Fear The Chorizo

It's at least some smoke....although the "per sources" stuff is just sloppy and speculative - could just as easily be Hackett calling Rodgers after his darkness retreat asking him how it went, but I kind of hope there's more to it than that. I think it's time both Rodgers and the Packers moved on separately, because it's best for both of them.

That's not how arbitration works...like at all. And that's also not how the process of the Brewers trying to negotiate a 2023 contract amount with Burns played out either, like at all. The Brewers offered Burnes a 2 year deal that would have avoided both this year's arbitration and next year's arbitration process, and buy out zero years of free agency. By the way, the Brewers did that with Prince Fielder when they knew he was destined for free agency also, and Fielder/Boras signed that contract. Burnes' camp stated that 2 yr offer from the Brewers was "pretty poor" - not exactly surprised by that from a guy willing to go to the mat in arby year 2 over about $700K in salary difference on a $10M+ contract and one that has probably been told by everyone in the players association that he should be the pitcher to reset the free agent market in a couple offseasons. Woodruff is also a homegrown star, and they avoided arbitration this season. Peralta was essentially a homegrown star and signed a longterm contract extension with the Brewers years ago. Adames and Woodruff agreed with the Brewers on contract amounts and avoided arbitration - those settled amounts were between what the Brewers and respective players initially proposed in arbitration. Once the deadline for negotiated arby settlements expired, Burnes 2023 contract was either going to be the amount his camp posted or what the Brewers posted initially, not any amount that was in between while they were negotiating. Once it goes to arbitration, your side either wins or loses, there's no "let's meet in the middle" anymore. Given the fact that I think Burnes was the only player of like 12 possible arbitration cases that actually didn't settle with the Brewers somewhere between the initial proposed amounts, I'd be inclined to think whatever amount the Brewers moved the needle between theirs and Burnes' initial arbitration posting amounts was a reasonable compromise - but that would presume that Burnes and his agent had any intent of moving down from their proposed contract value. The only speculating going on is people turning quotes that were generalizing the process from a frustrated Burnes 2 days after losing his hearing into what was actually stated by the Brewers' representatives during the hearing.

Question I'm not sure I know the answer to regarding the stadium since it was initially publicly financed and it's kind of between a lease agreement with the Brewers & Stadium Board/state - what percentage of it is owned by the Brewers? Do the Brewers get a slice of the revenue generated from the growing non-MLB events the stadium hosts? If the state of WI did not have a MLB franchise inside its borders, It would absolutely lose tax revenue. Taking anything out of a state that drives 30ish thousand butts into seats 81 times a year will cost that state significant tax revenue. While the residents undoubtedly would still spend most of their money within state lines, the state would lose out on a large chunk of tax revenue coming in from other states to watch 81 games, eat at restaurants, stay in hotels, etc...not to mention losing income tax for some pretty high earners. The problem with simply stating that all pro sports franchises need to foot the full bill for a new stadium or even significant stadium upgrades is that quite simply, not all MLB organizations have that kind of valuation to do so - as soon as the stadium is built it's losing value and requiring more $$ for upkeep. When you think of it, public financing makes alot more sense for baseball stadiums than football anyway, since baseball stadiums are used much more frequently during the course of a year. I'd anticipate something to get worked out between the two parties, because it makes too much sense for both sides to continue their partnership through the operating lifespan of this stadium that was publicly funded to begin with.

Obviously not comprehensive, but look at his setups in those two graphics posted in the article...2019 his stance started open and stayed open, with a small leg kick that seemed to get alot more drive from his lower half once he dropped that front foot and fired through with his hips. The 2022 swing shows Yelich's stance as neutral and perhaps even a bit closed, and instead of a leg kick he uses a toe tap that doesn't yield as much drive from his lower half through the swing - not saying it's lingering issues with the front knee injury, but I think it has more to do with ongoing back issues that limit how much torque he can put into a swing from the ground up. That is also evident in the comparison of those 2019 and 2022 stances - Yelich has more knee bend in his stance and throughout his swing in 2019, and remains much more upright in that 2022 swing.

Article needs a quick revision in paragraph 1, as I think Turang is ranked #4, correct? People are quick to forget that Turang was the top positional prospect in his age group for multiple years prior to his senior year in high school and considered a potential top overall selection in the 2018 draft prior to summer of 2017. He slipped a bit due mainly to concerns about his slight frame/build leading up to the 2018 draft, which IMO was a gift to the Brewers being able to pick him at #21 overall that draft. He's going to have a long MLB career, and I'm looking forward to him getting to Milwaukee soon!

Guaranteed this statement isn't true for an organization that will be hamstrung with these contracts for the next decade-plus if they don't win a championship in the next couple of seasons. The Padres will be the poster child for taking the wrong approach after accumulating so much talent in their farm system with a longterm rebuild, then blowing it all to bring in expensive veteran talent on top of huge free agent contract allotments.

they extended their best player (and arguably best player in the NL at the time) to essentially finish his career as a Brewer - and that big contract is already viewed as an albatross to the organization. The Brewers aren't in a position to have to trade away talent before it reaches its prime MLB production years because they simply can't afford arbitration raises or even as a young player accepts an early extension that buys out a few free agent years - they've been proactive with getting value in return for trading the likes of Hader 1+ seasons before he left via free agency and will likely do so with Burnes sometime over the next calendar year. I'd argue that's a better approach than paying those players huge sums of money longterm to watch them play for the Brewers well beyond their primes. The easiest way for a MLB team to maintain prolonged success is to consistently churn out quality major league players from their farm system or by using their farm system to acquire those players via trade. In fact, most large market teams open their windows of sustained contention by having a productive farm system to establish a budget-friendly core of talent to build around. That approach actually doesn't require maintaining a bloated payroll, either. That's exactly how the Brewers have been managed as an organization since Stearns became GM, and arguably the worst organizational decision made involved giving a great player a huge contract extension to remain a Brewer longterm.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how Misiorowski has developed over the offseason - could be a meteoric rise through the system if the command improves with a more consistent delivery.

So what in your opinion are MLB teams' capacities for MLB payroll alone? The national TV $ is a nice revenue boost, but compared to what NFL teams get in shared broadcast revenue it's a drop in the bucket. So, teams in smaller markets with mediocre to poor local broadcast contracts just don't have enough revenue to drive huge MLB payroll increases longterm - particularly when they are also having to support improvements to spring training facilities, minor league development/scouting initiatives, signing bonus/prospect contracts, international baseball academies, etc. There are many more layers to a well-run MLB organization's operating expenses that tap into the team's annual revenue stream than NFL or NBA organizations. Could the Brewers throw another $30M at their MLB payroll with no regard for mid term business profit/loss? Probably, but most likely at the expense of taking away funds from other parts of their organization that may actually yield much better onfield returns longterm at a much lower overall cost. One example would be the Brewers' relatively recent push to improve their international scouting and signing apparatus - dedicating a larger pot of $ than the Brewers historically have made available for international signings most likely helped them identify and sign Chourio a couple winters ago for a couple million dollars. They've also spent a good amount of money revamping their training facilities and restructuring their scouting departments in effort to bolster the quality of players consistently produced by their minor league system - looking at the current state of the farm system, I'd say those efforts have already proven fruitful. And like it or not, the Brewers and many other MLB clubs are still grappling with the 2020 COVID season financially - the NFL actually saw their salary cap amounts drop for a couple seasons, and they operate with non-guaranteed contracts. With the guaranteed nature of MLB contracts, they didn't really have the luxury of just cutting a bunch of players and restructuring deals to make the short-term financials work.

The Brewers currently have the 19th highest projected Opening Day payroll in a league with 30 MLB teams. To reach the current league average payroll amount the Brewers would need to add roughly 45 million in player salary (there's a big gap between the Brewers at #19 and the next tier of teams just ahead of them). If you take the Mets' 2023 idiocy payroll of $336 million away, that league average actually sits alot closer to where the Brewers are currently at despite being in the smallest market in all of baseball and coming off a season of diminished ticket sales and the current turmoil of their broadcast rights contract with a company about to go bankrupt. 'They can't spend like the Mets but they can spend more than they can'....what does that mean?

Yes, plus Contreras. If it wasn't he wouldn't have gone from nowhere to a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball after last season. He is 4 years younger than Frelick and 6 years younger than both Mitchell and Wiemer, and he reached double-fricking A as a child last season. That just doesn't happen unless you've got enough talent to essentially be untouchable as a prospect as soon as you start playing in the minor leagues.

If you were comparing Ruiz, Mitchell, Frelick, and Wiemer - sure. Trading Chourio right now would probably land Contreras plus at least two of the prospects listed above, and I'd still be upset they traded Chourio. When a young prospect flashes the type of ceiling Chourio has, he quickly becomes untradeable at the age he is.

Which owner of the Brewers in particular are you wanting to hear from? There are at least 17 of them, btw. Attanasio owns a higher percentage of the Brewers than any of the others and is considered the principle owner, but I don't think he even owns 50% of the franchise. His net worth would have never let him buy the Brewers outright in the first place, unlike many of the billionaire owners who've recently purchased franchises for their shiny new play toy. Like it or not, the Brewers can't and won't ever operate like the Mets and Padres recently have - their organization simply isn't structured in a way for them to carry a top 5 payroll in MLB. But feel free to continue griping and acting like Mark A. controls everything and has billions of dollars to throw everywhere in order to sign a bunch of veterans to record-setting contracts.

He won't be cementing his prospect rating the next couple years, he'll be in the major leagues by then, barring injury. And I'd make the argument that there aren't more than a couple other prospects/rookies across all of MLB right now that would carry more trade value than Chourio - Garret Mitchell is a quality prospect, but he's nowhere close to as valuable as Chourio is, who happens to be 5+ years younger than Mitchell.

If Chourio is the player most scouts and we all hope think he can be, he's not spending two more full seasons in the minor leagues no matter how much OF depth is in front of him in Milwaukee and higher levels of the minor leagues - Chourio is the type of prospect you make room for by willingly trading away major league players with multiple years of team control remaining that might be blocking him. If he has a really good 2023 season, he'll be in Milwaukee in 2024, if not sooner.

I think the glut of options for this OF indicates a couple of the high minors prospect options (Frelick, Wiemer) are likely to start the year in AAA - and I also think it's likely we'll see a trade or two that includes either some of the veteran OFs like Taylor or seasoned but not as highly regarded prospects (Lutz, Gray JR, Perez, etc) to both thin the herd and add bullpen pieces if the team is in buy mode at the deadline. I think with Chourio coming behind Mitchell, Wiemer, and Frelick, it also wouldn't surprise me if one of those three is traded for a roster upgrade elsewhere over the next calendar year - Chourio is the type of prospect you absolutely make room for as soon as he proves to be ready for the show. As an aside, I wondered how long I'd have to read before seeing Suter's name mentioned in an article that's supposed to be entirely about this year's Brewer outfield options...10 sentences in was actually a pretty good job by clancy holding off! However, I'm a bit disappointed there was no mention of Cooper Hummel.

Brewers' current contract with Ballys to broadcast their games - ~$34M annually without having to sell a ticket. Bally's is about to go bankrupt, putting into question what the Brewers are going to receive for broadcast rights and when. Current Brewer payroll - about $110M. 2022 Brewer payroll - about $135M, difference of around $25M Gee I wonder why their payroll is lower.

I'm guessing Burnes didn't like the Brewers' two year offer to buy out arbitration, because it was probably less than the combined total of the two amounts he and his agent had planned on taking to arbitration - simple as that. He also commented about the whirlwind travel schedule attending his own arbitration hearing led him on before scrambling back to Spring Training, including how it hampered his valentines day celebration with his wife - pretty sure he could've avoided most of that jet lag and time in airports by skipping your hearing and letting his representatives present on his behalf if it meant that much. I think all the effort and logistics for Burnes to take this all the way to arbitration probably wound up feeling like a frustrating waste of time once he found out they lost the hearing, and I think that showed out in his comments about the process last week. At the end of the day it's quibbling over about $700K of career earnings (a gap that was likely much smaller than that when the two sides were negotiating his 2023 salary up to the arbitration deadline) that will likely add up over $250M, so it's obvious the frustration is largely channeled through the players' union's drive to increase arbitration precedent whenever possible, even if it's incremental.

lol - ok. in 2000 they were about $0.91/dozen, too. My point wasn't specific to egg costs, anyways, so feel free to insert the exploding cost of just about anything.

When sandwich artists and big box department store greeters are earning more than $15/hr with benefits, and with one of the end results of that policy push being $5/dozen eggs (not free range/conflict free/virtue signal-positive eggs, but the cheap ones most of us savages get), "good talent" should absolutely earn six figures in this economy.

The track of record of both McGinn and Florio related to Rodgers is one that they both despise him, and this article kind of feels like wishful thinking on their part. The Packers may very well move on from Rodgers, but it's not because they're disgusted with him.

Yes, but Mark A is supposed to just make a few withdrawals from his offshore accounts to cover payroll.

It actually happens a ton during internal performance review discussions by upper management. Then the employee's manager has a meeting with the employee to discuss results of any position/raise/bonus decision. Not an apples to apples comparison because not all workplace scenarios are the same as a professional athlete making life changing money for most of us every season (shocking, I know), but this sort of thing happens all the time.

Whether its Rodgers or Love QB-ing next season, I think it's the right move to hang onto Jones on a restructured contract to make his 2023 cap number tolerable

If you didn't already realize as much after he won the Cy Young award in 2021 and entered into arbitration and there wasn't a contract extension announced that offseason, I'm not sure what else you were expecting.