monty57

Maybe someone would be willing to give him a two or three year deal. That's really what I think he's looking at. He knows he's getting older, but has said that he wants to play a few more seasons. He seems to have fallen from his normal .850-.900 OPS self to more of a high-.700's guy and that probably won't get better with age. If he goes for the most money ($14.5MM QO), then he could be finished with one bad year. If he foregoes the highest per year pay to take a 2-3 year deal, then he's guaranteed for 2-3 seasons. The other option is that A-Ram and the Crew agree to a new contract before free agency even begins. 2-years/$24 million is my guess. A good possibility. That really depends on if he is still insistent on staying around Chicago like he was when he originally signed with the Brewers. If not, then he has no reason to sign with the Brewers before free agency begins. Why not just put your name out there and see if someone will beat the Brewers' offer? Personally, I think his best option would be to sign with an AL team, who could be willing to go three years because they can always throw him at DH if his fielding slips. Either way, I think whoever signs him for 2-3 years will overpay for what they'll get. Either way, I don't equate not bringing Ramirez back with "blowing things up." I don't expect the Brewers to blow things up regardless of what happens. It's not the way Attanasio operates. I just think that if Ramirez does go elsewhere, even though the Brewers will have money to spend, the chances of them patching all the holes and put together a roster that has playoff hopes is pretty slim. In that light, I think the best option could be to trade away some of your expensive players with expiring contracts (Gallardo, Lohse and Broxton will all be free agents after 2015), let the pre-arby guys like Nelson, Fiers, Rogers, Clark, etc. play, and see what you have. You save a lot of money, get to see if you can find a "gem" in one of the aforementioned players, and get another year to see how some of the promising young prospects are coming along. It probably won't happen, but to me that's better than sticking Nelson in the pen and picking up another Reynolds/Overbay to block Rogers/Clark. Honestly, the most likely scenario to me is that they lose Ramirez to an AL team, and in a panic make a "splash" signing of someone like Cuddyer. They will still have a big hole at a corner IF spot, and will now have another big money, multi-year contract to a guy on the wrong side of 35. They will once again be around a .500 talent team, which means they will probably miss the playoffs, but will be good enough that they don't get a decent draft pick. Then they'll lose Gallardo and Lohse, meaning that the mid 30's free agent they'll sign after next year will be a pitcher who will help lead them to 70-something wins. Hopefully by then some of our young high-upside prospects will be getting near-MLB ready and we can see an inflow of talent from the farm. So to me, it's whether or not you want to watch below average (non-playoff) baseball for the next couple of seasons and hope the guys in the low minors all pan out to become a wave of prospects like Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, etc, or should we trade a few guys, still miss the playoffs for the next couple of years, and have more talent around the guys currently in the low minors for a better chance to be good then? Neither is a great option (largely because we don't have anyone like Fielder or Braun currently in the minors) but which is less bad? I'd opt for the latter, but I'm 99% certain the Brewers will go for the former. edit: fixed typos

Monty, I often agree with many of your posts and believe you bring a good business perspective to the team management discussions but I gotta disagree with this post. That's why I normally write short novels for posts... I have a hard time summing things up in short posts :-) I liked the moves started by Dean Taylor to get us out of mediocrity. It took blowing everything up and putting money into the farm at the expense of the MLB team. Attanasio bought the team in a "perfect storm" for his belief of how to build a team. There was a lot of young, cheap All Star talent, and the payroll was so low he could add a lot of money to the MLB roster and still stay in a mid-market budget. That worked until the players he inherited started getting older and more expensive. Once the "window" started to close, any thoughts of looking to the future were thrown out, and decisions became based on how it would help the team now. With this "perfect storm," we got two playoff appearances, and one playoff series victory. The bar is set so low for Brewer fans that this looks good, but for most sport franchises, that is not really impressive. The negativity I've shown in the recent past stems from the nearly endless optimism I had in the early and middle stages of this cycle. I knew we needed to blow things up, but I had hoped that after the initial pains (once the farm began bearing fruit), if we occasionally favored "tomorrow" over "today," we would not have to once again blow everything up. But that hasn't happened. We have always favored "today" over "tomorrow," and looking at our franchise as a whole, I am beginning to believe we may need to see another blow up lest we turn back into the Brewers of the mid-to-late 90's. Just quickly on the extensions, since I brought it up earlier. I love offering pre-arby extensions to guys who look special. Braun's first deal and Lucroy's deal fit this bill. I dislike offers made when the player is nearly a free agent, as you end up paying free agent price to the player. Our best players (Greinke, Fielder, Sabathia) have turned these down, while "second tier" guys like Hart, Weeks and Gallardo accept them. Gomez is really the only one I can think of who has outperformed his contract (so far) after signing an extension made during the final year of arby. If we were a big money team (hence the Yankee reference), I'd love to just extend guys like Greinke and let the second tier guys walk. Since we can't do that, I would rather trade some good players away when they still have some time on their contracts then do what we've done. Sure some prospects fail, but some prospects also succeed, and if you trade away a good MLB player, you get multiple good prospects back. With those numbers, you don't need a really high success rate to continually have good prospects in the system. When you rely solely on the draft, never trading MLB players away, you need a very high success rate in the draft to even have a decent farm. When (like the Brewers) you trade away prospects for MLB players, never trade MLB players for prospects, and you fail in the draft, your future gets really bleak. In a nutshell: 1) Young, cheap and talented > old, expensive and talented. Do as much as possible to amass young, cheap, talented players and swap them out before they get old and expensive. Use trades and the draft to stay young, cheap and talented, and use free agency to supplement the young, inexpensive core rather than using free agency to build an expensive, older core. 2) Think in terms of a perpetual cycle rather than a short-term window. There will always be ups and downs, but I'll bet that teams like Tampa will be better than the Brewers over the next five years, even though they're down this season. The Brewers were built to win in a "window" which is now nearly closed, while Tampa's strategy (which teams like the Pirates seem to be emulating) is to build a franchise to win now and in the future. Tampa and the Brewers started their rebuild around the same time. While they haven't won a World Series, they have had loads of success, and still have one of the most talented franchises in baseball from top to bottom. It can be done. You just need to run your team with a long term plan and not cave when the fans and media get restless. Tampa's obviously not the only model. The Cardinals always seem to win, but once again, they always have a good farm system to go along with a talented MLB team. That keeps a down year to a year and not a decade. Unfortunately for the Brewers, the Pirates and now the Cubs are joining the Cardinals as teams that look to be pretty good for the foreseeable future. If they all stick with the long-term strategies they seem to all hold, it's going to be a tough division to win for a long time.

So what is this magical play for tomorrow formula supposed to yield? And who is doing it with great success? The A's? Twins? Rays? Royals? Pirates? haven't seen them win any WS of late and frankly have been hit or miss on being decent to poor with few occurrences of being great, pretty much like the Brewers of the last 6 or 7 years. We've went on and on about this for quite a while on this site. I guess my thought is that if you want to play "go for it," you should use the Marlins model. We really had a chance when we went for it in 2011, but after doing that, the Marlins model (which by your measure of success - World Series wins - works quite well) would have been to trade everyone for high upside prospects. If you don't like the "all in" mode of "go for it," then you shouldn't "go for it," or you'll end up like many teams who muddle around in purgatory every year, hoping for that one year where everything goes right and they get into the playoffs. The other side of the coin is the Rays model. Once you have a stocked farm that is producing good MLB players, you begin to cycle players. By continually adding minor league talent, you should have MLB-ready replacements for players who become expensive, allowing you to trade the expensive player for more prospects. Both of these strategies take guts, because there are always fans and media telling you to stray from your strategy. Whenever you have a plan, you need to stick to it, which I don't think most GM's/owners do, especially if ticket sales wane. We've been utilizing a Yankee model, which works great for them but not so much for a small/mid market team like the Brewers. That model is to extend all of your stars and sign the top free agent every year. Our version is to extend the second-tier guys as the superstars usually walk and sign second-tier free agents as the top guys go to bigger money teams. If you build with second-tier guys, you are generally going to be a second-tier team - one that is too good to get a top draft pick, but rarely good enough to be a playoff team.

To the topic of the original post: the future. I agree with the original poster that the future looks fairly bleak, but I think the course of action will lie on a decision made by Aramis Ramirez. If he exercises his option or if he re-signs with the Brewers, I think the team will "go for it" again next year. They'll have some money with the departures of Weeks, Estrada, Reynolds and Overbay, and have found their closer in Broxton, so they will spend (or trade a SP) for a first baseman and either a RH utility IF to platoon with Gennett, or they will sign a SS and make Segura the utility guy/platoon. I don't think the end results will be any better than 2012, 2013 or 2014, but I think they'll do it. If Ramirez opts out of his contract, I don't think the Brewers will be able to fill all their holes through trade or free agency. That doesn't mean they won't still "go for it," as that seems to be the only thing they know, but there is a chance they would realize they don't have much of a shot. In this case, I still don't think they'd go all out and trade guys like Gomez and Lucroy, but they may trade Lohse, Galardo and Broxton and go with more pre-arby guys (Nelson, Fiers, Peralta, Davis, Gennett, Rogers/Clark, Segura plus whatever they may get back in trade). Probably not a big chance this happens, but it's possible. Whatever happens, they don't have much help at the upper levels of the minors. There is more upside at the lower levels, so hopefully a group of those guys steps forward, giving more hope to future Brewer teams. Any way you look at it, our prospects are not nearly as good as those of our division rivals, and the current strategy of continually signing aging, second-tier free agents isn't working, so the longer we continue on that path, the greater the chance we need a complete blow up, which is a long process that doesn't always have a happy ending. I wish we had done things differently for the past several years. Now we're really in a bind and I don't know if we have an easy "out."

and the worst part is, this is the second such horrendous stretch we have had this season. If you take away the two stretches of just horrendous baseball, the Brewers would look like a 100 win team. (They would have a .600+ winning percentage at 72-47) ... Just amazing how bad they can play for a continued length of time and have their two bad stretches be a combined 2-23. It is just unreal. ...and if you take out the hot start, they would look like a 100 loss team. I guess it's a glass half-empty or half-full thing.

The Brewers are going to make money because we were playing much better than we were expected to play. But this team has tanked, and Mark shouldn't expect the same kind of home attendance numbers next year unless changes are made. And I mean serious changes. Because of how this season has played out, ticket sales will be slow this offseason. Attanasio knows this, and that will be what spurs him to action. The past two offseasons, his action has been to ignore Melvin and sign a second-tier, aging pitcher to a multi-year contract. We'll have to see what he does this year. so if Mark A doesn't make a change - do you want a new owner? I hope Attanasio gets introspective and realizes that his interference is a big part of the reason that we're in the shape we're in, causing him to listen to the "baseball guy" in the room (Melvin), but we're not getting a new owner. Attanasio was a serious contender for commissioner, so he's highly regarded among other owners, and he still seems to be liked by most fans due both to his likable nature and his willingness to spend money on the team. He seems to be a smart guy, so I hope he can realize that there are other ways to do things, and that his fondness for over-the-hill, expensive "name" players and his seeming belief that the main purpose of the farm is to breed trade chips probably aren't long-term beneficial to the franchise. He's commented multiple times on the need to weigh today versus tomorrow and has always put more weight on "today." After a decade or so of this thinking, tomorrow is here. Really, it has been for a few years, but maybe the front office will start to realize it. The problem is that if he finally starts thinking about "tomorrow" now, "tomorrow" is probably a long ways away. It's getting slimmer, but we still have a shot at the playoffs this season. I hope we make it, because the next few seasons probably won't be really pretty, especially if Attanasio once again decides to "go for it" next year.

No one said that if a pitcher is out of the pen one year, that they can never be a starter again. I was responding to 3and2's comment that Nelson could be a closer candidate. I think Thornburg is a reliever, and if Nelson were also put into the pen as a "future closer," then that would be a bad sign. Nelson and Thornburg were both more highly regarded than pretty much any other starting pitcher in our system, so if they can't make the rotation what hope do we have from the farm? That said, I agree that Nelson is probably going to be a starter so the point is probably moot. But, as you mentioned, if they "go for it," and don't trade away one of Gallardo/Lohse/Garza, there is a good chance Nelson gets stuck in the pen, where at the very least he's wasting a year of service time in a less valuable role. Throw in that Roenicke couldn't resist throwing him out there every day potentially ruining his arm, and I'd rather we just trade away an older, more expensive guy and let Nelson start.

Baseball is a private enterprise. The MLB can't stop actions elsewhere, but if they feel that it is in the best interest of everyone involved to put in the metal detectors, than that's their prerogative. Now, if this is a government mandate, then that's another story, but if baseball is doing it of their own volition, that's fine. If someone doesn't like this, either because of the hassle/wait/invasion of privacy, or for some political reason, they can choose not to attend. That's the risk baseball will take by putting in the detectors. Now they just need to develop a "Cub fan detector" to wheedle those guys out and really improve the quality of games :-)

I think the direction of the franchise has been set by Attanasio, and Melvin has done as good a job as anyone at following that directive. The flaw has been in the overall plan apparently set by the owner, not the person who made the day-to-day moves. Therefore, changing the GM will do nothing unless Attanasio also changes his stance. It was fun following the Brewers starting in the Dean Taylor years as a plan was drawn up and talent started entering the lower level of the system. Even though the MLB teams were pretty bad, I found joy in knowing that better days were ahead. It's been harder to get excited over the past few years because the moves made during our "window" of 2008-2011 made us less talented for the future. I had fun in 2011, when we had a good team that played to its ability, but it was pretty obvious that the future would not be as bright. That's why even though I was pleasantly surprised that this year's team was in first place, I couldn't get as excited as I used to get, because I went the whole season waiting for the balloon to burst. I hoped it wouldn't, but I figured it would. Unfortunately for me, the last three seasons have been spent hoping I was wrong. We've had collapses each of the past three years. Maybe this collapse coming at the end of the year rather than the beginning of the year will be the kick in the pants that will show Attanasio that the strategy he's implemented isn't well suited for a medium/small market. But, firing Roenicke and/or Melvin will do nothing. In my opinion, they would be much better off keeping Roenicke and Melvin and changing the direction which is set by the owner. I think the poster who mentioned attendance hit the nail on the head. Attanasio is very afraid of alienating the fan base and losing revenue/attendance, so I doubt his stance will change. Therefore, while the best strategy may be to trade off some guys like Lohse, Gallardo and Broxton and letting the young players play, I can't see it happening. More likely is that Roenicke will get the axe, another second-tier "name" player or two will be signed in free agency, and we will continue to turn ourselves back into the Brewers of the mid-90s. Sorry for the negativity, but I don't see any reason Ramirez will exercise his option, opening up another big hole in the roster. We have no one in the upper minors ready to step in and even with money to spend, we won't be able to fill all the holes through free agency, and we don't have many marketable prospects to bring back MLB talent. We probably won't even be a .500 talent team going into next year, and then we'll lose much of our rotation going into 2016. Seems like a broken record, but what do we do this offseason; go with an expensive team that probably won't make the playoffs, or trade a few wins "today" for the hopes of more wins "tomorrow"? If history is any indicator, we'll do the former.

Yep. If we opened the crystal ball at the start of the season and saw that with 19 games left we would be a half game out of the Wild Card, pretty much everyone here would have said "I'll take that." It's a long season, so at the end of the year, teams generally end up playing around their talent level. It's interesting how the timing of hot and cold streaks can change how teams are viewed. The last couple of years, the cold streak happened early, so everyone gave up, but the hot second halves left people with hope for the future. This year, with the hot streak at the start, people began to believe that the team was better than they appeared "on paper," and the cold second half has fans headed into depression. Such is sports.

I'd like Thornburg to get a shot at the rotation, but I think the Brewers view him as the closer of the future. Had he not gotten injured, the Broxton deal probably wouldn't have happened, but since it did, Thornburg will go back to the "setup guy" role prepping to take over when Broxton either fails or leaves after next year. I'd be a little upset if Nelson, Thornburg and Smith all end up in the bullpen. That would mean more money spent on aging free agents to fill the rotation going forward when I have hopes of a mostly home-grown rotation. Relievers are cheaper to buy in free agency than starters, so we should give our promising young starters the opportunity to win a rotation spot. If Nelson and Thornburg both end up as relievers then I don't have high hopes for our future because they are the best or our young pitching.

But you don't understand... he's "proven" :-)

I mentioned this in the Broxton thread, but probably more appropriate here. I think the Broxton pick up was done in part to fill in the closer role next year, as (at least at the time of the trade) the plan is to go for it again next year. I think the future will be determined by two things: 1) If they make or miss the playoffs. If they make the playoffs, Attanasio will go for it in 2015 no matter what. If they miss the playoffs, he might re-think the group he has and at least consider "re-tooling" the roster. 2) Whether Ramirez comes back or opts for free agency. If he comes back, on paper we should have a team similar to this year's team. If he opts for free agency, we will have money to spend, but if we're trying to field a contender, we will need to find a 1B and 3B for sure, will probably need some bullpen help, and should probably look to upgrade SS while making Segura the utility guy/RH part of the 2B platoon. Even with some money to spend, I don't think we could adequately fill all those holes. So, if we continue to falter and miss the playoffs, and Ramirez opts out of his contract and signs elsewhere, I think there is a possibility Attanasio quietly "punts" next year. I don't think he will agree to a massive rebuild, but I could see him agreeing to trade away some or all of Gallardo, Lohse and Broxton, who all have one year left on their contracts. It would be a complete change in his m.o., but a collapse at the MLB level coupled with one of his best players leaving could make the change possible.

The Brewers have the funds for Aram. Think of it this way, we are replacing Weeks cost on the books with Broxton next year and coming out a couple mill ahead. I don't have any idea if there is a 1B out there that is worth big money that the Brewers would be looking at, but I doubt Melvin would have pinched the pennies on a closer so either way, they would have spent that money on a closer, now it is Broxton instead of KRod. I agree on the closer part. There was little doubt we were spending money on a closer this offseason, whether that be giving K-Rod a raise to stay or finding someone else. Broxton looks to be that someone else. We now have a net increase of around $5.75MM in paying Broxton $9MM next year vs K-Rod's $3.25MM this year. Picking up the option or not will go towards 2106. We'll still be net positive with the probable departures of Estrada ($3.325MM), Weeks ($12MM), Reynolds ($2MM) and Overbay ($1.5MM). I'm sure Melvin has a good idea as to what will happen with Ramirez, and that will really determine our future path. If we miss the playoffs this season, and Ramirez leaves via free agency, we will have some money to spend, but is it possible to use that money to fill all the holes to be a playoff contender? We would need a 1B and 3B for sure. We could also use some bullpen arms and if we are "going for it," we should find a SS, relegating Segura to utility/RH platoon 2B. Even with money to spend, I think that's a steep hill to climb. If we hold on and make the playoffs this year, Attanasio/Melvin will probably look at things differently, and go for it no matter what. But, if we fall flat and miss, they may think it's time to "re-tool." In that case, Gallardo, Lohse and now Broxton could all have some value to get some young talent. It'll be interesting to see how things will play out.

That is questionable. Maybe they were just paying over their heads in the first half. We have a lot of players without a long enough history to say with a lot of certainty that they are playing below their ability. Gomez, Lucroy, Gennett, Davis, and Segura are all mostly unknown as to what we should expect. Yeah, there are 22 "qualified" players in the National League with an OPS over .800, and four of them are Brewers (Lucroy .836, Gomez .827, Braun .807 and Ramirez .803). Davis is 28th with a .791 OPS and Gennett doesn't qualify because of the platoon (must need 400 ABs), but has a .785 OPS. Offense is down across the league, but most of our guys have hit fairly well. Our big black holes are Segura with a .588 OPS and the first base fiasco. I don't think anyone can have a problem with the results from Lucroy or Gomez. Ramirez is aging, and over a full season I don't think we should expect an .850-.900 OPS anymore. I'm happy he hit as well as he has. Davis (mid-.200's BA, 20-25 HR power) and Gennett (high avg, few walks, little power) are pretty much exactly what should have been expected. Braun is way down from his norm, but he's been hurt all season and there is the possibility PED's helped his earlier performance. On the mound, we were expected to have a rotation of guys who were good-but-not-great. Four of the original starting five have ERAs of 3.43, 3.68, 3.82, 3.87, and the fifth was replaced with our top prospect when he failed to perform. The problem here is that as I mentioned earlier, offense is down across the league, so that means pitching is "up." Gallardo's 3.43 ERA (the best of our bunch) sets him in 40th place in the National League. Logan hit it on the head. We had some guys playing over their heads early and they've come back to earth. At the start of the season, our pitchers were all looking like Cy Young candidates and most everyone was hitting very well (Reynolds, Davis, and Gennett were over .800 OPS, and Gomez was over .900). Unfortunately, when everyone "clicks" at the same time, it can mean they'll all hit their cold streaks at the same time, which is what has happened a couple times this year, including right now. I've been vocal about some things I think are wrong with how the team has been built, but once the season starts, the pieces are in place. I don't see how we should expect a lot more out of the pieces we have, and those pieces still have us sitting in a Wild Card spot. Losing streaks stink, but they happen. It'll end, and even if it ends too late and the Brewers miss the playoffs, they still will have played at or above the level most people (including myself) expected to start the season. The only thing that changed was fan expectation after a ridiculously hot start.

To me the only thing crazier than the idea of firing Roenicke is that somehow Craig Counsell deserves to be manager or GM or in any kind of point-guy leadership role with this team. He's a good baseball guy, but he's no Harvey Kuenn (hometown guy) and any notion of hiring him for anything certainly reeks to me of blind homer-ism. Heck, I never get why Brewers fans loved the guy on the field even though he totally sucked except with the glove and at making the pitcher throw a lot of pitches to him -- before he'd eventually make the out anyway (Lyle Overbay, anyone?). I believe that when Fielder left for free agency, Corey Hart said the team's biggest loss that offseason wasn't Prince Fielder, but Counsell for his leadership in the clubhouse. I doubt stat guys would put much credence in that statement, and watching him play that year I wondered why they didn't cut him, but it shows that he could probably be good at managing players. That said, I do not believe that Roenicke or Melvin will be fired. If anything, I think that Brian Anderson will eventually leave for a bigger stage when his contract is up and Counsell will take his spot.

Prior to the season, most figured that if things went well, the Brewers would fight for a Wild Card spot, but injuries could sink the ship due to lack of depth. With around a month to go, we're fighting for a playoff spot. I warned after the hot start not to get too high on the highs or too low on the lows. Hot streaks don't last forever and neither do cold streaks. Let's just hope this cold streak ends prior to the upcoming Cardinal series.

I figured that outfield depth was a strength going into the season with Gindl and Schafer seemingly MLB-ready. Too bad neither of them stepped forward, forcing Melvin to trade for Parra and making them expendable.

The Brewers needed a RH for the pen this year, and are probably going to lose K-Rod to free agency (and who knows the situation of Henderson and Thornburg), so they want a veteran presence at the back of the bullpen next year. The Reds need salary relief and the Brewers have Weeks, Estrada, K-Rod, Reynolds and Overbay falling off the books, potentially joined by Ramirez. He'll eat up a chunk of salary next year, but it should help the team this season, and it should keep Melvin from having to find a closer this offseason along with a first baseman and possibly a 3B and SS. Assuming the prospects going back aren't special, I'm okay with the deal. If the Brewers sent good prospects, they probably got the short end of the deal.

I can't see the Rockies taking any offer from the Brewers that didn't include at least one (and probably two) players from the MLB roster. No way are they trading Morneau for Jungmann, Pena and Bradley. More like Gennett, Nelson and Taylor. While aging, Morneau is a multiple time All-Star and a former MVP who seems to have gotten past his concussion problems that hurt his numbers in recent years and is now back tearing up the league. Plus, he's signed to what looks to be a very team-friendly deal for one and possibly two more seasons after this one. Even if they weren't thinking about "going for it" next year, why would they trade him for three guys who may never have MLB careers?

I was all for the rental of Morneau for a few months as I realize his age is getting up there. Morneau is signed to what looks to be a team-friendly deal through next year. If we would have traded for him, he would've solved 1B for next year as well, which is why I'm sure the Rockies wanted a decent return for him. I have no doubt that they wanted at least one player who is currently on the Brewer's MLB roster (Gennett, Nelson, Davis, Peralta) and that is why the deal wasn't done. I'd like to have Morneau, but not at the price of something like Gennett, Nelson and Taylor. I'm sure Melvin would have made the deal if the price was reasonable.

Zarraga makes a nice "third catcher" sitting a phone call away in AAA. Kind of scary that the Brewers didn't have another catcher on the 40-man this year in case of injury. They won't find many vets to sign with them with Lucroy and Maldonado entrenched, so Zarraga's probably the best option.

That's too bad. Would've been a great addition. Unfortunately, we don't have too much to offer, as we aren't giving up an MLB player and our best prospects are still getting their feet wet at the lowest levels. My guess is that Colorado demanded Nelson, Taylor and someone else, and Melvin wouldn't go that high.

Sean Halton's best minor league season above rookie ball was an 852 OPS. Matt Clarks career OPS is 863. These 2 players don't compare. Jason Rogers still might be the best of the bunch though. Who was the last guy who wasn't widely considered a top prospect in baseball (our top guy and high on the national lists) who was named the opening day starter after a good year in AAA? I think Prince Fielder was the last guy who was named opening day starter without a lot of MLB time. They signed a couple of vets ahead of Braun, but that could've been a Super Two thing. Hardy was handed SS after an injury-shortened year in AAA. Those were highly-touted prospects and we were in a position as a franchise where we wanted to showcase the talent coming up. Guys like Davis, Lucroy and Gennett had to make the most of injuries/suspensions to the veterans Melvin signed ahead of them. Players like Clark and Rogers seem to fall into this category (if they're even that highly-regarded). I think this offseason will center around what happens with Ramirez and (to a lesser extent) K-Rod. If Ramirez returns, then I don't see anything too exciting happening. Melvin will see what's out there in trade, but will probably settle with another signing of a lesser FA veteran to cover first base. If Ramirez leaves, then I think Melvin/Attanasio will feel the need to do something big, and will go after someone like Sandoval, or two lesser "name" players to play the corners (the theory that two 6's are greater than one 8 and one 3). Either way, as long as we don't feel the need to have two 1B-only and two 2B-only players on the roster I think Rogers has a good shot at making the MLB team as the backup corner IF. A bench of Maldonado, Rogers (backup 1B/3B), a backup SS/2B, and two backup OF is much more "normal" than what we've had this season.

Yes Clark is having a great half season in AAA. But they aren't going to sit both Overbay and Reynolds for a career minor league first baseman with no major league experience in the heat of a pennant race. Clark should and probably will get a long look in spring. He's earned that. He also may have made Hunter Morris expendable. They could add him strictly as bench bat in September by clearing Gindl's 40 man spot. Let's see what happens. Well said Briggs. Barring injury, the Brewers aren't going to sit veterans (struggling or not) for a guy like Clark in the middle of a pennant race. If this were a heralded prospect coming up through the minors, then he might get the call, but not Clark. As to next year, Melvin likes bringing in veterans to fill positions, and "non-top" prospects usually get their shot when that veteran gets injured. If they do well in their opportunity, they win the spot (Lucroy, Davis, Gennett). Therefore, unless he's able to find a star player through trade or free agency, I would guess that Melvin will bring in another Reynolds-type guy to man 1B next year, with Rogers/Clark either getting a bench role or sitting in AAA waiting for someone to hit the DL.