Just face it - we are never real contenders to sign big name FAs

[monty57]

19 hours ago, turborickey said:

See, that's a problem too.

We can develop all the talent we want, but we can't afford to keep them once they are good.

Will we have any chance to keep Burnes and Woodruff?

No, we won't have any chance to keep Burnes and Woodruff. That chance was a few years ago. I'm sure they tried extending them at the same time they extended Peralta, but Burnes and Woodruff turned the offers down. Be thankful that we got some extra service time out of Peralta, but realize that Burnes and Woodruff are pricing themselves way out of the Brewers' payroll range. They'll probably be too expensive in their final arby year, much less their free agent years.

So, with that on the table, the question is what the team will do going forward. They can either hold Burnes, Woodruff, Hader, Adames, etc. to free agency in hopes of getting hot at the right time and winning it all, or they can sporadically trade the pending free agents off prior to them reaching free agency in an attempt to continue to add talented youngsters in order to maintain continued success.

Most fans (and media) hope for the former, and think the best chance of a ring is with our current player plus a few added pieces, but I hope for the latter. Trading good players always hurts, but the return we get back can keep us young and talented, which is the recipe for the recent string of playoff seasons. If you continue to put playoff teams out there, eventually you are going to be the team that "gets hot at the right time" and walks away champions.

I'm a bit surprised we haven't traded one of Houser/Lauer for a young player at a position of need, but I think we're going to start seeing some big names traded after this season, and it will become a normal thing for the next few seasons. I just hope that Stearns (or whoever is in charge at that time) is able to bring back a lot of good young talent. We all seem to feel good about the aftermath of last year's Adames trade, so hopefully that will continue with the multitude of young, talented guys we'll get back when we eventually trade away some of today's favorite Brewers.

It stinks that MLB accepts an uneven playing field, but rather than get depressed about what we can't do, I try to get excited about what we can do. I love what Stearns has done, and I hope the Brewers continue with the current strategy into the future, whether that's with Stearns or with someone else.

[TURBO]

20 hours ago, JosephC said:

Here are the top 10 television market in the US-

NY, LA, Chicago, Philly, Dallas, San Fran, Boston, Atlanta, Washington, Houston

9 of the last 10 World Series winners have come from those markets.  Kansas City in 2015 is the only exception.

Go back 18 years, and 15 of the 18 World Series winners have come from those markets.  KC and 2 World Series wins by the Cardinals.

Here are the bottom five markets-

Milwaukee, Cincy, KC, San Diego, Baltimore

Outside of the 2 World Series appearances by KC, the last time one of the bottom 5 market teams even went to a World Series was San Diego back in 1998.  So yep, these five teams have combined for a grand total of 2 World Series appearances in the last 23 years and that is completely represented by KC in back-to-back seasons. 

Looking forward to what sveumrules has to say about this post... 

[sveumrules]

5 minutes ago, turborickey said:

Looking forward to what sveumrules has to say about this post... 

I would say that the economic system in baseball clearly favors the large markets so if you are a Milwaukee Brewers fan & your criteria for a successful season is to win the World Series you are probably setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Peace be the journey.

 

[NBBrewFan]

I think this has been brought up before on brewerfan.net, but signing top level free agents is the worst use of your money.  You are routinely overpaying for the production they provide, because 99% of them are past their prime when they hit the open market.  The most cost effective production/$ are from players you control, during the 6 years of team control, whether form your own draft & develop or through trade.  A team that's in the smallest TV market needs to spend money wisely when most big-market teams can easily spend 70%-100% more in payroll to put together their teams.  I'm less concerned about losing our own players to Free Agency as I am to how do we recover some of their value before they leave.  With the elimination of the draft pick compensation, I would like to see the Brewers look to trade some of their soon-to-reach free agency instead of just riding out their stay. The problem is that if the Brewers have playoff level talent so trading those players just makes it harder to make the playoffs then you need to keep them. However, I am fine with the team trading those assets if the playoffs look like a pipe-dream that year. Maybe that's too calculating, but there's 100's of things every day that we have no control over.  I'm fine not having control over what my team does, but I reserve the right to complain about it.  

[Ulice Payne]

On 3/20/2022 at 10:30 AM, turborickey said:

...we are never real contenders to sign the big name free agents like Story and Correa.

Exactly.  And if Milwaukee DID sign a couple of those huge contracts, they'd be giving up any real shot of being an over .500 team on any consistent basis.

But this is what MLB gives us; some teams are Goliaths and others are Davids.  And a mid-market team like Milwaukee offers an almost "fantasy baseball" element, where fans can mentally spend Mark A's money, trying to solve the puzzle of turning 120 million dollars worth of players into a championship team.  If we're lucky, Milwaukee may figure it out.

This is something Mets fans and Dodgers fans don't get.  I would think Dodgers fans are not nearly as concerned about Lux as Brewers fans are about Hiura.  It must be satisfying for big market fans to just wait to see what high priced free agents they'll have by the end of each winter; but those fans don't get this mental exercise of trying to compose the best team in baseball with only half the money.  They don't get this yearly attempt at baseball alchemy. 

Yes, it's unfair.  But the unfairness is a big part of what makes it interesting.  I became a Brewers fan because of geographical convenience, but grew to find the impossible roster construction compelling.  If it ever gets so unbalanced that it's not interesting anymore, then we'll all find something else to do.

Stearns' Brewers have excelled at exploiting market inefficiencies.  Sure, they like defense & positional flexibility, but I think Stearns real favorite thing is loading up on whatever baseball skill is currently undervalued.  Every season he uses his limited resources to get at least twice the baseball talent that he actually paid for; and it's entertaining for the fans to play along with the arithmetic. 

I'm sure its a lot of fun to be a fan of a big market team, and it's got to be nice to just plan on the season going into October.  But it's also entertaining to root for David.  

 

 

[jerichoholicninja]

4 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I would say that the economic system in baseball clearly favors the large markets so if you are a Milwaukee Brewers fan & your criteria for a successful season is to win the World Series you are probably setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Peace be the journey.

 

If your criteria for success it to win the World Series, the fan base of 29 teams are disappointed every year. Which is going to include many of the large markets that throw their financial weight around every offseason.

[Jopal78]

Look no further than the Twins. With Josh Donaldson, they signed one of the biggest FAs in 2020, then traded for Nelson Cruz. In the COVID year they were a good club, and got bounced immediately in the wacky 2020 playoffs. 

In 2021 they lost nearly 90 games, they dumped Nelson Cruz, they dumped their #1 starter when he refused to sign an extension where the Twins would have set his value. They threatened to trade away Buxton for the same reason. Then in the offseason they acquired Sonny Gray to replace Barrios, then made a series of deals to get out of Josh Donaldson's contract costing them another good player Mitch Garver in the process. Sure, they  then signed the biggest name free agent in Carlos Correa. However, if he plays well and the Twins compete he'll almost assuredly opt out after the season, if they're on pace to lose 90 games again and he plays, well Correa will be gone by the deadline. 

I'd rather have the Brewers way of constructing a roster than the constant wheel spinning of the Twins for example, even though they do sign big name free agents frequently. 

 

[TURBO]

On 3/21/2022 at 4:42 PM, sveumrules said:

I would say that the economic system in baseball clearly favors the large markets so if you are a Milwaukee Brewers fan & your criteria for a successful season is to win the World Series you are probably setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment.

Peace be the journey.

 

Well that was disappointing...

[jerichoholicninja]

Since the year 2000 the Royals have won a World Series and been to another, the Marlins have won one (and another at the end of the century), the Rays have been to two, and depending on your definition of "small market" the Indians and Rockies have made it too. To say the Brewers will never win a World Series in someone's lifetime is over the top dramatic.

[DuWayne Steurer]

19 minutes ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Since the year 2000 the Royals have won a World Series and been to another, the Marlins have won one (and another at the end of the century), the Rays have been to two, and depending on your definition of "small market" the Indians and Rockies have made it too. To say the Brewers will never win a World Series in someone's lifetime is over the top dramatic.

I've been alive nearly half a century and the Brewers have been to one world series and lost it. stating factually that they will never win a WS is dramatic, but saying that their chances are slim probably isn't. 

[sveumrules]

22 minutes ago, jerichoholicninja said:

Since the year 2000 the Royals have won a World Series and been to another, the Marlins have won one (and another at the end of the century), the Rays have been to two, and depending on your definition of "small market" the Indians and Rockies have made it too. To say the Brewers will never win a World Series in someone's lifetime is over the top dramatic.

I’m not saying they never will win a WS, just that using that as a benchmark for a successful season is probably a little overzealous given what we know about how baseball works.

Not to be morbid, but Brewers fans die every day having never seen the Brewers win a WS. That’s not over the top dramatic, just a simple fact.

[monty57]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

I’m not saying they never will win a WS, just that using that as a benchmark for a successful season is probably a little overzealous given what we know about how baseball works.

Not to be morbid, but Brewers fans die every day having never seen the Brewers win a WS. That’s not over the top dramatic, just a simple fact.

Yeah, I'd love to see the Brewers win a World Series, but even though that hasn't happened yet, I'm still much happier with the way the franchise is being run than I was during their 25-year stretch where they couldn't even crack the .500 barrier.

Right now, even without any more additions, we have one of the best teams in the history of the franchise. We can all go into this season knowing that the Brewers have a legitimate shot at winning it all, and that has definitely not been something I've been able to say for most of my fifty years of Brewer fandom.

Anyone being realistic knew that we weren't going to sign anyone for $20M+ this offseason. Stearns has made some moves to improve the team, I think he'll make some more tweaks, and we will go into the season as the odds-on favorite to win our division.

[NBBrewFan]

2 hours ago, sveumrules said:

Not to be morbid, but Brewers fans die every day having never seen the Brewers win a WS. That’s not over the top dramatic, just a simple fact.

Well I was too young to remember the last Braves win (Milwaukee, not CB) and I have several contemporaries that have passed without either remembering the 57 Win or seeing a Brewers win. Yeah it happens. How many generations of Cubs fans never saw a championship, Indians/Guardians fans?  I am personally enjoying the current teams under Sterns more than I did the 80's Brewers or 2011 Brewers.  Those teams just seemed like softball teams (score a lot, allow a lot) compared to the current team that is pitching centered with an above average offense. 

[DuWayne Steurer]

There's 30 teams.  If all else was *equal*, you have a 1/30 chance of winning a title.  Things aren't equal.  It's no stretch at all to imagine that a team could pretty easily go 50 -60-70+ years without a title from any given point forward.  The Cubs went one heck of a long time, and it's not exactly like they operate like a small market team......

The Red Sox went over 80 years.  

Like others have said, I'm just happy the Brewers are ran well within the confines of the market we're in and make some playoff appearances.  If they get lucky in the randomness of the playoffs and grab a trophy, I'll be even more happy.