jjgott

Hot Take: LASIK is as much, if not more, of a performance enhancer than steroids and should be banned. /semiblue

I believe the meme, as the kids say it, goes something like this Craig Counsell: "I want a Kris Bryant" David Stearns: "We have a Kris Bryant at home" Kris Bryant at Home: Jedd Gyorko

STL 91 CHI 90 CIN 84 MKE 73 PIT 66

Dallas Braden @DALLASBRADEN209 11m Half the league in the postseason doesn’t generate more hope. That’s cute though. It DOES generate potential POSTSEASON revenue for teams that haven’t spent $ to be competitive. This is LOWERING THE BAR. Just a mechanism to allow the tanking to be veiled as being competitive. I'm more or less in Dallas Braden's camp on the proposed expansion. The Brewers already feel like they can significantly cut payroll this year and still have an outside shot at the 2nd wild card. Imagine this offseason knowing we only had to win ~ 81 games to get into the postseason. Would we have needed to sign any free agents? Put the pressure on the owners to actually invest in a winning product if they want to get to the postseason and make that postseason $$$. Reward teams for actually putting together a team that can withstand the entirety of a 162 game season. If anything we should go back to just 4 playoff teams (yes I know this means the Brewers would not have made it last year).

Raptors:Bucks::Cardinals:Brewers

If we were going into Yelich's last contract year would a package of Verdugo and Graterol be enough in a trade?

It's not about whether they can afford to do it, it's about whether it makes baseball sense to do so I would think it makes baseball sense to try and retain a 27 year old MVP.

Imagine caring more about not paying a completely affordable luxury tax than retaining a fan favorite MVP outfielder.

Bobby Nightengale ‏@nightengalejr #Reds sign RHP Tyler Thornburg to a minor league deal with an invite to spring training.

This is not a new concept, though, as it is literally the entire concept that the novel/movie Moneyball is based on and started 20+ years ago. Right, and I understand the appeal of that strategy (it saves the owners a lot of money!), but I think there comes times when it also makes sense to try to invest in cornerstone players for the long term. Sure, you may get burned by giving a promising young player guaranteed money and they don't pan out, or the guy decides to turn down a deal because he wants to play somewhere else etc. etc., but it's my opinion that at some point teams should try to keep some sort of continuity vs. constantly churning the roster and going from "window" to "window." The best thing about Stearns' tenure is that we really only had to endure two years of "rebuilding." He doesn't seem to want to do a full Astros/Marlins type strip down.

I'm not of the opinion that the Brewers just have to spend money on Free Agents willy nilly, but it gets absurd when teams decide players are starting to get "expensive" so they look to trade them away as soon as they have to actually pay the players what they are worth (so I'm talking more about situations like Hader) in arbitration. Look at the Indians and Lindor. Given all the money floating around in baseball they absolutely can afford to pay Lindor and he should be the type of player the Indians hold on to for their fans. If he decides to leave for the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox of the world at the end of his contract so be it; but if a player of the caliber of Lindor shows himself to be a star, offer a fair extension with a buyout of his arbitration years and see if he sticks around. It's one of the reasons I was glad the Brewers decided to hold onto Fielder until the end. Following the Brewers as a kid in the mid-to-late 90's I never had a chance to have a guy I followed for his whole career like Yount. It wasn't until Braun came along, and having him sign his long term deal, that I finally had that type of player on my team. Sure it can be argued he is "overpaid" now, but given the value he gave the team from like 2007-2013 I think it's been worth every penny. And I don't really think his contract is some albatross on the team; they've had no problem signing players like Cain and Grandal while supporting $20+ million for Braun. As has been written on this board time and time again, the owners' first priority for owning the team is to make money, unlike us fans who want championships. We can be realistic and understand that the owners will not run the team like a non-profit. But I think it is also fair to question owners crying poor. If the Brewers/baseball as a whole were losing money, the owners would be trying to sell. Instead, money is more or less guaranteed year in a year out (it is a legal monopoly after all) so it seems like the argument is really only about the level of money that has to go to labor vs. the owner's pockets. Unless you saddled your team up with debt like the McCourts in LA, owning a team is as much of a guaranteed return on your investment as you can get.

@Ken_Rosenthal Keuchel terms with #WhiteSox, per source: Three years, $55.5M with vesting option. First with terms: @JonHeyman. @JeffPassan The Keuchel deal with the White Sox, as @JonHeyman said, is for three years and $55.5 million. It includes a vesting fourth-year option that can take it to $74 million.

@Ken_Rosenthal Keuchel terms with #WhiteSox, per source: Three years, $55.5M with vesting option. First with terms: @JonHeyman. @JeffPassan The Keuchel deal with the White Sox, as @JonHeyman said, is for three years and $55.5 million. It includes a vesting fourth-year option that can take it to $74 million.

Are there any stats to back this up? Smoak last 4 seasons DRS on Baseball Reference -3 (19), -3 (18), 1 (17), -5 (16) Thames last 3 seasons DRS at 1B on Baseball Reference: 2 (19), -2 (18), -5 (17) If anything, Thames has been improving at his 1B defense while Smoak has been consistently below average.

[sarcasm]So is he our starting 1B or 3B?[/sarcasm]

Ken Rosenthal @Ken_Rosenthal Free-agent left-hander Wade Miley in agreement with #Reds on two-year, $15M contract, pending physical, sources tell The Athletic. Deal will reunite him with his former pitching coach in Milwaukee, Derek Johnson.

AP Sports ‏@AP_Sports 14h Injured Corey Knebel, Brewers agree to $5,125,000 salary.

Thank you, yes that is what I was getting at.

Stras is getting paid the equivalent of a fortune 500 CEO salary. Would you say his skill set is more or less unique than a CEO's? Lmao what? No he's not, not even close. Average Fortune 500 CEO salary is $11 million. I didn't say average, because Strasburg is also not an average pitcher in his chosen field, and obviously with CEO's there is more to their compensation than straight salary. But, for example, JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon reportedly earned around $31 million in compensation in 2018; Netflix's Reed Hastings $31.5 million; Paypal's Daniel Schulman $37.8 million; T-Mobile's John Legere $66.5 million, so the amount earned by Strasburg is not out of line with compensation for other career fields of supposedly highly specialized talent.

Stras is getting paid the equivalent of a fortune 500 CEO salary. Would you say his skill set is more or less unique than a CEO's?

That's true and that's why I tried to say at least in my case I hope Stearns' decisions are solely based on making the team better. If we can get a guy who can meet or exceed Thames' production for less money, great! I've unfortunately also seen businesses not willing to offer a raise to productive employees, only to see the employee leave for a competitor. I would hope MLB teams understand that sometimes having a high amount of turnover is not always a recipe for success. Sometimes it makes business sense to hire and retain highly compensated employees if they will generate more revenue (in this case wins).

Not necessarily. I think what some of us fans are worried about is whether we are making decisions to improve the team or making decisions in order for Mark A. and the rest of the ownership group to hit their profit margins. Obviously payroll is not everything as the Dodgers can attest to but I'd much rather the team sign good players that give us a 5% better chance to win the WS than try to get by on the cheap and hope whoever we find to fill spots can have a career year for us. Look at what the Red Sox are doing with Mookie Betts. He undoubtedly is a top OF in baseball and would make the Red Sox better next year if he stays, but they are shopping him because they're worried paying him what he's worth will impact the "budget." This is an example of a team actively trying to make their team worse in order to save money. This is the stuff that is maddening as a fan.

The discussion about what teams can/can not afford is even more egregious with the big market teams. The Nats have already announced they "can't afford" both Rendon and Strasburg even though they just won the WS with all the associated extra revenue, they just got a ruling in their favor to get more media rights from their joint deal with the O's, and the owners are multi-billionaires. They can afford whatever they want. They would just prefer to use whatever extra revenue on things other than labor. Mark A. does not have the bank account that the Lerners have, but he most certainly could afford more than we all think he can. For example, there is absolutely no reason why we cannot afford the arbitration amount for Hader. While we may trade him to patch up other holes on the team, the decision to trade him should not be based on money.

Apparently they are signing him to play 2B

Per Ken Rosenthal -- #Brewers sending RHP Zach Davies and OF Trent Grisham to #Padres for 2B Luis Urías and LHP Eric Lauer, source tells The Athletic. First with deal: @JonMorosi.