Thurston Fluff

I think the way the Brewers use their pitchers makes the move unlikely. Why use your best pitcher in a role that isn't as valuable as the one he has now? If we are debating if it would be feasible in general I don't see why he couldn't do it. Sure he only has two pitches but so did Sheets and Peralta. Granted Peralta wasn't a great starter but it's his control not his repertoire that gets him in trouble. Which happened in the pen as well. Bradon Looper is probably the best person to look at for comparison because he converted to a starter when he had never had a single start in is 9 years as a major league pitcher. He certainly isn't the same level pitcher but he did manage to make the transition at age 32 and pitched 175 inning his first year as a starter. He also pitched at least 30 innings three consecutive seasons.

Nice signing. I really don't care if they get anyone better than this level of starter. I'm ok with it if they do but I just don't know how necessary it is given they way they use starters. They get 4-5 innings out of them and are happy. Spending to get someone that doesn't fit the way they use starters just doesn't seem like a wise use of money. Last season the staff started out pretty horrible yet the team itself did quite well at the same time. That indicates to me that high end starting pitching isn't nearly as important as traditionally thought for the way this team operates. Given the way Stearns has gone about acquiring starting pitching throughout his tenure here I expect he thinks the cost benefit ratio of average at best starters is better than high end starters. Obviously when a #1 or 2 comes up from the farm it can only help but I just wouldn't expect them it takes to get one in free agency or trade.

In all honesty, that won't get it done. At this point, it might be better to trade him either now, or next season. Just can't see us handing out a 245 million contract...………………………………………………..EVER! Yelich is all but gone after this contract. That is why now was the time for us to spend the money and provide additional support that would hopefully get us a World Series. Similar to how the Packers were always a key piece away that prevented them from winning additional Super Bowls while they had Fabre and Rodgers. They team is competitive, so it brings out the fans, but eventually these solo superstars can’t carry the team the entire season. I’m in the same boat, if we are going cheap mode (and I’m not saying we are), I’d rather trade Yelich now and hopefully make a strong run in another 4-5 years than just be competitive but not really have a real chance for the next two years. A team that still has it's core players from two consecutive playoff teams are more than competitive. They are already contenders.

He has a opt out after 2024. If he stays elite he opts out and makes more. If he doesn't the Yankees will be on the hook for all of it. Best case scenario for the Yankees is he does well then opts out. They get the best of him and have the choice to risk going further. Worst case scenario he stays because he knows he's way overpaid.

Stras is getting paid the equivalent of a fortune 500 CEO salary. Would you say his skill set is more or less unique than a CEO's? Lmao what? No he's not, not even close. Average Fortune 500 CEO salary is $11 million. The average baseball player salary is much lower than the average fortune 500 CEO. Strasburg is an elite player so the comparison should be to the elite CEO not the average. I looked it up and in 2018 the highest paid CEO made $129.4 million for the year.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me this a window where they can win now.

Haudricourt in his story in the JS earlier this week said the team finished in the red last season. Which means they did not make a profit. As much as we want them to spend, spend, spend, it doesn't work that way. Owning a baseball team is not a huge for-profit enterprise, but they shouldn't be expected to lose money, either. The naming rights and merchandise sales money are not much ... and those numbers are readily available. And when you drop payroll to gain money back, you end up losing attendance, merchandise sales and the like. With a small market team, it's about trying to find that happy medium. I think Attanasio probably went with the max payroll he was comfortable with last year, and took a hit in his pocketbook because of it. Can he handle that? Of course ... the guy is a billionaire. But he didn't get to be that billionaire by investing in enterprises that continuously lose him money. And no ... he doesn't "owe" any of us fans an increased payroll or superstar players. We as fans aren't owed anything. It is entertainment, and if you are dissatisfied with that entertainment, you have other options to spend your money on. The Brewers are doing a fine job managing within the tight constraints of a constrictive and unfair MLB economic environment. The difference between MLB and the NFL is that the NFL is all about the league and the shield, and MLB is all about the individual teams. Therein lies the difference. The big money teams will never all there to be true parity, so teams like the Brewers have to scrape up every resource they can, think outside the box, and if enough things go right, they might just get a bite at the apple every few years. The team made a profit when the team sucked a few years ago as well. Why? Because the fans supported a bad product based on the promise they would spend money when the time came. You can't look at businesses at that level on annual profit margins. You look at how sustainable the entire organization is. There are literally thousands of successful businesses that end up in the red over several years. Netflix, for example, didn't make a profit for years. I'm not sure if it makes much today. Yet they continue to attract investors. Why? Because it has the potential to make money in the long run.

Baseball is exempt from antitrust laws specifically because they are not a business but a sport. IF you gave the owners the choice of losing that antitrust exemption or mandate every team actually do everything in their power to win a championship they would do the latter. When you are given such a prized exemption you also have a responsibly to do what a sport is supposed to do. Compete for a title.

But you explain in in a nutshell. No one in LA cares about football teams yet they are about to have two. No interest to fill a stadium yet it has TWO teams. Brewers are a borderline Top 10 team for attendance yet they will never get close to sniffing Top 10 TV deal money etc. The Dodgers have a $320mil TV deal per year! We can have all the ticket sales and merch sales, but that is nothing on the big boys. That is because they want to make that market work despite how little LA cares about them. The fact is they lost two franchises in the past and the two now can't draw for crap. My guess is they leave as soon as they can because nobody in LA cares. I agree with you that the Brewers will never get top ten tv contracts but we aren't talking about spending Cubs or Yankee money. Just that spending more than usual for this team can lead to more revenue later. There are very few teams that can establish a strong fan base without producing a decent product. Money helps do that. To be clear I am not saying we need to spend X amount every year. I'm also not saying throw good money after bad or spend just to spend. I am just saying deficit spending at certain points can lead to bigger and better things.

The more fans a team has is directly related to the franchise value. It not only adds to the value but also increases revenue streams with better tv contracts and attendance which helps build more franchise value. The better the team performs the more fans it attracts. Money is fairly important to winning more. Granted there is a point of diminishing returns but I hardly think our franchise is there yet. No they would not make that money back through increased TV deals, sponsorships, or anything else. TV deals are based mostly on market size as are sponsorships. I didn't see this until after I posted. While market size is very important I think there is more to market size than just overall population. Los Angles can't fill a football stadium while the Packers have a bazillion year waiting list for season tickets. It isn't just the number of people it is the number of people interested.

I'm in the same mindset as you. We don't need big names and their huge accompanying salaries. We need a lot of decent players to mix and match that won't have a negative effect on future teams. A deep team full of decent options is better than a top heavy team with nobody backing them up IMHO. I just don't like the idea of putting all our hopes on a couple players. I'm not sure I agree with you on the specific players but I think that approach is the best way to go.

Grandal age 27 season: .228/339/477/816 Narvaez age 27 season: 278/353/460/813 I think you missed the biggest part. Grandal averages over $18 million and must be paid that much over the next four years no matter how he performs. Narvaez won't get $18 million over the next three years unless he is really good. If he really sucks he will get less than $3 million total. The value of controllable players in arby years I think gets overlooked is they have to earn their money every season or face not getting paid the next.

You don't mortgage your future in December. Wheeler is a guy who's shown more potential than production so far and hasn't been all that durable. Given how much he got in years and money it seems like an unnecessary risk to take right now. I think that same money could be spent on a couple players who will contribute more than Wheeler would with half the risk of long term viability.

First in Boston now us? He needs a change of scenery as often as I need a change of underwear.

It's not that nobody "minds." Would love to have them all back, hate to see them go. If only there wasn't this darn problem called competition. I'm glad Stearns passed, none of those contracts would have been wise for the Brewers. Season doesn't start tomorrow, R-E-L-A-X. Hot stove league is just warming up. But fair warning, Stearns may not do something HUUUUGE. It may be a few deals that as a whole makes the roster better. That's what I both expect and hope happens. I prefer a deep roster full of good players than one or two big names upon which all hope is pinned to.

Interesting, because I think the job he did as GM in 2019 to make the team competitive in the end was fantastically good. Depends on what the goal was. If it was to be competitive, then he was successful. If it was to win the WS, then the decisions he made (and a bunch of unfortunate injuries) weren’t a success. There are so many variables out of a GM's control that go into winning a World Series a more realistic goal (from a GM's perspective) is to field a team capable of winning a World Series every year. That gives us the best chance of eventually winning one. Given we made the playoffs and came an error away from beating the eventual WS champs I'd say he succeeded in his task.

People who don't leash their dog in public. I understand many of those people's dog are nice towards other dogs but that's irrelevant. Leashed dogs can't react naturally to other dogs. When that happens they get apprehensive to approaching dogs. Apprehension is never a good recipe for two dogs meeting.

That's the problem with using WAR in general and as a predictive measure in particular. It just doesn't measure defense well. What does having a 4 fWAR last season mean going forward? Nothing. So why do people keep using it to argue we should get a particular player or not? The fact that any team could have got a player coming off a 4 WAR season for a bag of balls and none did tells you all you need to know about how teams feel about WAR.

Come one now. I know Rickie Bones was an all star for us but that trade wasn't all that unfair for the Padres.

I thought the same thing. They seem like a team that would have had at least a couple big signings. Then again they haven't been relevant enough in the last decade to make sense to sign big name guys. IF a team sucks for a decade then hits a window of opportunity they are most likely going to set a franchise record.

I kind of view him like I did CC Sabathia. Loved his time here but he wasn't around long enough to make him a true Brewer. Whatever he does from now on I'm glad he got paid but don't really care beyond that. Thanks for a good year and helping us get to the playoffs. You were worth the money. Speaking of money. I am one of the people who's growing weary of the small market excuse. If we really can't spend enough to win then why follow the losing side of a rigged game? That said, overspending is the surest way of becoming noncompetitive. I trust management is working on spending that money on better values for the dollar. The promise is long term competitiveness. Overspending hurts that. But so does not spending. My preference going into the winter would be to they spread the money around to create better depth than spending it all on a couple players. So I'm ok with this pending further acquisitions.

I learned a home security trick I'd like to share. Nobody can enter your home if they can't find a way in. So put a fake beard and mustache on all your doors and windows so they can't be recognized.

Possibly towards left center. For a fraction of a second. Maybe towards right center. Not really sure. As stated by the Cardinals and the Cubs... In other news, water is wet. Bingo. The Cubs and Cards both seem to think the only way the Brewers could possibly be better than them is by cheating.

I agree with jerichoholicninja. In a sport where they play almost every day there needs to be a way to give guys with minor injuries a way to rest without missing much time. Either players play through it and never actually heal or the team is forced to play a man short on a fairly regular basis. I just see this as a way to make some minor injuries major ones or teams will be playing inferior baseball.

One has to wonder what would be said if there was a real rivalry between these two teams. This is the second, sort of joking, accusation a Cubs player/coach made against a Brewer in the last three years. First was all the Cub's "makes you go hmmm" thoughts on how Thames could be hitting so well. Now this. Memo to Cubs; Just because our team has exceeded expectations lately does not make it the reason you're not living up to yours. I also have to give some credence to the Cards writer who first suggested the Brewers did it too. After all, who would know better about cheating than a writer who covers a team who got caught hacking other teams computers?