monty57

Courtesy of Major League: Board Member 1: I've never heard of half of these guys and the ones I do know are way past their prime. Charlie Donovan: Most of these guys never had a prime. Rachel Phelps: The fact is we lost our two best players to free agency. We haven't won a pennant in over thirty-five years, we haven't placed higher than fourth in the last fifteen. Obviously it's time for some changes. Board Member 2: This guy here is dead! Rachel Phelps: Cross him off, then!

Well, since Mass Haas linked to a Fangraphs article showing how inept the Brewers' strategy is and has been, and Danzig remembers Attanasio citing a Fangraphs article as justification for his moves, maybe there's a chance Attanasio reads the article, bells go off, and he finally decides to implement a strategy that has a chance at being successful. Yeah, I doubt it too.

The Upton contract expires in 2017, Braun's contract runs through 2020 with a mutual option in 2021 and i believe some deferred money. From Cot's: Ryan Braun rf 8 years/$45M (2008-15) 5 years/$105M (2016-20), plus 2021 mutual option 5 years/$105M (2016-20), plus 2021 option signed extension with Milwaukee 4/21/11 $10M signing bonus (paid in 4 equal installments each April 1 from 2012 to 2015) 16:$19M, 17:$19M, 18:$19M, 19:$18M, 20:$16M, 21:$15M mutual option ($4M buyout) price of option may increase to $20M based on MVP, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove awards (if earned, award escalators are deferred without interest) $18M in salary ($4M each in 2016-18 and $3M each in 2019-20) deferred without interest, to be paid in equal installments each July 1 from 2022 to 2031 no-trade protection 8 years/$45M (2008-15) signed extension with Milwaukee 5/15/08, replacing 1 year/$0.455M contract for 2008 renewed 3/2/08 $2.3M signing bonus 08:$0.455M, 09:$0.745M, 10:$1M, 11:$4M, 12:$6M, 13:$8.5M, 14:$10M, 15:$12M may earn additional $6M if Braun qualifies as a Super 2 after 2009 season, increasing salaries to: 10:$3.5M, 11:$5.5M, 12:$7.5M, 13:$9M (did not qualify) award bonus: $50,000 for All Star selection no-trade clause 2008-11, limited no-trade clause 2012-13 (may block deals to 12 clubs), limited no-trade clause 2014-15 (may block deals to 6 clubs) perks: suite for home games Braun to donate $25,000 annually to club charity placed on restricted list 7/22/13 (PED investigation) 1 year (2007) contract purchased by Milwaukee 5/25/07 drafted by Milwaukee 2005 (1-5) (Miami, Fla.) signed 6/05, $2.45M signing bonus agent: CAA Sports (Nez Balelo) ML service: 7.129 So this is the final year of his initial extension, and also the final year of his signing bonus from the second extension. While "on paper" he makes $19M, $19M, $19M, $18M, $16M over the next five seasons, the Brewers (or any team he would be traded to) would pay him $15M, $15M, $15M, $15M, $13M during those seasons. He then gets either a $15M (or $20M if goals met) option year, or gets bought out at $4M. Beyond that, the Brewers (or whoever they would trade him to) will owe him $1.8M per year from 2022 to 2031. In other words, the second extension hasn't even started yet, and whoever is obligated to pay him will be paying for him for 16 more seasons. Going to be kind of hard to trade that contract, especially if he continues to put up subpar numbers.

Agreed Danzig. Attanasio is going to remain "hands on," so I just wonder if he will be willing to change with the situation, or if he will continue to operate in the same manner even in times when it is obvious to everyone that the team is not a contender and would be best served with some sort of a rebuild. My concern is that from the limited insight we as fans have into the front office, it appears to me that Melvin has been trying to steer the ship into more of a "build for the future" mode the last few years, while Attanasio continues to do "win now" moves. Melvin's casual, laid back demeanor along with his years of experience and trust Attanasio has in him may be the calming influence that is keeping us from going even more overboard on "win now." If this is the case, there's a good possibility a new GM might not be able to rein in Attanasio, and instead of just the annual signing of a mid-30's player with a name people know, we'll also see more "prospect-for-proven guy" trades. Who knows, but I sure hope that if Attanasio wants to continue to "play GM," that he is learning from his mistakes because I don't think he's helped the Brewers with most of the moves that he's initiated.

Since 2012, this has been an extremely streaky .500 team. The difference between last year and the previous two years is the timing of the hot streak. Last year it was early, so they stayed in first for much of the season. The prior two years, it was late so the team had already been "sellers" at the deadline. The interesting thing is seeing the effect on fan perception. After 2012 and 2013, there was optimism because of the late-season surge. We heard "If only we hadn't traded Greinke (or insert other name)," and "If we just add {insert player/position here}, then we'll be a contender." The early season hot streak last year led to post-season anger when the team ended up with essentially the same record as the two previous seasons, and feelings such as "we need to get rid of the guys who aren't hustling/clubhouse cancers." The key factor to remember that ultimately it is the fans' money that pays the bills. I'm now interested in seeing how this season plays out. After last season, a slow start is the last thing this team wanted. To me, it looks like Attanasio makes moves driven by ticket sales as much as anything else, and with the fan base already angry over last season, I could see fans already tuning out a couple of weeks into the season. Meanwhile, the team is sporting a record payroll. I don't know the details of how much revenue they get from attendee, nor do I know how much of that is profit. But I think $75 in revenue from attendee (ticket, parking, concessions, etc) is a decent enough guess for sake of illustration. Therefore, every 100,000 people who don't attend who the team projected would attend would "cost" the team around $7,500,000 in expected revenue. So, prior to the season, they projected certain attendance, and put together a team with a record payroll of $104,237,000. They probably gave themselves a "cushion" of a few million. Last year's hot start added a couple hundred thousand tickets sold (from around 2.5MM to 2.7MM year-over-year), but what if this year's terrible start, coupled with last year's collapse cost the team a couple hundred thousand (let's say to 2.3MM - they don't get the surge in sales they got last year, and lose some of the fans who showed up in 2013). That could be around $28,000,000 in expected revenue that never materialized. That money is guaranteed, so it has to come from somewhere, so if the salaries aren't traded, the owners either have to borrow money or take it out of their own or the team's pockets (assuming the team has a large cash reserve). The logical choice in this scenario is to "salary dump" some players. If the ownership group chooses to trade players for fear of losing tens of millions of dollars. The seemingly "easy money" to get rid of (high priced guys in their final season) is Lohse ($11,000,000 salary, 0-3, 10.34 ERA, 1.72 WHIP, 4 HR in 15 IP), Broxton ($9,000,000 salary plus guaranteed $2,000,000 in 2016, 5 games, 4.2 IP, 9.64 ERA, 1.50 WHIP), Ramirez ($14,000,000 salary, .140 Avg / .140 OBP / .186 SLG / .326 OPS), and Parra ($6,237,000 salary, .185 avg / .214 OBP / .296 SLG / .511 OPS). Not really increasing their trade value, are they? Unless they turn things around, the Brewers won't be able to get anyone to take on any of these contracts. If the owners see a sinking ship and become worried about losing tons of money, and they can't salary dump the above-named players, what are their options? No one's taking Braun or Garza, so you're really looking at Gomez ($8MM 2015, $9MM 2016), Lind ($7.5MM 2015, option for 2016), Cotts ($3MM 2015), and Lucroy ($3.4MM 2015, $4.35MM 2016, 2017 option) as possible trading chips that could save them some money. No one wanted to sign K-Rod prior to the season, so I doubt they'd take him now. There is talent on the roster, and the team will get better. Given a full season with no moves made, I still say this team would end up in the neighborhood of .500. The question is whether the hot streak will be too little, too late. If the team doesn't heat up before fans lose interest (i.e. stop buying tickets), then the sell off could get ugly. I've been all for trading away some veterans for young talent to "reload" the team each year, but a scenario where we can't trade the big contracts we'd like to get rid of and are forced to dump some good contracts we'd prefer to keep probably wouldn't end well. I really hope this team at least becomes watchable soon, and I really hope that some of Lohse, Ramirez, Parra and Broxton heat up and at least make themselves "salary dump" candidates. Otherwise, we'll probably at least see Gomez traded this season, and will probably have a significantly lower payroll next year in order for the owners to recoup their losses, so the holes in the roster will be hard to fill. Note that I don't expect this scenario to play out, but it could if the team continues it's horrible play for too much longer.

Yeah, but when you can do other things competently, it makes up for lack of power. Unfortunately, without power the Brewers don't have a lot going for them.

By the way Monty, Rogers has played more at 3B than he has at 1B so far this year at Colo. Springs so yeah, he's still considered a 3B. Good. Haven't paid much attention to the minors this year. Real life has me pretty busy :-) I think it will pretty much take an act of God to get Ramirez some days off at 3B, and the only positive I see to that is that if he can "catch fire" a bit, a playoff team with need for a 3B may trade for him at the deadline.

It was really between Rogers, Peterson and Clark. With Lucroy not hitting, they must figure Rogers is the best option to give Lind a day or two off over the next couple of weeks. I can't see him getting time at third with the way H. Gomez has hit in limited PAs so far (if Rogers is even considered a 3B anymore).

We really shouldn't be surprised at what we are seeing so far this season. Not surprised, but disappointed. I thought this was the last year that the Brewers might have an outside shot of making a playoff run. The only "positive" I see from the team having such a bad start is that it makes it more likely they will get something back for Lohse, Parra, Ramirez and Broxton in mid-season trades. Some of them may not bring much back, but at least they can get something, even if it's just salary relief for someone like Broxton. Of course, if they continue playing this poorly, fans will lose interest quickly, and a significant drop off in ticket sales mixed with a record payroll could lead ownership to make drastic changes, and that might lead to a few years of payroll slashing, which may be necessary, but it wouldn't be much fun watching the MLB team.

Going to have injuries throughout the year, just hope it's nothing too serious. If it looks bad at all, don't toy with it as hammy injuries can linger. Get him on the DL and let Parra / Schafer cover for him so he can be back at 100% in a couple of weeks.

He's below average defensively, but far from the worst ever. Just my opinion, but I think he's fine at chasing down fly balls. He will occasionally have one clank out of his glove, but he's also capable of making good plays (like the one a few games back where he bounced off the fence). His biggest deficiency by far is his arm, which allows players to take some extra bases on him that they wouldn't take on most OF. That may be enough that the Brewers eventually trade him when he starts getting expensive if they have an in-house replacement, but it definitely isn't enough to put him anywhere near the "worst OF ever" lists.

Because he shouldn't tell Carlos that he should never try to steal third with two outs. While a player needs to try that on a limited basis, if a really good opportunity is there, a baserunner can score multiple ways from third compared to second, like say a wild pitch, infield hit, or infield error. There is a reason defenses try holding a quick baserunner close to second base, even with two outs. They understand that a baserunner has less opportunities to score from second base compared to third. No manager in baseball would tell Gomez what you asked for. Why not just have the base coach give him signals when to steal in that situation, i.e. "You have a red light unless the coach gives you the green light."

I too could see them extending him, as Attanasio really likes players the fans know. However, I hope he is not extended, as he is getting played to death, and today's wear and tear could lead to problems when he's in his 30's. Today, in his peak years playing catcher and not taking a day off, he's very valuable. Fast forward a few years when he's past his prime, has no knees left and has to play first base, and I don't think he'll be worth what he'll get in his next contract. They are not resigning Gomez and I doubt they have any interest in doing so. Everyone knows he is going to break down quickly after 30...let a desperate team have him. I was talking about Lucroy. I agree that Gomez will not be extended, as barring injury or complete collapse, he is going to get a monster contract that the Brewers will not be able to match. The question with him will be whether we trade him mid-season this year, during the next offseason, mid-season next year, or if we hold onto him and lose him in free agency. I just hope it's not the last option unless we win the World Series next year. That's about the only thing that would justify our getting draft pick compensation rather than trading him for a king's ransom of young talent. guess my point of all that was that if we do that teardown and blow for the next couple years and then those prospects don't hit, turning into say 6-8 yrs of futility with no attendance and it kills TV ratings for the coming Foxsports re-negotiation. This could cost the owners a lot of money and I think people should remember that when analyzing the moves they make, I think the owners are in fear of going back to the doldrums of the late 90s/early 00s since they've done such a good job getting the people behind the team since they took over. I completely agree that Attanasio's decisions are at least partly (if not mostly) done to make sure attendance stays up. The question here is whether attendance will stay high if the veteran team starts losing. The point where the team has a high payroll, a losing record, and waning attendance over a few seasons would seems to be when a team could decide to do a total rebuild. Wisconsin fans are pretty die-hard, and continued to go to Packer and Badger games through decades of futility before their resurgence in the 90's. Looking at Brewer attendance http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/attend.shtml, they went from over 3,071,373 in 2011 to 2,531,105 in 2013 and bounced back to 2,797,384 with the early season win streak last year. I'd guess that a few years of losing (whether with veterans or youth) would put attendance in the low 2 millions, where they've been since 2004. Prior to that, fans had the perception (whether real or just perceived) that the Seligs were a bunch of cheats trying to con the fans out of money, and shortly before that they played in a stadium that was falling apart (it seemed every game I went to a water pipe burst, spraying fans with water - or maybe sewage, I don't know). Therefore, I think that 2,000,000 is probably the baseline where even with a series of losing teams, as long as the fans don't think Attanasio is a cheat, and the stadium doesn't fall apart, 2,000,000 will probably still come out just for a day at the park. That said, losing half a million ticket sales in two years (from 2011 to 2013) has to be a big reason Attanasio has continued to do everything he could to put a team on the field that at least would build fan perception of a winner, and the fear of losing close to 1/3 of ticket sales will continue to be a motivating factor for him to continue to do the same. I've argued against his methods of team building, but I understand why he makes some of his decisions. Attanasio has said numerous times he wants players whose names the fans know, whether that's extending current fan favorites or signing "name" free agents. What's better: Having an under-producing Aramis Ramirez, or a better producing no name? From a baseball perspective, I'd take the no-name, but from a pre-season ticket sales perspective, fans may buy more tickets because they'll feel better about the upcoming team's playoff hopes with Ramirez in the lineup (of course having images of the .950 OPS slugger he's been, and not the .750 OPS guy he probably is). Relating this to Braun (to keep somewhat on the topic of the thread) this is also why the whole Braun PED saga hurt even if he plays well post-surgery. Some fans now hate him, and associate that hate with the Brewers, and therefore don't buy tickets. If the team loses, and Braun is one of the only names they know, these fans will be the loud guys at the bar ripping the Brewers, and if the perception of the team starts to go downhill (like it did for the Seligs), then that 2,000,000 baseline I mentioned earlier may be high. Personally, from an attendance standpoint, I think the Brewers were fortunate last year that they had their hot streak early in the season rather than late in the season like the previous two years. They ended with roughly the same record, but an early hot streak means the team is in first place, spurring fan interest and ticket sales (and a marketing slogan for the next offseason), while a late hot streak means the team is out of it at the trade deadline, and the fans have tuned out the Brewers in favor of the Packers by the time the streak hits. The early hot streak last year probably sold 300,000-400,000 additional tickets for the Brewers last year, and probably a lot more this past offseason. If the poor start we've seen so far this season continues, we'll probably be around 2,500,000 in ticket sales, which probably won't pay for the record team payroll, so we'll likely see the team trying to dump payroll mid-season, so the return for guys like Lohse will be less than it could be in terms of talent just so the team can dump salary.

I too could see them extending him, as Attanasio really likes players the fans know. However, I hope he is not extended, as he is getting played to death, and today's wear and tear could lead to problems when he's in his 30's. Today, in his peak years playing catcher and not taking a day off, he's very valuable. Fast forward a few years when he's past his prime, has no knees left and has to play first base, and I don't think he'll be worth what he'll get in his next contract.

Think of all the prospects that flop, I remember a few years ago people that love the idea of perpetually trading for the future Some prospects fail, but some succeed. All current MLB players were once prospects. Since many fail, the theory (at least mine) is that you need to get a lot of talent in the minor leagues. If you have one good prospect, you have something like a coin flip's chance that guy will play in the majors. However, if you have a dozen good prospects, each of them have that coin flip's chance, so something like six of them may become MLB players. The more good prospects, the better chance you get MLB players, so get as many good prospects as possible. When they reach the majors, they are extremely cheap by professional sports' standards. The guys who reach the majors will have varying degrees of success. Some will be decent role players while they are cheap, some will have decent but not great careers, some will have good careers, and some will be stars, but all of them have value. The team should try to lock up those with "good to great" potential early in their career, so they can be part of the team for a long time. Eight or nine years is a very long time in professional sports, so if you miss out on a few years it's not a big deal since you got the lion's share of the players' career. Every player needs to be continually evaluated, the team needs to decide the future of the player, and those that do not appear to be longer-term (greater than one year) solutions for the team should be dangled in trade. By trading some of these players as their usefulness to the team diminishes, you can replenish the farm. Since one MLB player brings back multiple prospects, and some prospects succeed, trading one player with limited "team control" should usually bring back at least sic years of a different MLB player... maybe much more. This should be done for everyone in the system, and the cycle should just keep turning. Of course there will be all kinds of other moving parts going on, but if this is the general theory for the roster, you should always have players forcing their way onto the MLB roster and making older guys with limited team control tradeable. My angst over the past few seasons is that to me it seemed like they were on track where this was a distinct possibility, but they decided to scrap that plan in order to play for today at the expense of tomorrow, and we have been getting less and less talented at the MLB level since 2011. They seem to have started to look a little to the future in the recent past, so hopefully that is not "too little, too late."

I don't know if Mark A. will ever play for the future. He's shown he'll spend on aging veterans to plug holes rather than go into rebuild mode. If A-Ram had left, I bet we would have done something like traded for a guy like Casey McGehee or Chris Johnson. I know. It may take a scenario like the one in the originally linked article for this thread in order to shake Attanasio, but it's always fun for me to ponder other possible paths :-)

Yeah, relative to his career, Ramirez has been slowing down for a couple of years. Relative to the current crop of MLB 3B, that slowdown had him around average last year. Continued slowdown probably puts him below average this year, but who knows. This really just shows how good he was throughout his career, but also that everyone gets older, and eventually is out of major league baseball. This is also why I thought this offseason hinged on Ramirez. He was obviously slowing down, and would be overpaid if he returned, but we weren't going to find any decent alternative if he left. We know how it played out, but I wonder if he had left if Attanasio would have used that as the sign to "play for the future," which up to this point has not been his m.o.

This was to convince him at a young age to give up free agency and commit to us. Actually, Melvin has said that Braun came to him and said he wanted to sign a deal that would make him a Brewer for life. I agree that his deal is much better than many of the deals being handed out these days, but any time a team signs someone to a deal like that, they are taking on a tremendous amount of risk and are probably not going to be happy with what they're paying later on in the deal. I loved the first Braun extension. I didn't hate the second one, but figured they would be way overpaying at the end of the deal, when he may just be sitting on the bench collecting a lot of money. I still don't hate that they signed it, but it could be a drag on the team going forward, particularly a few years from now, and definitely for the seasons when Braun will be retired but the team will still be paying him. My post above was really focusing on long-term free agent deals in general (not specifically Braun) especially those given to older players. Braun wasn't old when he signed his second extension, but he will be old when it's done. Heck, he still might as we're only a few games into the season Agree. I hope his down year last year was mainly due to the thumb injury, and I hope the surgery fixed things. As I mentioned earlier, if he can regain his form, the deal isn't horrible, but it will probably be similar to the Soriano deal, where at the end of the deal the fans will blame it for every problem with the team. I think at the time of the signing, the team thought he could be their golden boy... the Robin Yount, Cal Ripken type who the fans would pay to see at the end of their career even though production was down. Maybe that could still happen, but I think that ship has sailed for Braun, who lost a lot of luster with how the whole PED thing played out.

Long term MLB deals to aging free agents are more like getting into a 10-year cell phone contract, being happy you got the free phone at the start, but still having to pay for ten years even if the phone company stops providing coverage to your area, technology makes your plan useless, or the "free" phone stops working. Whatever the reason you're eventually sorry you signed the deal, you should know that the odds are seriously against your getting "fair value" from the contract. It could happen, but far more of the deals end up being bad than good. To your landscaper analogy, it would be more like them doing the initial work for cost, which you are really happy with, but making you sign an "iron-clad" contract where you have to pay them to take care of the property for the next decade. They can take good care of it or not, and you still have to pay them. Even if you sell the house, the contract remains intact, giving negative value to your home sale if they are doing shoddy work. It doesn't matter if they show up drunk, or say that they can't do the job because they're not feeling well, you still have to pay them. At some point, you will have to pay someone else (on top of the guy under contract) to assist or replace the original landscaper, and you just hope the guy under contract will do any work at all, so the you can pay a little less for the replacement.

His whole complaint is the fact with rest it felt better, but given just a little bit of time it started messing him up. You could see this during the season after a days rest he would come back have a big game or April 2014 would be a long term rest example. He had all offseason and it lasted a lot longer healthy. Not giving Braun and Ramirez occasional days off, and using Thornburg (until injured) and Smith nearly every day are my biggest complaints about Roenicke last year. Just as opinion, but had he given some of his key players some rest, I doubt the collapse would have been nearly as drastic. It sounds good to put the best players on the field every day, it's just not realistic, especially when dealing with injured and aging players.

Extending good pre-arby players is one way mid-payroll teams like the Brewers can compete. They transfer the risk from the player to the team, so the team gets a discount. I love these type of deals, even though I know some of them will not pan out, as the player will flop. Braun seems pretty knowledgeable about this, and knew that whatever happened, he was guaranteed $40MM to play baseball. During this period, it was often reported that he was a big proponent of extending early, and advised his teammates to take extensions when they were offered. I generally dislike extending players in their final contract (or final arby) year, and dislike having to fill in key players through free agency, as this almost always means you are paying top dollar for players, and (in the case of older FAs) paying them for what they have done rather than what they are likely to do while you are paying them. From a Brewer standpoint, Braun's first contract was a great signing, but the second deal was pretty much doomed to be an overpay. They were looking for a "face of the franchise," or "another Robin Yount," in order to give fans someone to idolize (and buy tickets), and not necessarily doing it because they thought he would live up to the contract. The whole pre-arby process "massively underpays" players in their first six years. It sucks for the players, but teams like the Brewers couldn't survive without it, and it is what allows veteran players to sign massive deals. If MLB teams had to pay rookies like other sports do, a team like the Brewers would probably not be able to afford to have a $10,000,000 player on the roster.

Which basically means that instead of having to pay him for 6 more years, the Brewers payroll will be hampered for many years after he is no longer playing. At this point he is basically untradeable. Hopefully he can have another superstar season, allowing the Brewers to trade him off, letting someone else pay him lots of money when he's nearly 40 and continue to pay him lots of money when he's retired. Barring trade, the best case I see is that it proves true that it was the injury that hurt his numbers, the surgery proves successful, and he becomes a mid-.800 OPS guy who gradually fades to a low-.800 OPS guy, ending the contract as a mid-to-high .700 OPS guy, then we basically have what the Cubs had with Soriano, except that Soriano wasn't injury prone. Not horrible, but overpaid and eating up a lot of the payroll, with fans blaming every team problem on him. Unfortunately, the deferred money won't even allow the Brewers to trade him off to the Yankees to spend his final season as a bench bat. Worst case is that he is a high-.700s to low .800 OPS guy now and will regress from there, with lots of time missed with injuries, potentially pushing his numbers lower. If this is the case, the Brewers are really in trouble.

You are banking everything on thumb excuse. I suppose its possible. You see a 950 star, and I don't. No and no. I think that there is a possibility that he can be a good player again, and there's the possibility that he won't be. It's not black and white, and no one, you me or anyone else, will know that at this point. I don't think we should be stating things in absolutes when we have no way of knowing the future. I certainly think that if he hit for a .777 OPS when he was injured enough that he had offseason surgery, it is probably the likely scenario that he will hit for better than a .777 OPS if the injury is fixed. Not a certainty, but probably more likely than a scenario in which he is worse after the injury is corrected. As I said, I don't think it's likely that he'll put up .950 OPS seasons going forward, as he is past his prime, but mid-.800 OPS seasons should be attainable. If every positive thing about him came from PEDs, and he tested positive in 2011 and fought and won his hearing prior to 2012, then how did he hit for a .987 OPS in 2012, and .869 OPS in 2013 prior to his suspension, when he was most assuredly playing under a microscope and being tested as often as possible? Again, no one knows what the future will bring, but I think it's far from certain that Braun is completely washed up.

So your opinion stays the same, that he's significantly worse than what he actually produced last season? You thought he produced last year? 19 Hrs in 2014, 41 in 2012. Yeah, it was the thumb, of course, he will be back to his usual 900-950 ways this year. No, he's saying that you are sure he's a "750 guy at best," and I, like TLB assume you mean ".750 OPS" when you say "750 guy at best." Last year (sore thumb and all) he hit for a .777 OPS, so it's hard to believe that he is a ".750 OPS guy at best." You then came back with a bit of a snarky comment using his home run totals to justify lack of production, and then shifted back to an OPS reference in your "900-950 ways" comment. I personally don't know what to expect from Braun. He was injured last year, so that probably had some negative effect. Personally, I think it'll be tough to be a .950 OPS guy, as very few people ever hit that mark, and he is on the other side of 30. However, I hope that he can be a mid-to-high .800 OPS guy again. Time will tell.

I don't think we need to rehash the entire argument, but I wouldn't trade 2011 for anything. Yes, we fell short. But it is also true that we had an absolutely legitimate chance to win the World Series for the first time ever in franchise history that year. That it didn't happen is disappointing. That the Cardinals got hot at the right time is infuriating. That we had the talent to do it in my opinion is also very legitimate. There is no way that happens without Prince and Corey that season, and for an organization that has four post-season showings in 45 years you need to take the shots you get. Yeah, I can see the reasoning on both sides, and I think most fans are on your side. I just like to point out that there is more to the "where we could be" side than who we traded away. 2011 was a lot of fun and most people think it was worth it, but making the moves they did made an eventual rebuild inevitable. We've just been delaying this inevitability for a few seasons, and my worry is that the longer it drags out the deeper the rebuild will need to be. That's been my biggest concern for the last few seasons. Extending Gomez and Lucroy when he did turned out to be phenomenal moves by Melvin, and are really the reason we haven't been doormats for the past few seasons, but if we don't capitalize and trade them before they leave for free agency, I don't think we'll get that lucky again. The question is really just "when?"