monty57

What do you think we'd get for Ryan Braun right now? Not much. If we were to go that route, we would be best off letting him play a season (or at least half a season) to see how his thumb reacts to the surgery. If the surgery didn't work, and he continues to have the thumb problems, his contract could become one of the worst in baseball. If it does work out, and he gains his previous form, we could get a lot in trade over the next few years while he's still somewhat young. Of course, that's the catch. If he's healthy and productive, Attanasio will never allow him to be traded, and if he's not healthy no one will trade for him.

I do remember a lot of speculation of trading Fielder for Bumgarner (and Hart for Minor) in the 2010 offseason. I don't know it that was ever a possibility, but imagine how that would have changed everything over the past several seasons.

Sure sounds like Lind, Parra, & Broxton are the big acquisitions and nothing else of significance is going to happen... hopefully he's bluffing The comment to me shows that Parra is not going to be let go to save $6MM or so. They have a limited payroll, and they have to be getting close to that limit. Since I think this is the second, weaker "all in" (2011 being the first) before the window finally slams shut, I think Attanasio will probably allow a little more money to pick up a role player (bench or bullpen), but nothing major.

The direction of this team comes from one man. That guy is Mark Attanasio. Agree completely. There's no way MA will authorize a tear down that would result in an extended period of last place finishes that will result in empty seats in Miller Park. There's one way, and that is when the gradual decline in talent at the MLB level finally reaches a point that patching the team together from year-to-year no longer excites the fan base. Losing Gallardo, Lohse, Parra, Broxton and Ramirez next offseason could be that point. A lot can happen between now and then, but unless we have a mid-season sell-off, we will likely have a big uphill battle facing us next offseason. If this doesn't convince him, then I guess I'll just say that it's not going to take a "tear down" to result in an extended period of last place finishes. With the rest of the division getting better, the Brewers are likely to fight for the bottom of the division for the foreseeable future. A "tear down" might result in an eventual "build up," while rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking ship will just cement the team to the bottom. The last three years, since their "all in" year of 2011 have resulted in 3rd place, 4th place, 3rd place, and they've really been "helped" by the Cubs being in full blown rebuild mode. With the Cubs and Pirates getting better and no other team (other than potentially the Brewers) stepping into the "whipping boy" role, be prepared for a lot of 4th/5th place finishes until the team eventually realizes that when you "go for it" every year for an extended period, always sacrificing tomorrow for today, you will eventually have to go into a full rebuild. At least Attanasio can rest easy knowing that as the Cubs get better, Cub fans will once again flock to Milwaukee to fill up Miler Park for a few series each season, bringing the team a little extra revenue.

Van Slyke fills a 1b void If we have a need for a platoon partner who will play 1B around once a week, I think that "void" can be filled with Rogers or Jimenez. The far bigger void is going to be who is in our starting rotation when Gallardo and Lohse leave after the 2015 season, or who is going to be our 3B when Ramirez leaves after the 2015 season, so if we were to trade Gallardo, I would much rather we trade him for someone who will be a major upgrade for 2016 and beyond, and not someone who may be a slight upgrade over 200 PAs in 2015. As for Gallardo and pointing out is 3.94/3.89 Fip and saying that has a lot of value....Yeah if this were 3 years ago. Today that kind of Fip is a #4 Starter. Estrada, who couldn't even be counted on as a #5 starter just netted us two years of a starting first baseman, so Gallardo ought to be able to bring back better than that. All of this is probably moot, however, because after Ramirez exercised his end of the option, I would be shocked if Attanasio agreed to trade away a veteran starting pitcher. He's far more likely to play in the red and up payroll than trade away anyone he thinks will help this team win in it's final season before rebuild. if this is a deal that is made moments in to the offseason, Why didn't this happen before July 31st? The timing is probably in large part to show Ramirez that they're going for it so that he exercised his option and came back. As to why they didn't do it last year, who knows. Maybe they didn't have the extra money until Weeks left, and they thought they had the playoffs in the bad, so they weren't going to lose money for a player like Lind, while they were willing to do it for a player like Morneau. Now that they are a laughing-stock around the league and Attanasio's pissed about it (and knows he has one more shot), he's willing to lose some money this year to save face and hopefully make a playoff run. Oh, and Melvin could very well retire after this season, so he's probably telling Attanasio that this is the move necessary to get them over the top so he can go out a winner and leave a big mess that will make the next guy look like a fool.

Even if all those thinking bringing back Ramirez was the right move, think about it.... Just to be clear, I hoped he wouldn't be back. I don't think he's going to be worth anywhere near what he's being paid, and I figured that his decision would determine how the offseason played out. If he left, the team may trade away some vets to get some young talent. With Ramirez back for one year, there is no doubt in my mind that Attanasio will do whatever he thinks it takes to win this season before things blow up. If I thought "whatever it takes" would be enough for the Brewers to win it all this year, I might be able to get behind this, but I still don't think the team will be good enough to make losing all that talent at the end of the season for nothing worthwhile.

The Brewers are really setting themselves up for one more year of "going for it" before they'll have to take a step back when they lose Gallardo, Lohse, Broxton, Parra and Ramirez, with only one more season of Gomez, while Braun gets expensive and they have all the deferred payments reilly outlined above. In that light, I could definitely see Attanasio being willing to play this season in the red, doing anything he can to try to get another playoff run before the window closes. If this is the case, they can't get rid of Parra, who is a great 4th OF or platoon mate for Davis, and they won't trade away one of their veteran starting pitchers. He's probably got his finance guys crunching the numbers to see if they can add some bench or bullpen upgrades on one-year deals. That said, he's probably going to have a quick trigger to sell if they're out of it at trade deadline both to get under budget and to add some young talent to make the next few years a little less painful.

Gallardo and Lohse both have one year left on their contact. One is an average pitcher who is reaching his declining years and the other is 36 years old. Neither of those guys is going to get a substantial prospect on their own. They would need to be paired with someone of value like Gomez. The Marcum/Lawrie trade was an overpay by the Brewers because Lawrie had fallen out of favor with management. Marcum was also 28, cheap, and had 3 years of team control. Gallardo is about that same age but doesn't have the other two going for him. Lohse has none of them. Then we are in for a long, painful year, because we're relying on those two to play substantial roles on the 2015 team. I'm not expecting Buxton back, but Gallardo or Lohse should bring back a Top 100 prospect back - a guy with a lot of upside, but some warts. Someone around Nelson's caliber. One year of a middle of the rotation starter with a reasonable salary is worth at least a top 50-75 prospect. Gomez would require three top 20 players froma good farm system (a top 15 MLB prospect along with another top 100 MLB prospect and a mid level player). Proven players are valuable to teams looking to contend. Look what we gave up for Marcum. Lawrie was ranked #26 in 2010. I think you are undervaluing Gallardo and Lohse. That's about what I'd expect, but I highly doubt we'll trade any of them unless we're far out of the playoff race at trade deadline. More likely we'll watch a whole lot of talent walk away for nothing when the season's over.

Regardless, Ramirez is hardly a great physical specimen. He protected his hamstring after getting hurt by running like a 60 year old man. I know, I'm 62. You won't win with guys so conscious of tearing a hamstring that they have to jog. As long as Attanasio is able to get the DH implemented into the NL by the beginning of next season, they'll be just fine :-) I think Parra will be more than a 4th OF. I think Davis' ABs will get cut into a bit I think they'll get cut into a lot. There's no doubt about Davis' power, but with his arm, he hurts the team when he's in the field as opposing teams can run on him at will. Meanwhile, Parra is a gold glover. I wouldn't be surprised to see Parra starting, or at least winning a platoon role.

If Gallardo or Lohse is traded, I really hope we target a good pitching prospect who can hopefully step into the rotation around 2016 when we will really need rotation help, and not used to find a backup 1B. Think of it this way: If Estrada can land us Lind, then Gallardo and Lohse should have a lot of trade value.

Lind fills a need, and Estrada was a non-tender candidate, so I agree with gregmag on the "something for nothing" angle. When I was looking at possible moves this offseason, I didn't even figure Estrada's salary in. I just figured he'd be let go to free up cash for someone more valuable to the team. With this deal and Ramirez signing, our ten "expensive" players (Ramirez, Braun, Lucroy, Gallardo, Lohse, Garza, Broxton, Gomez, Lind, and Parra) add up to $97.4MM. Even if we could fill the rest of the team with pre-arby guys, at $550k each the other 15 positions would add $8.25MM, pushing us to $105.65MM. I think we still owe Weeks some money, Maldonado will be in first year arby, and I don't think we have 15 pre-arby guys available to fill the positions, so the number is going to be higher than that. I can't see the team going much higher, so unless an expensive player is traded, I don't think we'll see many more additons. Thoughts of guys like Bonafacio or a veteran set-up guy are probably pipe dreams. That means guys like Jimenez and Rogers will fight for the backup corner IF spot, someone like Herrera will be the backup middle IF, and our bullpen is pretty much set as is. Of course, we're losing a lot of talent (Gallardo, Lohse, Ramirez, Broxton, Parra) for nothing at the end of the season, so maybe Attanasio will risk playing in the red for one last shot at the playoffs.

He's not worth $14MM, but I guess you have to look at it as a future value payment on an inexpensive first season. He won't be as good as most expect, but he'll be better than anyone else they'd find to fill the position. I thought he might try for a multi-year deal with an AL team, but they must have realized that they wouldn't get anywhere close to $14MM on the open market. At least this is over, so we know where things are headed, but Bombers' list above (thanks for that) shows that unless Gallardo or Lohse is traded, the offseason's pretty much over, because we're at the limit of our budget. With that in mind, I'd say this is a "do or die" year, so I don't see a starting pitcher getting traded. Basically, the team goes all in and sees where it's at come trade deadline. If they're in the race, Attanasio will pony up money for someone else, and if they're out of it, they will try to get as much as they can for Lohse, Gallardo, Ramirez and Broxton, as they will all be gone for nothing after the season, leaving the team looking pretty ugly come next offseason.

The Aoki-Smith deal is a good example of how many would like to see the Brewers focus on acquiring talent. Correct. I don't like going "all in," as "all in" means trading away future for the present (term stolen from poker, where you put all your chips on the table. If you win, you're happy, if you lose you're done). My job is helping people plan their financial future, so the thought of going "all in" is like nails on a chalkboard for me. There are many ways to build a franchise, but with the current pay structure (prospect, pre-arby, arby, free agent) and the payroll disparity between the big markets and small markets, teams like the Brewers are more dependent on good players in their pre-arby years. When the team trades away prospects for short-term MLB talent, and rarely ever trades away short-term MLB talent for prospects, it makes it very difficult to maintain a stream of quality pre-arby players on the roster, without which we're not going to be very good. If we build a strong farm, we could make more moves like the Aoki deal, as we would have solid minor leaguers ready to step in, so the short-term vet can be traded, adding more talent to the pool. This offseason, we have the opportunity to trade away one of Gallardo or Lohse, inserting Nelson into the rotation and bringing back a couple of good, young players. Instead, we will probably stick Nelson in the bullpen and then lose both Gallardo and Lohse for nothing after the season. Attanasio is unwilling to take the risk of losing some in 2015 by having Nelson in the rotation instead of Gallardo or Lohse, but seems willing to risk that our rotation could be pretty bad in 2016 when Gallardo and Lohse are gone and Nelson (who we don't trust now) will be heavily relied upon. The thought process seems to be guided by a mix of fear that ticket sales will plummet, and hope that we can stretch this thing out just a little longer before the wheels fall off.

He's a pretty big name, so I'm sure he and his agent figured he'd find a job. Managers get fired all the time while they're still under contract, so it wouldn't take illegal acts for the Maddon team to see that he would be sought after by several teams, including the Cubs.

Watching him, Prince and Gwynn in Beloit was part of my resurgence of being a die-hard Brewer fan. Most of my friends couldn't understand how I could be so upbeat about a team that was a laughing-stock at the MLB level. For some reason, he was always a polarizing force with the fans, but overall he put together a very good career with the Brewers. Best of luck going forward Rickie!

He's set to have a lot more offensive talent than he ever had with the Rays, and will certainly have a much bigger payroll. I'd be pretty surprised if Lester or another top free agent pitcher isn't wearing a Cub uniform next year. They're only obligated to $31MM next year, so they can probably easily add over $100MM to their budget. With that in mind, not many teams will be able to compete with them on the open market and they really don't need to spend anything on position players, so if they want, they could probably get two (or three) of Lester, Shields and Scherzer and still add Price next offseason. Throw in Peavy at the back of the rotation, because apparently if Lester signs, he'll probably sign for league minimum just to play for the Cubs with Lester. 2015 may be too early for Cub fans to pre-order World Series tickets, but they should be much better than they were in 2014 and they are on a steady uphill track. They're about where the Brewers were in 2007 or so, but they have a lot more money to add the pitching the Brewers lacked.

That's the whole "what's the plan" issue. The plan was to hold onto Fielder (knowing they'd lose him to free agency) and trade for Greinke and Marcum to go "all in" in 2011. That necessarily is going to weaken future rosters, but rather than admit that, they instead have continued to patch the MLB roster by signing second tier free agents to relatively expensive deals, seemingly more in an effort to get fans to buy tickets than to build a solid franchise. I like the direction they've gone in the past couple drafts, but they still have a poor farm system, and the MLB team is too top-heavy salary-wise and is therefore over-reliant on aging vets and so-so youngsters. It's not that there's no talent... Attanasio will probably add another "name" veteran while holding onto all his trade chips, leading to an average-ish roster and a finish somewhere around .500. We'll then lose Gallardo, Lohse, Parra, Broxton, and (if he exercises his option) Ramirez all for nothing, and next year everyone will look at the roster and say "boy, what the heck are we going to do with this mess?" We'll have very few logical trade chips unless we want to completely blow things up. That's when things look to get really ugly. One thing I like about baseball is that if you want to study hard enough, you can see the future a little bit. Players are under team control for six years, which is a long time in sports, and unlike any other sport, they have a minor league system that lets you see who could be on your team in future years. It's wonderful, but it also made it really easy to see this whole thing coming. The "window" strategy cycle is something like this: 1) Start with a rebuild where you play bad, get your payroll down and stockpile young talent 2) Add payroll when the talent hits the majors {this is the point where you decide to utilize a long-term or short-term strategy} 3) Go all in to win during your short-term window, trading away prospects for guys at the end of their team control, holding onto players until free agency, and going over budget on short-term players. Hopefully in the 1-3 year window you can sustain this, you will win it all because you are doing nothing to bolster your future. 4) Once the window begins to shut, you'll play okay baseball as the talent gradually exits and you're stuck with the bad contracts and a poor farm system. 5) Start the rebuilding process over. I'm a little different than most. I pretty much never want to give up the future for today. I realize this can be an unpopular position, and doesn't jibe with the modern American way of life, but I just realize that one certainty in life is that today will become yesterday, and tomorrow will become today. All the "tomorrow's" we stole from in order to be better a few years ago are now here, and Attansio and the Brewers' fans have to live with it. I hope the Ramirez decision happens soon, as that to me is the key to the future. If he exercises his option, Attanasio is going to go all out to try to win this season. If he leaves, maybe, just maybe the team will realize it can't fill all the holes and will look a little to the future, making it a little less ugly.

Other Packer fans will see the stock certificate on your man cave wall and say "Wow, that's cool." Other Brewer fans will see the bronze ticket and say "What the ##### is that?? I hope you didn't spend much on it." On a serious note, at least you get to keep the bronze "statue" after you redeem your ticket. As others have said, it can have some value to the "fan who has everything."

If you do not like RR, it is because you do not like his style of play. But his style of play can win just as many games as the other styles of play in the MLB. Fans complain about managers, its just what we do. Agreed. Maddon and Roenicke come from the same stable, so I agree with the sentiment that Brewer fans shouldn't have wanted Roenicke fired to be replaced by Maddon. I also don't think any manager alone will make the a team win. However, the Cubs have made the right management moves in the recent past. Few fans want a rebuild, but bringing in Theo (who is credited with turning around Boston) allowed the fans to accept the necessary rebuild. Now, in the final stages of that rebuild as the prospects are joining the MLB team and team is ready to start adding pieces to win at the MLB level, I can't think of many other managers who would be a better fit for them than Maddon. It may all fall apart, but the Cubs are laying the foundation to become a good team for the long-run. In a division that already has the Cardinals and the newly resurgent Pirates (who also look to be building for long-term sucess), it is going to make things difficult for the Brewers who spent a lot of capital to win in what they perceived as their window of opportunity and seem to be in need of at least a "retooling" if not a full-scale rebuild.

If you're a Brewers fan and you're mad about our team, it lies with Doug Melvin. I mostly agree, but please add Attanasio's "meddling" in player personnel decisions to the end of the statement. He's apparently the force behind at least the Suppan, Lohse and Garza signings, and seems to be the one directing the ship as to whether we focus on "today" or "tomorrow." but some fans refuse to look at the big picture of things. I'm sure that's directed at me and a few others. Not quite sure how my dislike of going "all in" for the current year at the expense of the future is refusing to look at the "big picture." I think it's the opposite of that. I'd ask you to expand on that criticism, but that would hijack the thread. To the topic of the thread: IT IS ALL ABOUT THE PLAYERS YOU GET TO MANAGE! So is your argument is that a baseball team could pick anyone out of the stands, and it would make no difference over the course of a 162-game season? Surely the guy making a big paycheck to fill out the lineup cards has something to do with the success or failure of a team. The players are the most important part of the equation, but the manager does matter. The Cubs have a young, talented lineup. Some managers are better with lineups like these, while others prefer lineups built around veterans. Maddon has done well with Tampa, which has redefined team-building around young, talented players, so it would seem that he should fit in with the Cubs as they are being built. The people of Chicago (I live in that neck of the woods) are a different breed. They will go nuts over this signing. That may not seem like much from a purely baseball standpoint, but it will almost assure the games get sold out and merchandise gets sold. Anyone looking at "the big picture" will note how important this extra revenue is when building a team. He also becomes the center of media focus, which takes some attention/pressure off the young players, and he keeps things fun and light, which over the course of a season can have a positive emotional effect on players. With many managers who try this, the team gets out of control, but that hasn't been the case with him, so he seems to know how to do it right. Finally, he brings "street cred" by having taken teams to the playoffs. Again, from a pure stat standpoint, this doesn't mean anything, but for a young player, knowing that your coach has "been there" can be important. Maybe someone like Castro will actually listen to him, when he wouldn't listen to the nobody's they've had managing there in the recent past. Maybe none of this will mean anything. Maybe the random guy from the stands would do just as fine a job, but I doubt it. The Cubs have assembled a lot of young talent, they're likely to add some really good talent this offseason, and now they have a manager who has shown the ability to hold it all together. They've been on an upward slope from the depths of the rebuild, but now they've just hastened their climb. I now think it's pretty likely they'll finish above the Brewers in 2015, and very likely they will be much better than the Brewers over the foreseeable future.

From a baseball perspective, the biggest thing for the Cubs is whether or not their manager can work with young players to get them to gel into a winning team. Maddon seems to have been pretty good at that with Tampa. From a sales perspective, he also gives them "star power," which excites the fans and can't hurt after years of losing during the rebuild.

Sure, I guess that when talking about a dynasty championships are all that matter, but other than that there is nothing about the Giants that seems special to me. They've made the playoffs only 1 more time that the Brewers have over the last 10 years. They've only won their division 1 more time than the Brewers have in that time span. And here's a not super relevant but still surprising fact, in the last 10 years the Brewers have 821 regular season wins. The Giants have 818. That's a bit misleading. From 2005-2007 (years 7-10), they were a low-70's win team. Since then, they've won 3 World Series. However, from 2000-2004 (years 11-15), they won over 90 games every year, winning 100 games in 2003 and making the playoffs three times in that span. From 1997-1999, they won 90, 89, and 86 games, making the playoffs in 1997. They also made the World Series in 1989 and the playoffs in 1987. They took a short breather between two successful runs, but that's the time-frame you used in your comparison, which also cuts off just after the Brewers' run of 67, 68, 56 and 68-win seasons. They have been one of the best franchises in baseball for the last two decades, and the best franchise in baseball for the past five years. Comparing them to the Brewers is pretty comical. Since the Brewers were formed, they have four playoff appearances and one World Series appearance. In that time frame, the Giants have ten playoff appearances, and five World Series appearances, three of which they won. In the history of the franchise (in San Francisco), they have 4713 wins vs 4364 losses (.519 win%). The Brewers are 3437-3720 (.480 win %). The Brewers have had two periods in their history where they were a playoff-caliber team, and neither of them comes anywhere close to the recent success of the San Francisco Giants. If we want to discuss whether they're a dynasty, compare their success to other dynasties (noting that there hasn't always been free agency, which hampers the ability to form a dynasty), not to the Brewers. From 1995-2012, the Yankees only missed the playoffs once, in a year they still won 89 games. They made seven World Series during that time-frame, winning five of them including three in a row and four in five years. That is certainly more dominant than the Giants have been. Is that the barometer of a dynasty, and all else falls short, or can a team still be a dynasty with the success of the Giants? That's really the debate.

With Morse and Pagan going down with injuries, Ishikawa started playing LF at the end of the season, and played there throughout the playoffs. It's not like Bochy just decided to throw him out there for Game 7 of the World Series. I'm also still just as firm in my belief that this franchise isn't as pathetic/sad as many here suggest. Most every team has plenty of flaws. Ultimately, no matter what the approach of the FO or the capabilities of the manager, there are no guarantees. Since 2011, they've just gotten less and less talented every year as better players leave to be replaced by lesser players. The 2014 team wasn't more talented than 2013 or 2012, they just had their hot streak early and cold streak late whereas that was swapped in the previous two seasons, and they got lucky with the injuries to their division rivals. With the advent of the 2nd Wild Card team, any team with a few good players and some luck has a shot at the playoffs. This is what the Brewers have been banking on over the past few years. If Braun can come back healthy and be the same player in his 30's as he was in his 20's, that will certainly help, but we still have a lot of holes, are going to lose a lot more talent in the near future, and any potential help on the farm is a ways away. Their not in rebuild mode, and can therefore still put an MLB team on the field. The question is whether they should "go for it" again in 2015, when it doesn't seem like they have a really good chance at the playoffs, or would they be better off by trading away a few of the guys who could bring back a lot of quality prospects. If they do the former, I think they will be hurting badly when Lohse, Gallardo and Broxton (and possibly Ramirez) walk away for no return after the 2015 season. If they do the latter, they could still field an average-ish MLB roster, while our current group of low-level prospects will be supplemented with a big inflow of talent from the trades and we could be an exciting young team again in a few years. As you said, there are no guarantees, but that goes just as much for strategies looking short-term as it does for longer-term strategies.

It's being addressed the same way first base has been "addressed". Get a bunch of fringe major leaguers and hope one of them lucks into something good. In essence, it's not being addressed. Kind of looks like they understand that if Ramirez isn't a Brewer in 2015, there are way too many holes for them to fill this offseason. So, instead of signing another iffy vet (Overbay/Reynolds), Melvin has signed an iffy young guy. In my opinion that's good, because if given those two options, it's better to fill holes with young guys playing for league minimum that have a chance of becoming long-term solutions than it is to fill them with pricier short-term vets who are not in the long-term plans and probably won't give you any more production than the pre-arby guy. Until I see it happen, I won't believe that the Brewers aren't "going for it," so if Ramirez leaves I would guess that at least one "name" player will be brought in for one of the corner IF spots, and guys like Rogers, Clark and Jimenez will fight for the other corner spot and/or bench roles. This "name" signing will do exactly what all the other "name" signings since Ramirez have done... increase ticket sales, but not get us to the playoffs. I would assume (since they keep doing it) that the extra ticket sales more than make up for the cost of the "name" player, so even though we don't get to see good baseball, at least we can rest easy at night knowing that the fans' money is keeping the team profitable.

Pirates - Maybe I am reaching here but how much longer can they keep the group together. Liriano & Martin were great but are FA; can they afford to keep everyone? It's going to be fun to see how the Pirates work things. They're in a similar situation to where the Brewers were around 2008. In the few times I've listened to their GM (Huntington), he seems to want to follow the path I wish the Brewers had followed. I doubt they'll ever go "all in," but rather wants to continue to grow their talent on the farm. There's risk to any strategy, but I think their goal is to become the Tampa Bay Rays of the NL Central. Now we also have the perennial doormat Cubs who look like they're trying to become the Boston Red Sox of the NL Central, and of course we still have the second most successful franchise in the history of baseball St Louis Cardinals to contend with. The Reds still have talent and have a decent farm, but they tied themselves to some really big contracts that will probably hamper them at some point (the Phillies of the NL Central??), so I see the Reds and Brewers as the teams that will have a hard time competing going forward. This is why I've been hoping for the past few years that the Brewers would take a step back at the MLB level (where they looked to have around .500 talent on the roster) so they would be better able to compete going forward. Now I'm not too upbeat about the near-term future of the franchise. Had Attanasio/Melvin addressed this a few years ago, we'd probably look pretty good by now, but they went the opposite route. They're so far in the hole at this point, a massive rebuild is becoming more a question of "when" than "if." If we decide this offseason to trade away at least one of Lohse and Gallardo, along with Gomez, we could immediately get a lot of high-end young talent into the system. We could stick Parra in CF and let Nelson and Fiers pitch in the rotation. We probably wouldn't make the playoffs, which we probably won't anyhow, but at least we'd have MLB players at every position, so we wouldn't be horrible. The guys we'd get in trade would complement the guys we have in the low minors to start to get more talent on the MLB field over the next few seasons. If we decide to "go for it" one more year, we will lose Gallardo, Lohse and Broxton for nothing after the season, and Gomez will only have one year left on his team-friendly deal, so he probably wouldn't get as much back in trade. This is probably what will happen, but it will really set back the franchise even further. Since we probably won't make the playoffs, I'd rather they make some moves for the future this offseason. I just don't see it happening.