monty57

So we now live in a world where a below average hitter with good defense or a slightly above average hitter with average-to-below-average defense will take up around 15% of the Brewers' payroll, while a superstar player will take up 25-30% of the team's payroll. I don't think we'll be able to build a team or replace talented players through free agency... at least we have the 29th ranked farm system to draw talent from. It's too bad we "can't trust" Schafer, because trading Gomez may just bring back some talent that could play for league minimum with six years of control. It is fun watching Gomez play defense, so at least we'll get one more year of that before he walks and the Brewers get nothing.

Agree with most of this. The day-to-day lineup should be set based on the starters, not based on getting playing time for the bench players. When starters need a day off, then take the best option from the bench to start for that day. As to Gonzalez playing other positions, I guess we have to see how he adapts. I don't like the notion of throwing players all over the field, but some players are able to do it. If he is a "natural defender" who plays well wherever he's positioned, then fine. But if he's only comfortable at SS, and not 2B/3B, then Green should be on the roster as the backup 1B/2B/3B. Either way, they shouldn't sit Weeks and Ramirez simply to get PAs for Gonzalez. I really hope Roenicke doesn't get into the habit of pinch-hitting an inferior bench player simply because he hits right-handed and has "some pop." Gamel is a hitter for whom they've tried finding a defensive position. Gonzalez is a defensive guy who hits okay for his position. Don't do it Roenicke!

I hope Fiers can build on last year's success, but he is 27 (28 in June), so although he was a rookie last year, he is already in his prime. He is going to be a key guy to watch this year, because if he is the guy we saw early on, he could be a mainstay in the rotation for the next five seasons. There is a good chance that he just fooled guys who had never seen him, and once they got some film on him they started hitting him, then he may not be more than a guy fighting for the 5th rotation spot. I don't think we have a clear picture, so I really hope he gets a long leash in the starting rotation this year. Rogers is too much of an injury risk to count on long-term. I really hope they give him a shot in the rotation to start the season, and will be pretty upset if he's bumped to the bullpen, as he could be very valueable starter. He has "stuff," but needs to be able to go deeper into games. I'd say his ultimate upside would be Rich Harden, where he gets a lot of Ks in the 5-6 innings he pitches per outing, and continually gets derailed by injuries. He's got the talent, so the Brewers should get as many starts out of him as they can before his arm explodes. I worry that he is going to be the odd man out, and will end up pitching from the bullpen, seriously decreasing his value to the team. Note also that Rogers is also 27, so he too is in his prime right now, and I think the odds are more likely that he fits into the 3-5 spots in a rotation then that he will become a regular top-of-the-rotation starter. I like Estrada as a middle-of-the rotation starter. He seems to be much better as a starter than as a reliever, so I hope he breaks camp in the rotation. He seems to be doing what a lot of Brewer pitchers will have to do, which is defying scouts and reaching his "ceiling." Estrada turns 30 this year, and is in his first arby year. Since I don't think Melvin will ever consider the notion of trading Gallardo, I think Estrada could be a guy that (if he puts up another decent year this year) could be dangled as trade-bait next offseason as younger guys come up from the farm. A solid, proven middle-of-the-rotation starter with two years of arbitration remaining could net us some much needed position player prospect(s). Peralta is our most physically talented starter, and that includes Gallardo. He's also the only young guy we have in the rotation (everyone else is only "young" in terms of MLB tenure). He is one of the two guys on the roster (along with Segura) who we probably should look at extending in the near future. His physical abilities could allow him to peak as a top-of-the-rotation guy. The negative I heard, which is kind of sticking with me was when he was initially with the Brewers last year, pitching out of the pen, and the announcer (I don't remember who) said that the Brewers had some concerns about his mental makeup, so they were trying to put him in a "low pressure" situation. He came in and got hit around pretty bad, and then went back to AAA where he took about a month to get it back together. He's still relatively young, and he did get it back together, including pitching well for the Brewers in September. But, I don't like that the Brewers have concerns about his mental makeup. If that becomes a non-issue, he should be good. So, I see reasons for optimism. We could have a decent/"league average" rotation this season which, along with our dominant offense and some luck could lead us to the playoffs this season. Or some of the guys could falter (certainly a possibility), leading to a less-than-average rotation and probably knocking us from any playoff hopes. But my previous posts weren't looking at this year. My concern is for the future. Will the guys listed above, along with the guys coming up from the farm (our pitching is the strength of the farm) be good enough to keep us in playoff contention as our offense weakens with the losses of guys like Hart, Weeks and Ramirez, and will we have some top-of-the-rotation guys emerge to replace Gallardo when he's gone? If the answer to the previous question is "no," then the question becomes: "Is it worth taking a long-shot for the playoffs this year, or would we be better off making a few moves (like trading Gomez or having traded Hart prior to his injury) that may take a step back this season, but would strengthen our farm so we'd have a better shot at being good in the future." I obviously think that the odds of making the playoffs this year are slim enough that we should have started looking at ways to build for the future a while ago. That's why I kind of sound like a broken record in saying "he could be traded." Since we're "going for it" again this year, all I can hope for is that everything clicks, everyone has a career year, leading us to win the World Series, and in the future enough of our prospects defy the odds and outplay their projectsion that we still have a good team to cheer for in the future. Maybe Arnett will come back from his surgery and become the #1 starter he was drafted to be.

Being able to cycle guys with minimal talent loss at the bottom of the roster at a low cost is a viable strategy. Yes, but you still need a good core of players to build around. Without them, then all your left with is a bunch of "minimal talent" guys on the roster. Melvin's "window" strategy is why we have a poor farm system, with a few high-priced vets eating up a diminishing payroll. Rather than attempt to infuse the system with some good young talent, Melvin appears to be trying to keep the "window" open a sliver for another year or two. I'm just interested in seeing how we replace the talent we're going to lose as our aging, expensive core drops off the books. Whether the farm is really #29, #24 or whatever, it still lacks impact talent, so we aren't going to replace multiple players with All-Star level talent from the farm. I don't want to sound like an eternal pessimist, but where does everyone else see us in two years? We'll have a 31-year old Braun making $12MM, 29-year-old Yo on option at $13MM, 33-year old Weeks at $11.5MM and 29-year old Lucroy at $3MM. After that, we lose Yo and Weeks. Do we have the horses to fill in around them? Even if we go out and buy a couple of expensive FAs, can we have enough talent on the field to not stink? Maybe I shouldn't worry about the future, but that's really what the minor league system is all about. It's a big part of what draws me to baseball... you can "predict" what the team might look like a few years down the road. I really hope some of the optimism on Brewerfan.net is well-grounded, and our current group of prospects outshine the pundits' seemingly low expectations.

reillymcshane's answer in post #9 answers this pretty well. The Brewers have quite a few players who could very well be MLB players. Whether that's a back-of-the-rotation starter, a middle reliever, a utility player or maybe even a league average starter for a few seasons. They lack "star quality" players... guys like Fielder, Braun, Hardy and Weeks around whom we built the run we've been on for the recent past. My concern is that over the next few seasons we will lose a lot of good players. We can't afford to pick up equally talented free agents, and we don't have equally talented prospects to replace them. If you lose players and replace them with less talented players, a logical conclusion would be that we will be worse in a few years than we are today, and today we are a long-shot for a playoff spot. Our hope seems to lie on having a large number of our young pitchers stay healthy and outperform their projections, while our very young hitters shoot through the ranks to be MLB-ready as guys like Hart, Weeks and Ramirez hit free agency. That, to me, seems pretty unlikely. It seems far more likely that we're going to have a greater and greater percentage of our payroll going to a fewer number of players, and those players are going to be surrounded by league-average / "AAAA" type players.

You have to wonder what he would've gotten if teams didn't have to give up a first round pick.

I'd take the other side on this. I don't think Gomez is a core player to build a team around, and I worry that other than an increase in power in 2012, he's still the .300 OBP guy many wanted to DFA at this time last year. To me, there's too much risk in locking up over 10% of the annual payroll on Gomez for four years. Schafer is a competent replacement, and he's MLB ready now. If Bourn is worth 4 years/$48MM, then Gomez is worth some good talent in trade. I'd like to see Melvin try to trade Gomez for some near-MLB-ready position player talent, which is something we're desparately lacking.

I would guess that Braun's attorneys are very high-priced and know more about what he can and can't do than most people, including those in the media. If there was a legal "magic bullet" which would clear his name in the public arena, I'm sure they would pull the trigger. It would seem that it would be pretty easy to prove that they used someone as a paid consultant. If that proof isn't made public, and Braun is not suspended, I'll assume Braun's team has shown the proof to MLB but for whatever reason cannot show it to the public.

While I understand the theory of this, I would argue that when the player is no longer playing for the team, they still owe the deferred money and therefore cannot spend it to help the team. Therefore, deferring money helps the team now, but hurts the team later. I equate it with "six months same as cash" sales. It's great to get a free loan, but just like any other debt, if you spend beyond your means to eventually repay, you're screwed. Making these type of deals often makes it easy to spend beyond your means. I also think opportunity cost has to be brought in. There's a reason the money is being deferred, and what is that reason? What is the cost of the alternative to simply paying the player more now rather than deferring it into the future? Often, the alternative means spending that money on something else, so there really is no saving. For example, last year the Brewers couldn't afford Ramirez without making it back-end-loaded and deferring money. They will now pay Ramirez around 5% of team payroll to not play in 2015 because they paid K-Rod in 2012. That was essentially what Ramirez's deferred money was spent on. I understand K-Rod accepted arby prior to the Ramirez signing, but Melvin still went through with the signing after K-Rod accepted. This caused the owners to lose money, created a big guaranteed future liability and is the reason payroll was slashed. All this and we still missed the playoffs. Again, "same as cash" deals help people make financially irresponsible decisions.

I guess to me it isn't so much about the exact number given, as that's simply one person's opinion of relative values. My bigger concern is whether the Brewers' farm system is set up to keep the Brewers competitive into the future, whether through graduating players to the MLB level or through trading prospects for MLB help. I don't think it is, and with the price of FAs skyrocketing, I worry that teams like the Brewers really need to have better farm systems if they want to remain competitive. We can't just go out and "buy" replacements for Hart, Weeks, Gallardo, Ramirez, etc as their contracts run out over the next couple of seasons. This is all a natural outcome of playing to go "all in" during a period while the "window's open." I just hope we make the playoffs this year, because it appears the window is nearly closed. The Greinke trade helped, I just wish Melvin would have done a little more of that type thinking in the recent past.

Insurance is all math, and the odds of a pitcher getting a significant injury over a seven-year period would seemingly be pretty high, so I'd imagine the rates would be fairly prohibitive. I don't have any idea where I read it, but a couple of years back I read an article that teams were insuring less players, taking on the risk themselves rather than paying the skyrocketing premiums. Of course, a contract like Hernandez's would very likely be insured, as it could cripple Seattle if he got a career-ending injury. However, this is just a guess, but they probably have to budget several million a year to insure the $25MM/year contract. With all the Tommy Johns going around, it's just really likely that he'll miss a season over the next seven years. With a guaranteed contract, the actuaries have to be sweating bullets. Talk about small sample size... they're looking at the odds on one person receiving specific injuries which would prohibit them from doing specific tasks over a relatively short period in a field in which only a couple hundred people out of the billions of people in the world have the physical and mental skillset to participate. This is something which doesn't come up often in all the threads discussing budgets, but I'm sure the Brewers have to budget millions of dollars a year for the insurance policies on players like Braun, Weeks and Gallardo. Another reason why something like the $20MM in new, upcoming revenues does not equate to $20MM in increased payroll.

I think even bigger than the money is the expectation that a pitcher will remain healthy for seven years. One TJ surgery and a season or two are quickly erased. At $25MM/season, that's a tough pill to swallow, even at "real" (inflation-adjusted) rates. One rotator cuff injury, and you may have just eaten $175MM. That said, MJLiverock is correct that in inflationary environments, long-term fixed payments are the way to go. I'd just rather the Brewers fix their payments into Lucroy-type deals and let others sign the biggest-money deals. Of course, if you're going to do that, it's probably wise to occasionally be willing to trade good players away before their contracts run out.

Thanks for that bit of hope xisxisxis. Right now my "kinckers are in a twist." :-)

I agree with you on the final two lines, but right now the only guys worth even exploring an extension to are Segura and Peralta, and they aren't really guys to build a team around, and neither has proven much at the MLB level. My "can't compete on the open market for top-tier guys" line meant that the Brewers are losing a lot of talent over the next few seasons, and they aren't going to sign a Prince Fielder/Josh Hamilton type player to make up for the hitting losses, nor will they sign a Zack Greinke/Felix Hernandez-type to make up for the probable loss of Gallardo. Any FA's they sign will be role-player types, which is fine when you've got a good team, but not fine when they're expected to be "the guy." Over the next couple of seasons, the Brewers don't have the prospects to fill in the holes for the guys they're losing, nor to make trades like they did for Greinke and Marcum. They refuse to trade anyone good until they've only got a couple of months left on their contract, so I don't see how we're going to have a very good team in a couple of years unless a lot of our prospects play a lot better than the scouts seem to think they will. A lot can change over two or three years, but the Brewers aren't making it easy to predict a bright future. I kind of feel the opposite of how I felt when Weeks, Fielder, Hardy, etc were in the minors. At that time, I knew the MLB team was bad, but a promising future was close at hand. Now I see a team trying desparately to squeak into the playoffs one more time as the guys who made the team good gradually leave for greener pastures, while the Brewers get nothing in return. It's kind of like watching a ship slowly sink, with a captain more interested in swabbing the deck then repairing the holes. Maybe I'm just too down on the system due to unfavorable pre-season prospect reviews (generally saying a lot of "fringe MLB"-type talent with no stars). Hopefully some good outings by our "young" guys (Fiers, Henderson, Rogers, etc aren't spring chickens) at both the MLB and minor league levels will calm my jitters.

I hope you're right PFx1. I'd gotten pretty excited about the Brewers up-and-coming pitchers, but none of the prospect watchers have more than Peralta in their Top 100, and Peralta's usually somewhere in the 60's or 70's. How often do guys at the AA/AAA level who aren't top-rated prospects become really good MLB players? (That's an honest question, as I don't know) We'll certainly pull some MLB players from our system, but I don't think we'll find any Brauns or Fielders, or even guys at the Weeks or Hardy level. It's more likely to be guys of the Mat Gamel/Taylor Green talent level. Given the chance, some of these players will be capable MLB starters, but for the past few years Melvin has been signing or trading for players to keep guys of this talent level off the MLB diamond. We should get a better picture as this season goes on. If Peralta, Rogers, Fiers, etc play well, then the future will look a bit brighter. As it stands now, it looks to me like Melvin's trying to keep the window open a bit longer before things really start to fall apart. A lineup of Gennett, Schafer, Braun, Gamel, Davis, Lucroy, Segura, Green with a rotation of Peralta, Fiers, Jungman, Nelson, Rogers doesn't sound like a World Series team. At least they'll have money to spend... to bad good FAs are getting $25MM a year these days.

This is all the more reason why we need to strengthen our farm system so we can have good players come up who we can sign to Lucroy-type deals. That's really the only way I see us maintaining long-term success. We obviously can't compete on the open market for top-tier guys, and playing the "window" strategy has left us with a bottom-10 farm system and an aging core of expensive players who will mostly be gone in a year or two.

Cervelli said something like "I called all over looking for legal ways to help my foot heal. Biogenesis is one place I called, but never used them."

No one has ever explained why those 2 samles last year tested higher than anyone on record. If you were driving along completely sober and were pulled over and blew something crazy like 0.90 on a breathalyzer, how would you prove that you were innocent? At least you'd have the readings immediately and your blood test could help prove that the breathalyzer was obviously wrong. Braun took another test as soon as he got his results, and that test came back clean. If he was innocent (I don't know if he was, but assume for a second that he is), how can he possibly prove that the initial test was wrong? I don't know if he's guilty or innocent, but reading some posts (particularly those by PEBadger) in the very lengthy thread that was around last year at this time made me rethink my notion that just because the MLB says someone is guilty, they are 100% without a doubt guilty. Having a hand-written scribble in a notebook, which the original investigators disregarded, doesn't change my opinion about Braun. I still don't know whether he's guilty or innocent, and I'll be pretty surprised if he's suspended because of this new story.

If there is more to the story that needs to come out NOW. I believe Braun, his attorneys, the arbitors, and the MLBPA have to remain silent about the arbitration proceedings, and the only ones who can discuss it are the MLB reps. They chose to seal the arbitrators' decision rather than make it available to the public. Therefore, as much as fans and the media would like Braun to give "the rest of the story," it's not going to happen. If Braun is telling the truth about the consulting, I'd guess (or at least I hope) that the MLB already knows about it, and it will go no further than some yahoos on Yahoo trying to make a story out of nothing. If the MLB does not already know about it, then it was not part of the arbitration hearings, and Braun's attorneys might be able to show the world an invoice for consulting services. However, if you read the article posted a couple of pages back by the "attorney of 20 years," it sounds like anything the Miami company did for Braun could be private under attorney/client priveledge, so it's possible that if Braun shows any evidence from the Miami company, everything that company did for him could be open record and they'd have to give all test results, etc to the MLB, which may not be something Braun's team wants. Braun may or may not be guilty, but saying he's guilty simply because he hasn't come out publicly with his story is being as blind as anyone who says he's innocent simply because he's their favorite player.

It's easy to get hyped up about the Brewers' system when that's all I pay attention to, but then I see all of the rankings coming out, and I get really jealous about other teams' farms. The Brewers have a lot of SP who seem to project to be middle-to-back-of-the-rotation workhorse types. Relative to Brewers' history it seems that we have a stong group of young SP, but unless some guys step it up, we don't have anyone tabbed as a sure-thing, top-of-the-rotation guy. Peralta's our top guy, and most lists seem to think he'll top out as a #2/3, and Thornburg's generally seen as our 2nd best and he still has critics who think he'll end up in the bullpen, and this may be unfair, but he had a really hittable fastball in his MLB stint last year. Jungman has control but not dominant stuff, while Hellweg has stuff but no control. As to position prospects, we're woefully thin at the upper levels, with our top near-MLB-ready guy being Gennet, who probably projects as more of a utility guy than an everyday player. I like the upside of Roache, Coulter and Taylor, but they're still a ways off and still have some question marks to answer. I hope these guys all prove the list-makers wrong, but my hopes have been dashed somewhat by recently reading what other people think of our system. All told, the Brewers still have a long way to go to before they'll have a top-ranked farm system, so whether some guy thinks they're 29th or 21st doesn't really matter as much as the fact that if we rely heavily on our farm to build our future (which smaller markets have to), our future doesn't look as good as I'd like. Reilly put it well in his post above regarding depth vs. top talent. If you've got a lot of talent at the MLB level, depth is great for filling in holes, but when you're doing more than just filling in holes, you need to have some young stars coming out of the system or it'll be hard to build a winning MLB team. One good thing about our depth is that we can probably build an average-but-inexpensive rotation and bullpen from the farm, which will allow us to have some extra money to play with. We also have some good position players locked up at the MLB level, so we do have time to find some answers as to who will replace Ramirez, Weeks, Hart, etc. Hopefully Coulter, Roache and others can be those answers, but the clock's ticking, as we lose Hart, Gomez and maybe Aoki after 2013, Ramirez after 2014 and Weeks and Gallardo after 2015. Even a top-ranked system would be hard-pressed to replace that much talent.

Come on, somebody in Braun's camp just release a copy of the legal contract used in creating a retainer with Bosch. If Braun is telling the truth, it's possible that his attorneys contacted this guy, and never ended up using him. He feels he's owed $20k-$30k for "services rendered," while Braun's team doesn't feel he owes it, hence the dispute. If this is the case, there would be no "paper trail," as no contract was ever signed, and no money ever exchanged hands. An earlier poster referenced this, but I wonder if "double jeopardy" can occur. Braun was tried and cleared, so if it does turn out that Braun bought PEDs prior to the failed test, can he be re-tried with the new evidence? In a court of law, he probably couldn't, but this isn't a court of law.

While Gallardo's value is higher now then it ever will be, the Brewers are not in a position to trade a SP. Any speculation I'm doing would be for next offseason, or maybe mid-season 2013. By next offseason, we will hopefully have an excess of MLB-ready SP. At that point, we will probably either move a starting-capable pitcher to the bullpen, reducing his value, we'll trade a lesser-quality SP in a minor move that will help us for a season, but won't have a lasting effect, or we'll leave MLB-ready guys in AAA until they're in their late 20's and have lost "prospect value." I'm just exploring the option of trading the most valuable chip who could return a couple of top prospects at positions of need. Trade the expensive guy at a position of strength to get multiple good inexpensive guys at positions of need.

Trick's on you -- this is the long play. He's healing quickly so he'll have time to re-aggravate the injury & require a second surgery... enabling him to miss ST entirely! I know you were just joking, but the article says he feels he's on schedule to return the end of April, so he'll still miss a month. But, that is good news. The sooner Hart's back, the better for the Brewers.

The settlement option makes a lot of sense, as A-Rod would still get a lot of money, and wouldn't be subjected to Yankee fans and the New York media for five years. It may be one of those deals that neither side really likes, but it has enough for each side that they're willing to go for it.

I agree Briggs, and that worries me. The Brewers now have an expensive, aging core and don't have a strong enough farm to keep them competitive as guys like Hart, Weeks and Ramirez go away. For the past few years, Melvin has been able to fix some holes with free agent patches because of the strong core he had from the drafts in which the Brewers had top draft picks. Adding a Ramirez won't be as helpful to a lineup consisting of Schafer, Gennet and Segura as it was to a lineup we had going into last season. We won't be able to make the Greinke/Marcum trades again, because we don't have good enough prospects to pull off the trade, and we won't get top 10 picks to stock the system because our team is good enough to hover around .500. Looking a few years down the road, the only path I see to a brighter future is taking advantage of the trade chips we have to add more young talent. We've pretty much lost that ability with Hart due to his injury, and Braun's not going anywhere. It wouldn't make sense to trade our good young players like Lucroy and Segura. Gomez could probably net a decent return, given the market for the Uptons and Bourn, but it once again appears that we're in "go for it" mode, and won't do anything that may be perceived to in any way weaken our MLB roster, so I doubt Gomez will be traded even though Schafer is ready to take over. No one will want Ramirez after this season on a one-year/$20MM contract. So, if we're looking at what moves we could potentially make next offseason in the hopes that we will still have a chance at watching winning Brewers baseball for the next 5-7 years, we're pretty much relegated to looking at what we can do with Weeks and Gallardo. It's probably more likely we'll do some minor Estrada-for-35-year-old-CF trade, but I sometimes like to think of moves we could make that would really make a difference, even though you're probably right and Melvin will almost certainly not do anything I might suggest.