HiAndTight

Yes...Lucroy's deal. Since Briggs said he wouldn't even give Segura a Lucroy type deal for another year, and I've quoted that a couple of times. I wouldn't give the kid 11 million a year right now, but I really would pay him more than 6/32. I would be great with 6 years 45 million with two option years at 14 million a year. But that's just me. I think he's proven himself.

No, he's not. Gallardo is 27 and has about 1100 innings as a starting pitcher while Estrada is 30 and has about 300. He's a nice 5th guy or swing man. He is not Yovani Gallardo.

I don't think I can recall seeing a player who was a top prospect and had such a good year as Segura did, become so terrible that he wasn't worth 11 million from ages 23 to 28. Even Gomez was worth substantially more than that before ue figured it out. But using your logic, is it fair to say that you thought the 8/45 they gave to Braun was a bad idea? Nick Markasis is sad you don't think of him anymore. Really? The guy who was worth about 21.2 WAR(Baseball Reference, 18.0 for fangraphs) from 23 to 28 wasn't worth 5 years and 11 million dollars? Cameron has 1 WAR worth 6.2 million this year. So if Segura was "as bad," as you're suggesting Markasis was, he'd be worth about about 127 million dollars moving forward. That's todays money however. Nonetheless, I still can't see how a player worth 11.7 WAR in just the first two years wouldn't be worth 5 years and 11 million dollars. In fact, Markasis has been worth the 6/66 he signed. Not sure why you'd use a guy with a career line of .292/.360/.801 as your example. He's not even in the ballpark..so to speak.

I think that's a ridiculous way to look at it. First of all I'm not buying the argument that Braun in a corner OF spot has ever been "good." At best average. And you can't just say,"hey, corner OF spots, and corner IF spots are equal." RF is tougher than LF, and the comparison between 1st and 3rd is just insane. Braun would very likely be an above average defender at 1st. He's athletic, he wouldn't have to make the long throw to 1st, he'd have far fewer balls hit to him, and the threshold for a good 1st basemen is a helluva lot lower than 3rd. Plus, he showed some remarkable range at 3rd. He just had such a poor arm. And when compared to who we've had there, and who we likely will have there this year, I have no doubt his D would be a significant upgrade, if not early on, then at least after a few months. Of course since Kemp is very unlikely to don a Brewers uni this year, it might be a moot point. Unless of course you believe that Schafer/Gindl represent upgrades to our 1st base situation. Either way, saying that Braun struggled at 3rd and therefore would struggle at 1st merely because it's another corner IF doesn't make sense to me.

I agree that it's pretty unlikely that they give him away for "nothing." I only added that because the previous poster mentioned that they might just want someone to take his contract. In my opinion, that would only happen if he really started complaining about the situation and no one else wanted to take on the contract. Pretty unlikely scenario, as with the current deals out there, $21MM a year for a 29-year-old MVP talent isn't that bad a deal. As to whether others could outbid the Brewers, I think they could be a great trading partner if they could afford Kemp's salary and had a backup option for 3B. The Dodgers aren't the type team that worries about piling up the best group of prospects, so the Brewers' lack of a farm isn't really an issue. The Dodgers are looking at winning today and they only look at prospects as trading chips. Their biggest need is a MLB 3B, and if healthy Ramirez would be a big upgrade to their team right now. Plus, they'd have no problem exercising his option, so they'd get two seasons out of him. Assuming both Ramirez and Kemp are healthy, that could be a good deal... if only we had anyone to fill the 3B hole and had the funds to pay Kemp and Braun $40MM a season and still put 23 other players around them. Although this is highly unlikely, would you rather have Kemp, Gomez and Braun in the OF with Reynolds at 3B and Overbay or Francisco at 1B, or would you rather just go with what we've got? I honestly don't know if the upgrade from adding Kemp (a big upgrade over Davis) makes up for the downgrade in the infield. Reynolds is a butcher at 3B and Overbay or Francisco would have to play every day. This would almost mandate yet another move, making it even more unlikely. It also shows how much our season depends on Ramirez being healthy and productive, which is far from a given. Again, in this scenario why not move Braun to 1st rather than create another hole? And just because he's a 29 year old all atar "talent," doesn't mean the Dodgers wouldn't be happy to be rid of his contact. Saying 29 year old MVP talent is leaving out about 60 pct of the story here. He's their 4th OF'er right now. I don't know what the Dodgers are thinking, but after two seasons cut short amd him having struggled, and the Dodgers massive salaries, I could envision a scenario where there wouldn't be any other teams willing to take on his contract.

I don't think I can recall seeing a player who was a top prospect and had such a good year as Segura did, become so terrible that he wasn't worth 11 million from ages 23 to 28. Even Gomez was worth substantially more than that before ue figured it out. But using your logic, is it fair to say that you thought the 8/45 they gave to Braun was a bad idea?

This realy isn't like flippimg a soft verbal in recruiting CFB, so I'm curious why some like Crew is so pessimistic about this going through?

I don't know how an ankle injury leads you to PEDs, and while too many players have been popped, it's a pretty absurd leap from ankle injury amd playing on the same team with Manny to him being on roids. What's more, the Dodgers have about a half billion dollar OF. My guess is the Brewers could swing such a trade for very little other than the contract. The Dodgers also don't really need anything...anywhere right now. Of courseCB it'd be a huge risk, but the potential upgrade ebof moving Braun to 1st and Kemp to RF could actually make the Brewers a contender and is a risk worth doing. Get him out of Dodgers stadium, his D in RF would likely be very good if healthy, and Brauns at 1st could as well. Could completely fill out this team. But obviously very unlikely to happen (though I hate saying there is no way a player rumored to be traded could be traded to a team lacking a big bat).

Really? A 5 year 11 million dollar extension is premature? That's likely not an issue since I can't imagine his agent would even entertain such an extension....and if he did, he should lose his job. I think people can get way too caught up with looking at Baseball through a spreadsheet. Scouting and being able to have some ability to project has to enter into it. A 23 year old rookie wore down after playing a full season in the states, winter ball and then a full big league season. I thought it was pretty obvious he has the bat speed, athletic ability to play SS as well as the arm. If there was any chance he'd take a Braun like deal, I doubt the Brewers would have to think too long about it. I think he's likely asking for something closer to Castro. That I'd certainly want to see more before giving him, but not 8/45 and definitely not 5/11.

I don't possibly know how you can say they will never do this or that. I would bet you didn't foresee them going from 27 million in 2005 to 101.2 in 2012. And given that their front office has said this year will break their record, I have little doubt they have a budget around 105 which could rise if they do manage to stay in contention. I also don't see how our payroll is ONLY matters relative to what other teams are doing. Would it mean that much more if the Dodgers were spending 100 million rather than the 260 in adjusted payroll they're spending? Anyway, I think some people have a fixed idea of what the Brewers can do and have pigeonholed them in a bit, and need to qualify anytime they exceed that. Regardless, I saw a lot of predictions(and do every year) that the Brewers could only spend 80 or 85 million and they're once again blowing those figures out of the water.

No, they've never said they've lost money to my knowledge, but they've indicated they might on a couple occasions after particular moves, and then never said one way or the other. Just intimated they'd be willing to at the time of the moves (CC for instance). Second, I don't believe they cut their payroll because their attendance dropped, I just don't think there were any moves that made sense. They also had their own TV deal to make up for the difference, but I think they would have spent the money had there been someone that made sense to sign. Either way, It very, very rarely works out well when you are as top heavy and reliant on good luck as this team. To your point about not having the impact prospects. This team needs to be extremely lucky and hope several guys in their 30's can all (at least almost all) perform as well as they have in recent years with only a few guys coming up that even in a best csse scenario can really be expected to jump in and make major contributions like Braun, Prince,Yo, Hardy and company coukd have. That said, most of the deals are good enough that we could easily trade virtually anyone if the team struggles. Lohse, Yo, Aram and Weeks only have a year left, and even Garza signed a pretty fair market deal. I doubt we re-sign Yo either way though. Love what he's done, but I see him slipping a bit, and in a perfect world he'd have 70 to 80 more starts by the time any new deal would kick in. But we'll see. Love Mark A's commitment, just think it'd be better served by saving the money for when we looked better positioned and we needed to really go for it. Nothing wrong with building up a Packers like fund f8r such a team hopefully in the near future.

3.4 billion dollars from the Dodgers deal goes into revenue sharing. 34 percent of these teams deals do in many cases. So..I'm pretty sure I'd call that a large chunk. And you're right. Nobody knows for certain, it is an educated guess, and I've spent some time trying to educate myself, and the owners absolutely do have every right to earn a profit. But there is soooo much cssh pouring into MLB right now. The one thing I can say fairly confidently is that tue bubble will burst on these huge TV deals in the near future.

I read this constantly....for every manager the Brewers have had in the last 15 years and wonder are there ever fans that are really happy with their manager? I'm sure most Cards fans like TLR, but I'd read a lot on their boards complaining about him.

Man...how badly does he wish he signed that contract for 4/44 now? 3 times more than he'd made in his career prior to that. Could be a great gamble on a incentive laden minor league deal. The Phillies are interested, so I doubt we'd sign him either, but I agree, he's worth taking a flier on.

Missed this when it was initially posted, but found a write up about him on the Power50 from a few years ago; "Ladies and gentleman, we would like to present you with a future Brewers top 10 prospect by the name of Osmel Perez. The young Mr. Perez will be just 17 this season, and already features a 90-94 MPH fastball, a plus changeup and a good slider. He threw 28 2/3 mostly outstanding innings last summer in the Dominican Summer League and stands a decent chance at pitching in Arizona this summer. Look out world... it's Osmel!" Makes you wonder why the kid would just up and quit. You have to wonder just what it was that made him decide at 18 years of age to hang it up.

I was kinda hoping after his monster season two years ago that he might stick around, have a Molitor like finish to his career, maybe play until he was 43 or so and end up with 4,000 hits. Not that 3500 or wherever he'll finish is anything to sneeze at. I know people don't believe in "clutch," and I don't REALLY myself when it comes down to it, but Jeter was without a doubt a winner, and one of the all time great faces of a franchise. I even liked the guy and I, like most, hate the Yankees.

The payroll can actually be way higher in my opinion. However, they will do it for only a special player. I ABSOLUTELY agree and have been saying so for the last several years. There is really a LOT of money being poured into MLB right now. Of course the TV bubble is going to burst according to some and that money may be sucked out, but whatever. I think the payroll would have been higher in recent years had there been players worthy of paying. Even if you have the money like Detroit, the Prince deal was never a smart one. Greinke may have been. But lets say the Brewers are winning this year and a 1st basemen becomes available. I could see the Brewers adding 7-8 million dollars and reaching 110 in total payroll rather easily. The problem is I don't think this team is that good and that they would have been much better served going through a small rebuilding effort, but that's not what Mark A wanted.

I'm not trying to create a strawman. I didn't mean to mis-quote you or really even argue with you. I guess where I got confused was here; I thought that is what you were referring to here, but didn't finish your thought. Either way, my point remains. I think Weeks will struggle with the pressure on him to bounce back from the last two years, and with the pressure from Gennett pushing for playing time. I don't know that there is the evidence to back it up, but Weeks strikes me as the type of player that presses too much in these types of situations and inevitably struggles. He's at his best when there is no competition for the job, and he knows he's going to have a long period of time to get his swing fixed and start to hit.

http://www.mlb.com/news/article/mil/milwaukee-brewers-expect-record-opening-day-payroll?ymd=20140213&content_id=67745494&vkey=news_mil I'm not sure if the Brewers have spent their money as wisely as possible, but there's no question they're reaping the benefit of the increasing TV revenues, both National and the local deals that teams like Dodgers are signing, a large chunk of which goes into revenue sharing. You can agree or disagree with many of Attanasio's signings, but you can't argue he's not willing to pull out the pocketbook to field a winner.

They signed Puig to a 7/42 deal and put him in the minors. For a little over a month worth of games and they had Andre Either, Matt Kemp and Carl Crawford in their OF as well as Adrian Gonzalez at 1st base. So it's not really comparable to Puig's situation, ignoring the difference in age as well.

The logical fallacy here is the assumption that Weeks needs a reason to try hard and hasn't felt that same pressure to perform before. Pressure like this is more likely to be to the detriment of the player than to help them achieve their previous success. Weeks is going to work as hard as he always does, try as hard as he always tries. I hope he is able to relax and is completely healthy, because if he is, he could be that other big bat this team needs. If not, he'll still likely be a good bat off the bench and a nice platoon player.

Really? You think Melvin's position in Milwaukee is so tenuous that he needs to make a token signing so he can say, "see, I tried?" I think that's kinda ridiculous. As if he would be spared(if he were in danger of losing his job) because he signed an aging reliever that didn't command much attention on the FA market. I don't think Melvin is that petty, nor do I think that Melvin is in any danger. I don't think K-Rod was worth 3.25 million dollars. I think it would have been better to sign Mujica for a little bit more, or even a guy like Balfour. But...what the heck, maybe we can just sign K-Rod every year and trade him. I'd probably pay 3.25 million for the rights to Delmonico...

If we knew the personal lives of most people and if we took out the worst things that most people have done, we'd think most of them were scumbags. This is just a general statement, not in anyway defending what Krod did for the record as I find these things are often conflated.

I love Mark A and I'm not complaining about him being the one behind the biggest FA signings, ie, Suppan, Lohse and Garza (and likely Gange, Looper and others). But just because an owner wants to win, and is willing to spend9end money doesn't mean that in and of itself is a good thing. How is that different than Herb Kohl? He spends money. He wants to win every year, sacrificing potential long term success for short term mediocrity. Maybe one is given too much credit for his intentions and one too little.

Thank God we signed Kyle Lohse. We won 74 games. I personally would've preferred letting the young guys take their lumps and who cares what the record was. 65 wins instead of 74? What's the difference? Although as stated in the Garza thread, with Seid making the pick it probably didn't matter anyway. Sorry if this has been mentioned, but for arguments sake, a pick in the top 5 (harder to mess up) and perhaps someone like Abreu, plus the 17th pick in last years draft. I'm sorta resolved to the fact the Brewers are merely a slightly better version 8f what the Bucks were for so many years. I'd love to see about 3 60 win seasons, 3 top 5 picks, 10+ prospects for Lohse, Yo,Aram if he can stay healthy, and whomever else while spending about 50 million dollars until we're ready to compete again. Though watching a team that should be roughly .500 try and put everything together is a lot more fun in the meantime....