What Many Brewers Fans May Think, But Dare Not Say (Yet)

[brewcrewdue80]

Thanks for posting the money part of Braun's contract. So give it 3 seasons and when 2018 season comes around Braun earning 19,18,16 the last 3 guaranteed years isn't a whole lot more than Upton's 14.45, 15.45, 16.45mil being earned today. It's a mutual option, that will be declined. Add 4mil for 2021. I'll just assume any deal, the Brewers will be responsible for the deferred payments while dumping the salary and player. No-one rightfully will make a trade for Braun this season. But given time and shortening his contract, he can be traded for the player he looks today.

[Mass Haas]

Apologies if posted elsewhere on the forum -

 

Fangraphs - Milwaukee’s Untimely Collapse

 

They nail it...

[EauClaireNWL]

To me, anything under 80 wins this season with this payroll means both Doug and Ron are done. Complete house cleaning. Doug's been in charge of this team for 13 years now and he has two playoff appearances and one playoff series win to show for it. Mark is going to potentially get the opportunity to bring in his own guys now for the first time and it's all on him to find someone who can draft well and put a competitive product on the field in a few years. It means tearing down outside of keeping a few talented and untradeable (at the moment) pieces and probably being a 70-75 at best win team for the foreseeable future. The window for this current squad to contend was last season and a typical streaky team collapsed in the last two months and fell out of contention and with no major moves in the off-season, this was the result. I did have a small amount of optimism this team might have had a chance at a wild card if things went right, but with both Luc and Gomez on the DL and very little quality play outside a few guys, it's gonna be a long year.

 

To me its pretty much about getting what you can for guys before the deadline and having a good draft in June. Chicago sucked for a few years with Theo to get their farm system in order and now they've got a lot of talented guys finally starting to make the jump to the big league roster. We're probably going to be looking at something similar here in Milwaukee, but it's just the nature of small market teams. At least we have an owner now who seems to care about the product on the field and is willing to spend money to try and build and keep some of his better players long term, and it's also going to take that same owner to make some tough choices in the next year to get this sinking ship righted again.

[reillymcshane]

Apologies if posted elsewhere on the forum -

 

Fangraphs - Milwaukee’s Untimely Collapse

 

They nail it...

 

I think this, from the article, sums up our situation:

 

This is the trap of indecisiveness. The Brewers never could figure out whether they were coming or going, unwilling (or unable) to commit to a rebuild or go full speed ahead on contention. What’s left is a team that was built for mediocrity with a one-in-a-million chance of something more

[TooLiveBrew]

Apologies if posted elsewhere on the forum -

 

Fangraphs - Milwaukee’s Untimely Collapse

 

They nail it...

 

I think this, from the article, sums up our situation:

 

This is the trap of indecisiveness. The Brewers never could figure out whether they were coming or going, unwilling (or unable) to commit to a rebuild or go full speed ahead on contention. What’s left is a team that was built for mediocrity with a one-in-a-million chance of something more

Can't help but once again be reminded of the great Billy Beane quote:

 

"The key," Beane says, "is identifying the moment" — the time when continued success with incremental change has become impossible, when you have to cast off existing talent and start fresh. "The worst is when you try to do it halfway: when you think you can compete and you also think you're trying to rebuild. Then you're stuck in no-man's-land. You either do it or you don't."

[3and2Fastball]

considering that I never thought the 2015 Brewers would be any good, anyways, I'm excited about the potential to get a Top 5 pick in the 2016 draft

[TheCrew07]

This slow decline to steep a drop off has been rather obvious for a long time, the organization never bothered to reload, constantly chasing middling MLB vets or temporary rotation solutions, which is making a rebuild look more likely, and was something I was desperately hoping to avoid.

 

I don't have any faith in Mark A. to hire the correct people and keep his nose of out of the baseball operation like has happened in Chicago. In the fact the Cubs should have infinitely more resources to target impact pitching over the next couple of seasons to go with their impressive stable of hitting prospects. All the Cubs needed to do was get their house in order and they have the financial resources to make a quick turn around, the Brewers aren't in that same position. It takes years to build a solid foundation and it takes commitment to keep that foundation solid and cycle talent off the big league roster while remaining competitive.

 

The whole idea of only selling "a player in the last year of his contract if we're out of it July" is completely limiting and has slowly run the franchise into the ground. The Brewers have been neither flexible or aggressive, and instead have chosen the ultra-conservative "MLB talent" route at every juncture until Greinke forced their hand. The Brewers should sell when the price is right, not because they have no other options, selling isn't giving up, it should be seen as nothing more than repositioning assets.

 

I posted the OODA loop yesterday and the problem with DM, MA, and the Brewers in general is that they've been reactionary, never completing any kind of long term loop because while while they waited and watched for proven strategies the market continually reset their loop on them. The Brewers haven't even been able to make good decisions regarding offering players arbitration. The only thing that seems to be driving "the plan" is ticket sales, but tickets don't win championships, the focus has never been on what it takes to build a dynasty, just very limited short term goals without cohesion.

 

Seriously what other organization would trade 2 very good MLB SSs in the span of 2 years without a 3rd one waiting to take over? To go from Hardy, to Escobar, to Yuni B... what a disaster, regardless of how Greinke performed. The players the Brewers gave up got to a World Series before the Brewers did for goodness sakes, that should sting and stick in everyone's craw. The Brewers essentially traded 4 MLB players for 1 year of Greinke, that's not good value, not even with the NLCS appearance.

 

I used to post all the time about ultimate value and organization building, I realize they were rather nebulous concepts, but I hope the last couple of years have demonstrated the impact of the Brewer "win now" strategy clearly. My enthusiasm for the MLB Brewers has been on a continual slow slide since 2008 when I realized the path we were on and started posting about it. I've found it entirely demoralizing to watch and yet be powerless to have any effect other than removing money from Brewer coffers by cancelling my ticket package, which was entirely a symbolic gesture as 2 10 game packs doesn't even qualify as a ripple in the pond.

 

We need the next Andrew Friedman but I fear we're going to end up with another "yes man" and the organization will languish in this pseudo competitive state for years.

[Outlander]

I think this was said by someone late last year before the status of Melvin was known but I am all for the Brewers hiring Michael Girsch from the Cardinals and making him the GM. If you can't beat them, steal them. I think a move like that would get the die hards like theCrew07 back but would be hard to convince average Joe that it is the right move.

[Boomer5]

This slow decline to steep a drop off has been rather obvious for a long time, the organization never bothered to reload, constantly chasing middling MLB vets or temporary rotation solutions, which is making a rebuild look more likely, and was something I was desperately hoping to avoid.

 

I don't have any faith in Mark A. to hire the correct people and keep his nose of out of the baseball operation like has happened in Chicago. In the fact the Cubs should have infinitely more resources to target impact pitching over the next couple of seasons to go with their impressive stable of hitting prospects. All the Cubs needed to do was get their house in order and they have the financial resources to make a quick turn around, the Brewers aren't in that same position. It takes years to build a solid foundation and it takes commitment to keep that foundation solid and cycle talent off the big league roster while remaining competitive.

 

The whole idea of only selling "a player in the last year of his contract if we're out of it July" is completely limiting and has slowly run the franchise into the ground. The Brewers have been neither flexible or aggressive, and instead have chosen the ultra-conservative "MLB talent" route at every juncture until Greinke forced their hand. The Brewers should sell when the price is right, not because they have no other options, selling isn't giving up, it should be seen as nothing more than repositioning assets.

 

I posted the OODA loop yesterday and the problem with DM, MA, and the Brewers in general is that they've been reactionary, never completing any kind of long term loop because while while they waited and watched for proven strategies the market continually reset their loop on them. The Brewers haven't even been able to make good decisions regarding offering players arbitration. The only thing that seems to be driving "the plan" is ticket sales, but tickets don't win championships, the focus has never been on what it takes to build a dynasty, just very limited short term goals without cohesion.

 

Seriously what other organization would trade 2 very good MLB SSs in the span of 2 years without a 3rd one waiting to take over? To go from Hardy, to Escobar, to Yuni B... what a disaster, regardless of how Greinke performed. The players the Brewers gave up got to a World Series before the Brewers did for goodness sakes, that should sting and stick in everyone's craw. The Brewers essentially traded 4 MLB players for 1 year of Greinke, that's not good value, not even with the NLCS appearance.

 

I used to post all the time about ultimate value and organization building, I realize they were rather nebulous concepts, but I hope the last couple of years have demonstrated the impact of the Brewer "win now" strategy clearly. My enthusiasm for the MLB Brewers has been on a continual slow slide since 2008 when I realized the path we were on and started posting about it. I've found it entirely demoralizing to watch and yet be powerless to have any effect other than removing money from Brewer coffers by cancelling my ticket package, which was entirely a symbolic gesture as 2 10 game packs doesn't even qualify as a ripple in the pond.

 

We need the next Andrew Friedman but I fear we're going to end up with another "yes man" and the organization will languish in this pseudo competitive state for years.

 

The issue wasnt the Grienke/Marcum trades. Flags fly forever and there is something to be said about going for it.

 

The problem I have is the Herb Kohl method of staying mediocre for so long that we never could draft like the Cubs and Astros (minus last years draft debacle), which purposely decided to be horrible for years. Imagine if we could have drafted Rodon last year. Or just signed him when we had the chance in the first place.

 

Then factor in the completely horrendous ability to scout amateur talent, not being realistic on the talent on the major league roster, then have one of the worst hitting approaches I have ever seen, and you have the recipe for the product today.

 

With Braun's contract and "thumb" problem, we will be saddled with his black hole for years much like what happened with Soriano. The best bet is go the Cubs route of being terrible for 4+ years, and load up with real scouts/front office, and a development program.

[monty57]

Well, since Mass Haas linked to a Fangraphs article showing how inept the Brewers' strategy is and has been, and Danzig remembers Attanasio citing a Fangraphs article as justification for his moves, maybe there's a chance Attanasio reads the article, bells go off, and he finally decides to implement a strategy that has a chance at being successful.

 

Yeah, I doubt it too.

[reillymcshane]

This day was going to come sooner or later for Milwaukee. Our initial success was built on turning high draft picks into all-star caliber major leaguers. Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, Hart - that was a good core, three of whom were top 10 picks. We supplemented that talent via trades and free agency, but that's expensive, and unsustainable for a team like Milwaukee. The way to stay good is keep funneling in cheap (meaning draft picks) all-star level talent. We just haven't done that. Guys like Scooter and Davis are nice additions, but this is not Fielder and Braun we are talking about. Our top picks just haven't panned out. Thus, we've bandaided our way to a few mediocre seasons, but now the bandaids aren't enough. As I said, this time was going to come eventually. It's happening rather quickly - I don't think anyone expected the team to collapse so quickly.

[Boomer5]

Well, since Mass Haas linked to a Fangraphs article showing how inept the Brewers' strategy is and has been, and Danzig remembers Attanasio citing a Fangraphs article as justification for his moves, maybe there's a chance Attanasio reads the article, bells go off, and he finally decides to implement a strategy that has a chance at being successful.

 

Yeah, I doubt it too.

 

I am hoping they will get it. They are seeing the kind of excitement the Cubs are getting with their kids coming up. Of course it took years of last place finishes and smart drafting to get there. The Cubs are also unique because their brain dead fans will show to capacity despite a half decade of last place finishes AND an ownership group that openly hates its fans.

 

The most recent draft and Lara does show the team willing to go after the high ceiling types. The Yo trade does show we are finally willing to trade for not major league ready assets and build the right way.

 

So there is hope they are finally getting it.

[paul253]

considering that I never thought the 2015 Brewers would be any good, anyways, I'm excited about the potential to get a Top 5 pick in the 2016 draft

 

I'm excited to be excited about a top 5 pick until September when the Brewers go like 20-7 to get to within 2 games of .500 and then use that strong finish to claim it's going to carry over into 2016 if only they can improve in a few minor areas.

[brewcrewdue80]

The team did the right thing by trading Gallardo but it came at the cost of this. The had 5SPs for depth with the idea that Thornburg/Jungmann could be next in line. Considering the Padres' late signing of Shields, and the Dodgers' moves to sign McCarthy and Anderson, why wasn't a trade made to get rid of Lohse to them? When the Brewers traded Gallardo, it opened the door in my eyes to also trade Lohse. And not once was there a rumor of that happening. When it should have been pushed he was available. That's just like the Brett Lawrie for Marcum deal. Keep your mouth shut and other GMs don't know he's available to be had. At least with that move you're creating the wave of building for the future and can admit relying on luck of the pitching of Garza/Peralta/Fiers and Nelson+5th to maybe lead you to a Wild Card berth but, be ready for the staff to also be bad. Lohse still would have had a good trade value after last season, barring a team's talent evaluators saying he wasn't headed for a good year. 198IP at 3.5ERA and 2WAR is valuable stats to have pushed to acquire. Now? It's 2013 all over again. A player Milw should have traded is playing himself to non-trade value...much like Weeks playing to platoon role, or ARam being injury plagued. And of course Gallardo at that deadline being viewed as a non trade for pitcher.

 

For an instance, let's look at Tampa, who traded away what was their big prize in Shields, Wil Myers this offseason, and acquired what looks to be a better OF in Steven Souza and 2 19yr old prospects likely identified to have promise by their evaluators, and 2 ML players avg WAR pieces. That's ingenuity right there. That is what this GM is lacking. That GM is responsible for the managers hired and keeping RR on board, who yes, is the one forced to coach what he's given, but these players aren't playing to anywhere near the average talent they've shown as one would expect. So it's on him too and he rightfully needs to go by the end of this month barring some magical turnaround these last 9 games.

Why say that? How about an ESPN article that came out stating Maddon's support of Starlin Castro as a defensive specialist at SS. Who's apparently voiced Castro to turn in to being more aggressive and improved. Yeah the same Maddon that had lead the Rays to how many winning seasons in a row? It's just where is the improvement in at least 1 batter at the plate? 1. How about 1 since the AS break last season as they began the decline?

 

It's taken Maddon less than 2 weeks to already improve Castro's defensive approach. Roenicke and his staff haven't taken 1 batter for Milwaukee and improved their approach in 8 months.

[TooLiveBrew]

The team did the right thing by trading Gallardo but it came at the cost of this.

Gallardo wouldn't have been able to save anything about this season so far. At most you're talking maybe one or two more wins in his starts, but that would've required that the offense would've hit in those games, so I seriously doubt there'd be any difference.

 

I definitely agree with your larger point, that the team should've been looking to sell off pieces like Lohse, etc. this past offseason (& probably the two prior as well).

[paul253]

I definitely agree with your larger point, that the team should've been looking to sell off pieces like Lohse, etc. this past offseason

 

I think people in the front office actually thought this team was a team that could compete for a playoff spot. That's why the front office needs to go.

[xisxisxis]

They nail it...

 

Yes they did. And so did a few at Brewerfan like TheCrew07, but instead of listening, the vast majority of Brewer fans here just got a new prescription for their Brewers Goggles so they could ignore the clear signs that the current strategy was/is an utter failure. I gave up on this organization many years ago.

 

With Mark Attanasio as the lead decision maker, this organization will NEVER put into place the people needed to succeed in the smallest market in baseball. MA's major desire has been to generate millions in cash flow for the ownership group. While he has brought the payroll to record levels it's because he still has profit and he does want to make $11M in revenue from a $10M signing of Kyle Lohse, otherwise he wouldn't do it. His verbiage about losing a draft pick is just the PR spin to make the few that question that signing think "oh yeah that makes sense". Attanausea knows that a full rebuild kills the revenue stream and leads to poor margins. Unfortunately it looks like he will be forced into that situation soon, but I have full faith he will get that GM who can get his cash flow into the positive and lucky for us that means a team that is winning. Unfortunately, he will have replaced one Frankenstein of roster creation for another Frankenstein of roster creation and while those dead parts seem to work together, they won't lead to anything resembling a championship roster.

 

Hip Hip Hooray for the next Cash Flow GM......

[BuckyBrewer61]

These Brewers are now the baseball equivalent of Herb Kohl's Bucks. Refuse to rebuild despite clearly not having a championship caliber team and toil in mediocrity for years without any hope or thought for the future.

 

Is it bad that I am to the point where part of me is rooting for the Brewers to lose? I want the Brewers to win a World Series, and year after year management finds some thing to hold on to (first place for 150 days in 2014! A decent 2nd half in 2013!) to convince them to "go for it," which apparently means assemble a team that could maybe be 5th best in the league if things go right. I now hope they fall apart and management finally decides to rebuild, because without that mediocrity will be this team's ceiling for a long time.

[trwi7]

These Brewers are now the baseball equivalent of Herb Kohl's Bucks. Refuse to rebuild despite clearly not having a championship caliber team and toil in mediocrity for years without any hope or thought for the future.

 

I made this comparison on another board a few years ago and was pretty much laughed at. It's sadly looking true at this point.

 

Maybe they'll surprise us and trade Luc and Gomez and completely tear it down and rebuild. I'm not holding my breath on that though.

[monkeyman343434]

And now you nailed it.... I think you got it 100% correct and it is so frustrating being a fan knowing there is only a horizontal, mediocre future instead of a solid plan to win a championship. They don't even have to go the Astros tanking route, they have much better pieces in place and a better farm than what the Astros had when they went into full rebuild mode.

 

 

They nail it...

 

Yes they did. And so did a few at Brewerfan like TheCrew07, but instead of listening, the vast majority of Brewer fans here just got a new prescription for their Brewers Goggles so they could ignore the clear signs that the current strategy was/is an utter failure. I gave up on this organization many years ago.

 

With Mark Attanasio as the lead decision maker, this organization will NEVER put into place the people needed to succeed in the smallest market in baseball. MA's major desire has been to generate millions in cash flow for the ownership group. While he has brought the payroll to record levels it's because he still has profit and he does want to make $11M in revenue from a $10M signing of Kyle Lohse, otherwise he wouldn't do it. His verbiage about losing a draft pick is just the PR spin to make the few that question that signing think "oh yeah that makes sense". Attanausea knows that a full rebuild kills the revenue stream and leads to poor margins. Unfortunately it looks like he will be forced into that situation soon, but I have full faith he will get that GM who can get his cash flow into the positive and lucky for us that means a team that is winning. Unfortunately, he will have replaced one Frankenstein of roster creation for another Frankenstein of roster creation and while those dead parts seem to work together, they won't lead to anything resembling a championship roster.

 

Hip Hip Hooray for the next Cash Flow GM......

[LouisEly]

Apologies if posted elsewhere on the forum -

 

Fangraphs - Milwaukee’s Untimely Collapse

 

They nail it...

This was one of the responses to that article, and I mostly agree with it, particularly the last paragraph:

 

"I don’t think they lost much by trying to give it a go this year. Would they really have gotten more value for anything over the offseason than at this year’s trading deadline or next offseason? (Lohse would have had more trade value than he does now, but as a whole, I mostly agree.)

 

More importantly, the Brewers drew 2.8 million fans last year. You’d lose a lot of the goodwill that Attanasio has built if you blow up a team coming off a decent year. It is easy to say you should do that on the internet, but practically impossible to do it in real life. Especially if you remember what County Stadium was like in the mid to late 1990’s.

 

I don’t see what they really lost in trying to contend the past few years. They might have saved some of Attanasio’s money by not signing Garza or K Rod. They could still have Marco Estrada instead of Lind! But drafting slightly higher and getting a little more international bonus pool money isn’t that great of a reward for giving up on trying to win (and the message that sends to your fans). I respect Attanasio for trying to win while they had a decent enough chance of doing so.

 

We criticize Jeffrey Loria for being cheap and pocketing money while not trying to win, but then criticize the Brewers for actually trying to win. That they tried to win isn’t the problem; it is that they haven’t done a good enough job of developing their own talent for the past several years."

 

I think that you could also argue that if they hadn't "gone for it" they wouldn't bottom out, and then wouldn't get the multiple years of top-5 picks they need to rebuild like the Cubs. They had too much talent to bottom out. You'd still see the mediocrity; it would just be a little younger. Also, if they had traded the young talent (Braun, Lucroy, Gomez) to go full rebuild you would send the message that they aren't trying, and while that would appease some of the hardcore fans and maybe be the right business move it would turn off a vast majority of their home fan base. As a native Wisconsinite, people here love effort more than results. They relate to trying hard but coming up short, not giving up and waiting for a sunnier day, playing in the snow and mud, and giving 100% of what you have regardless of how much of it you have. They cheer the Fuzzy Thurston's, the Gorman Thomas's, the Brett Favre's, the Bob Lanier's, warts and all, because they show up every day. Right or wrong, that's what people in Wisconsin relate to. Things were so dry for so long, just like with the Packers in the 90's, that once they had that taste, that run, they may have held on too long. So what. It was worth the ride.

 

That, and there's 142 games left.

[logan82]

The Brewers started to lose me around the time they traded for Marcum. I didn't like the trade at the time, but it turned out ok after they traded for Greinke. The problem was they never did anything after that to improve the future. One small trade of Greinke who was never going to stay anyway. Then they brought back Yuni and gave up a pick to sign Lohse. Those were both horrible deals especially when the continued to trot Yuni out day after day. The Gallardo trade brought back some small goodwill from me but they still have a long way to go. I am not really upset about how they have fared this year so far.

[paul253]

Maybe they'll surprise us and trade Luc and Gomez and completely tear it down and rebuild. I'm not holding my breath on that though.

 

I was thinking about this the other day. Do the Brewers even have anyone to build around? Literally the only name I thought of was Wily Peralta. That's how bad the talent in this organization is right now. I'm optimistic about Arcia, Taylor, and Coulter. But they are no Fielder, Braun, and Weeks. Not even close. The lack of talent in this organization is shocking. It makes you wonder what exactly they've been doing the past 5 years.

 

I used to think that Lucroy was someone we needed to extend. Now I'm thinking trading him, along with Gomez, can MAYBE get us some much needed talent. If we can get 2 high ceiling prospects for each, ideally at positions of dire need (3rd base, Catcher, 1st base, starting pitchers) it's an opportunity we should jump at. But this is Doug and Mark. Gomez may go because next year will be the final year of his contract. But Lucroy is going nowhere.

[MrTPlush]

I used to think that Lucroy was someone we needed to extend. Now I'm thinking trading him.

 

I used to want to extend Lucroy till I realized he would be 32 in the first year of an extension...no thank you.

[tmwiese55]

I understand Lohse has been bad this year and they had to give up a pick for him but at least keep in mind we got two solid years out of him and he could still salvage this year to respectability. I agree they probably shouldn't have signed him but it was far from a disaster.