the team going forward, particularly a few years from now, and definitely for the seasons when Braun will be retired but the team will still be paying him.

 

My post above was really focusing on long-term free agent deals in general (not specifically Braun) especially those given to older players. Braun wasn't old when he signed his second extension, but he will be old when it's done.

 

Heck, he still might as we're only a few games into the season

 

Agree. I hope his down year last year was mainly due to the thumb injury, and I hope the surgery fixed things. As I mentioned earlier, if he can regain his form, the deal isn't horrible, but it will probably be similar to the Soriano deal, where at the end of the deal the fans will blame it for every problem with the team.

 

I think at the time of the signing, the team thought he could be their golden boy... the Robin Yount, Cal Ripken type who the fans would pay to see at the end of their career even though production was down. Maybe that could still happen, but I think that ship has sailed for Braun, who lost a lot of luster with how the whole PED thing played out.

[tmwiese55]

I see what you mean. Even if it was his idea they still had to give something, not like he was just going to bend over. Still, maybe they could have chopped 15-20 mil off if they negotiated a little harder, or just took one year off. At the time though they probably thought they were getting a great deal.

 

I totally agree on the those contracts, I laugh every year as the yankees keep repeating the mistake. Elsbury, Mccann, Beltran in the same year all at least 31 yrs old, yea that will end well. Specific to the braun one, it only took him to age 36 or 37, not all the way to 40 like some of these horrible ones (votto, pujols, arod, etc.). and like you said, they thought he'd be the best Brewer ever and a hall of famer. Overpaying him the last 2-3 years was a fair trade for all they thought they'd have gotten from him over the years, especially considering he was getting under 10 mil in his prime.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but if a player retires he doesn't get paid. He just has to show up though, no matter how bad he is. Team can cut him or put him on the DL but if they show up they get paid. Retire and they don't.

[reillymcshane]

Without the PED problem and now injuries it was perfectly reasonable to expect him to be a high level player into his mid 30s, of course he can't be a near 1.000 ops guy all the way through but that he'd still be solid.

 

The problem is that can't expect a player to perform at a high level into his mid-30s (especially when he's age 27, when Braun signed his extension). I realize that the team can make some guesses about a player's long term health, but that far out is pretty dicey. I don't care how hard a player works, how healthy he's been up through his age 26 season, it's simply a risk to predict that.

 

The prudent thing would have been for Milwaukee to wait a couple of years before extending Ryan. However, I understand why they did it. If he had hit 30-40 HR and had a .300 BA in 2013 and 2014, he'd be looking at $25-30M a year when he hit FA after this season. The club saw a chance to lock up a hall of fame type player. The risk was they had to do it really early, meaning there was several years where something could go wrong (which happened).

 

Many players do very well into their mid-30s (Adrian Beltre or Matt Holliday, for example). But for everyone of these guys, there's three or four others that falter for a variety of reasons.

[tmwiese55]

Yes, everyone is aware but you just have to remember there's two sides to the negotiation. The team can't just get everything they want. Of course they knew his production was going to dip into his mid 30s, but they didn't want to watch the face of their team walking in free agency at 29 or 30 and get a 10 yr deal from NY or ANA like Pujols did (he was like 32 though so much easier for STL to let him go)

 

If you want to make the argument a small market team should never pay someone past their age 31 or 32 seasons that's fair. I totally see why they did it and why it made sense at the time. It's logical to think a hitter of his caliber would be an above average hitter into his mid 30s and at least competent until 36, still might be. Sure 20 mil is high for just above average but that's the tradeoff for the low front years and the stability of having him for team marketing and such. Another way to look at it, shift 5 mil per year from the last 4 years and put it on the front 4 years and it doesn't look so bad.

[reillymcshane]

Here's a look at long term free agent contracts for players who actually reached FA from 2007-12.

 

39 players signed contracts for 4 or more years.

 

Here's the average cost per WAR that these players have produced (keep in mind that Fangraphs pegs 1.0 WAR as worth $7 million):

 

6 players - Negative WAR - can't even calculate their value!

12 players - $10M+ per WAR

4 players - $8.0-9.9M per WAR

7 players - $6.0-7.9M per WAR

7 players - $4.0-5.9M per WAR

3 players - $3.9M or lower per WAR

 

- The average yearly WAR for each of these players was 1.9

- The average yearly salary for each player was $14.9M

- 11 players have averaged 3.0 WAR a year or better (Adrian Beltre is the best FA - 22.7 WAR in four years - 5.7 average)

 

In the end, teams are paying roughly $15M a year for these guys to produce 1.9 WAR annually. It's not a terrible return, but it's not great either. As you would expect, a lot of the value is often produced early in the contracts, with diminishing returns as the player ages.

 

Please note that 13 of these contracts still are in process. While there's a chance some players improve, the odds are that they will only get worse (example, A-Rod has averaged 3.4 WAR over the length of his deal. It's unlikely that improves over the next three years). Doesn't mean they can't get better (Prince, for instance, missed most of last year, so he could easily improve), but for most of them, a decline is more likely. Obviously, I didn't factor in years and money that haven't occurred. So if a player was four years into a 5-year contract for $50 million, I calculated it at 4-years and $40M.

 

I used Fangraphs for WAR. Also, I only used players who actually hit free agency (this list is easy to find). Finding the contracts of all the players extended by their teams prior to FA is difficult.

 

Final note, any voiding contracts, like Sabathia's, I just ignored. Figuring out how to calculate that was just not in the cards.

[MrTPlush]

Yes, everyone is aware but you just have to remember there's two sides to the negotiation. The team can't just get everything they want. Of course they knew his production was going to dip into his mid 30s, but they didn't want to watch the face of their team walking in free agency at 29 or 30 and get a 10 yr deal from NY or ANA like Pujols did (he was like 32 though so much easier for STL to let him go)

 

If you want to make the argument a small market team should never pay someone past their age 31 or 32 seasons that's fair. I totally see why they did it and why it made sense at the time. It's logical to think a hitter of his caliber would be an above average hitter into his mid 30s and at least competent until 36, still might be. Sure 20 mil is high for just above average but that's the tradeoff for the low front years and the stability of having him for team marketing and such. Another way to look at it, shift 5 mil per year from the last 4 years and put it on the front 4 years and it doesn't look so bad.

 

This is the last year of the original deal and Braun will turn 32 years old in November. So he would have hit free agency at the same age as Pujols.

 

They extended a guy for 100% decline years and a guy who as far as we know can't play the infield...it wasn't a great idea back then and now that his image/marketability is destroyed it looks absolutely horrible not even considering he is crippled.

[tmwiese55]

Yup, one reason I was fine with their offers to Prince and CC that weren't accepted. From what I remembered they were willing to give only 5 or 6 year deals to them at the market yearly amount around 20, as we've said it's those last few years that really prove the problem. With their body types you could kind of see them not going well into their mid 30s, whereas Braun was in top shape.

 

Like I said, everyone pretty much knows all this and it's fair to make the argument to just stay away from these deals no matter what. You then have to accept they were looking at Braun (or someone like him, such as Gomez/Lucroy really soon) leaving at age 29 or whatever, in the heart of his prime. How would that have gone with the fans since Braun was a top 3 player in baseball at the time. I actually think the Brewers are generally following this rule, but considered Braun the exception. For any of these mid tier free agents they've signed the last few years (Lohse, Garza, Aram, Suppan, Wolf, etc.) they tend not to go past 4 years (tough to get into more than one year of trouble, two in a worst case scenario at the end of these contracts), to avoid having a multi year albatross on the books like a Soriano type.

[MrTPlush]

Yup, one reason I was fine with their offers to Prince and CC that weren't accepted. From what I remembered they were willing to give only 5 or 6 year deals to them at the market yearly amount around 20, as we've said it's those last few years that really prove the problem. With their body types you could kind of see them not going well into their mid 30s, whereas Braun was in top shape.

 

Like I said, everyone pretty much knows all this and it's fair to make the argument to just stay away from these deals no matter what. You then have to accept they were looking at Braun (or someone like him, such as Gomez/Lucroy really soon) leaving at age 29 or whatever, in the heart of his prime. How would that have gone with the fans since Braun was a top 3 player in baseball at the time. I actually think the Brewers are generally following this rule, but considered Braun the exception. For any of these mid tier free agents they've signed the last few years (Lohse, Garza, Aram, Suppan, Wolf, etc.) they tend not to go past 4 years (tough to get into more than one year of trouble, two in a worst case scenario at the end of these contracts), to avoid having a multi year albatross on the books like a Soriano type.

 

The other troubling thing about the Braun deal is the fact it was extremely early with 5 years left on the original one. It was pointless to sign a guy that early to a deal fairly close to what market value would be. While some guys are getting huge deals on the FA market at Braun's age we also knew what they did past 30...with Braun he was still in his prime and his post prime years were a total mystery when the big deal was made.

[Ennder]

Baseball is like that though, you overpay to keep a player and you lose money by going after FA. Football is a bit of the opposite, players tend to take a paycut to be on a super bowl capable team because of the salary cap. FA is an awful way to build a team in either sport though but it is even worse with baseball.

[logan82]

I see what you mean. Even if it was his idea they still had to give something, not like he was just going to bend over.

No they didn't. They could have just stuck with the original contract and Braun would be gone after this year. We had him through his age 31 season. The back end of his prime. Add in he had abdominal problems practically every year at that point and it was a pretty terrible idea.

 

You then have to accept they were looking at Braun (or someone like him, such as Gomez/Lucroy really soon) leaving at age 29 or whatever, in the heart of his prime.

That is close to the back end of the prime years. It was heart of prime 10 years ago. We are just not seeing players who play as long as we did a decade ago.

[superfly]

The Marlins just did the same thing with Giancarlo Stanton, albeit at a much higher salary. I don't fault the Brewers one bit for doing the deal with Braun, and no matter your stance on his PEDs fiasco I appreciate him wanting to commit to a small market like us when he clearly knew there were bigger fish in the sea like the Yankees who would unload a ship of cash for him.

[tmwiese55]

Yes they didn't have to, but let's say everything would've worked out and he was still near his top performance. What would have happened after this season? He's getting a 300mil offer like Pujols got and we're screwed, that's why they did it. Now as baseball nerds like most people on here, they probably accept losing a 31 yr old, even if he's still good because they know he's probably only got a couple good years left followed by some slightly above average years. To the casual fan they don't see that, they see the classic narrative of the Brewers are cheap, letting the best player they ever had leave. Like I said, it would have been nice to do that contract just through age 35 instead of 37. I think that would have been giving him enough to still sign it.

 

And your other thing about age 29, yes it's backend but it's allowing a top player go at this peak rather than trying to win. That's what they were trying to avoid. Let's see how the attendance is say 3 years from now if trade Gomez and Lucroy and are in dead last and one of the worst teams in the league. If they do that they'll really need Peralta/Nelson and some other young pitchers to make a big step up or it could be a rough couple years. Ownership is trying to avoid going back to this years, keep in mind they're only what, 8 years removed from being a complete bottom feeder of the league.

[logan82]

If they trade Gomez and Lucroy now they should be able to get enough talent back to be good again in 3 years. the names of the players don't matter. Winning is all that matters.

[tmwiese55]

Same difference, they'll be godawful this year, and for probably two more after if they did. And then cross your fingers that the trades work. Think of all the prospects that flop, I remember a few years ago people that love the idea of perpetually trading for the future having these dream lineups that mostly flopped, they included guys like Lastings Millidge etc..

 

I fully accept they should probably trade Gomez when the time is right, unless he'll take a reasonable extension (which they should be trying for now) he's going to command over 20 mil per year going into his 30s(turns 30 after next season). A big market will offer 7 or 8 years when you know the last few years of the deal will be rough. It's the same problem/decision they were trying to avoid with Braun except Gomez isn't a generational level player like they thought Braun was when they did it. And I get that they probably should have just rode out Braun's initial extension and then decided what to do, all I've been trying to say here is I get why they did it and it was logical why they did it.

[fondybrewfan]

I can envision Doug trading guys like Gomez, Broxton, Garza, Lohse if the situation presents itself; but Lucroy is pretty much the face of the franchise right now. He is an elite catcher and those are very few and far between. I would be shocked if Lucroy goes anywhere and I fully expect an extension when that time comes. You can rebuild the system plenty just by trading Gomez and maybe Garza, I don't think trading Lucroy is necessary. The team can be an excellent team 3 years from now assuming some of the lower minors talent develops as we hope; I don't think it is necessary to gut the MLB team Astros style.

[TooLiveBrew]

Same difference, they'll be godawful this year, and for probably two more after if they did. And then cross your fingers that the trades work. Think of all the prospects that flop, I remember a few years ago people that love the idea of perpetually trading for the future having these dream lineups that mostly flopped, they included guys like Lastings Millidge etc..

 

I fully accept they should probably trade Gomez when the time is right, unless he'll take a reasonable extension (which they should be trying for now) he's going to command over 20 mil per year going into his 30s(turns 30 after next season). A big market will offer 7 or 8 years when you know the last few years of the deal will be rough. It's the same problem/decision they were trying to avoid with Braun except Gomez isn't a generational level player like they thought Braun was when they did it. And I get that they probably should have just rode out Braun's initial extension and then decided what to do, all I've been trying to say here is I get why they did it and it was logical why they did it.

The Brewers' competitive resurgence was fueled almost entirely by prospects. Yes, young players (heck, most players) very frequently don't make the bigs &/or don't reach lofty expectations. But that's not a good reason for a club the size of the Brewers to stay away from that franchise-building model -- it's the only one we can afford, both figuratively & literally.

[monty57]

Think of all the prospects that flop, I remember a few years ago people that love the idea of perpetually trading for the future

 

Some prospects fail, but some succeed. All current MLB players were once prospects. Since many fail, the theory (at least mine) is that you need to get a lot of talent in the minor leagues. If you have one good prospect, you have something like a coin flip's chance that guy will play in the majors. However, if you have a dozen good prospects, each of them have that coin flip's chance, so something like six of them may become MLB players. The more good prospects, the better chance you get MLB players, so get as many good prospects as possible.

 

When they reach the majors, they are extremely cheap by professional sports' standards. The guys who reach the majors will have varying degrees of success. Some will be decent role players while they are cheap, some will have decent but not great careers, some will have good careers, and some will be stars, but all of them have value. The team should try to lock up those with "good to great" potential early in their career, so they can be part of the team for a long time. Eight or nine years is a very long time in professional sports, so if you miss out on a few years it's not a big deal since you got the lion's share of the players' career. Every player needs to be continually evaluated, the team needs to decide the future of the player, and those that do not appear to be longer-term (greater than one year) solutions for the team should be dangled in trade. By trading some of these players as their usefulness to the team diminishes, you can replenish the farm. Since one MLB player brings back multiple prospects, and some prospects succeed, trading one player with limited "team control" should usually bring back at least sic years of a different MLB player... maybe much more. This should be done for everyone in the system, and the cycle should just keep turning.

 

Of course there will be all kinds of other moving parts going on, but if this is the general theory for the roster, you should always have players forcing their way onto the MLB roster and making older guys with limited team control tradeable. My angst over the past few seasons is that to me it seemed like they were on track where this was a distinct possibility, but they decided to scrap that plan in order to play for today at the expense of tomorrow, and we have been getting less and less talented at the MLB level since 2011. They seem to have started to look a little to the future in the recent past, so hopefully that is not "too little, too late."

[monty57]

I can envision Doug trading guys like Gomez, Broxton, Garza, Lohse if the situation presents itself; but Lucroy is pretty much the face of the franchise right now. He is an elite catcher and those are very few and far between. I would be shocked if Lucroy goes anywhere and I fully expect an extension when that time comes. You can rebuild the system plenty just by trading Gomez and maybe Garza, I don't think trading Lucroy is necessary. The team can be an excellent team 3 years from now assuming some of the lower minors talent develops as we hope; I don't think it is necessary to gut the MLB team Astros style.

 

I too could see them extending him, as Attanasio really likes players the fans know. However, I hope he is not extended, as he is getting played to death, and today's wear and tear could lead to problems when he's in his 30's. Today, in his peak years playing catcher and not taking a day off, he's very valuable. Fast forward a few years when he's past his prime, has no knees left and has to play first base, and I don't think he'll be worth what he'll get in his next contract.

[tmwiese55]

Yes of course some guys pan out, that's obvious. More fail than not so you have to pile up as many as possible. There's a contingent of people that overvalue prospects like crazy on this board and all over the internet and I think sometimes you have to keep it in perspective. The prospect game is the one we're going to have to be in and we have to hit some in the next few years because it's pretty bare right now.

 

I guess my point of all that was that if we do that teardown and blow for the next couple years and then those prospects don't hit, turning into say 6-8 yrs of futility with no attendance and it kills TV ratings for the coming Foxsports re-negotiation. This could cost the owners a lot of money and I think people should remember that when analyzing the moves they make, I think the owners are in fear of going back to the doldrums of the late 90s/early 00s since they've done such a good job getting the people behind the team since they took over.

 

And really if you're going to do it with Gomez, which I expect they will, you might as well do it with Lucroy. He's signed for at least one more year beyond Gomez, maybe two, tough to tell from Wikipedia. He'll be a 30 or 31 yr old catcher with a ton of wear on his body who has not made barely any money yet. He needs as big of a contract as possible and I don't think it makes sense for us to give it, maybe he can play 2B in the future like Biggio did? He is the face right now so maybe they're working on a Braun type extension(obviously not for 20 mil) that will give him some financial security but doesn't break us no matter what happens, something like adding 3/30 to his current deal.

[logan82]

Yes you do have to pile up talent. You need it all within a short time frame not spread out over several levels of the majors and minors like we have now.

[MrTPlush]

I can envision Doug trading guys like Gomez, Broxton, Garza, Lohse if the situation presents itself; but Lucroy is pretty much the face of the franchise right now. He is an elite catcher and those are very few and far between. I would be shocked if Lucroy goes anywhere and I fully expect an extension when that time comes. You can rebuild the system plenty just by trading Gomez and maybe Garza, I don't think trading Lucroy is necessary. The team can be an excellent team 3 years from now assuming some of the lower minors talent develops as we hope; I don't think it is necessary to gut the MLB team Astros style.

 

I too could see them extending him, as Attanasio really likes players the fans know. However, I hope he is not extended, as he is getting played to death, and today's wear and tear could lead to problems when he's in his 30's. Today, in his peak years playing catcher and not taking a day off, he's very valuable. Fast forward a few years when he's past his prime, has no knees left and has to play first base, and I don't think he'll be worth what he'll get in his next contract.

 

They are not resigning Gomez and I doubt they have any interest in doing so. Everyone knows he is going to break down quickly after 30...let a desperate team have him.