Brewers trying to sign Fielder/Weeks/Hart to long term deal?

[berniebrewer4life]

According to TH, they are. With boras as fielders agent, i don't see it happening. But who knows? Getting Hart signed would be wonderful, IMO.

 

http://blogs.jsonline.com/brewers/archive/2008/02/01/brewers-looking-at-tying-up-young-players.aspx

[TerraceReserved]

I don't think Prince should be signed long term. As much as I like him and as good as he is, he's gonna cost a butt-load of money, and even more with Boras. It's gonna be more important to lock up one Weeks and Hart, as they'll be cheaper and get us more bang for our buck. Signing both of them probably won't happen, but maybe Doug can work something out.

[TooLiveBrew]

Keep in mind that 'long-term' here probably means just buying out one, or at most two, years of FA. This 'long term' talk is overblown imo, since we'd still have the guys for all but a year or two of whatever deals might get signed.

Hardy's probably the only one where a long-term deal would really extend any potential stay in Milwaukee, since he's already hit arbitration. The other guys are all still pre-arbitration.

[Brian the Automator]

I don't think Prince should be signed long term. As much as I like him and as good as he is, he's gonna cost a butt-load of money, and even more with Boras. It's gonna be more important to lock up one Weeks and Hart, as they'll be cheaper and get us more bang for our buck. Signing both of them probably won't happen, but maybe Doug can work something out.

Even if you lock up Prince long-term (relatively speaking), it doesn't mean that you can't deal him should LaPorta prove himself to not be able to play the OF yet carry enough offense to listen to offers.

 

[logan82]

I don't see Melvin thrying to get anything longer than a 4 year contract.

[sbrylski]

It'd be great to get Weeks locked in to a Hall-esque contract. That'd be a 5 year deal with a 6th year option, to give us control over two FA years.

 

I want Hart here forever.

 

I think Boras will take Fielder year to year.

[yoshii8]

I would like to see Fielder, Braun, and Hart locked up for a long time. All three of these guys are very special hitters, and to have three guys capable of .900-1.000 OPS's locked in the middle of your order could make us a contender for a long time. I think they are the guys we should build our team around.

 

I have a hard time not including Weeks and Hardy in this group, but I think that at least one of these guys will have to be traded to fill other holes, due to the money it will take to resign the rest. I hope we can keep them all, but I think its going to be very difficult.

 

I

[GAME05]

I"ve been paying attention to what is happening with Ryan Howard because I think Fielder will end up taking pretty much the same path pay-wise. Beauty for Melvin is Howard is a couple years ahead, so Melvin's going to get a good idea of what to expect. i'll be real curious if Fielder accepts one or two years of FA bought out. since it's not Boras' style, i'd only take that to mean Fielder pushed him to stay a little longer in Milwaukee. i do think there's going to be some motivation to keeping Fielder around, just because he's going to be the best of the bunch, and it's never a bad thing for a team to have a character guy and a huge producer like Fielder be the face of the franchise for a long time. he'd sell a lot of tickets on his own and get us a ton of exposure. but then it's all about the money. you look at the Tigers and they sure started spending after their pennant, so maybe one or two of our own will really change the direction Melvin is allowed to go with these guys.

 

edit: oh, and for all our desire to keep most or all of these hitters, we can't forget about our rotation. Gallardo (hopefully) won't come cheap, either, and he's not a whole lot farther behind Braun and Hart. Throw in a FA #2 pitcher and we're not even close to a reasonable budget.

[endaround]

Braun isn't really part of this. He's Brewer property for 6 more seasons which means through his 30 year old season.

[GenoSeligPrieb]

"I would like to see Fielder, Braun, and Hart locked up for a long time."

 

Personally, I'd like to see Scott Boras locked up for a long time. He can bunk with Bonds and Clemens. I'd love to keep Prince until he's...oh...40, but Boras will "guide" him to the Yankees as soon as contractually possible. Braun may be more possible, if for no other reason than, his career is not managed by Boras.

 

I think it may be too early for the rest of these guys, though. I'm still not 100% sold on Weeks as a guy we should invest in long term just yet. He showed some major flashes of brilliance later in the season, but overall so far? Meh. Hardy too. He's solid and all, but replaceable. Hart's beginning to distinguish himself the best of these 3, but I'd like to see how he does this year. If it's August, and Corey has 20+ HRs, and is hitting .280 with an OP above .800, keep him.

 

And YoGa is so inexperienced that I can't see Doug attempting a long-term deal with him until at least 2010.

 

Maybe a long-term deal for Counsell? kidding....

[danzig6767]

With Escobar developing into a very good prospect, buying out any of the free agent years of Hardy seems less likely to me. If we can get any of these guys to stay past their years of free agency, the Brewers are going to need to pick which of the young guys to keep and which to let go. Positions where a new young prospect looks ready to fill in will have to be factored in the equation.

 

Escobar likely won't hit as well as Hardy, but if he is at least decent with the bat and is as great with the glove as we hear, paying Hardy big money at the possible expense of losing one of our other young players doesn't make much sense to me.

[TooLiveBrew]

Geno's love for Boras always makes me smile. I'd personally love to keep Hardy for 3B down the line.

[Gopher74]

Braun isn't really part of this. He's Brewer property for 6 more seasons which means through his 30 year old season.

I'm not sure how you get 6 more season's unless his rookie contract was a unique one. I show 5 additional years.

[sbrylski]

Braun isn't really part of this. He's Brewer property for 6 more seasons which means through his 30 year old season.

I'm not sure how you get 6 more season's unless his rookie contract was a unique one. I show 5 additional years.

1 baseball year = 172 days

 

Ryan Braun wasn't called up until May 25th. Therefore, this season doesn't count as a full year. He's still under control for 6 more years because he'll reach 6 years service time in the middle of his 7th season with the club, and then be granted free agency after that season.

 

Arbitration, on the other hand, has a chance of still kicking in after 2009. So Braun could have 4 years of an arbitration contract. This depends on other players service time, so we really don't know. Braun will be cutting it close.

 

[endaround]

He did not play a full season. You need to have 6 full years of service time for free agency. That was the whole point about keeping Braun in Nashville for a month to buy an entire additional year.

[sbrylski]

He did not play a full season. You need to have 6 full years of service time for free agency. That was the whole point about keeping Braun in Nashville for a month to buy an entire additional year.

The defensive struggles reason was also extremely relevant. I sure hope they did their math right and avoided Super 2 status for Braun.

[ILuvDaBush]

I would hope we keep Weeks/Hart/Hardy, and use Prince and Braun as ideal trade candidates to replenish the farm system....with pitchers.

[logan82]

sbrylski06 wrote:

The defensive struggles reason was also extremely relevant. I sure hope they did their math right and avoided Super 2 status for Braun.

They can do all the math they want, but it relies on luck wether he is a super 2 or not.

[endaround]

He did not play a full season. You need to have 6 full years of service time for free agency. That was the whole point about keeping Braun in Nashville for a month to buy an entire additional year.

The defensive struggles reason was also extremely relevant. I sure hope they did their math right and avoided Super 2 status for Braun.

I doubt it, the injury most likely played a bigger role.

 

[BrewCrewForever]

I would love to get Hart sured up. Weeks is possible as well. I doubt Fielder will get done though, as others have said with Boras he will wait to test the market I'm sure.

[sbrylski]

sbrylski06 wrote:

The defensive struggles reason was also extremely relevant. I sure hope they did their math right and avoided Super 2 status for Braun.

They can do all the math they want, but it relies on luck wether he is a super 2 or not.

You can sure improve your luck by waiting until ~June 10th or so, or longer. I think we could have handled two more weeks of Counsell, in hindsight anyway. With Braun's defensive struggles, he wasn't as much of an upgrade as he could have been. Probably under a 10 run improvement over 2 or 3 weeks, so we likely didn't even win an extra game over that time.