The Brewers would be a great team if they didn't have so many bad players

[Jopal78]

But isn’t that the nature of professional sports contracts? ie. Teams pay for anticipated production based upon prior performance?

 

No? They pay for prior performance and hope that they can get a few years of that performance knowing the back-end of the deal is probably not going to be very good for the team.

 

What? Teams give players 5 year/100 million dollar contracts knowing their not going to get much for their 40 million dollars but “hopeful” the first 60 million turns out alright? It’s all guaranteed money, if that was the case wouldn’t a team just offer 3 yrs/100 and not worry about the back end?

 

I’m sure when contracts are negotiated the Teams’s decision makers understands the aging process and history of similarly situated players and it’s taken into account

 

 

Your statement on how the process works seems like nothing more than a quick way to the unemployment line.

[HiAndTight]

Drinking Brewer Kool aid. Yelich jumps out at you for being great but he would've been picked up by a contender if they knew he was MVP material and that's all folks. Great players don't come to Milwaukee sorry.

 

 

Some of these posts are baffling to me. Somehow we got on Ryan Braun. Now this? "Great players don't come to Milwaukee sorry."

Well...Yelich IS a great player. He's in Milwaukee. Does the front office deserve any credit for trading one of the top prospects in the game+2 more top 100 prospects+a solid pitching prospect?

Drafting Hiura? And I forget, Greinke, he had a no-trade, right? NY wasn't on that list, the Brewers were. Did he approve that trade? Yes, he did.

 

So I don't get what you're saying. We weren't the only team trying to trade for Yelich. We somehow lose credit because we identified a great young talent with 5 years of team control? Lorenzo Cain WANTED to come to Milwaukee. He was a legitimate MVP candidate last year. Mouse, Grandal...very good players that chose to come to Milwaukee.

[HiAndTight]

But isn’t that the nature of professional sports contracts? ie. Teams pay for anticipated production based upon prior performance?

 

No? They pay for prior performance and hope that they can get a few years of that performance knowing the back-end of the deal is probably not going to be very good for the team.

 

What? Teams give players 5 year/100 million dollar contracts knowing their not going to get much for their 40 million dollars but “hopeful” the first 60 million turns out alright? It’s all guaranteed money, if that was the case wouldn’t a team just offer 3 yrs/100 and not worry about the back end?

 

I’m sure when contracts are negotiated the Teams’s decision makers understands the aging process and history of similarly situated players and it’s taken into account

 

 

Your statement on how the process works seems like nothing more than a quick way to the unemployment line.

 

 

You don't seem to understand the idea of negotiation.

 

First of all, as to your question, why doesn't the team just pay for 3 years and 100 million instead of the 5 years and 100 million should be painfully obvious, but I'll again explain. See Braun isn't worth 20 million dollars right now. Nobody said he wasn't worth anything though.

 

The team would likely rather pay 3 years and 60 million. The player wants more money than that and longer term security. So they have to agree.

 

You're coming off as being intentionally obtuse. Obviously just because you don't expect the player to be as good at 35 as you do when he's 29, that doesn't mean you just pay him the same and then give away the final 2 or 3 years.

 

 

I really don't understand what point you're even trying to make here. I don't believe that you believe what you're saying and it honestly feels more like trolling at this point.

[HiAndTight]

But isn’t that the nature of professional sports contracts? ie. Teams pay for anticipated production based upon prior performance? Even when teams were signing players to pre arbitration extensions they got burned at times.

 

As for Braun, I have no problem with his 2nd extension. There wasn’t any urgency to add more years to his contract but as previously mentioned he signed it at the start of his MVP season in 2011, and was even better in 2012. Certainly at that point to have such a player signed into perpetuity didn’t seem like a bad idea. Nobody here had an inkling he would get busted for steroids and lose a season’s worth of games in his prime to a suspension and chronic hand injury.

 

Braun has hit over 200 extra base hits including 85 homers since the beginning of 2016 and put up an OPS north of .820 over the same span. Is that worth 20 million dollars a year? In a vacuum, I’m sure anyone can point out a player making 20 million dollars or less they’d rather have. But Braun really isn’t over paid for being a 13 season veteran with his career numbers. Likewise, outside of a vacuum, the Brewers can’t really say he under performed in his 2nd extension, and given how other players flopped on long term contracts like Alex Gordon, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dexter Fowler the Brewers are more likely than not pleased with how the Braun contract has worked out for them.

 

Sure, its easy to look back in hindsight and say, they should’ve split that 20 million up across several different players and maybe they would’ve won more games, but that’s fan fiction. So if the team adds years to Yelich’s contract or signed Hiura to a pre arbitration extension in sure there will be plenty of folks who will have their pikes out calling for heads. There’s no pleasing everybody.

 

 

To the first part, yes the Brewers really can say that. You can list a whole bunch of other players who are also not worth the money. That doesn't make your point more valid.

 

Braun has been worth 3.7 WAR the last 3 years and has gotten paid 60 million dollars. There's really no way you can argue he's NOT overpaid. I don't care what Dexter Fowler has done or Jacoby Ellsbury. I'm pretty sure the Royals fans aren't real happy they're carrying Alex Gordon or the Cards fans.

 

 

To your second point, extending Yelich and buying out a couple FA years for Hiura are two ENTIRELY different things. Most people do NOT want Yelich extended because they'd be extending him for a high price into his 30's.

 

Virtually EVERYONE wants Hiura signed because they'd be signing him for less money through his 20's.

 

 

This pretty much explains what you're not understanding about the Braun deal.

Paying players in their 20's=Lower risk for team. You're picking your most talented young players and adding the years of their prime you're going by buying out FA years for a lower cost than you'd be paying them if you actually signed them in free agency.

Paying players in their 30's=Higher risk for team. You're paying higher AAV for older players more likely to decline.

 

Do you like high-risk investments or low-risk investments if there is no difference in the returns?

 

 

So yeah, I don't know who'd be upset about a Hiura signing. Now if we signed him for 8 years, he played really well and then we signed him for another 5 years at the current market rate for FA's, then some fans who actually follow the team and have some inkling about the finances in baseball probably wouldn't be thrilled about that prospect.

 

And guess what? Even if he was GREAT in those first 8 years....it doesn't mean that no matter what he did in the final 5 that second extension would be a good idea.

[Lathund]

But isn’t that the nature of professional sports contracts? ie. Teams pay for anticipated production based upon prior performance?

 

No? They pay for prior performance and hope that they can get a few years of that performance knowing the back-end of the deal is probably not going to be very good for the team.

 

What? Teams give players 5 year/100 million dollar contracts knowing their not going to get much for their 40 million dollars but “hopeful” the first 60 million turns out alright? It’s all guaranteed money, if that was the case wouldn’t a team just offer 3 yrs/100 and not worry about the back end?

 

They would much rather pay that $100m over 5 years than over 3, for several reasons. One is that not all players age the same, and they could end up with a very good player for those extra years even if they're more likely not to Secondly, when teams sign deals like these they usually intend to be competitive. Spreading it out over 5 years means another $13m to spend on the roster for those 3 years where you expect to get the best out of that player, enhancing your chances of winning. Thirdly, $1 five years from now is worth less than $1 three years from now. By spreading the money over a longer period of time, the team is paying less, even if only marginally so.

[MNBrew]

Pretty sure Prince Fielder was a franchise icon too, and they let him walk.

Whoa. They "let" Prince get to free agency because HE decided he wasn't going to sign an extension, but they still made a very significant effort to re-sign then-FA Prince with a near-Brewers-record contract (5 years & into 9 figures -- uncharted FA territory in franchise history up to that time -- only to repeat the effort & fall short the next year w/ Greinke). Yes, they could've tried to trade him for comparable value, but they chose to keep him for the last year of arbitration-eligible/process salary as part of the "going for it" effort that ended 2 games short of the World Series -- and which yielded a great year by Prince. But to say the Brewers "let him walk" is simply inaccurate. . . . Walking was Prince's choice, not the Brewers, and happened in spite of the Brewers' huge efforts to keep him, thus involving no "letting" at all.

 

In hindsight, NOT paying Prince the Joe Mauer-like money/term he signed for was reasonably wise given that only 3 of the years were remotely worthy of that kind of money. 2 were injury-riddled, 1 was injury-missed, and, fortunately for Texas & Detroit, he graciously retired & walked away from the last 3 years of the deal.

 

Walking is a mutual choice, a great majority of the time. Yes, they did make ill-advised efforts to re-sign Prince. But they did have their line in the sand. We'll never know how much of it was true earnest efforts to bring him back, and how much was PR type offers that they knew Boras would never accept, knowing they had to at least appear to be making an effort.

 

And Prince Fielder did not walk away from anything. He is still being paid every last penny on his contract to this day.

Well, when a player retires, he's walking away from his employment and any remaining money he would've been paid (less deferred money already in the contract and, presumably, any remaining unpaid amount designated as signing bonus that's spread over the life of the contract.

 

But you're right. He's sitting on the 60-day DL for the last 3 years of the deal and collecting his money because he never officially retired. As devastated as Prince was not to be able to continue playing, Boras made sure he's still getting all his money.

[MNBrew]

Pretty sure Prince Fielder was a franchise icon too, and they let him walk.

Whoa. They "let" Prince get to free agency because HE decided he wasn't going to sign an extension, but they still made a very significant effort to re-sign then-FA Prince with a near-Brewers-record contract (5 years & into 9 figures -- uncharted FA territory in franchise history up to that time -- only to repeat the effort & fall short the next year w/ Greinke).

 

They made a "significant" offer that, IMO, they knew he'd never take because the market was much greater. They did the same thing with Sabathia. "Well, we tried!" is a good line for the fanbase.

- They did the same thing with Greinke, too.

- The bold-faced part is a somewhat subjective interpretation. I believe the effort w/ Prince was sincere but he was all about the most money, team loyalty meaning nothing (an ultimate Boras disciple, one could say).

- The Brewers' money wasn't much less per year ($20+M vs. $23M-ish), but years 6-9 weren't ever going to come in a Brewers contract offer and would've proven far, far more damaging to the Brewers than what some believe Braun's 2nd extension has been.