Having a crap farm system is going to win you a lot less. As a smaller revenue team, the Brewers have to maintain a decent farm in order to continually have pre-arby guys on the roster. Without pre-arby guys on the roster, payroll adds up quickly and we get stuck with holes in the roster that can't be filled. Of course everyone won't become a 23-year-old superstar. Not everyone needs to be. It's great when we get superstars from the farm, but having average MLB players and role players making league minimum is very valuable. That doesn't mean we shouldn't extend our 23-year-old superstars if they are amenable. Age is very important. If we have a guy who has a role on the team and will be a free agent while he is still in his prime, we should look into the possibility of extending him. If he doesn't appear to be in the long-term plans, or if he will be at the end of his prime when team control is up, then we probably shouldn't extend him. I also agree that we shouldn't try to "sell high." This implies that you don't really have a plan, you're just trying to trade someone when you think you can get a good return. That's a horrible strategy. Whatever you're trying to accomplish, you need to have a plan. If you maintain a strong farm, the hope is that you will have replacements available for the guys currently on the MLB roster, allowing you to trade them when their "team control" gets short. This isn't perfect, so there will be times when you hold a tradeable player to free agency, but that should be the exception, not the norm. We should generally be trying to add talent to the franchise, not let top talent walk away for nothing. Well if my farm system is less than stellar(middle of the pack) because I graduated a bunch of successful guys to the MLB level I wouldn’t call that a bad thing. I’m all for trading guys to replenish it in the right situation. However some of the names being thrown around are very controllable and some of our best players. Even non controllable players(like 2011 Prince Fielder) probably shouldn’t be traded if you are putting together a really good team. Generally speaking I wouldn’t trade major players when competing or looking to compete. I’d trade the likes of Gomez/Lucroy/Smith/Thornburg when we seem to be at our low point and not looking to contend soon.