xisxisxis

I have "senior moments" now and then too!

There was a very nice article on The Athletic about Hill and the difference he has made since joining the team. Basically, Hill came in and talked to the young guys and said that their job was to be positive in score differential while the starting 5 rested. And Hill's emphasis was defense and keeping the other team from scoring was their main goal as a group coming off the bench. The young guys have fully supported this view and there was data to support that they are better since Hill came. He's been spending time in extra practices working with the guys and has been a fantastic mentor for many of the younger guys. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the team would keep him and take the tax hit as he appears to be a positive addition in more than just the stat sheet.

It's the 2nd naming of the stadium, as many people have indicated it will always be "Miller Park" to them so there is often a hit with the 2nd naming as the new name is often ignored. It's very likely after the next naming contract for the Bucks that they get a lot less than the initial naming rights...

https://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/news/2019/01/22/american-family-inks-15-year-stadium-deal-plans.html Very interesting. Thinking about this decision a little more, I really think this is a perfect example of business decisions can sometimes be myopic. The team wants us to believe the decision is between offer1 and offer2, offer3, etc. But it really comes down to: offer1 - "Goodwill" > offer2 where offer 1 = AmFam, offer2 = MillerCoors and "Goodwill" is the impact on your customer base to the decision. The deal is reportedly for $50M over 15 years or roughly $3.33M per year. Let's say MillerCoors was only willing to pay going rate or $2.67M per year or $40M total. Just looking at those numbers it sorta makes sense, but what is the "Goodwill" impact? If we look at it on a per head count coming in the door. The Brewers average 2.56M a year in attendance since MP opened. That would equate to 38.47M paying customers over that 15 year window. So the $10M difference in offers means that the "Goodwill" would equate to roughly $0.26 per customer per visit. You can also look at it as fraction of average ticket price ($26 roughly for the last few years), so the "Goodwill" cost for the renaming is about 1% ($0.26/$26) of the average ticket price to a game. Given the current reaction (not on Brewerfan, but on social media) there are many, many unhappy Brewers fans. In other words, would you be happy with Apple if they made a change to your phone that only had an overall impact of 1% of the cost, but was universally disliked? They wouldn't do it as that "Goodwill" is important to them. The Brewers have a monopoly of baseball in Milwaukee so they can really do whatever they want, but the difference in the two offers is likely 1% of the ticket price and there really isn't a good chance that their is a huge base of fans that really love the idea of changing the name to "AmFamArama Park and claims kiosk" so there is a lot more downside to the "Goodwill" issue. I would think the Brewers could have looked at other methods to close that gap which would have reduced the "Goodwill" hit they are taking, like increasing the ticket prices 1% (or changing parking/suite costs/concession prices) for a quarter per headcount... Hey, that means someone has to do the heavy lifting while it's easy to just go with the bigger numbers...

Wouldn't naming rights have already been hashed out when the funding bill was signed? If the lawmakers granted that to the Brewers when the stadium bill was passed, then NO, the 5 county taxpayers wouldn't have any say in the naming of the stadium. That would seem like something specifically spelled out at the outset. I could be wrong. It wasn't and they can't. It should have been part of the original plan, but it was negotiated by a bunch of politicians who generally are idiots...

Because they make the decision. I don't really care about the name change. I just think it's an odd way of going about business. Two years before they needed to they announce a name change to the stadium. Says a lot to MillerCoors that they are basically changing the name while you still pay for the rights... Maybe the hope by the Brewers was that MillerCoors would want out of the agreement so they could make more with an AmFam contract starting now... From my POV, any publicly paid/funded stadium would need to have community ok for the naming. The taxpayers of the 5 counties paid for the stadium yet have no say in what name is on the stadium... Would the Brewers have said no thank you to the stadium if it was a requirement that the team get an OK from a panel of representatives from the 5 counties on the naming rights... Would Hooter's Park be an ok name? How about AAA bail bond's Park or Guaranteed Rate Field? It's just more corporate/billionaire/millionaire welfare where the general public pays for everything and gets sold a bill of goods that they have no "rights"...

I think it's clear that Machado is Plan A... Brewers just waiting for the right time to surprise us all...

I hope that's the case, because this deal is dirt cheap...

When the Brewers start calling for a new state of the art ballpark that the city/counties/state needs to fork over to keep the Brewers? Just when I give the Brewers credit for being a good organization, they firmly plant the corporate head up the corporate ass... What is the difference between what Only Money Matters stadium and what MillerCoors was offering? It's possible with all the changes with Miller there is no longer any link to the Milwaukee community that MillerCoors cared to maintain... But I'd be much more down with Harley Davidson Park/Field/Stadium than this colossal CF...

So the Brewers in the dead of night have been calling every company in Wisconsin to find out if they have interest in buying the naming rights? [sarcasm]Sounds like what a successful organization would do to get the best price for naming rights (two+ years before a new agreement needs to be in place)...[/sarcasm]

Nice job by Cashman to get some value out of a SP they didn't want to keep...

I don't know, but I get the feeling that in 10 years the 2019 Reds will be the prime example of "how to spend a ton of money and resources just to go from 67 to 79 wins"....

Oh I agree, but given where our current payroll is sitting and the teams needs, I would think that paying $20M+ a year for an aged/aging pitcher is not Stearns idea of a good value. Now if he wants to sign Marwin Gonzalez and a mid rotation arm like Miley/Suckholz/Gonzalez/Pomeranz to a team friendly deal, I would kinda really like that...

[sarcasm]Lucky for the **** that all the prospect rating sites have the same exact 4 players from 8-11 so it makes it so easy to just say 8-11 instead of the exact prospects.[/sarcasm]

I've always shied away from Jones because he just sucks at OBP. Always has always will. Same reason I never have been a big fan of Moustakas... I'd much rather have high OBP guys on the bench than aging no OBP guys. If the Brewers want to sign another OF for depth (esp. if the move Thames), they should really re-up Curtis Granderson...

[sarcasm]Then where would Aguilar play?[/sarcasm]

At present the Brewers have 4 OF including brittle man who won't be available for 35-40 games. Without Thames, there isn't a bat to replace one of those OF and brittle man is the backup 1B. While Thames struggled after his injury last year he is still a much better option than Hernan Perez will ever be. Thames is also perfect backup for any issues with Aguilar playing full-time. If the Brewers do think they can part with Thames then they will need to look for a backup 1B/OF and if Marwin Gonzalez is the option I am cool with that. If the plan is Perez in a pinch with Braun as backup and another 3B (Moustakas) or 2B/3B (Cabrera) then 1B is going to be a problem. I would love an addition like Marwin Gonzalez and a breakout from Spankenburg so we can waive bye-bye to Perez, but I'm not down on Thames enough that he has to be moved. Albers they can release if they want, but he's not bad insurance if we lose some bullpen arms early in the year. I can see Albers being redundant, but several moves would need to be made for Thames to be redundant.

Robin Yount 66.5 fWAR Paul Molitor 56.0 fWAR (total = 67.6) Ryan Braun 42.0 fWAR Jeff Cirillo 26.0 fWAR (total = 33.0) Brady Clark 4.6 fWAR (total = 4.2)

So statistics that are positive for the Brewers are correct and stats that are negative for the Brewers are worng? I agree with you. The Brewers are very successful at fielder positioning/shifting as a strategy as their DRS numbers indicate, however, the players that they are putting in an excellent position to field batted balls have room for improvement in their efficiency of converting those opportunities into successful outs (their fielding %). I am not a big fan of fielding % as it only tells you about one very small component of defense AND, as SBR pointed out, is a subjective metric influenced by 30 "official" scorers, but it isn't irrelevant, it's misused.

If the Brewers need a hither then Addison Russell's your man...

Yep, plenty of off-season left = about half. Teams have committed to $500M in additional payroll for 2019 based on the current signed Free Agents. The remainder of unsigned free agents probably are in the $400M-$500M range of additional payroll for 2019 so we are about halfway through the current offseason. Still plenty of money to be invested in 2019 salaries... For the Brewers, it's hard to know the budget flexibility. I saw a piece on theathletic.com that said Stearns was shopping Thames and Alberts to free up some salary for additional adds. If that is indeed true, then we may be close to our limit without either of them moving and maybe 1 or 2 additions away if Thames/Albers are moved...

So the plan is to have a 69 wRC+ hitter and a prospect whose never had an PA in MLB as the "Plan" for if Shaw hits horribly against LH pitching?

IIRC, it's related to your sound settings on the fire stick. Go to settings>Display & Sound> Audio If the Dolby Digital Output is set to "Auto" change it to "off". If it's set to "off" change to "Auto". Play the show and check the audio to see if it's in sync now.

So 7 teams have kicked the tires so far... Have any test driven the vehicle?

Well, sounds like the Giants might be making a strong push for him. New York Giants?