Ryan Braun - Worst Contract in Franchise History?

[logan82]

2015: $12 million

2016: $19 million

2017: $19 million

2018: $19 million

2019: $18 million

2020: $16 million

 

That's gonna hurt.

At least get your facts straight. He is paid no more than $15m in any year.

 

5 years/$105M (2016-20), plus 2021 option

signed extension with Milwaukee 4/21/11

$10M signing bonus (paid in 4 equal installments each April 1 from 2012 to 2015)

16:$19M, 17:$19M, 18:$19M, 19:$18M, 20:$16M, 21:$15M mutual option ($4M buyout)

price of option may increase to $20M based on MVP, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove awards (if earned, award escalators are deferred without interest)

$18M in salary ($4M each in 2016-18 and $3M each in 2019-20) deferred without interest, to be paid in equal installments each July 1 from 2022 to 2031

no-trade protection allowing Braun to block deals to all clubs except LA Angels, LA Dodgers, Miami, Tampa Bay and Washington

[JJHardy7]

I just assume there are many many players still using. Most are just smart enough not to get caught. I think it is foolish to think the game is "cleaned up." There is just to much money to be made by cheating.

 

Do you think they are using at the same rate? Home runs and power numbers are down pretty dramatically.

[logan82]

I think they moved on to better drugs and masking agents. I think they are using more.

 

Better pitching. It isn't like pitchers weren't using. Next time there is an expansion we will see the pitching talent thinned and runs go up.

[JJHardy7]

I think they moved on to better drugs and masking agents. I think they are using more.

 

Better pitching. It isn't like pitchers weren't using. Next time there is an expansion we will see the pitching talent thinned and runs go up.

 

Fair enough. IMO I think the testing seems to be working since power numbers are down so much. I agree that guys are still pushing the envelope and are cheating. I don't agree though that it is better pitching though. I don't think better pitching changes the game as drastically as it has. I think MLB powers that be would probably want a little bit more scoring than they are currently getting.

[clancyphile]

I think they moved on to better drugs and masking agents. I think they are using more.

 

Better pitching. It isn't like pitchers weren't using. Next time there is an expansion we will see the pitching talent thinned and runs go up.

 

Fair enough. IMO I think the testing seems to be working since power numbers are down so much. I agree that guys are still pushing the envelope and are cheating. I don't agree though that it is better pitching though. I don't think better pitching changes the game as drastically as it has. I think MLB powers that be would probably want a little bit more scoring than they are currently getting.

 

Perhaps pitchers have been going more for ground balls?

 

I think the Brewers have had their staff do that - and it was discussed somewhere here.

[lcbj68c]

2015: $12 million

2016: $19 million

2017: $19 million

2018: $19 million

2019: $18 million

2020: $16 million

 

That's gonna hurt.

 

 

Except, that isn't what's coming out of the coffers in any of those years. His max is $15M.

[brewcrewdue80]

I think they moved on to better drugs and masking agents. I think they are using more.

 

Better pitching. It isn't like pitchers weren't using. Next time there is an expansion we will see the pitching talent thinned and runs go up.

 

Fair enough. IMO I think the testing seems to be working since power numbers are down so much. I agree that guys are still pushing the envelope and are cheating. I don't agree though that it is better pitching though. I don't think better pitching changes the game as drastically as it has. I think MLB powers that be would probably want a little bit more scoring than they are currently getting.

 

Perhaps pitchers have been going more for ground balls?

 

I think the Brewers have had their staff do that - and it was discussed somewhere here.

 

I may know part of what you're implying on the Brewers staff. There was a post I think in the Draft subject of the Brewers Pitchers being taught a lean/tilt for a follow through. That it creates more downward motion but less lateral/sideways movement. Something like that, part of it is to create more ground balls, the other part is to help in location if I recall. the Less sideways movement meant less variance to miss the strike zone. Now is that what is happening all across baseball? Or just the Brewers pitching style?

 

 

I think it's funny the comment above about Expansion thinning out the quality pitching and bringing back hitting. Expansion also thins out a team's quality hitting.....I think the pitchers would be more dominant with expansion vs less.

[clancyphile]

I think they moved on to better drugs and masking agents. I think they are using more.

 

Better pitching. It isn't like pitchers weren't using. Next time there is an expansion we will see the pitching talent thinned and runs go up.

 

Fair enough. IMO I think the testing seems to be working since power numbers are down so much. I agree that guys are still pushing the envelope and are cheating. I don't agree though that it is better pitching though. I don't think better pitching changes the game as drastically as it has. I think MLB powers that be would probably want a little bit more scoring than they are currently getting.

 

Perhaps pitchers have been going more for ground balls?

 

I think the Brewers have had their staff do that - and it was discussed somewhere here.

 

I may know part of what you're implying on the Brewers staff. There was a post I think in the Draft subject of the Brewers Pitchers being taught a lean/tilt for a follow through. That it creates more downward motion but less lateral/sideways movement. Something like that, part of it is to create more ground balls, the other part is to help in location if I recall. the Less sideways movement meant less variance to miss the strike zone. Now is that what is happening all across baseball? Or just the Brewers pitching style?

 

 

I think it's funny the comment above about Expansion thinning out the quality pitching and bringing back hitting. Expansion also thins out a team's quality hitting.....I think the pitchers would be more dominant with expansion vs less.

 

I think it tends to go both ways a bit.

 

There may be some dilution of hitting talent, but also, some players get chances they might not have elsewhere - either via trades to an expansion team or because someone on the major league roster went in the expansion draft.

 

Pitching, OTOH, is more easily diluted, I think. Would Wayne Franklin be making 30+ starts in 2003 if there were only 10 teams in the NL?

[Patrick425]

Absolutely could not care less about the PEDs and him "lying" and wish people would stop endlessly droning on about it, but yes those type of mega-contracts (even a relatively reasonable mega-contract like Braun's) usually do not work out unless the player ends up being HoF caliber.

 

Why do you having lying in quotes? He very much did lie and I understand it can get old at times, but when small market team signs you to an unprecedented contract for the franchise and you act the way Braun did you aren't going to be very well liked. I do think though that if Braun performs at the high levels he did in the past all the PEDs talk would go away from Brewers fans as it has with other players in the league.

 

JJHardy7 hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. If people want to believe Braun didn't lie, that is their choice. It doesn't make it true.

 

I might be the only one, but I read the "Worst Contract in Franchise History" part of the title, thought of Jeffrey Hammonds and then immediately threw up in my mouth.

 

 

The Hammonds one will always stick out to me. Because it was "only" 3 years (4 years) it didn't hamstring the Brewers like the Braun contract threatens to do, but that one was just bad from the start without any benefit of hindsight. With or without Hammonds the Brewers were not really close to being a contending team and at the time I believe it was the biggest FA splash in team history. Hammonds had been in the league 8 years and had a long history of injuries. He was just coming off his best career year, but it was in Coors field and even in that year he only had 454 ABs (which was the most in his 8 year career!). To me, that signing was far worse than any move Doug Melvin has ever made.

[Boomer5]

Easily it is of course. No way that contract can be justified going forward based on his 2013 to current performance and he is only getting older and more brittle.

 

As to the contact being offered in the first place, I was fine with it. Brewer management assumed Braun was being honest with them, and it was a creative way to keep the face of the franchise in Milwaukee for his entire career. Given Braun's lies, however, the contract no longer is worthy of his current performance and most certainly will get worse as he gets older.

 

But, as soon as that thumb heals, he will back, right? No, I mean many players struggle in April, its actually that, not the thumb.

 

Yeah, its snarky, but a career, and team crippling contract, built off habitual lies isn't going to get a bouquet of roses from me.

[brewcrewdue80]

Here's the other thing about the contract. The money in baseball. Compare his amount to the team payroll of 105mil roughly today. I'm pretty sure when the new broadcast deal nationally came out it was said about 20-25mil more spread across each team. Would kinda make 120mil the teams payroll max threshold. Add inflation lets just say 4%. Starting from last year doing math off the top of my head:2015-124.8

2016: 129.7

2017: 133.8

2018: 139.1

2019: 144.7

2020: 150.5

 

And that's projecting Milws payroll limits...a small market probably 23rd-25th or about 22teams who can take on higher. Top market teams will be avg 10mil per player on their 25man. 15mil won't be a worst contract in franchise just because of all the money thrust in to the sport.

[monty57]

I don't think Braun is done, but I doubt he'll be a .950+ OPS guy again (few are). I think he'll play out kind of like Soriano in Chicago where he'll still be an okay player, but fans will blame him for all the team's woes due to the contract. Of course, the contract goes so long that he really could be a .500 OPS guy by the time the contact is over, and if that's the case then it truly will be the worst contract in team history.

 

I really hate the deferred money part, as that will basically save the team money during the next few rebuild years, but makes him pretty much untradable late in the deal, and will hurt the team for years after he's gone. I don't care if it's "only" 3-5% of payroll, as that could be a key piece we can't sign because we're still paying a retired player. Deferred money sounds like a good deal from a present/future value standpoint, but in reality, with GMs always maxing payroll, it's more like a person using a "90 days same as cash" deal to spend above their means. Eventually, the bill has to be paid, so the deferred money deals help you today but hurt you in the future.

 

I guess if the team cuts payroll for some kind of rebuild over the next few seasons (still far from a certainty), the team could take some of the money not spent and put it in an interest-bearing reserve fund to pay for the deferred years, but in that case, they would have to pay a lot of taxes on the profit, so they'd need to save something like $8.93MM in revenue for every $5MM they'd put in the account, as it would be seen as profit until they'd get to write off the expense in the deferral years. Not really a profitable venture.

[tmwiese55]

My take on this is that I was ok with at the time and I still think it was a good signing at the time. How could they have predicted the PED thing and subsequent nagging injuries. Lots of guys sign long term deals pre arby; Trout, Longoria and I think Tulo come to mind. The brewers being such a small market tried to take it to the extreme and probably should have tried to end it at his age 35 season instead of 37 but I completely get why the did it and think it made sense.

 

That being said, if he never has a season better than he had last year then I could see the argument being made it was the worst contract but it's too early to say if that's the case. If he can pull off a few 280/340 25-35 hr seasons in the next five it's definitely not the worst as you at least got reasonable production from it. Also when considering it as 'worst ever' you have to factor in how underpaid he was prior to the PED issue, that helps balance the overpay at the end. Should also factor in that baseball salaries will continue to dramatically rise so that 20 mil (or 15 if you want factor in the deferred) in 2019/20 will probably be around the equivalent of 13-15 now. Which was I'm sure another big reason they were ok with giving out the contract at the time.

[JJHardy7]

Also when considering it as 'worst ever' you have to factor in how underpaid he was prior to the PED issue, that helps balance the overpay at the end.

 

I guess I just don't look at it this way. Right or wrong baseball has a system where players that play as well as Braun did get severely underpaid their first few years. Every good player is underpaid their first few years.

 

I'm not in the camp where you pay for past performance. I understand that you have to add on a year or two for a player to sign an extension and often times deals look bad the last few years. I am more concerned that Braun hasn't even started his second extension.

[pacopete4]

Without the PED's, maybe this

doesn't happen.

[reillymcshane]

I really wish we didn't have the Braun extension on the books, but I'm not convinced it'll be the worst thing ever. The guy is signed through his age 37 season - not 40+ like Miggy, A-Rod and Pujols. I think there's a good chance he'll provide some value (how much is a good guess) during that time.

 

The Braun extention kicks in at a 'good' time - good in the sense that I think the club needs to rebuild. That means shedding long term commitments (via trade or letting players reach FA), and focusing on building via the draft over the next few years. This means a low salary for the club, and Braun's $15M isn't going to really hurt us since we aren't under pressure to 'go for it'. The key is avoiding adding too many long term deals (the only one I can imagine now would be Lucroy, but we have a habit of adding $10-12M a year pitchers).

 

The massive commitment to Braun may very well make it the worst contract in team history, but he's young enough that he can actually prove to be a productive player.

[tmwiese55]

I guess I just don't look at it this way. Right or wrong baseball has a system where players that play as well as Braun did get severely underpaid their first few years. Every good player is underpaid their first few years.

 

I'm not in the camp where you pay for past performance. I understand that you have to add on a year or two for a player to sign an extension and often times deals look bad the last few years. I am more concerned that Braun hasn't even started his second extension.

 

Well I understood this as discussion on the whole contract, if it was written as just the last extension I missed it and wasn't talking about it from that perspective. I get your point and don't disagree. That really only applies to arby years when they're underpaid though, Brewers bought out a few post arby years (not sure how many exactly) at an extremely low price. Which it does turn out we didn't get much out of due to suspensions and the injury last year. Regardless, I was just pointing out as a factor that needs to be weighed, not that its the most important or anything, when calling it 'worst ever'. And that it was part of why they did the deal: great price early on, rough price at the end (which could be balanced somewhat by MLB inflation). If he didn't have the problems that came up, you could have shifted say 3-5 mil from the last 4 years of the deal to years 2011-15 and it wouldn't look so bad.

[torts]

Brauns first contract bought out every year of arbitration. He broke the team mid 2007 and signed an 8 year deal in May 2008, of which, 5 were all-star years, 1 NL MVP, 1 runner up MVP and a 3rd place MVP. He signed a 5 year extension on TOP of the 8 years in 2011, after the MVP season. His arbitration years would have been 2010 ($1M), 2011 ($4M), 2012 ($6M) and 2013 ($8.5M, Super 2 year). The Brewers saved so much money over those first couple years its just stupid. His stats and numbers would have broken records in terms of dollar amounts in arbitration, IMO.

[pacopete4]

Bottom line, it isn't the worst contract for the Brewers and it won't hold this team back going forward. I know people's feelings are hurt by Braun, mine were a little bit too, but lets just hope he hits somewhat and other players around him step up as well.

[Boomer5]

Bottom line, it isn't the worst contract for the Brewers and it won't hold this team back going forward. I know people's feelings are hurt by Braun, mine were a little bit too, but lets just hope he hits somewhat and other players around him step up as well.

 

It is the worst contract in Brewers history and it isn't close. This is a really good board, and most can separate feelings of hurt as you say vs reality. And the reality is that Braun is not a very good player and he is on the hook for 5 more years + deferred money.

 

What evidence is there that Braun will hit to anything even approaching 2012 again? He hasn't been an elite or even good player for 2013, 2014, and the start of 2015.

[JJHardy7]

Bottom line, it isn't the worst contract for the Brewers and it won't hold this team back going forward. I know people's feelings are hurt by Braun, mine were a little bit too, but lets just hope he hits somewhat and other players around him step up as well.

 

I have no issues with people disagreeing, but I'm not sure how it is 'bottom line' not the worst. Where does it rank for you? Is it in the Top 10?

 

Again, I'm asking this honestly and not trying to come across as a jerk. If Braun was a free agent right now, what kind of contract do you think he would get?

[torts]

Bottom line, it isn't the worst contract for the Brewers and it won't hold this team back going forward. I know people's feelings are hurt by Braun, mine were a little bit too, but lets just hope he hits somewhat and other players around him step up as well.

 

It is the worst contract in Brewers history and it isn't close. This is a really good board, and most can separate feelings of hurt as you say vs reality. And the reality is that Braun is not a very good player and he is on the hook for 5 more years + deferred money.

 

What evidence is there that Braun will hit to anything even approaching 2012 again? He hasn't been an elite or even good player for 2013, 2014, and the start of 2015.

'

Jeff Suppan's contract was the worst the franchise has ever had. If you can't see that as being truth you need to take your haterade tinted glasses off and re-examine some of the last decades contracts.

[tmwiese55]

This is a topic most could easily do off memory since the last 20 years are really only relevant in the post free agency area. Before that the dollar amounts were so small that they wouldn't even be in consideration. And with the Brewers being such small time spenders there aren't a lot to consider, therefore Braun would almost by default be in the top 10. Top of my head Suppan and Hammonds would be worse, could argue Randy Wolf and potentially Garza if he doesn't give something more in the next couple years. Gagne and Looper too but they were only one year deals.

 

To me it's too early to say this right now about Braun, there's like 5 years left on it, as I said before if he pops out two or three 280/340 30ish HR seasons along with a couple statistically similar years to last year I don't think it should be considered a disaster contract when you factor in the immense value they got at the beginning of the deal. If looks like he has the last two months of last year and so far this year, then you have a debate. I'm not ready to accept that he can never be a really good hitter again. In 2012 post PED scare he had his best year, have to think he was clean that year. He was fine in 2013 before the suspension (not MVP level but still good), 2014 was fine until the last two months or so (again not MVP level but fine). I don't expect him to be MVP level again but I'm not ready to say he can't be good.

 

Also, for those saying he knew he'd eventually get caught with PEDs and that's why he took the extensions. I don't buy this at all as some kind of grand plan by him. Any reasonable person would have just quit taking after they signed the extension if they new they'd eventually be caught since there is no financial incentive to do it any more (ie Pujols and Verlander possibly). He either thought he'd continue to beat the tests because it was such a minor thing he was doing and/or he actually only did it a couple times here or there to overcome nagging injuries as he's somewhat insinuated with his talk since then. If he knew he'd be caught he would've quit taking them after he signed.

[Boomer5]

Bottom line, it isn't the worst contract for the Brewers and it won't hold this team back going forward. I know people's feelings are hurt by Braun, mine were a little bit too, but lets just hope he hits somewhat and other players around him step up as well.

 

It is the worst contract in Brewers history and it isn't close. This is a really good board, and most can separate feelings of hurt as you say vs reality. And the reality is that Braun is not a very good player and he is on the hook for 5 more years + deferred money.

 

What evidence is there that Braun will hit to anything even approaching 2012 again? He hasn't been an elite or even good player for 2013, 2014, and the start of 2015.

'

Jeff Suppan's contract was the worst the franchise has ever had. If you can't see that as being truth you need to take your haterade tinted glasses off and re-examine some of the last decades contracts.

 

Not true. Because while Suppan was a disaster, save his meh 2007, and remarkably ill advised signing at the time without second guessing, the Brewers were still able to put a good team on the field.

 

Braun is in steep decline with absolutely NO sign of hope other than praying he will see 2012 again, and the big dollars haven't even started yet. His contract will cause the Brewers to make spending cuts elsewhere.

[Thurston Fluff]

I might be the only one, but I read the "Worst Contract in Franchise History" part of the title, thought of Jeffrey Hammonds and then immediately threw up in my mouth.

 

Hammonds was the first thing that popped into my mind as well. Personally I think to be the worst contract ever you pretty much have to be useless for the majority of it. That pretty much fit Hammonds' time in Milwaukee. Braun is average being paid like an all star. Not good but not useless.

 

It's only the worst in Brewers history if they don't learn from it.

 

With the price of higher education these days it might be a good deal.