Has anyone lost confidence in Stearns

[PeaveyFury]

No team has been more hurt without the gate revenue than the Brewers.

 

I believe you’ve mentioned this multiple times now. Is this based on actual data, or your personal assumptions?

[brewers888]

No team has been more hurt without the gate revenue than the Brewers.

 

I believe you’ve mentioned this multiple times now. Is this based on actual data, or your personal assumptions?

 

How can this not be the case. The Brewers play in the smallest market have a terrible local tv contract yet draw very well. I can't imagine another team being more hurt by not having fans in the stands.

 

The ownership lowered the payroll last offseason when they still expected big crowds. Without that revenue its hard to imagine that they will increase payroll. Certainly many teams are hurt without this revenue but what other team has the combination of the Brewers lack of local tv money but draws fans like this team has.

[PeaveyFury]

No team has been more hurt without the gate revenue than the Brewers.

 

I believe you’ve mentioned this multiple times now. Is this based on actual data, or your personal assumptions?

 

How can this not be the case. The Brewers play in the smallest market have a terrible local tv contract yet draw very well. I can't imagine another team being more hurt by not having fans in the stands.

 

So to answer my question, it's not based on anything other than your own opinion.

 

In a similar vein, I would think that due to the logo/uniform change, the Brewers may have benefited more than most teams this year in terms of merchandising revenue, so there's that.

[MrTPlush]

They may be benefitting due to the logo/uniform change, but not having millions of fans enter the team store on game day has got to be beyond terrible timing for such a thing. A lot of that new uniform/logo excitement will now wear off before fans can see them in person while also being right by the nice overpriced team store.

 

No doubt people will still pile into the team store next year...but im guessing it would have been way more beneficial this year.

[rickh150]

The Brewers had to have been hurt badly by the no fans ordeal, more than most of course. Their gate has a much larger % of revenue than yeah, about anyone. It has been mentioned often by Attanasio and Melvin that big crowds and sellouts have a bigger impact than most on what the Brewers can do with their roster.

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2015/04/skyrocketing-major-league-baseball-payrolls.html

[brewers888]

The Brewers had to have been hurt badly by the no fans ordeal, more than most of course. Their gate has a much larger % of revenue than yeah, about anyone. It has been mentioned often by Attanasio and Melvin that big crowds and sellouts have a bigger impact than most on what the Brewers can do with their roster.

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2015/04/skyrocketing-major-league-baseball-payrolls.html

 

How is this not universally accepted when the Brewers have a bad local tv deal and draw very well for their market size. It doesn't explain the cheap last offseason but it will be why we don't spend next offseason either.

[mtrebs]

I’m surprised the tv deal is always supposedly so low when we draw so we’ll at the stadium. There are a lot of people throughout the state that watch on TV. The market size should be the entire state and not the greater Milwaukee area.

[rickh150]

I’m surprised the tv deal is always supposedly so low when we draw so we’ll at the stadium. There are a lot of people throughout the state that watch on TV. The market size should be the entire state and not the greater Milwaukee area.

 

The same can be said for other places too.... fans outside cities' suburbs are watching other teams too.

[mtrebs]

I’m surprised the tv deal is always supposedly so low when we draw so we’ll at the stadium. There are a lot of people throughout the state that watch on TV. The market size should be the entire state and not the greater Milwaukee area.

 

The same can be said for other places too.... fans outside cities' suburbs are watching other teams too.

 

True, but for some reason I feel like the Brewers (and likely the smaller market teams) have a wider geographical spread for their fan base. The Brewers frequently have a high attendance rate at the stadium, and a lot of those people travel from throughout the state. Maybe that’s how all teams are too.

[monty57]

I’m surprised the tv deal is always supposedly so low when we draw so we’ll at the stadium. There are a lot of people throughout the state that watch on TV. The market size should be the entire state and not the greater Milwaukee area.

 

The same can be said for other places too.... fans outside cities' suburbs are watching other teams too.

 

True, but for some reason I feel like the Brewers (and likely the smaller market teams) have a wider geographical spread for their fan base. The Brewers frequently have a high attendance rate at the stadium, and a lot of those people travel from throughout the state. Maybe that’s how all teams are too.

 

Wisconsin's population is only around 5.86M, so the whole state is smaller than several of the cities in which other teams reside. Milwaukee sits just north of Chicago, and west of a big lake, so when you extend your "circle of influence" out, south and east don't add much attendance. Then you have Minneapolis/St Paul on the immediate west border of the state, making some of the NW portion of Wisconsin Twins fans. Meanwhile, a team like St Louis doesn't have much competition for viewership. Plus, they have a winning history, which helps them with fans. Hopefully, the Brewers can continue their winning ways, which will help going forward.

[tmwiese55]

Their current TV deal was also signed like 8-10 years ago. This current good run along with sustained general goodness from 08 til now (as opposed to garbage from 92-08) should lead to an increase on the next one. But as others said just the pure numbers and logistics of the situation are a hindrance and nothing can be done.

[adambr2]

I still haven’t lost confidence, but I didn’t have a good alternative place to post this... currently in the 7th inning versus the Astros, Trent Grisham just hit his 3rd home run of the night (and 4th hit of the game). He now has 7 home runs on the season.

 

Also, Zach Davies is now pitching into the 8th inning and still has under 100 pitches.

 

Grisham may be sorely, sorely missed.

 

It wasn't long ago when we had outstanding outfield depth on this team. Now the future of our outfield is Christian Yelich, ??, and ??

 

Don’t forget Braun. Ryan Braun.

 

I don't know if I've ever seen a man-crush this big since Clancy and Suter....

[owbc]

Judging by the type of companies that choose to advertise on Brewers broadcasts, they are likely struggling to pull viewers in the age 18-34 demographic.

 

And yes, the Brewers are severely limited by market size. In 2019 the Brewers were 4th in local TV rating but 16th in raw viewers. 59,000 per game...similar to Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Tampa Bay.

[djoctagone]

The Brewers frequently have a high attendance rate at the stadium, and a lot of those people travel from throughout the state. Maybe that’s how all teams are too.

maybe teams with a roof. remember, fans planning to go to a game at miller park are essentially guaranteed a game that starts on time with no interruptions. few other teams can claim that, and many of the ones who can have far worse metro traffic congestion than milwaukee.

[Jopal78]

No team has been more hurt without the gate revenue than the Brewers.

 

I believe you’ve mentioned this multiple times now. Is this based on actual data, or your personal assumptions?

 

How can this not be the case. The Brewers play in the smallest market have a terrible local tv contract yet draw very well. I can't imagine another team being more hurt by not having fans in the stands.

 

The ownership lowered the payroll last offseason when they still expected big crowds. Without that revenue its hard to imagine that they will increase payroll. Certainly many teams are hurt without this revenue but what other team has the combination of the Brewers lack of local tv money but draws fans like this team has.

 

 

This really doesn't have much to do with anything. First of all, every player with less than 6 years of experience costs more money in payroll each successive season. A team like the Brewers, where only 7 players are on a multi-year deals, have a large number of players getting more expensive every year, this in addition to a couple of their players on multi-year deals who are due for significant raises. The salary increases in 2021 owed to Cain, Yelich, Garcia, Lindbloom, Suter and Peralta will nearly eat up the money saved by Ryan Braun's salary coming off the books, which doesn't even toe the line from a aggregate talent perspective because Braun is coming out of contract.

 

I would assume most MLB teams already have an idea which impending 2020 free agents they can afford to pursue. Moreover outside of the Angels and the Phillies there are not many teams that throw big money at players without making the team better. Payroll very well could go down in 2012 due to the fact there are no players the Brewers could afford that would improve the team to a degree to justify their contract.

 

As for the motley crew of veterans on the 2020 Brewers, every team has them to some extent so its hard to say his plan to platoon a bunch of veterans on short term deals was poorly thought out. You may be able to say he hired the wrong players when you have Jason Kipnis tearing it up for the Cubs on a minor league deal, and Wilmer Flores for the Giants on a one year deal with club option, but then again its 25 games in and it might look different in another 35 .

[monty57]

Regarding the Brewers cutting payroll in the offseason:

 

Everyone knew Moustakas & Grandal were here on 1-year deals. Many wanted them re-signed, but they signed for monster deals elsewhere... much more than we paid them.

 

Perez, Thames, Shaw, Guerra, Barnes, Saladino and Spangenberg were all under control, but the Brewers didn't think they were worth what they had to pay to keep them. Perez signed a minor league deal with the Cubs, Thames signed a $4M deal with the Nationals (I think we would have owed him $8M). Shaw signed a $4M deal with Toronto (we paid him $4.675M in year 1 arby, so would have probably paid him at least $6M in year 2 arby). We paid Junior Guerra $2.225M and he was heading into arby (he signed for $2.65 with Arizona - probably about what we'd have paid). Barnes was playing for league minimum, heading into year 1 arby, and is now playing for the Angels for $685,000. Saladino is playing in Korea, and Spangenberg is playing in Japan.

 

I think that 2019 payroll was artificially inflated because we had the opportunity to get Moustakas and Grandal on one-year deals, so I didn't expect that money to automatically be available unless there was a top-tier guy we could land. It seems that Stearns went pretty hard after Rendon, but he signed with the Angels, so Stearns signed some guys with good career splits, looking to platoon.

 

So, last year's payroll was $122M, with Mous and Grandal making $23M. They left, and this year's payroll was $102M before Covid shortened the season. The big cut in payroll was exclusively Mous and Grandal.

 

Next year, Braun, Anderson, Smoak, Sogard, and Gyorko will probably be gone, and Holt is already gone. If Stearns can land an "A" talent, Attanasio will probably increase payroll. If not, then I expect we'll make some trades to try to add more young, controllable talent for the "core," and the rest of the holes will be filled with one-year free agent signings, keeping the payroll somewhere around where it currently sits.

 

Of course, this is contingent on the expectation that things will be back to normal next year. If owners think that next year will be played with no fans, or limited fans, it's going to be a tough year for free agents.

[brewers888]

The biggest problem is that we haven't produced any position player talent from our system besides Hiura and Grisham who was traded for Urias. One other thing that rarely gets mentioned is how poorly historically we have done in Latin America and that goes back way before Stearns was hired. Besides Arcia and he hasn't exactly shined what have we to show from our dealings in Latin America over the past decade if not longer.

 

Stearns has mostly made great trades and the first few drafts under Montgomery brought us talented pitchers like Woodruff and Burnes but we just have not hit on enough bats and thats why we were forced to sign guys like Sogard. I too believe in analytics to judge players but I think we are way too reliant on it when it comes to amateur scouting. I know others will defend our scouting department but I don't think they have been very good at all.

[yourout]

My confidence in Stearns started to go down when they let Derek Johnson walk.

They should have made him the highest paid pitching coach in baseball if that's what it took to keep him.

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

My confidence in Stearns started to go down when they let Derek Johnson walk.

They should have made him the highest paid pitching coach in baseball if that's what it took to keep him.

 

I wouldn't say 'ole DJ has drastically improved the Reds pitching. Trevor Bauer would be good wherever he pitches.

[pacopete4]

My confidence in Stearns started to go down when they let Derek Johnson walk.

They should have made him the highest paid pitching coach in baseball if that's what it took to keep him.

 

I wouldn't say 'ole DJ has drastically improved the Reds pitching. Trevor Bauer would be good wherever he pitches.

 

It also seemed more like a move to be home rather than anything else. At least that’s all we have ever been told on it.

[CheeseheadInQC]

The biggest problem is that we haven't produced any position player talent from our system besides Hiura and Grisham who was traded for Urias. One other thing that rarely gets mentioned is how poorly historically we have done in Latin America and that goes back way before Stearns was hired. Besides Arcia and he hasn't exactly shined what have we to show from our dealings in Latin America over the past decade if not longer.

 

Stearns has mostly made great trades and the first few drafts under Montgomery brought us talented pitchers like Woodruff and Burnes but we just have not hit on enough bats and thats why we were forced to sign guys like Sogard. I too believe in analytics to judge players but I think we are way too reliant on it when it comes to amateur scouting. I know others will defend our scouting department but I don't think they have been very good at all.

 

The problem is, you are seeming to be holding the current staff accountable for things they couldn't have fixed yet. The only hitter drafted during the tenure of the current scouting director who could have reasonably been expected to already make the majors has (Hiura). Thanks to this year, half of his draft picks haven't even gotten a full season in. Similarly, the first class of players from when the Brewers started putting together Latin America signing classes that were at least roughly what the average team would spend/get is 20 years old. Many players from the last two classes, which seemed to be considered the Brewers' best, wouldn't have even graduated from high school yet if they were in the states. Player development in baseball rarely involves instant gratification. I can understand not being overwhelmingly positive, but similarly the evidence simply doesn't exist to be this negative.

[MrTPlush]

My confidence in Stearns started to go down when they let Derek Johnson walk.

They should have made him the highest paid pitching coach in baseball if that's what it took to keep him.

 

I wouldn't say 'ole DJ has drastically improved the Reds pitching. Trevor Bauer would be good wherever he pitches.

 

It also seemed more like a move to be home rather than anything else. At least that’s all we have ever been told on it.

 

I’m sure that helped, but it surely wouldn’t have taken much to outbid the Reds and convince him to live in Milwaukee if we really wanted to. After it went down the Brewers never really made it seem like they really tried hard to keep him around. Reds gave him a solid salary for a pitching coach and we basically laughed letting him walk out. Seemed we had zero interest paying big money (in pitching coach terms) to him...which I can’t blame them because we are a small market after all.

[homer]

Stearns probably did not go from genius to incompetent overnight but its time to just say he had a terrible offseason and needs to do better going forward.

 

It's a 60 game season. It's so short that any flukey slumps are going to be magnified. You can't really judge anything from this year one way or the other.

 

Except that Devin Williams is filthy and awesome.

[CheezWizHed]

Didn't DJ leave for Cincinnati due to personal reasons and not just money? I left my last job (that I loved) and moved to the Twin Cities area (that I don't love) due to family considerations. My former boss tried to keep me, but knew it wasn't money or job that was driving me away. Some things aren't in a GM's control.

 

I do find this discussion highly ironic as we discuss all the in-house developed pitching (Williams, Woodruff, Burnes) and complain about not being able to develop many position players. My how things have changed...

[jerichoholicninja]

My confidence in Stearns started to go down when they let Derek Johnson walk.

They should have made him the highest paid pitching coach in baseball if that's what it took to keep him.

 

It also seemed more like a move to be home rather than anything else. At least that’s all we have ever been told on it.

 

I’m sure that helped, but it surely wouldn’t have taken much to outbid the Reds and convince him to live in Milwaukee if we really wanted to. After it went down the Brewers never really made it seem like they really tried hard to keep him around. Reds gave him a solid salary for a pitching coach and we basically laughed letting him walk out. Seemed we had zero interest paying big money (in pitching coach terms) to him...which I can’t blame them because we are a small market after all.

 

Wasn't it also reported the DJ was very much against the Brewers pitching strategy of short outings for starters and relying on the bullpen? People can continue to say the Brewers should have just given him gobs of money to stay all they want but it seems like he had a lot of reasons he wanted to go elsewhere and to Cincinnati specifically.