MickeyDavis

I hope rain doesn't screw up Ben's start.

I don't hold the long term contract thing against Prince. He is way ahead of Braun in service time and is poised to make some big money after this season. A multi year deal for him would involve a lot more money than Braun got. Braun's deal is a Brewer record. Fielder's deal would be way beyond that. It's something the Brewers would have to think long and hard about. And with Boras as the agent, it makes it even tougher. By all accounts this is a pretty close team. The young guys all have similar contracts. It will be interesting to see if the dynamics change as the contracts start to change.

David Wilder. There's a blast from the past.

I wish FSN would get enough HD equipment so they can do an entire series in HD. It's odd that game 1 of the Pirates series is not in HD but games 2 and 3 are.

When you're his size you could easily add or drop 20 pounds and not have it very noticeable, especially with the baggy uniform.

There are numerous threads/posts on this board comparing how players have done from year to year and what progress, if any, they are making. Weeks, Hardy, Hall, Hart, et al. They are all subjective. I thought it would be interesting to go back 3 years and look at everyone, especially since our payroll has doubled during that time (and we will soon be approaching a payroll plateau).

Who cares what anyone thought in spring training? Spring training expectations are meaningless. It's results that matter. It's not hard to look at the 2005 season, the results, the payroll (half of this year) and the players on that team and compare it to the actual (not what we wished for in spring training) results from this season.

Braun can afford to hire a writer now.

Making trades and signing free agents is a whole lot easier when you have more money to work with. Payroll actually went down during Melvin's first couple of seasons. From the mid 40's when he took over to 27.5 before Attanasio started raising it.

That's not how I remember it. I think that is factually incorrect. Yeah you're right. The injury was the next season. But Hardy playing 124 games is correct and so is Hall filling in the rest (he had 221 AB's at shortstop in 2005).

We might end up in last place.

I agree with you there. Change managers and continue losing = hotseat for DM. Don't change managers and the heat stays on Ned the rest of the season.

Maybe when you have 6 or 7 players struggling, some of them aren't struggling at all. Maybe they just aren't that good to begin with. I remember waiting for Pat Listach to regain his form. Still waiting. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

You could be right. I don't know the answer to this but I don't think it's cut and dried. I was tired of debating Melvin/Yost and thought I would look back to see just how far we have (or haven't) come since we doubled the payroll.

There is more potential, we'll see about more talent. I'd like to think that in 3 years, with the payroll doubled, that we could actually do much better.

Last year's team finished with 2 more wins than the 2005 team did. We'll see how this years team fares. And of course this years team payroll is double what it was in 2005.

I doubt anyone thinks is all on Ned. But change has to start somewhere. This is Ned Yost we are talking about. When he's at the top of his game he is an average manager. There is absolutely no reason to keep him around any longer.

I think there is a lot more "cherry picking" involved when trying to find Weeks hot streaks.

And at least those teams (except the Expos/Nats) have actually won a World Series at some point. We must be the only team that continuously celebrates a team that lost the championship.

There have been a lot of tickets sold for the remaining games but that doesn't mean fans will show up in August and September if the team continues to lose. And that decreased parking/concession revenue will really hurt the bottom line. Not to mention how losing will make it much more difficult for 2009 advance sales.

It took the Brewers a long time to get to the middle of the pack. And that's probably about the best we can hope for. And when you are in the middle (or lower) you can't afford to make mistakes. The Sheets decision is a huge one for this organization. A bigger market team would have already signed him to an extension. If it doesn't work out, they just sign someone else. We can't do that. The Suppan signing has been a mixed bag but had he blown out his arm last year it would have screwed us over the entire 4 years of his deal.

The difference between us and those teams is we are on year 26 of no playoffs.

After the 2005 season everyone was ecstatic. 81-81. Brighter days ahead. Now 3 years later the hopes are not of a .500 record or a winning record but the playoffs and World Series. So just how much better is the 2008 team than the 2005 team? I know you can't really compare a full season to one that's only 1/3 completed. But I'll just throw some stuff out there and you can make your own conclusions. First Base - Lyle Overbay vs. Prince Fielder. Overbay was solid, hitting .276 with 19 home runs and 72 RBI's. I think most of us expect Prince to surpass those numbers. Overbay was superior in the field. Second Base- Rickie Weeks (rookie) vs. Rickie Weeks. Just about this time in 2005 Spivey was traded and Weeks was called up (some would say rushed up). In 96 games Rickie hit .239 with 13 homers and 42 RBI's. If Rickie has those numbers after 96 games this season I'd be happy. His fielding, while still spotty, is much better now than it was then. Shortstop - J.J. Hardy (rookie)/Bill Hall vs. J.J. Hardy - Hardy's season was cut short after 124 games. He struggled in the early part of the year but eventually had his average up to .247 with 9 homers and 50 RBI's. Hall split his time between shortstop and third base, hitting .291 with 17 homers and 62 RBI's. Third base - Bill Hall/Russell Branyan vs. Bill Hall. The Hall of 2005 was a better hitter than the Hall of 2007/2008. Branyan hit .257 with 12 homers and 31 RBI's in 85 games. Catcher - Damian Miller vs. Jason Kendall - Kendall has been great behind the plate and has been solid with the bat. But Miller had a decent year at the plate, hitting .273 with 9 homers and 43 RBI's. Right Field - Geoff Jenkins vs. Corey Hart - Jenks hit .292 with 25 homers and 86 RBI's in 148 games. Corey could hit .300 this year but we'll see about his power numbers. Center Field - Brady Clark vs. Mike Cameron. Clark was solid, hitting .306 with 13 homers and 53 RBI's. Left Field - Carlos Lee vs. Ryan Braun - Lee played every game, hitting .265 with 32 homers and 114 RBI's. Braun should exceed those numbers. Lee was horrible in the field. Braun is still learning the position Bench - Cirillo/Helms/Moeller/Magruder/others vs. Rivera/Counsell/Kapler/Gwynn/others - Helms hit .298 and Cirillo hit .281. Not much from the others. Rotation: Sheets/Capuano/Davis/Ohka/Santos vs. Sheets/Suppan/Gallardo/Bush/Villanueva/Parra - Sheets missed about 10 starts and had a 3.33 ERA (about the same as this year so far). Capuana and Davis were very good, Cappy went 18-12 with a 3.99 ERA and Davis had an 11-11 record with an ERA of 3.84. Ohka came over in the Spivey trade and started 22 games, going 7-4 with an ERA of 4.35 (I'd love that from our #4 starter now). Santos was 4-13 with a 4.57 ERA. Closer: Turnbow Vs. Gagne - Turnbow, 7-1 record, 39 saves, 1.74 ERA. Nothing more to say. Bullpen: Wise/Santana/Bottalico/de la Rosa/others vs. Torres/Riske/McClung/Motta others - Wise was solid with a 3.36 ERA. The others were all around 4.50

Payroll will be hitting a plateau soon. Remember, Attanasio is not the sole owner, he is just part of an ownership group and that group is looking for a return on their investment, and not when they eventually sell the team. This group will not go into the red in the short term. How does a team increase it's revenues: 1. New ballpark. We have that. 2. Increase attendance. We're at about 33,000. We could average 35,000-37,000 if we turn the season around. So there is room to increase attendance, but not by much. 3. Increased ticket prices. Doable, but not by a lot. 4. TV/Radio revenue. We are locked into our deals through 2012. And being one of the smallest markets there is definitely a limit on how high these contracts could go, even with a good team. 5. Other revenue sources. The Brewers have been creative in generating other revenue and will continue to do so. But there is a limited amount of marketing revenue available in this market. Mark A has tripled payroll, from $27.5 million to over $80 million today. While payroll can increase, those increases will be much smaller than we have seen the past few years.

So you are saying Weeks and Hardy suck this year because of injuries? It's fine for fans to fall in love with players. We're just fans. But when management starts doing it, we're in trouble.