danzig6767

There can be a difference between technically not shopping a player or players and refusing to trade a player/players. No question that there are players in baseball that teams won't even ever consider trading. Mike Trout for example. If teams make an offer good enough for Gomez, my guess is that he could be traded. Lucroy has an extra year on his deal though, so the demands which the Brewers could ask for should be higher.

Mark A is the reason Mark A turned around the franchise. Increased ticket sales. Increased revenue. Under Melvin the Brewers made the playoffs twice. I believe that Mark A thinks he knows how to help us contend every year and Doug has done what Mark wants him to do. I think they are very similar in mindset, which is why Attanasio has kept Melvin so long. Doug generally is a win now guy whenever and Attanasio is also. So when Mark has been going around talking to Boras nearly every year signing free agents, Melvin likely wasn't trying to throw up roadblocks saying hey Mark, you probably shouldn't sign Lohse and give up our draft pick, regardless of what you read on Fangraphs about late first round picks. A GM with a different mindset probably would have told Attanasio to stop signing all of these free agents and to stop picking up the phone every time Boras calls with a free agent struggling to find a home.

Yea, i don't get some saying they hated him as a hitter. Counsell had a higher walk rate than Braun has even though Craig had zero power. I'd love for more Brewer hitters to have a similar approach at the plate. Swing at strikes, take balls. Work the count, don't let pitchers get you out by swinging at the pitches they want you to swing at. I like the hire because pretty much whenever i've hear Counsell speak, he strikes me as an intelligent guy. I see him being willing to mix sabermetric ideas with needed leadership qualities.

Lucroy and Gomez are names that the Brewers should not be openly shopping. Teams need to be coming to the Brewers for those two. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when Attanasio and Melvin talk about the trade dynamics for the team. First of all we don't even know if Melvin will be back and i wonder if he knows yet? Or is Attanasio still unsure himself? 1. Will it be completely up to Attanasio as to whether guys like Gomez and/or Lucroy can be traded at all? 2. Or say will Melvin be allowed to field offers for each guy, but then it's up to Attanasio to actually pull the trigger on an offer? 3. Does Attanasio instead give Melvin carte blanche to to do as he wants with those two players? Option three strikes me as most unlikely, but who knows. Plus, the whole dynamic of if Melvin will even be back next year makes me wonder if that ends up having any impact on what degree of say he'd have on whether to trade important guys like Gomez and Lucroy compared to lesser value guys like Lohse and Ramirez?

Why? Because his offense will be wasted on a bad/mediocre team over the next 3 seasons. The overwhelming strength of the Brewers right now is AA and below. If they can get a couple top shelf prospects at that level for Braun, they are stocking talent for when they can be relevant again a few years down the road. Oh, and save 10s of millions in the process. I''m by no means against trading Braun if he hits well enough to draw interest, but given his baggage and long term contract, i just have a really hard time seeing another team taking on THAT contract, the baggage, and also throwing in a couple of high quality prospects.

It's pretty amazing that 16 games in and Braun only has one extra base hit. One home run and not any doubles or triples. That's almost hard to do. Hell, bench guys Hector Gomez and Herrera have more extra base hits than Braun has.

A lot of long time announcers for teams in various sports were never able to call games for their team in a championship winning season. Uecker isn't alone is this. He's still been able to live a dream type of life which most sports fans can only envy. He doesn't need any sympathy, nor want any.

I am pretty sure that MA himself is the guy that gave KRod that contract, not Melvin. It's pretty well documented that he gets in bed with Scott Boras and does deals himself of this magnitude. You can believe that. I don't in the KRod signing. The Brewers were looking for a RP/potential closer. This wasn't the Lohse signing where it came way late. Show me your link that has you believing this. About a week before K-Rod was signed, this was in the paper. From today's JS notes column by Todd Rosiak: Melvin wouldn't comment on the state of possible talks with the Phillies, but acknowledged the lines of communication have remained open with "K-Rod." "I don’t know if it’s active, but we still have conversations," Melvin said. "Mark deals more with that. (Agent) Scott (Boras) keeps calling Mark."

One thing that would be nice is if Broxton got his act together and pitched really well until the deadline. We could then hypothetically add him to a trade with Gomez and eat most or all of the money Broxton is making the rest of the year given it's a sunk cost anyways. Contending teams are often looking for productive relievers at the deadline.

Ownership is awake. They just aren't doing what you want them do. Jumping off the bandwagon and not supporting the organization is not only "not the best way to fix things", it shouldn't even be a consideration. Plus, a lot of people attend games simply because they like baseball, it's something to do on a nice summer day/night, many people love getting together to tailgait in a group as much as seeing a game, it's a nice thing for parents with kids to do together, etc etc. Even for me, as much as i love the Brewers and baseball, when i attend games with a few friends, it's as much to hang out together and tailgait as it is to see the actual game. Hell, on a number of occasions when the weather was great, our group wouldn't end up getting into the ballpark until say the 2nd or 3rd inning. So while a certain number of fans will most likely stop going this year out of protest of the direction the team has taken and some won't go mainly because the team is out of the playoff race, a lot will still go for reasons above, including myself. I probably won't go as often though.

Little League participation is down across the board in America. That said, i saw something on TV a few years ago on this topic and they mentioned how in many larger cities where large amounts of the black population lives, things like baseball diamonds were often either badly uncared for or vanished completely, leaving kids nowhere to play. Little Leagues in those areas no longer taking place. So for those kids, it was a lot easier to simply grab a basketball and shoot hoops at random playgrounds. I think about when i was a kid, there was a baseball diamond at a park about a mile from where i lived. The park was well kept up, including the baseball diamond. Friends and i would walk there all of the time in summer to hit and just practice. Then i also joined Wilson Park Little League which was very well run. Had there been no diamond anywhere near me to play around at with friends and/or no Little League near me to join, odds are i never would have invested so much time playing in my youth and instead would have spent more time say shooting hoops. Now, i wasn't good enough to play beyond through high school, but had i been a better talent to make it to the pros, i'd have never known that without access to a park to practice at and a Little League to join. So with so many of those places no longer available in mostly black neighborhoods for the kids to play on and a lack of black faces on MLB teams for kids to look up to, it's all combined to what we see now, few black faces on MLB rosters. Most black youth want to be the next Jordan or LeBron, without even thinking about being a major league baseball player.

So if the team ends up deciding to be major sellers at the deadline, you'd rather that the GM you are eventually firing being the guy to make those trades and in turn saddling the new GM with the very important decisions made by the guy you are replacing? By that logic, if you wouldn't trust a new GM to make those moves, why even bother making a change at GM? FWIW, i have full confidence that even if Melvin knew he was going to be replaced after the season and still asked to trade guys like say Gomez and Lohse at the deadline for prospects, that he'd do so in a very professional manner without any malice at all towards the organization. That said, making multiple important trades around the deadline would have major long term impact on just how well a rebuild ended up turning out. So to me it would make much more sense having a GM in place who would be responsible for the decisions made in trading away players for prospects. That guy would own those decisions vs a GM on his way out the door. If hypothetically Gomez and Lohse were shopped at the deadline, the packages Melvin would prefer could be much different than ones a new GM would prefer, yet if Melvin was the guy pulling the trigger and replaced after the season, the new GM would be forced to inherit the decisions which Doug made at the deadline, good or bad.

If i was the owner i'd 1. Start researching GM candidates ASAP 2. Try to hire one within the next 30 days 3. Give that new GM time before the trade deadline to evaluate all of the players on the current roster and the minor league system. 4. Then let that new GM give me his opinion on on the state of the franchise and how best to proceed forward, including at the trade deadline. 5. Allow that GM the freedom to make moves, even if i might question if a move is something i'd do so long is doesn't involve spending extravagantly. 6. Allow that GM to hire the next manager 7. Allow than GM to decide who will run his drafts Owners should hire general managers because those guys are supposed to know a lot more about baseball than the owner does, thus allow that guy to make nearly all decisions except those involving big money decisions where then i understand why an owner would want some input.

One thing i really hopes happens is if Attanasio does decide to clean house and hire a new GM, he should do it sooner than later so that if guys like Gomez and others were traded, that new front office is the one making the moves for young talent they will be responsible for acquiring vs them inheriting it. You easily could have a situation where Gomez is shopped at the deadline and the package which Melvin/his staff would like best is much different than the package a new GM hired in say the offseason would have preferred had he been in place when negotiations were happening with other teams. If the Brewers do end up becoming major sellers around the deadline, decisions made then will play a big factor in future rosters going forward. I'd much rather see the guy pulling the trigger on those moves being the one who will be the GM over the next 5-10 years, not the GM likely heading out the door at season end. FWIW, i do think Melvin would be very professional even if he knew this was his last season and make decisions in his mind for the best long term future of the Brewers if asked to do so, but he'd still be making important trades which a new GM would have to inherit if Attanasio waited until after the season to replace Doug.

Not only that, put him in the rotation where teams put as many righthanded bats in the lineup as realistic, it's hard to envision him having success over a full season given his struggles vs righthanded batters. Out of the pen, you can bring him in for an inning where say two of the three scheduled hitters are lefthanded. Most pitchers have better splits when facing batters who hit from the same side the pitcher throws from, but the splits for Smith are so dramatic. Until he can figure out how to get righthanded batters out, at best he''s a one inning relief pitcher and maybe even ends up being more of a loogy.

One side aspect which i''d hope is considered when any manager is brought in for an interview is that if a candidate adds a Y to the last name of any player, that candidate is immediately rejected from consideration. Hear a single reference to Brauny, Ramy, Siggy, Broxy, Gomy, etc, the next words out of the mouth of Atanasio and/or the GM doing the interview should be thanks for coming in, we'll get back in touch with you at some point as a simple courtesy, but then immediately cross that guy off the list for consideration of the job.

Drafting badly overall. I hate ripping on a dead man, but for all of the things Melvin gets criticized for and enough of it is justified, his hiring of Bruce Seid to replace Zduriencik is the move which i'd argue was the most costly by far of his tenure as GM, assuming that Melvin did make that hire and not Attanasio. People can be upset over money spent on pitchers like Suppan, Garza, Lohse, K-Rod, etc, but one major factor in that has been the abysmal failure of the drafting and developing of quality pitching, whether it's starting pitching or even just relief pitchers. Then the drafting of high quality position prospects also nosedived. No small market franchise can thrive outside of brief stretches of success unless they draft well and the drafting under Seid has really harmed the Brewers franchise. Who baseball teams hire as their amateur scouting director doesn't often get a lot of press in comparison to say free agents who are signed or who the manager is, but those amateur scouting directors are second in importance to the general manager IMO. Make a bad hire for that job, especially at a small market franchise and it can badly hurt that team for a long time.

I don't recall but the bolded part but if that's true that's just another irritating example of superficial evaluation. He said it while being interviewed either while sitting in the booth or while sitting in his normal seats. In fact, i believe that he mentioned Fanngraphs as his source for coming up with his belief that later first round picks only hit at X percentage, so that made him more comfortable with giving up the draft pick to sign Lohse. I mainly remember it because it caught me off guard listening to Attanasio talk about him researching draft pick valuation via a website like Fangraphs. FWIW though, this was awhile ago and maybe there is a slight chance he mentioned a different site than Fangraphs, but it most certainly was a baseball centric site i had heard of before which he read a study or article on the frequency of how often draft picks after say 20 become quality MLB players.

Manager is a much smaller problem than the need for a better roster and generally i wouldn't be a big fan of hiring an ex-player with no experience managing, but if anyone could off the top of my head, i do think Counsell would have a chance. He not only was a very smart player, whenever i've heard him speak about the game, he sounds like a guy who would be open to a wide variety of ideas for best use of a roster. Sometimes you get baseball players like Counsell who got the absolute most out of their abilities and you hear them talk about the game, they will sound more like Bill Schroeder instead of Counsell.

Yet Melvin "BJ" Upton was traded to get Craig Kimbrel. Braun isn't that bad. The Upton contract expires in 2017, Braun's contract runs through 2020 with a mutual option in 2021 and i believe some deferred money. We are going to see a number of these 7-8-9-10 year deals handled out become long term albatrosses for teams and it will be interesting to see how many teams simply get stuck with those players and/or are able to eventually move the contracts, but are forced to give up assets for a team to take on the mostly dead money.

Then you clearly haven't been paying close enough attention. When the owner has gone about playing a very active role in the signing of pretty much every big ticket free agent signing for awhile now, what then makes you think he'd have been cool with Melvin trading other productive veterans for prospects at the same time he's signing expensive free agents? That makes no sense. Whether it was Suppan, Lohse, Ramirez, Garza, K-Rod, etc there have been articles posted with direct quotes from Attanasio talking about his negotiations with the agents for those players. Quotes about what a great working relationship Attanasio has with Boras. I still remember the Lohse signing. People kept asking Melvin if he was interested in Loshe, but he kept saying he didn't want to lose a draft pick. Then late in spring training Lohse signs. Article comes out how Boras was calling Attanasio directly nearly every day, bypassing right past the GM. Attanasio later talked about how he himself did research on the value of late first round picks being overrated, which contributed to why he signed Lohse. I want nothing more than for Mark to completely clean house, but you are simply being naive about the degree to which Attanasio has factored into the team the Brewers have today and in the past. He hasn't been a quiet behind the scenes puppet either like Herb Kohl was with the Bucks. Attanasio's role has come directly out of his own mouth in interviews plenty of times, not via some second hand innuendo. For whatever reason, that's completely escaped you and it needs to change when the time comes that he does hire a new front office. This isn't a fantasy baseball league.

Braun is by far the most scary development so far. Lucroy will eventually hit. I think so will Davis and Scooter, at least against righthanders. Ramirez is just old and likely done, but at least he's retiring after the season. Braun though is still owed a lot of cash through 2021. The days of him being a .900 plus OPS hitter are very likely done, but if him being even just a .800ish OPS hitter doesn't happen either, that will be lots of dead money over the rest of this decade.

I'd like to see a new GM also, but you are being naive if you really believe that this way of roster construction and direction is just a Melvin plan. Based on many articles over the years, Attanasio clearly has had significant input on free agent signings and setting the overall direction for the from year to year. I don't think that there is any chance that Melvin would be allowed to trade a guy like say Gomez, Garza, Lucroy, etc without first getting permission from Attanasio, much less trade multiple of them and just blow things up. Attanasio will be the main one to decide if a major blow up is allowed, when it can happen, and to what degree. Doug won't be allowed to decide that on his own. I'll grant that the odds are good that overall, both of Melvin/Attanasio have shared similar belief systems for roster construction, but after nearly every major signing being it Suppan, Ramirez, Garza, Loshe, etc, there were articles mentioning how Attanasio was the main guy negotiating the contracts with the agents of those players. Hell, right before K-Rod was recently signed, Melvin was asked if negotiations were happening between the two sides and he said you have to ask Mark, that he handles negotiations with Boras. Same thing when Loshe was signed. Articles came out that Boras was calling Attanasio on a near daily basis. A new GM would be a very refreshing change, but if Attanasio continues in his mixed role of owner and quasi-GM, a new general manager will end up trying to work with one arm tied behind his back. Plus, if Mark really did want to blow things up at some point this year, i'd rather he brought in a new GM before doing major trades and letting that new guy pulling the trigger on the moves which could have impact on the team for years to come.

Why should the bullpen be a strength when compared to other teams with a good pen? There isn't even one top notch guy in the whole bullpen, much less multiple ones as some other teams have. The rotation also lacks a sure fire number one starter and quite a few teams number two starter is better than our best. Loshe is a year older. Most of our starters consistently struggle to get past 6-7 innings. Very little depth if any of the five get hurt. Looking at the lineup, i fully expect Lucroy to start hitting sooner than later. Just a bad start. Ramirez though very well could have finally hit that age brick wall. He also has yet to take a single walk in 35 at bats so far. Then there is the complete great unknown in Ryan Braun. Granted, it's only 10 games, but not a single extra base hit so far and he's only taken one walk. Between the question of to what degree PED's may have contributed to his prior greatness, the thumb, his other injuries, and now he's 31 years old, trying to guess how productive he'll end up being through the rest of this season and then going forward is very hard for me to get any strong grasp of. I love watching Brewers baseball in the summer, so i hope you are right and the team isn't so buried by early June that i'm no longer interested enough to watch, but for a variety of reasons i see the odds being significantly higher on the side of the team being nearly toast by say early June than being .500 or better.

I really wanted Attanasio to start over after last season by hiring a new GM, letting that GM hire the manager, and Attanasio to stop playing such a big role in roster construction. It obviously didn't happen that way though and heading into this season, i didn't have any really high hopes for the team to land a playoff berth, but there was enough there to which i thought there was at least a slight chance for the team to be close enough in the playoff hunt for me to remain interested through the summer. Well, now only 10 games in and just that level of hope is pretty much over already. The even worse part is if the team keeps cratering, there won't be much reason to watch consistently given the lack of any high end young prospects on the roster. At least with a bad or struggling team that has some nice prospects, those kids give you a reason to keep watching. With this roster though, if the end of May comes and the team is say a dozen games or more under .500, there will be little reason to keep watching and i like having Brewers baseball to watch in summer. The only saving grace is it might finally get Attanasio to not just overhaul the entire front office, but also make him question how much input he should keep having in roster construction.