tmwiese55

I guess I just don't look at it this way. Right or wrong baseball has a system where players that play as well as Braun did get severely underpaid their first few years. Every good player is underpaid their first few years. I'm not in the camp where you pay for past performance. I understand that you have to add on a year or two for a player to sign an extension and often times deals look bad the last few years. I am more concerned that Braun hasn't even started his second extension. Well I understood this as discussion on the whole contract, if it was written as just the last extension I missed it and wasn't talking about it from that perspective. I get your point and don't disagree. That really only applies to arby years when they're underpaid though, Brewers bought out a few post arby years (not sure how many exactly) at an extremely low price. Which it does turn out we didn't get much out of due to suspensions and the injury last year. Regardless, I was just pointing out as a factor that needs to be weighed, not that its the most important or anything, when calling it 'worst ever'. And that it was part of why they did the deal: great price early on, rough price at the end (which could be balanced somewhat by MLB inflation). If he didn't have the problems that came up, you could have shifted say 3-5 mil from the last 4 years of the deal to years 2011-15 and it wouldn't look so bad.

My season ticket rep sends those out every Friday and I think they're very good. Not sure if all their sales guys do it or not, but it gives good updates on minor leaguers and some stats you don't see anywhere else.

My take on this is that I was ok with at the time and I still think it was a good signing at the time. How could they have predicted the PED thing and subsequent nagging injuries. Lots of guys sign long term deals pre arby; Trout, Longoria and I think Tulo come to mind. The brewers being such a small market tried to take it to the extreme and probably should have tried to end it at his age 35 season instead of 37 but I completely get why the did it and think it made sense. That being said, if he never has a season better than he had last year then I could see the argument being made it was the worst contract but it's too early to say if that's the case. If he can pull off a few 280/340 25-35 hr seasons in the next five it's definitely not the worst as you at least got reasonable production from it. Also when considering it as 'worst ever' you have to factor in how underpaid he was prior to the PED issue, that helps balance the overpay at the end. Should also factor in that baseball salaries will continue to dramatically rise so that 20 mil (or 15 if you want factor in the deferred) in 2019/20 will probably be around the equivalent of 13-15 now. Which was I'm sure another big reason they were ok with giving out the contract at the time.

Great win, glad they got at least one and didn't get eliminated at home. Too bad they didn't get game 3 and have this tied 2-2. I know they still wouldn't win the series but it would be great experience for the guys to be in a 2-2 game 5 and 3-2 game 6 rather than 3-1 game 5 when you're kind of resigned to your fate. I'm with FV on the whole Knight/MCW talk. I'm fine with the trade and see the plan, especially when you're aware of the salary cap and contract aspects. But to act like MCW is better than Knight right now for this team is just foolish (for lack of a better word). The team was playing great with Knight before the trade, great chemistry and flow on offense. After the trade the team lost more than they won and the offense gets clogged down because there's no spacing because MCW and Giannis can't shoot. I know some of the struggles were due to the bench getting injured but the trade and everyone having to learn how to play together was the biggest factor. There's a better chance they'd have gotten the 5 seed vs not making the playoffs as one person suggested. Again, I'm fine with the trade but as I think I said on here they likely win game 3 with Bayless in instead of MCW. In game 4 they did that and they won. Just hope MCW improves the 3 pt shot big time this offseason and really steps up a level next season.

That's true for ESPN, yea the public is going to be even more than they already are if they're pumping all day about a back CB (well they do that with Tebow I guess,haha). but the NFL shouldn't frame their decision making off what espn obsesses over. It should be equal for all as someone else just said, I'm sure it'll be a point of emphasis in the next CBA

Amen, I don't know what it'll be like when Ueck is gone, just won't be the same. Regarding MA saying that, that's what everyone says. You have to believe they're looking at all this. The owner can't say midseason that he's looking at firing the coach/gm. Almost every coach about to get fired has this said about them by the owner, then he gets fired a few weeks later. Think of the media hoopla if he says yea I'm definitely looking at canning Ron in the next couple weeks if it doesn't turn around.

No I wouldn't say I feel bad either. It's better than ignoring it like they used to. I did just see that the NFLPA is likely going to sue the NFL on this, like they did with Peterson when they won. I think it's cleary media driven. ESPN is picking which stories/players to pursue and then the NFL responds. The NFL only cares about the PR, it's why they don't do anything to the ones that ESPN doesn't obsess over. To me it's just my hypocrisy detector going more than anything. Drop the bomb on these guys if you want, just don't pick and choose which ones you do.

I think we're about to get hot. · In his first full season, RHP Jimmy Nelson has worked 20 innings (3 starts) with a 1.35 ERA, 17 strikeouts and 4 walks. He was brilliant Wednesday night against the Reds, working 8 innings and allowing 1 run and 3 hits. · RHP Kyle Lohse provided the Brewers with their 2nd consecutive quality start yesterday by working 7 innings and allowing 2 runs against the Reds. · Francisco Rodriguez earned a career milestone yesterday by collecting his 350th save. · On the current homestand, Ryan Braun has collected 5 hits (.313) and hit a home run. · Since the start of 2013, Jean Segura ranks among qualified National League Shortstops in several categories: Batting Average (1st, .272), Stolen Bases (1st, 67) Hits (3rd, 316), Singles (1st, 245), Triples (2nd, 16), Runs (3rd, 142). · LHP Will Smith has worked 6 games in 2015, allowing zero runs (0.00 ERA) and 1 hit. · LHP Kodi Medeiros has worked 15.1 innings this year for A-Wisconsin. He has a 2.93 ERA, 0.78 WHIP and has struck out 20 thus far in his first full pro season. · 2013 14th Round Draft Pick, LHP Hobbs Johnson is off to a great start at AA-Biloxi. He’s made 3 starts and allowed 1 run (0.79 ERA) and struck out 13 hitters in 11.1 innings. · The Brewers' top prospect, 20-year old SS Orlando Arcia is on a current 6 game hitting streak (10-20, .500) and is now hitting .450 through 13 games (18-40) with AA-Biloxi. Arcia signed with the Brewers as a 16-year old in October, 2010. · Brewers 2012 1st Round Pick (28th), OF Victor Roache, is hitting .352 (19-54) with 2 doubles, a triple and 3 home runs for High A-Brevard County. · Brewers 2012 1st Round Pick (27th), OF Clint Coulter, is hitting .327 (17-52) with 2 doubles, 2 triples and 5 home runs for High A-Brevard County. His 5 home runs and .731 SLG % both lead the Florida State League

As David Puddy would say, you gotta support the team. Protesting like that might actually have the reverse effect you're targeting, it kind of shows ownership they were right to try and keep being competitive because when they start losing no one shows up. Superfly, I appreciate the joke and bringing some levity to the conversation even if others didn't. I think Fondy meant to just keep Melvin. I don't think he meant to let him make trades and then fire. As long as he and MA come to the realization that a shakeup needs to happen then you don't have to fire him. If he accepts it and wants to go the route everyone here is clamoring for, I see what Fondy means as Melvin's generally done pretty well in trades. Would still like to see some shakeup in the scouting/drafting/development staff. You'd only have to fire him if he puts his head in the sand and thinks adding someone like Juan Uribe and some mediocre pitcher will fix things next year.

Yes I don't think it's consistent as there is still plenty of people getting nothing if the media doesn't obsess over them, its straight PR based on what ESPN hypes. Behind closed doors the union has to be fired up about the commish being allowed to ban people from working for full seasons with no checks/balances. One thing I have heard since bringing this up is that Hardy still got paid last year so I guess I see why they wanted to give him something more. Maybe a big fine and just a couple games this year would've been better. I guess it's better they're dropping the hammer on these guys than not, most people I talk to or work with all were surprised by it and think it's all getting out of hand as it's all based on espn driven pr.

I don't know about the slight rip on Knight there, what's missing on this team right now is someone who can create his own shot and get a bucket when you need it. MCW not being able to shoot is killing the spacing which was evident in the OTs last night. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with the trade and see exactly what they're doing for the future but to say we wouldn't be better right now with Knight is foolish. I hope they bring in an expert shooting coach this offseason to work with MCW and Giannis, it's very tough for them to drive because the Bulls are sagging off them so much. This isn't as big of a problem in the regular season when teams don't have time to prep, but in the playoffs D and scouting gets increased big time. Those two will be beasts if they just get competent jump shots. Have to say I liked that they played all the young guys last night to finish, yea they didn't pull it off but I'd rather get them the experience and see how they do in that situation. Probably win with Bayless in instead of MCW but who cares, not winning the series anyway and all that was good for MCW going forward. I liked what I saw from Giannis too, I think he's got some of that Kobe/Jordan/Westbrook 'eye of the tiger' in him, confident he'll take the next step up to become a big time star. Yes you could tell there was a strong Bulls contingent in there but I was pleasantly surprised by how rowdy the crowd was for Milwaukee. If they become legitimately good the fans will come out and be a good home court advantage. Too bad they couldn't pull that out, would've created another great environment for game 4 rather than everyone being resigned to our fate. Those two wide open 3s by Juice and Middleton in last minute of first OT were their chances, Middleton crushes corner 3s thought he'd hit that one. Plus if MCW doesn't shove Rose at the end of regulation Giannis was going to swat that thing regardless.

Yea I can't believe it came to that for something so simple. I don't think it's been consistent at all. didn't the 49ers have two guys playings last year with major incidents going on? Mcdonald who I don't think got suspended, but eventually got another incident and was cut. and I think the other was Aldon Smith who got 9 games, 9 and 25 are greatly different. A quick google found a no name guy named Jefferson from MN who got cut from the Vikings when he got arrested and given a 4 game suspension. He got convicted and 90 days in jail in the offseason but his suspension was lifted and he got signed by Seattle going into last year. Not sure what happened from there as I don't want to spend anymore time. or what about Brandon Marshall's like 8 offenses for what a 2 games suspension, why isn't he getting punished like this guy. I realize it's a tough problem to solve, but over one and a half seasons? Just seems to me they're way over compensating at this point after years of looking the other way and really just pandering to what espn blows up. Probably the best solution would be to have a 3 or 5 person panel to handle this stuff instead of one czar like Goodel

That's not a "flat tire". That's just saying..everyone else is doing it and getting away with it, so I'm going to do it too and expect to get away with it. I don't agree with that philosophy. That wasn't the original premise of this whole thing though. The original was just to be late for whatever reason. You then said its your fault for being late and I said sometimes it's not your fault and you wouldn't have any reason to be concerned if something like that happened since everyone around you is late all the time. Regardless, we're not talking about the offense, we're talking about the enforcement/repercussions.

Heck they even did it with Aoki and got a quality young arm back. Really the more you've forced me to think about this has made me realize how much they did well with the trades over the years overall and that it really all comes down to poor drafting/development since that group of guys all came up together.

We just traded Yo and can trade lots of guys now. What proven pieces would we have had to trade before the Lohse signing? Weeks was on an untradeable contract and wasn't performing. Maybe Hart before his last year when he hurt his knees. Ramirez after one year, but if it was up to you they shouldn't have even signed him. Bullpen scraps like Axford etc? All I can think of off the top of my head is Greinke, Yo and Hart, and they did it with Yo and Greinke. Well I guess Braun coming off back to back MVP level campaigns with a diminished trade value due to the PED near suspension.

How about for personal pride and self accountability? This is the point I'm trying to make. If you base your decision making process on what others get away with when they make bad decisions, then I have trouble feeling sorry for you when that plan backfires. I can't believe you're being so obtuse about this, it's not that hard to understand. As this whole scenario started, you do have pride/accountability but something happens like a flat tire etc. and you get the hammer dropped on you while others are let slide. That isn't equal treatment and any normal person would be ticked off. Apparently you would just say yup, I deserve it, Joe Schmo over there comes in late twice a week and you don't do anything to him but that is perfectly fine with me, I deserve it.

Good post Ennder. I actually think the current management does realize a change in strategy is needed to build for the future. They've focused in the direction most are talking here in recent drafts and trades and have been trying in the international markets, getting very close on a couple and getting some others. I guess we'll see how far they're willing to go all in on a rebuild in the next couple months. My guess is they'll do it somewhat but not go all the way and trade Lucroy or Gomez. My guess is they'll try to keep Lucroy on a short extension while holding Gomez until next season's deadline. And as I've said they haven't lost anything of substance the last few years while trying to maintain a competitive team other than the Lohse pick. They've clearly put an effort into restocking the system it's all years away still though, now they can really try to boost it more with a firesale if they choose. The big worry I guess would be whether the current guys in the system and whoever they add in trades will actually make it, since the guys making these moves have failed miserably the last 7 years or so in drafting/development.

you're missing the point about being different repercussions. In the work scenario no one really knows who's telling the truth, everyone says its not their fault when they're late. Bunch of times it is their fault, other times stuff happens outside of your control. The boss doesn't know who's telling the truth, if the manager were to drop the bomb on one person while ignoring it on others it would be BS. And for making sure to be really careful to not be late, why would you be careful if everyone else is coming in late and it's not a big deal. I would never rush myself then. Relative to Hardy, people all over the league are doing this, why would he think it's a big deal and that he'll get 25 games. Going forward from here though, all players know so no excuses, I guess that's maybe the purpose of all this to make an example. Or more importantly to do it in a low profile way and not on video so espn doesn't go nuts.

I guess he probably did mean after 2012. Doesn't change anything though, Braun was coming off his best season and one year from MVP, would've been back to back if not for the near suspension leading into the season. Team won 83 games and if I recall correctly they finished really strong that year after a slow start, could be wrong on that though. Our only go for it moves of substance are then Lohse/Garza, we'd still only be out that Lohse pick and whatever spare parts we gave for Parra and Broxton last year. We'd still be in the same spot we are right now.

Right...you'd be ok with that. People all around you are consistently coming in late with no repercussion. Then one day your car won't start or there's an accident on your route and you get fired for it, yea I'm sure you'd be to totally ok with it and say yup, I deserved it. Yes, I realize this analogy is different as those things aren't your fault whereas Greg Hardy is totally at fault here, I'm just making the point about lack of uniformity and picking certain players to hammer while ignoring others.

Just because you have one good player doesn't mean you should kill the near future of a franchise. They didn't draft and develop good players so they shouldn't have gone for it at any point after 2012. The moves they made would have been the right ones if they had drafted and developed talent. As it is the moves they made spread our talent over all the levels of the majors and minors instead of creating a bubble of talent. So your stance would've been to give up and not try to win in the offseason after being up 1-0 in the NLCS but lost, the fans are hugely behind the team, we have a 28 yr old MVP signed on a reasonable contract. Give up. Since then, what have the try to win moves been, Ramirez, Lohse, Garza pretty much. The only thing we don't have right now is that 20ish draft pick for Lohse. Would our future be drastically different right now with that pick, chances are they would've messed the pick up anyway based on the last 9 yrs. Again, that's the problem. One of those seasons was ruined by the suspension and the other they did almost make the playoffs and if Braun was anywhere close to the player he was they would have made it. Once you're in, anything can happen. To the future, everyone here has nailed it. Simple terms, trade whatever you can right now that makes sense. Overall the scouting/drafting/development teams and hope the guys they bring in actually make it in the next 3-6 years. My take is that if the young guys brought in do make it and we have a chance that we need to go for it at that point. Others would rather trade those guys once they're good and then rinse/repeat. Apparently, we'd be a contender right now if we had Lorenzo Cain and Jake Ordazzi. Well, until they need to be traded this offseason or next anyway.

Exactly. It's the lack of uniformity and just hammering guys that the media obsesses over while ignoring the others. In real world terms, say you work a normal job and you show up 15 minutes late some day and the repercussion is to tell you to go home for the whole day and lose pay for the day. A week later the guy next to you comes in 15 minutes late and he doesn't get any repercussion. The biggest thing that's bothered me in all this is the media. Their agenda here is to come off as big time women's rights advocates, which is fine. But how did they really help Rice's wife. They replayed her getting socked in the face thousands of times per day, which had to be embarrassing as heck to her and constantly talked about her in order to get ratings over something she preferred to be a private matter. This all resulted in her husband not being allowed to work again, probably for the rest of his life and costing them tens of millions of dollars.

Really? None of us knew that. But when you have one it's perfectly logical to go for it and all these things were ripping the for doing was made thinking you would have a 320/380 35 hr 110rbi guy as a center piece. Things are way different if he was still that player. Heck you could be arguing that we didn't go for it hard enough in those years instead. Going with Yuni at ss, ignoring1b the last few years etc. Yes these next years could be rough and the 06ish type era of optimism was better than this. But would you just want to be in that state at all times without ever going for it. Think kc fans are still complaining about Myers/shields right now? This attitude would have led to trading Prince before 2011 for the future, possibly by the time those guys are ready you would have traded Braun. By the time those guys are ready you'd have to trade some others. At some point you have to go for it and in the smallest market with the smallest tv deal your window will be small, if you don't like it you might as well quit following MLB because it's not changing. That or be dodgers, cubs, Yankees, or cardinals fan. Draft/develop better the last 9 years and they're not in this bad of a spot. Good post Patrick.

Another thing I forgot is to keep in mind when they made these decisions they were planning on having a top 5 player as a cornerstone. Braun essentially blew the last two years for us with the suspension and then injury, don't think we make the playoffs last year if Braun is just good down the stretch, not historically good like he was, just good? If we were in potential rebuild mode how many people would have been complaining about wasting the best brewer ever's prime years?

I don't think the whole we mortgaged the future point lots of people make is totally accurate. Yes they actually did try to do it, but it didn't work out that way. All we'd have right now is Brantley, cain(only one would've played so we'd really only have one), ordazzi, and Escobar instead of Segura and that roughly 20th pick for lohse. Would we all be that much more optimistic if that was the case? It's 9 yrs of failed drafts and/or development that killed us and what needs to be addressed