BillHall02

Not thati agree with his course of action, but if I had a medical condition I wanted kept private, it doesn't seem that MLB would be the first people I would tell after seeing all of this...

I see what you are saying about our revenue being at probably its highest point in the team's history, and drawing 3 million fans is certainly impressive for a small market like Milwaukee, but you have to look at it from an unbiased perspective. 3 Million is a lot of fans, but it was still only 7th in Baseball. It's not like we are outdrawing the rest of MLB by a substantial margin. Look at the teams just ahead of us in payroll and you will find San Francisco, Minnesota, and St Louis in the 105-120M range that you seem to think the Brewers can reach. The problem is, that these teams ALSO drew 3 million fans AND are in much larger markets than Milwaukee. For us to match them we'd be doing so with similar attendance and significantly less media revenue then they have. I could see your point if you thought that those teams simply chose not to max out their payroll like Attanasio claims he does, but if you look at their situations, with St. Louis in their (potentially) last year with Albert, Minnesota opening a new stadium, and SF coming off a world series win, I don't see any reason to believe that was the case. The simply reality is that the Brewers payroll is currently probably maxed out, with our market disadvantage being somewhat lessened by the fact that we can draw fans at a higher level than most. However, our stadium doesn't really leave much room for increasing attendance, and that is something that I believe may soon be a problem. We will never sell out every game, as day games during spring will simply always have plenty of open seats, but we fail to sell some of the seats that we possibly could have during summer weekend games and during big series like against the Cubs or any future inter-league games we may be playing. It hurts me to know that we only sell 20-30k tickets on a thursday get away game in April, but can't sell them to the maybe 50k plus that would be interested in other games later on, that would make up for some of the early ones. County Stadium (in terms of size) would have had much larger season attendance totals than Miller Park imo.

I would say that Svuemed sounds the best, and Sandberged just sounds kinda dirty. Man, we sure were Roystered on countless occasions without being aware of it.

I feel like it has been posted several times that the Pirates would fail to be profitable without revenue sharing. While this may be true with current revenue and payroll, it would seem obvious to me that without revenue sharing the payroll would obviously be lower. The Pirates can certainly be profitable without the help of other teams, contrary to what Kramnoj implied. What they wouldn't be is competitive on the field. That is where revenue sharing comes into play, to level the competitive field.

While I do understand that Milwaukee has done a lot for Prince Fielder, we as fans sometime forget that we are not the only team that would have. He was a first round talent, and would have been drafted if not by us but by someone else. It's not like he was an undrafted free agent and we were the only team interested. It's also not like we let him struggle in his early years and weren't rewarded. He hit from the minute he entered pro ball, and likely would have for any team. We drafted his controlling rights for a number of years. Nothing more. If the circumstances were different I would understand the "we gave him a chance" sentiment, but in this case, I beg you to ask yourself, aside from Oakland which team wouldn't have? We were good to him, but I don't feel he owes Milwaukee more than most free agents hitting their first free agency. But Kudos to FVBrewerfan, I do agree that those that stay with one team have more of a connection to baseball after they retire.

Contracts are also hard to use to measure value, as with pitchers injury risk it seems would effect their value more, especially with the longer deals that are typically associated with larger contracts. For example, when the Yankees signed Clemens for just the one year they were willing to give him more, around 30M I believe. With position players, it seems the risk of injury is lower and more importantly the long term effects of the injury are less. On a year to year basis I believe the value of pitching would be significantly higher.

I believe that he said prospects, meaning in general. Nobody will argue that Gamel was used properly, but we have seen Escobar and Gomez get some playing time under Macha. We also have only just over a year to gauge Macha's usage of prospects/young players, which I don't believe is nearly enough. Macha's non-usage of Gamel could have been based on a number of things we don't know. Not saying they are correct, but it isn't fair to say it is based off his age or prospect status. Also, I feel that a lot of the blame for Gamel lies on Melvin, who had the ability to send him back down, force Macha's hand or not call him up in the first place. And as far as value goes, McGehee is providing us plenty of value that we didn't have at the same time last year. I don't know how you can say it is irrelevant other than you don't believe that McGehee will keep it up.

I think danzig makes a HUGE point about hope. No player really wants to be the guy that takes up 1/3 of a payroll, and the reason they can't afford any talent around him. They would rather make an equal amount and have a chance at a nice ring, too. As far as the whole prestige thing, I would have to imagine the Arizona Cardinals have as little of it as any NFL team could, and yet they managed to resign Larry Fitzgerald. Heck, they even managed to make the Super Bowl last year. Whether or not the system is can or should be fixed is one question, but there is no question it isn't fair to small market teams.

Who have we lost recently that we wanted to keep? Sabathia and I wouldn't want him for the contract he was given. While I certainly don't want them to spend foolishly, as a fan I don't really care how much they spend. It's simply not my money. Sure, there would be some novelty in saying my team beat the Yankees with 1/25 the payroll, but I could certainly settle for spending 1/2 the amount or heck even more if I lived to see a world series. As a Brewer fan, even at age 21, I am far from being sure that I will ever get to see that day. The Packers I am quite a bit more confident about.

I also like the retro logos. I also don't see them as holding onto the past, as much as clinging to a classic and elegant logo. I go to UW, and I see FAR more retro logos than current ones. I doubt many of the other college kids are hanging onto players or an era we were never a part of. The simple fact is it is a more popular logo, which has been shown several times

Hall's splits are still quite extreme, but his numbers have improved thus far over last year. If he cam sustain this, his overall numbers mixed with his defense should mean he has value to the team

Just doesn't seem right that Rickie doesn't get a hit for that...

Rickie has been scorching the ball so far. Hard to believe that he's only gotten 3 hits

I think he was right. Wasn't Adrian Hernandez a knuckleballer? I can't remember much from when the Yanks signed him, but I did think he threw a knuckleball when he was here. I was quite excited about him too.

While I certainly don't think we will acquire him anytime soon, it's not necessarily fair to say that he is going to command more than Sabathia. San Diego is in the unfortunate situation of having to actively shop him, which will certainly lower his return, whether San Diego tries to avoid it or not. Sabathia only had to get a return more than they felt the picks would be worth, as I'm sure they never predicted he'd end up on the same team as Teixeira. I'm sure whoever is able to put together a package that fits will get a great deal, I just don't think it will be us, and I hope it won't be the Cubs