Lauer not happy with “bites of apple” approach

[mtrebs]

Interesting to see these comments from Lauer about how the trade deadline was handled.

https://www.fanduel.com/theduel/posts/eric-lauer-calls-out-brewers-front-office-for-trade-deadline-moves-01gb2ydka35a/partners/36534?fbclid=IwAR369kLEBZaedEBEl1O47x07U1IeXEuQCNSkxJEVXyMtbbLTVM0O-UeUAMU

[Jopal78]

The snarky response is Lauer should worry more about doing his job. He single handedly gave the Nationals a win in June, and after the Brewers knocked Wainwright out of a game in June after 4 2/3, Lauer gave it all back and then some in a loss to the Cardinals.  His inability to make it five innings in nearly 25% of his starts this year has hurt the team too.  

[Thurston Fluff]

Yea because whining about management helps the team win more games.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Seems to me management either communicated to the team afterwards, or didn't, depending on who you want to believe. Either way it's pretty obvious the poor play the week of the deadline was largely if not totally self-inflicted. Was the trade and feelings it caused the reason? Obviously. But that doesn't make it a good excuse.

Whether it works out long-term no one here knows. But someone needs to explain to Eric Lauer that if this was simply a case of punting on the season & looking to the future then Rogers wouldn't have been included in the deal. Maybe we should just GO FOR IT!!!!!!!! while he's here to make him happy. Of course then when the window slams shut w/no hope of recovering for a # of years he simply signs with someone else. One of the things I've learned over the years is it's a much different world when you're sitting behind the nameplate as opposed to standing off to the side free to criticize.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, Jopal78 said:

The snarky response is Lauer should worry more about doing his job. He single handedly gave the Nationals a win in June, and after the Brewers knocked Wainwright out of a game in June after 4 2/3, Lauer gave it all back and then some in a loss to the Cardinals.  His inability to make it five innings in nearly 25% of his starts this year has hurt the team too.  

Agree w/one exception: I don't know if there's anything snarky about it.

[AdvantageSchneider]

Props to him for honest I guess.  He certainly could have given some meaningless cliche answer.  What's he saying has been said by some Brewers fans, so he's not alone in his opinion with the fans or it appears in the clubhouse. 

I'm not certain where he gets the point about selling players off before paying them.  

Prince - kept until the end of the contract. 

CC- Tried to sign, outbid by the Yankees.

Braun, extended twice 

Weeks signed

Yelich signed

Where is the history of trading guys before paying them?  Carlos Lee and Grenke?  JJ Hardy?  That's 3 players going back 13 years.  Not really sure that's a pattern there.

[YelichPosse]

On one hand, I'm glad somebody finally had the stones to say it out loud. Cause it was frightfully obvious to us all lol.

However, Lauer has been so good this year, until he hasn't been. And that usually is within each game where that occurs! Between he and Ashby I am not sure who has been more maddening. 

[monty57]

Well, Lauer was kind of on the other end of that deal once, when the Brewers traded for him and Urias. Since then, the "go for it" Padres (who also added massively to their payroll) have been 184-162, while the Brewers have went 188-154.

Maybe if Lauer and other Brewer players had worried more about playing baseball over the past few weeks instead of worrying about what the team was doing with their overpriced closer, they wouldn't have blown a first place lead and put themselves into the position of being "outside looking in" in the playoff race.

Ironically, one of the reasons Hader had to be traded was that Lauer is part of the group of arby-eligible players whose raises are forcing the Brewers' hands. There is no way that Lauer and others were going to take a discount next year in order to allow the team to stay under payroll, so they shouldn't gripe too loudly when the team has to make financial decisions.

Lauer may not care about the Brewer future, because he'll take the biggest paycheck he can get and leave town when he gets the chance. The team can't be quite so cavalier about the future.

[NBBrewFan]

9 minutes ago, monty57 said:

Ironically, one of the reasons Hader had to be traded was that Lauer is part of the group of arby-eligible players whose raises are forcing the Brewers' hands. There is no way that Lauer and others were going to take a discount next year in order to allow the team to stay under payroll, so they shouldn't gripe too loudly when the team has to make financial decisions.

Lauer may not care about the Brewer future, because he'll take the biggest paycheck he can get and leave town when he gets the chance. The team can't be quite so cavalier about the future.

So the players, who are being paid sub-market wages because of the deck that MLB and MLBPA has stacked, should be responsible because they are entering a point where they actually will be compensated equitably for their performance?  This is a system that has been in place for decades so I would think the team is the one who needs to do a better job of managing their budget not the players no longer getting the short end of the stick. And if managing that budget means they have to shed arby players because they gave a >$200M extension to a doorstop then that's the management's issue not the arby players or just to become arby players. Yeah, Lauer should give back some of that raise since he's been underpaid by more than $25M so far, that really seems like the only FAIR conclusion.?

[monty57]

15 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

So the players, who are being paid sub-market wages because of the deck that MLB and MLBPA has stacked, should be responsible because they are entering a point where they actually will be compensated equitably for their performance?  This is a system that has been in place for decades so I would think the team is the one who needs to do a better job of managing their budget not the players no longer getting the short end of the stick. And if managing that budget means they have to shed arby players because they gave a >$200M extension to a doorstop then that's the management's issue not the arby players or just to become arby players. Yeah, Lauer should give back some of that raise since he's been underpaid by more than $25M so far, that really seems like the only FAIR conclusion.?

No, he should shut up and do his job. I expect players to try to get as much money for playing baseball as they can, but in doing so, they shouldn't complain when teams make moves for financial reasons.

Like any business, the Brewers have a budget. Lauer and the other players choose to be part of a union, and that union signed a CBA that includes the pre-arby/arby pay structure. A small market team like the Brewers has to take advantage of that, and oftentimes that means trading away expensive guys who are nearing free agency for inexpensive guys with a lot of team control. 

If anyone is upset about the Brewers trading away Hader, they are going to be furious over the next couple of offseasons as Burnes, Woodruff, Adames, Lauer, Houser and others are traded away for young players. But, after decades of bad Brewer baseball, I'm glad we have competent management that understands how to run the team and has the fans expecting playoff-caliber baseball year-in and year-out. The only way to get that is to run the team with a long-term plan like any other business, not by cow-towing to a whiny player or by listening to the media.

I don't really care if Lauer doesn't like it, as he won't be a Brewer more than another year, and any fan that gets upset by it should probably consider moving their fanhood to a big market team. Teams like the Brewers have to run themselves this way. 

[Axman59]

I'm sure many other players feel the same way as Lauer.

[NBBrewFan]

7 minutes ago, monty57 said:

No, he should shut up and do his job. I expect players to try to get as much money for playing baseball as they can, but in doing so, they shouldn't complain when teams make moves for financial reasons.

So you just don't like the idea that someone getting paid has a right to disagree about anything from the owner/management as long as they are getting paid? 

 

Quote

Lauer believes the trade sent a bad message to Milwaukee's clubhouse that the organization is more focused on winning in the future than in the present, especially with the Brewers and Cardinals locked in a tight divisional race. 

The above quote is from the article. Seems to be a lot like the comments here about the trade and in line with the complaint that the Brewers are wasting the current pitching by not adding to the team to take advantage.  I think the hypothesis that the clubhouse was demoralized after the trade because it indicated that they would rather add talent for a future year than make the 2022 team better is right on.  

[monty57]

3 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

So you just don't like the idea that someone getting paid has a right to disagree about anything from the owner/management as long as they are getting paid? 

 

The above quote is from the article. Seems to be a lot like the comments here about the trade and in line with the complaint that the Brewers are wasting the current pitching by not adding to the team to take advantage.  I think the hypothesis that the clubhouse was demoralized after the trade because it indicated that they would rather add talent for a future year than make the 2022 team better is right on.  

I think it's healthy for people to disagree. When it becomes unhealthy is when they decide to air grievances publicly rather than keeping it in-house. If a teammate getting traded gets a player so demoralized that they forget how to play winning baseball, then how in the heck did they make it to the MLB?

As I said, the team has to run itself within their limitations. The small-market Brewers always have to consider the future. They added Rogers, who has been better than Hader since the trade, so they weren't giving up on the year, and they saved enough money by trading Hader that they will be able to hold onto guys like Lauer into next season. Take emotions out of it, and the trade makes a lot of sense.

I guess it's easy to throw stones when your "glass house" is secure, but it's generally better for the players to let management do their job and vice versa. Stearns and Attanasio have done a pretty good job of putting together winning baseball teams in Milwaukee. A far better job than I assume would have been done had we had Lauer as our GM.

[NBBrewFan]

16 minutes ago, monty57 said:

I think it's healthy for people to disagree. When it becomes unhealthy is when they decide to air grievances publicly rather than keeping it in-house. If a teammate getting traded gets a player so demoralized that they forget how to play winning baseball, then how in the heck did they make it to the MLB?

I agree that things should be addressed in-house before anything.  Where we might disagree is what is the next step if there isn't a reasonable response by management (and likely what a reasonable response would be), but this is what Eric said (direct quote):

Quote

"Afterward, there was no communication to the clubhouse [about] what changed in the clubhouse. It's kind of like it was shrugged off"

I imagine the shrugs came from Counsell as that's who the players are gonna go to first.  But whomever just shrugged it off should be communicating back to the management that this is what the players are asking. If they did and Stearns/Attanasio decided no response was needed then they didn't handle it well.  If they didn't then maybe there hasn't been the necessary response from management, but it also could mean that it was to Counsell who was asked and the players feel that they aren't getting a reasonable response to there unhappiness about the situation.  Either way it appears that the issue wasn't addressed to the players satisfaction so one of them spoke out. If you remember the video from Devin Williams after the trade you saw one very unhappy player.  I doubt Eric is the only one, he's just the one who took an opportunity to let it be known that things aren't hunky dory in the clubhouse. 

I agree that players ultimately have to still do their job, but we're all humans and sometimes things like this feed on themselves when not addressed and that can impact players more than we think.

[Thurston Fluff]

22 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

So you just don't like the idea that someone getting paid has a right to disagree about anything from the owner/management as long as they are getting paid? 

 

The above quote is from the article. Seems to be a lot like the comments here about the trade and in line with the complaint that the Brewers are wasting the current pitching by not adding to the team to take advantage.  I think the hypothesis that the clubhouse was demoralized after the trade because it indicated that they would rather add talent for a future year than make the 2022 team better is right on.  

Maybe the players who were demoralized about the teams moves should take some time to assess those moves now to raise the moral. It might turn out our best shot at the playoffs in 2022 was by trading Hader and his 16.20 ERA since then. Instead of second guessing a decision that so far has turned out to be good for this season as well as the future they should try to figure out how to play better.

[Axman59]

Lauer made the comments to Adam McCalvy. I think a link to the actual article (not some rando on Twitter) is in order.

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/brewers-discuss-clubhouse-vibe-ahead-of-crucial-stretch

[NBBrewFan]

2 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

Lauer made the comments to Adam McCalvy. I think a link to the actual article (not some rando on Twitter) is in order.

 

https://www.mlb.com/news/brewers-discuss-clubhouse-vibe-ahead-of-crucial-stretch

Here you go (for those waiting for the pocket books to open up):

Quote

The Brewers, with a payroll that they argue pushes the limits of what their market can bear yet is modest relative to other contenders, cannot so easily go “all-in” at will and deal with the consequences later.

Consequences?  Reduced dividend to the Owners?  *GASP*  Not that!

[Axman59]

28 minutes ago, monty57 said:

I think it's healthy for people to disagree. When it becomes unhealthy is when they decide to air grievances publicly rather than keeping it in-house.

 

I prefer it when players speak their minds honestly rather than vomiting up corporate pablum.

[Jopal78]

31 minutes ago, Axman59 said:

I prefer it when players speak their minds honestly rather than vomiting up corporate pablum.

There's millions of Americans every day who take a dig at their employer, it's not really noteworthy other than he's a semi-famous professional athlete.

However, Eric Lauer's FIP this year of 4.77 (too many walks, too many ding dongs)  places him near the bottom of the pile of staring pitchers in the NL Central in terms of FIP, which is undoubtedly one of many reasons the Brewers are where they are this year. Thus, he's literally one of the guys not holding up his end, and nonetheless decides to take a shot at his employer. It's a fair question to wonder if he looks wise or foolish. To me, it's almost like Homer Simpson taking a shot at Mr. Burns for how he runs the plant. 

[monty57]

38 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

Here you go (for those waiting for the pocket books to open up):

Consequences?  Reduced dividend to the Owners?  *GASP*  Not that!

This has been discussed quite a bit on here over the years. The Brewers are a limited partnership, so the ownership group gets their share of the profits and losses passed through to their personal taxes. These aren't public, so no one knows, but I'd guess that they run it with fairly thin profit margins every year, not wanting too much taxable income passed through, but not wanting to dig into their own pockets (or take out a loan against the franchise) to pay the expenses. Most of these owners are in it for the long-term equity and the thrill of being an owner, not for more taxable income in the current year.

Attanasio and the rest of the ownership group have been open to raising the payroll when they think it will be a meaningful pick-up, and I'd guess McCutcheon was that guy this year. His $8.5M probably made them a little uneasy, as it pushed them around $10M over their previous record high opening day salary, and the lowered attendance numbers this year probably aren't helping that any. Axios says they're down around 13.4% year-on-year as of July 19.

So, as far as the future consequences go, if they lose money this year, they either have to take a loan, which will add to future expenses (therefore potentially reducing future payrolls) as the loan is paid off, or they pay the money out of their own pockets which may make them less amenable to bumping up payroll in the future.

I'm not "crying poor." These are all fairly wealthy individuals, but they do have to make sensible financial decisions. It wouldn't take too many foolish decisions to really hurt the Brewers. Thankfully, I think this is an area in which Attanasio is really smart. I believe that he'll keep payroll competitive while not risking the future of the franchise, and in the rare occasions in which the Brewers lowered payroll, they bought the Carolina team, and refurbished the Arizona facility and the food courts at then Miller Park, all of which should be good long-term investments for the team.

I'm sure Mr. Lauer doesn't bother himself with any of this. He's a bit discouraged right now, but I'd prefer he show his emotions by shutting out the Dodgers. Either way, he will be one of the guys traded away in the not-too-distant future (this offseason or next) in order for the Brewers to continue their attempt at building a "continually competitive" team, not only for this year, but for the coming years as well. He won't be a Brewer then, but I will still be a fan, so I hope they continue to think of both the present and the future in the aggregate moves they make.

[Robocaller]

He'd be on higher ground if he was like Devin and said this immediately. Now It looks like he's scapegoating management.

[Jim French Stepstool]

It's not surprising that this is deteriorating into a corporation vs employees sort of argument from some. And I doubt if anyone who feels strongly either way is going to be swayed. It just strikes me as funny when some people I come into contact with (not necessarily here) seem to want to measure Attanasio & the Brewers compared to themselves, rather than the teams they compete against.

[Jim French Stepstool]

1 hour ago, monty57 said:

 

I'm not "crying poor." These are all fairly wealthy individuals, but they do have to make sensible financial decisions. It wouldn't take too many foolish decisions to really hurt the Brewers. Thankfully, I think this is an area in which Attanasio is really smart. I believe that he'll keep payroll competitive while not risking the future of the franchise, and in the rare occasions in which the Brewers lowered payroll, they bought the Carolina team, and refurbished the Arizona facility and the food courts at then Miller Park, all of which should be good long-term investments for the team.

I'm sure Mr. Lauer doesn't bother himself with any of this. 

And all that really matters is his wealth, his working capital, his revenue streams etc compared to the 29 other owners, not to the ninety-whatever percent of the rest of us. And of course Lauer couldn't care less. Not his concern. But he also can't let stuff like this effect his performance, but a percentage of the team appears guilty of that.

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, Axman59 said:

I'm sure many other players feel the same way as Lauer.

No doubt. 7-11 since the trade. Hope they feel avenged.

[tmwiese55]

Probably making more of this than it really is.  He was honest on how it affected the locker room whereas most guys give a cliché bs answer.. Which any of us could've said at the time was a risk of such a move mid season. I think I said something like I probably wouldn't have done it midseason without an overwhelming return (turns out they likely expected Hader's struggles to continue so that now makes sense too as a reason).   

It's easy to sit here and act like Coach Cooper and say  'doesnt matter you need to do your job every day' (which note, Lauer said that too) and act tough, but they're humans and this is a subconscious aspect of being a human.  You just had one of your best players and best reliever in baseball the last 5ish years, a guy you've known for years taken off the team in the middle of the pennant chase. While also no clear upgrade player at any position to show you're going for it.  It's perfectly understandable for that to give you a bit of *** running through your head. As he said, you have to do your best to overcome it and still perform. Easier said than done for some people though.   Think back to your basic HS sports days, say you're in the playoffs or big games end of season and one of the key players is yanked off the team for whatever reason, it's gonna affect you a bit.

I take it more of a just being honest on the clubhouse vibe the last few weeks. Especially since it seems they've had one of the best cultures for years, so if there's a funk it probably stands out a bit more.  I do get how some could take it as a straight up criticizing management too, but I'd pump the brakes on that a bit.