Jopal78

What about the 30 man roster for the first two weeks? You'd have to imagine the following players would all be locks given their salaries, option status and overall need at the big league level. C Narvaez C Pina 1B Smoak 1B Morrison 2B Hiura SS Arcia 3B Gyorko 3B Sogard 3B Healy LF Yelich CF Cain RF Garcia DH Braun UT Holt OF Gamel SP Woodruff SP Anderson SP Peralta SP Lauer SP Houser RP Hader RP Knebel RP Suter RP Phelps RP Black RP Claudio RP Wahl P Lindblom P Burnes That leaves one spot for Urias, Yardley, Faria, Feyereisen, etc. Tricky situation other than the taxi squad some young players on the cusp of the majors are going to miss out on a year of development, especially when they cut down from 30 players.

Brett Anderson is more likely to hold up for 12 or so starts than he likely would for 28+

The article I read says that the players still have to sign off on the health protocols and the arrival date, but it sounded like they are expecting that to happen. They can still file a grievance about anything going on if they choose to. The players already agreed in March that the Commissioner can schedule a season with as few as 50 games. The two questions to the players are the last hurdles before a season actually starts. If they can report on July 1st. If the answer here is NO I would imagine the owners will start shaving games of the 60 based on when the players can report (Sort of calling the players on their "Tell us when and where bit"). Question 2 deals with health and safety protocols. This is probably is also more of a formality where social distancing protocols and other safety features are put in place. If the players agree to them, and don't adhere by them and players contract Covid, it exculpates the owners from blame in that situation. A grievance would only be filed over the issue of whether or not the owners made a "good faith effort" in negotiating with the players on the number of games and pay for those games.

The Union already considered pro rata salaries as a concession. In a typical year if a player spent 140 games on the DL and 2 more games were rained out and not made up, they would still get their full salary despite playing in only 20 games. They are not going to take another cut, despite the fact they could make more overall money playing 75 games at 80% than 50 at 100%. Some owners are going to really take a bath this season in terms of revenue, especially those who own the bars, restaurants, hotels, and other entertainment etc. around their stadium, those owners probably are fine with punting the 2020 season and at this point would be happy to avoid a grievance requiring them to lay out even more money in legal fees etc.

I can appreciate the arguments that the best team may not win it all with a 50 game season, but I’ll be happy to see professional baseball again. Think about it, at 86 who knows how long Uecker will still be doing games so even in a 50 game season we get at least another 25 games or so of Mr. Baseball. This could be Braun’s last year for the Brewers (or all together) and as a player who first came up while I was in my late 20s and has been a constant as I move into my early 40s, I’ll be happy to see him play for Milwaukee one more season. Also with the players getting service time either way, may as well get something out of Hader, Woodruff, etc as they inch towards free agency. Finally, to me the Brewers are like Usinger’s sausages, it’s just not summer without them.

The last team that was sold (Miami Marlins) obtained a price of 1.2 billion dollars. There isn't a city or State in America that has 1.2 billion dollars laying around to buy a baseball team with. A lot of the value is tied up in equity. A 95% ownership interest in the Cubs was sold to the Ricketts family in 2009 for 900 Million. In March of 2019 the Ricketts moved to purchase the final 5% ownership interest. For purposes of that agreement the Cubs were valued at 2.15 billion dollars and the 5% share was then sold to them for 107 million dollars. So the real "profits" from being an owner is when you unload the team for 2.15 billion when you paid 1 billion to buy it. Not whatever money is left after the season is over between revenue and expenses, that would largely be nickels and dimes by comparison. That is why there are only two owners (CHW and PHI) who have held their teams since before the 90s, and 23 of the teams have had a change in principal owner since the year 2000

They want baseball, but are only comfortable taking a loss up to a certain level. Obviously they got together and agreed as a whole that they can afford to take a XXX loss to put a product on the field this season, and have the numbers worked out for different scenarios with the number of games. These guys aren't idiots. They became billionaires by taking calculated risks that have, for the most part, paid off. Even though they all will be taking a big loss, to bring baseball back the financial risk still needs to be mitigated, or it isn't going to happen. I agree that it sucks, but that's the business side of things. That's reality. The owners aren't holding out on bringing baseball back because they don't want to. They are holding out because it doesn't make financial sense not to. This is exactly the problem with professional sports (as well as college sports). Run purely as a business to make as much money as possible. Every single decision made with the balance sheet in mind. We’ve known this all along but now the rot is out in the open and it is disgusting to see. Most (all?) billionaires are about as smart as the average senior executive, they just got lucky or started their lives on third base. I refuse to hold them on a pedestal. As a billionaire running a sports team I would argue that they have an obligation to bring baseball back and uphold the good of the game that they are entrusted with an ownership stake in. It’s a moral obligation. And a contractural one. They should have written the risk into the contracts if they didn’t want to pay them when a crisis happened. There are a thousand other things they could have bought and profited on instead of a sports team. The “run as a business” crap is reality but it doesn’t have to be reality. It didn’t used to be reality. When Selig was running baseball there was a balance between profits and the good of the game and it turned out that improving the game was good for business. Now the pendulum has swung so far towards profits that it may destroy MLB in the long run. Which might be a good thing. Baseball teams (as well as virtually all professional sports teams) are "for profit" businesses, they are not public trusts. They put out a product and ask you to pay to watch, listen or otherwise consume their product. For over 100 years that is the way it has worked, its not going to change and they don't really owe the public anything. Fans certainly don't typically show up en masse and spend money on the product when the team is bad, so why should the shoe somehow be on the other foot. In fact, in the last 20+ years baseball teams have been soaked up by investment bankers (Guggenheim Partners, John W. Henry & Company, the TD Waterhouse folks, even our own Crescent Capital Group founder et al.) who realize the teams are the ultimate investment (teams never depreciate, never go out of business, and provide some revenue to boot). The more revenue owners can generate, the higher the ultimate sale price. That is why you see teams starting their own TV networks, then selling ownership stakes in those networks to media companies like Sinclair Broadcasting, Charter Communications, Amazon etc; teams are buying up real estate around their stadiums and developmental facilities. If it doesn't drive up the ultimate sale price for they can always split it up and sell it off piecemeal. Again, the mythical Steinbrenner-esque tycoon who owns a team as a play thing and could make a benevolent gesture for the public really doesn't exist any more if it ever truly did. It is true, based on market sizes, that some owners are more reliant on the gate receipts than others, I imagine it is those owners who want the season to be played most of all given the chance their could be paying fans later. On the other hand, teams like the Cubs will take a blood bath from a revenue standpoint if the season is played with no fans. They will have to pay their high salaried players, and have no revenue coming in from the gate, the hotel, the rooftops, the bars and restaurants around the stadium they own, etc. Behind closed doors those owners are probably content if the 2020 season never materializes. Make no mistake, neither the players nor the owners give an iota about the fans sitting at home. They had a golden opportunity to get their season on track and be the only entertainment alternative to on-demand video, and they blew it because neither side is going to budge from their position for the good of the game or the fans. The MLBPA is the most powerful players union in professional sports. While the other major leagues have all locked their players out in the last 15 years to force them to accept cuts in pay the owners haven't even tried to lock the baseball players out in 30 years. Understandably, the players union wants its members to make as much money as possible. In their purview they already made a grand gesture when they agreed to accept a prorated salary tied to the number of games played instead of their guaranteed annual salary . To wit, you don't get to be a powerful union like the MLBPA by then establishing a precedent of negotiating against yourself for further cuts in pay. Therefore, any offer from the owners which doesn't include full prorated salaries will be rejected by the union without any real deliberation. To be sure, if the owners suggested a 100 game schedule with all players receiving their full salary prorated to 100 games, 99.9% of players would be packing their bags to report to the team. As fans, the only pro-baseball we are likely to receive is the 50 game season the Commissioner can impose. This is why the owners keep making offers with various number of games and compensation to the Union; they are building their case to argue they negotiated games and salary in good faith with the Union to no avail, and then ask the Commissioner to establish the 50 game season and expanded playoffs. With a 50 game schedule featuring full prorated salaries plus regular playoff pay, the Union will have no real option but to accept. Although, I would imagine some players will decide to skip the season due to "health concerns" and it would set the stage for increased acrimony when they negotiate the new labor contract/CBA.

I had that same thought as well. Moreover, if they don't play at all in 2020, more probably true than not, the older veterans on one year deals with a club option (Sogard, Gyorko, Brett Anderson, Smoak), will have their options declined and never appear for the Brewers.

No, not really. Sucks to be the Brewers, but that is life. The Brewers will be fine. There was an agreement months ago that the players would get a lump sum of money then the spigot was turned off until they start playing. The lump sum payments probably ate up a lot of operating cash, but they obviously made those payments and didn't go out of business. As it stands the team isn't going to play before July if they play at all this year; they will save tens of millions of dollars in player payroll, as well as the operating expenses of actually putting on the games (Everything from grass seed, diamond dry, napkins, cups, laundry services, increased water/electricity usage, security, increased waste management, food and beverage inventory as well as seasonal labor and less tangible savings like workers comp. etc.) Not having the gate receipts no doubt hurts a team like the Brewers moreso than say the Los Angeles Dodgers but in the long run they'll both be fine whether they play this year or not.

Just read if MLB played without fans they’d look to cut the players salaries, so if that’s the case there won’t be baseball in 2020. Most players would probably rather not play and make nothing than establish a precedent where ownership cut their salaries.

I'm not so sure. The major league clubs already own a fair number of minor league clubs. Additionally, MLB clubs provide the players and pay the players. If the minor league season doesn't happen, those teams not already owned by the majors will avoid the labor costs and expenses involved in putting the games on. I would assume all their employees are temporary or seasonal workers anyways without benefits, etc. There could be rent issues that crop up between those clubs and the stadium owner if different, but typically those rental agreements would have a force majeure clause to protect both sides, and possibly even force majeure insurance. The real question is what would happen to the players in the system who are not rostered, could the MLB teams bring their entire organization to Arizona and/or Florida and work them out, or would some organizational players just take a year off.

There will be some sort of baseball this year, but hard telling what that will be. Why? Because of the financial ramifications. The players are getting some sort of stipend but nowhere near their contract pay. In most instances I’d imagine the players would be up for any sort of season that makes sense. Especially any player on an expiring or one year contract as their future compensation would be radically effected. Likewise, revenue for the teams has all but dried up. No ticket revenue, no beer/refreshment revenue. I’m not sure how TV rights work, but I’d surmise that with no product to broadcast, the local and national television deals are not paying the teams/league. Not to mention the draft coming up and having to fork we more operating cash as bonus money to draft picks. The owners are likely highly motivated to play some sort of season. Finally, with no real competition there is an opportunity for the league to grow its brand if they can get their product up and running and back on the airwaves. I’d be alright with the Cactus/Grapefruit League concept. It’s probably the most logical once the stay at home orders are lifted it will still be sometime before large 25,000+ people gatherings are allowed, however the players would all be able to travel and I’d imagine they all had lodging in Florida and Arizona anyways so there wouldn’t be any real impetus to them Starting up without fans

Money talks, the players will suck it up and play in Arizona if that’s what is decided because otherwise they’re not going to get paid. Especially the players with large contracts; they are currently losing tons of money, their scruples will last about five seconds when they have a chance to make their contract pay playing 7 inning games in Arizona. MLB wants to get up and running because they’d be the only game in town and have a golden opportunity to grow their product since the amount of Competing entertainment available Is non-existent. However, the government folks are likely going to kill the baseball season in 2020 at home parks. They’ll either approve the plan in Arizona or there won’t be a season. With the service time accruing regardless there’s a real chance Anderson, Sogard, Gyrko and Smoak never play an official game for Milwaukee.

Braun has a shoulder injury and is unable to throw. If he opens on the DL, Morrison will certainly make the club. Further, they're not going release Smoak and eat a $5 million dollar contract at the end of ST, its just not something the organization does. Morrison is a mediocre slugger who doesn't really fit the profile of the players the Brewers have, that being said at some point if he maintains a hot bat in ST .333/.400/.667, you'd have to imagine he will earn his way onto the roster as the 26th man to start the year. Plus the Brewers have had a track record of keeping a slugging first baseman as a bench player after a huge spring: Ji-Man Choi, Jesus Aguilar for example

This post is the correct answer. Travis Shaw's track record in the majors suggests 2019 was an aberration and he'll likely bounce back near his career norms as a starting caliber third basemen. Moreover, no team in baseball really wants to let go of a 29 year old with career slash marks of .243/.327/.451 with solid defense and two years of team control remaining. In this case, the Brewers would have had to take a $5 million dollar financial risk that Shaw bounces back in 2020. Rather they decided to take a safer route with players like Smoak. He's not likely going to have an 850 OPS in 2020, but he's also not likely to have a .600 OPS either. However, I wouldn't be so sure to write off Shaw with the Blue Jays. They added Ryu (5.3 WAR in '19), Roark (2.0) and Chase Anderson (1.7) to their rotation. They have a litany of young players that should be even better in 2020: Guerrero, Bichette, Biggio, and Gurriel. With the Yankees decimated by injuries, Boston re-tooling, and Baltimore completely rebuilding Toronto has a real chance to make some noise in the AL East and if Shaw bounces back their infield will be set and, more importantly, cheap through at least 2021.

With the Peralta extension, I'd guess that Stearns is also approaching some others, notably Hiura and Urias, and possibly guys like Burnes and Narvaez. As long as he can maintain a solid core, he can build around that core. Extending good players while they're young helps keep your core intact. Stearns showed this off-season that you can turn over a good portion of your roster in one off-season. Some of these replacements (Narvaez, Urias, Lauer) are longer-term pieces who could be "core" guys going forward, while others are 1- or 2-year commitments to fill in holes until longer-term pieces can be found. If Urias can get on base like he did in the minors, he, Yelich, and Hiura should be a strong top of the order for a long time. My one concern is that we don't have a strong farm. We need to be able to keep quite a few pre-arby guys on the roster to keep payroll down so we can afford some expensive contracts. Even if these are only bullpen arms and bench guys, paying some of your 26 guys $550k really brings the average price-per-player down. The only reason to hand out a pre-arbitration extension is for cost certainty or to pay more money up front to get an option on a 7th or 8th year of control. Under that scenario why would anyone give Urias an extension? There are legitimate questions if he will generate enough offense to be a major league regular. I get all the minor league numbers but here's a list of other Padres farmhands who had better OPS numbers on the same teams as Urias, and none of these players has broken through offensively in the majors either:Travis Jankowski, Allen Craig, Ty France, Estaban Quiroz, Austin Allen, Franmil Reyes and the list goes on. I agree the potential is there to be more than just another middle infielder that can't hit, but then he suffered a fractured hamate bone. So not only are their questions about his game, the Brewers literally haven't seen him play for them yet, AND the number of players who never regain their hitting ability following a hamate bone fracture is not an insignificant amount. On top of that Arcia likely is going to be the regular shortstop to start the season with Holt and Sogard also on the team and capable of playing 3B. Urias will most likely be starting in AAA and will have to prove himself to the organization before they make a move. Nothing about Urias at this point suggests he is a player where there is a risk for the Brewers going year to year on his contract.

750 is not his career norm, considering he topped that once in the last 7 years. He's much closer to a 700-725 ops guy as a poor defending 1b. Most good teams are pretty set at 1b, flipping a very mediocre 1b doesn't seem likely. Unless he hits like 2017 and not like every year from 2013-2019 besides 2017...there will be better options for the few contending teams that would want 1b help. Certainly possible a team may want him as a PH option, but how much will a team give up for a guy to only PH? Baseball Reference has his career line at: .239/.324/.426 (.750 OPS) across 980+ MLB games.

The Brewers brass is smart enough to to know they are not always going to be in the thick of it and there are probably some lean years on the horizon, which of course means the demand won’t be there to sell 2.8+ million tickets. The team is also smart to recognize Yelich is a huge star and has intrinsic value to the team in terms of their brand and marketability. His extension isn’t just about dollars for him hitting in the line up but also the value of selling tickets to games, and gear and creating what is referred to in the business world as “goodwill”.

I guess these are good problems to have as there are more worthy candidates for the rotation than there are spots. Lauer has never really come out of the pen at any point (college, minors, mlb). Therefore, if he doesn't make the rotation I'd assume he'd be ticketed for AAA. I think Milwaukee still has hopes for Burnes to be a starter as well, and I imagine they're not going to use up service time with him being a long-man out of the pen. Rather he will also be in the rotation at AAA. I think most likely we will see a rotation of: Woodruff, Houser, Lindblom, Anderson, Peralta. The next man up being Lauer, followed by Burnes, Shelby Miller with Suter a possibility thereafter

I have no idea if the Brewers will keep Morrison or not. I don know if he continues to have a huge spring and doesn't make the Brewers roster he will land on another team's 26 man roster. He's exactly the type of player teams like Kansas City, Baltimore etc. can easily offer Morrison a spot on their major league roster: he's an inexpensive left handed power hitter with significant major league experience. If he manages to produce at his career norm of .750 one of those second division teams would have no problem flipping him to a contender at the trade deadline.

From the department of “can’t catch a break”, the Dodgers have shut Jimmy Nelson down with some type of injury. Too bad, I’m sure his frustration level is through the roof after turning a corner into a quality MLB starting pitcher in 2017 only to beset constantly by injuries ever since.

This thread is great for showing what little fans (and Jim Bowden) truly know about the behind the scenes workings of a team. Nearly every name mentioned in this thread signed for way different commitments and numbers than the poster here predicted they would be able to sign them for. Grandal 3yrs/57 million Actual: 4yr/73 million 3yrs/67.5 million Moustakas 2yrs/22 million Actual 4yr/64 million 2yrs/24 million 2 yrs/20 million Pomeranz 2yrs/10 million Actual: 4yr/34 million 3 yrs/18 million Lyles 2yr/8 million Actual: 2yrs/16 million 3yr/22.5 million Gonzalez 3yr/18 million Actual: 1yr/5 million Iglesias 2yr/12 million Actual 1yr/3 million

Even if Gamel is blocked and the Brewers do him a favor by trading him to a team where he might play more the only thing they'd be getting back is the 1.4 million dollar salary relief and any Gamel trade would most likely be officially for 'future considerations'.

Gamel is exactly what you want as a 26th man. He’s an excellent base runner and right behind Garcia and Yelich in terms of sprint speed so he can be used for pinch running. Also he didn’t hit into a double play at all in 2019 despite hitting ground balls in nearly a third of his at bats. His OBP in situations with RISP and two outs: .500, .351 OBP in late/close situations. Certainly not a nucleus starter type player, but a nice all around player that can pinch run, pinch hit with some ability, competency in the outfield means he’s a good double switch candidate.

We’re talking about the 40th man on the roster, not much separation in terms of talent. It’s Likely the decision was simple as Williams is a hold over from the last regime, and Stearns prefers the guys he has added to the 40 man over ones he inherited.