I don’t know how the team would look, but we’d have been better able to address the issues that are just hamstringing us now.
This franchise simply cannot drop big bucks on one player. I understand the desire to have that superstar, but we don’t have the finances to push all our chips to the middle on one player; when it doesn’t work out, the result is disastrous. Not only does that contract become an albatross when the player underperforms, it prevents the team from making any other consequential moves, save for trading one of your blue chip pieces for prospects.
The Brewers have to draft and develop well, and use free agency to fill holes. They had the right idea with stressing pitching and defense (though the defense had been atrocious this year). But they’ve manifestly ignored hitting in the process. This team needed some sort of impact bat to spark the offense, and they got nobody.
Our reality is that we’re basically going to have to pick good pitchers, develop them, control them as long as possible, and then watch them leave for other cities and collect the. Big paychecks. If ownership is unwilling to compete with the top annual salaries each year, we need to approach roster building in a different way, and we need to stick with it.