monty57

Yes. Could a moderator please move this to the transactions forum? To the topic, I agree with those who would rather get inexpensive guys with team control instead of an expensive guy for two-years. What it would take to get Halladay is too much for the Brewers to pay. Aoki could man CF for the forseeable future. I believe he has five years remaining with arby. No, as an international free agent he is not subject to the arby process. He signed a two-year deal with a third year option. We got a good deal, but not the deal you get with young, pre-arby/arby guys.

The Brewers are above average at every position except perhaps shortstop...Yes the pitching is questionable, Pitching is a pretty important "position." In fact, it's about 12 important positions, for which we don't have many players without significant question marks. Instead ownership decided to wring $20 million out in profits. Or the "window" strategy they played for the past few years left the owners with little to no profit, culminating in a probable loss last year when they went "all in" and didn't get the playoff revenue they expected, so now they're finally trying to get some profit from their investment in a year in which they probably expect attendance to fall and probably don't expect playoff revenues. It's easy to spend other people's money (ask Washington). It's not so easy when it's your own money. I also expect the team to try to maximize the years we have Braun because he creates a rather special window for us I believe that is exactly how the Astros felt with Bagwell/Biggio. I don't want to end up where they've been recently. There always seems to be a reason to forget all financial responsibility, and those reasons are usually emotional. Making business decisions based on emotions is usually not a good long-term strategy. Oldcity in his original post mentioned trading as much as 5-6 important starters. That's a ton. I agree with this, and do not think we should go through with this type of rebuild, as it would probably be disasterous. I don't think trading Hart, who is basically an average MLB 1b and/or Gomez who many wanted to DFA prior to last season is a rebuild. Ask yourself why should we trade Hart right now when everything is set for 2013 and it's looking good? Everything is not "looking good." Our rotation is very suspect. They looked alright at the end of last season, so there is promise there, but there are also a lot of question marks. Our bullpen is rebuilt, but still suspect. There's probably a 50/50 shot that the guys we discarded will outplay the guys we picked up. That's the nature of most relief pitchers. I think that if all goes well, we could make the playoffs, or at least the one-game coin flip that now constitutes the wild card. Our baseline is probably around a .500 record. If some things go wrong, we'll win 70-some games. We certainly aren't looking as good as we did going into 2012 with a similar offense and a much better starting rotation. We're essentially rebuilding this year already with the rotation we're using, so the title of this topic may be mis-leading. We're just keeping a good enough team together that hopefully through the rebuild we'll still keep fans believing enough that they show up at the gates. It's a rebuild I'd like to continue by trading away tradeable pieces when we have inexpensive in-house options like Schafer and Gamel ready to step in. I believe we all know that Mark A philosophy is to win now with an eye on the future I've never spoke to the man. If you have heard him say that his strategy is to always play to "win now," please share. To me, he seems to be a pretty good businessman and investor who has done a lot to increase the revenue streams for the Brewers. He also seems to feel that increasing payroll when it seems likely that the team will bring in playoff revenue and draw 3MM+ fans makes sense (as he did the past couple years), but also that payroll needs to drop when the playoff revenue doesn't seem as likely and attendance could take a hit (like he has this offseason). revenue will be increasing soon But relative revenue seems to be shrinking as more teams get huge TV deals. Is it because you think Hart is going to start declining soon? Define "soon." If given a 3-4 year extension (extending beyond 2013), Hart will be in his mid-30's by the time the extension ended, so yes, I think he will decline by the end of the extension. Who knows how much. He's changed as a player when he added muscle mass a few years ago and became more of a slugger and less of a sprinter. That probably cost him his knees, so if they go out, he could decline more rapidly. If not, he ought to be able to remain productive, albeit in decline. Since he's about an average MLB 1B now, he'll probably be below average by the end of an extension... we'd just be paying him like a superstar. If Harts asking price isn't extremely expensive Again, define "expensive." He's likely to get $14-15MM / year, which eats up a lot of the Brewers' payroll. Adding that to the other obligations to which the Brewers are committed, and you eat up most of the payroll. We are running out of reasons to trade Corey Hart. To me, it's simple. I don't want to extend him. I think it would be financially irresponsible and he's not a good enough player to justify tying our hands with his contract. Therefore, the question becomes "Is a potential extra win in 2013 worth many potential wins in the future from the player(s) we could get in trade from Hart?" Hart was only a 1.8 WAR player in 2012. Gamel should be able to do that. He was a mid-3 WAR player in 2010 and 2011. Maybe if he does that again, he'd gain us a win or so over Gamel. He is not nearly as good as he's being portrayed. The reason Attanasio cut payroll this year was because we played the "window" strategy and now he has to get some financial sanity back to the team. We have way too much money committed to 2014, so we need to get over that hump before committing any more. I think he's going to make sure not to drive the bus off the cliff the way teams like the Astros and Cubs did. I agree that the likely scenario is that we hold on to Hart to see how the season starts out, because that's the safe way to play it... no worries about fans getting their feelings hurt by trading away a fan-friendly player. However, I don't think Attanasio is crazy enough to hamstring the franchise further with another multi-year deal paying an eight-figure salary to an average player.

Agreed, and I'd bet the same will be said if we don't offer Hart a big extension. Yes, now all we have to do is find another Casey McGehee to replace with another Aramis Ramirez and everything will work out. In 2012: Hart was the 15th ranked 1B in baseball in terms of WAR, 11th out of 20 in OBP, 7th out of 20 in SLG, 8th out of 20 in OPS. He's an average MLB first baseman. I like him as a #5 hitter who can hit some HR behind the better hitters ahead of him. He is far from irreplaceable. He turns 31 in March, which isn't old, but it's getting past the prime years, and an extension would take him to his mid-30's, so a decline in production is probable, especially given his history of knee problems. There is a good chance that one of our 1B in the system will put up better numbers than Hart over the next four years, and will do so for around $2MM vs Hart's $60MM or so. Maybe with $58MM to play with over the next four years, Melvin will be able to find an upgrade somewhere.

Agreed, and I'd bet the same will be said if we don't offer Hart a big extension.

I'd be a little gun shy trading him if this was an "all in" year. Agreed, and I think this is where (flawed as it may or may not be) the whole WAR concept really hits. Very rarely is one player is going to take a bad team and make it good. Corey Hart as a RF in 2010 and 2011 had a WAR (baseball-reference) of 3.7 and 3.2. Last year, his WAR was 1.8. He's good, but not an elite talent. Regardless of how accurate these numbers really are, an extra win or two are really important for a team vying for a division title/World Series. They're less important for a team looking to be around .500. Gamel should be able to be better than replacement level over a full season, so a baseline prediction should be that Hart would probably only be worth a win or two more than Gamel over the 2013 season. There's a good chance that it's less than that. That's not even taking into account the money we'd save. Now, how important is having Segura playing for league minimum this season over having to go out and find a veteran SS on the free agent market for $4-8MM? I'm not expecting to bring in the #1 prospect in baseball. If we could bring back something like the value we received in the Greinke trade, we could have "another Segura" in a year or two providing tremendous value. That, to me is worth far more than 1-2 potential wins in 2013. Many talk about how great it is to have Segura manning SS for the foreseeable future, and talk about the "steal" we got when we locked Lucroy up, but then espouse extending Hart rather than trading him. Extending Hart will by nature take away the potential to get "another Segura" for him, and the money spent will potentially disallow us from committing money in "Lucroy-type" signings in the future to guys like Segura and some of the pitchers coming up. We need more Segura-level prospects in the system, and we need more Lucroy-style deals on the MLB roster. We do not need more 30-somethings making eight figure salaries over multiple years unless they are truly elite talent like Braun.

Attanasio is the managing partner of the partnership which owns the Brewers and "controls" the money/budget. He stated that he is willing to go overboard for "truly special" players. That leads me to believe that the ownership group is willing to forego profits and even take losses in order to have some Hall of Fame talent on the roster. Braun, Fielder, Sabathia and Greinke qualify, Hart does not. If the ownership group sets the budget higher by reaching into their own pockets to pay for the HoF player, then Melvin can spend the "real" budget on the other 24 players. If the ownership group is unwilling to reach into their own pockets, and Melvin signs deals that run the team into a financial brick wall, he needs to rid the team of salary in order to fill other holes on the team. When other teams know you need to dump salary, they circle like vultures. That's all a guess. I never wanted them to sign a player to a deal guaranteeing $20MM+ / year. It's also possible they were merely offering a deal they knew the player wouldn't accept to make themselves look good (and the player look bad) to the Brewer fans. We've shown over the past few years that NOT paying the big deal to these guys has allowed us to add other players and remain competitive. Paying almost as much to Hart as we were willing to pay to Fielder (on a per season amount) makes no sense to me, and losing Hart after this season (or trading him now) will have less effect on our offense than losing Fielder had on our offense from 2011 to 2012. I keep hearing how we have a dominant offense... how is that possible since we lost Fielder?

What are we going to trade Hart for that will improve the team though? I care much more about the long-term benefits to the franchise than I do the absolute maximization of talent in one given year. I feel the return we would receive in trade would benefit the Brewers more long-term than having Hart on the 2013 roster will help the team this year. I'd like to get someone back who would be ready in 2014, when we will really need a lot of league minimum guys on the roster in order to have any chance of fielding a competitive team. That "someone" would then be under Brewer control through at least 2019 for a total cost less than one year of Hart. Right now, with the new "qualifying offer" rules, I think we could get around what we got back in the Greinke trade (a full season of Hart plus comp pick = a partial season of Greinke). If we wait until mid-season, I doubt we'd get nearly that much, as the receiving team wouldn't receive a comp pick, and Hart's not nearly as talented a player as Greinke. Plus, it took disaster to get Melvin/Attanasio to do a mid-season trade, so there's a good chance that we wouldn't do a mid-season trade if there's any chance of the playoffs, so we'd likely lose him for a comp pick at the end of the season. Finally, he could get injured and be untradeable, so we watch him walk for nothing just like Marcum last year. If I had to guess, Melvin will do what you're suggesting, which is to go with Hart as 1B and see how the season progresses. This is certainly the safer route. It will probably make us a little better this year, while costing us long-term.

1.) The Brewers can afford it. This reminds me of several years back in the housing market. "It's stupid not to take the biggest loan possible... look how quickly the home values are going up. If I only buy the $150,000 house, I'll only make $75,000, but if I buy the $500,000 house, I'll make $250,000. I can always flip the house in six months. I can just put my meals on credit card until I hit it big in real estate." Then, when the bank was foreclosing on them, it was everyone's fault but their's. Sure, Melvin could possibly jigger things around to "afford" a Hart extension. However, a lot would have to go right to not end up in fire sale mode. First, we would need to work a deal similar to Ramirez's deal where Hart would take less in year one. Not coincidentally, this is because of how Ramirez's deal will balloon in what would be the first year of Hart's extension. So, with Hart's deal then escalating in year two and beyond, he and Braun would eat up a big chunk of our payroll. Throw in guys like Weeks and Yo and we would really need a large percentage of our roster to be made up of guys playing significant roles while making league minimum. If some of these prospects/league minimum guys don't pan out, then we will flounder around with big holes in the roster we can't afford to fill, leading us to decide that the only option is to give away some of our expensive players for salary relief. As much as some may not like to admit it, we can't afford many eight figure salaries within our budget. We need to be very careful in doling those contracts out, because in baseball they're guaranteed, much like a mortgage in "real life." In baseball, foreclosure is spelled "fire sale," and looks a lot like the Cubs of the past few years. Braun is worth the risk. Hart is not. I don't want to have to give Braun away in a couple of years because we're paying $15MM to a worn-down Hart who no one wants. Not saying that Hart will be worn down in a couple of years, but it is a possibility, and it would destroy our team if it happened. Meanwhile we could be paying Morris $450k, and if he stunk, it wouldn't hurt us (financially) at all. Just like buying that $1,000,000 house on a no-money down loan made some people feel rich, extending Hart would make some Brewer fans fell that they really were on par with the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/Angels, etc. However, it won't feel good when the moving truck backs up and they start packing up your things... or when the team has to give away players for salary relief. Maybe if we were the favored picks for the NL Central crown, then we could say that we need Hart this year because the extra win or two over our other 1B options could be the difference that cost us the World Series. While it's possible we could make the newly-watered-down playoffs, it's far from a sure thing. The odds are small enough, that I'd be willing to look to the future and bring in some good, inexpensive young talent with years of team control that could help us remain financially flexible, young and talented for years to come.

traded for Segura, which stabilized and "improved" the team So even though this bit of history shows that trading vets for prospects doesn't always "destroy the Brewers chances of contending till at least 2016," why is it that potentially trading Hart and/or Gomez would "destroy the Brewers chances of contending till at least 2016"? I guess it's my belief that while Hart is a good player, he is far from an irreplaceable lynchpin for our team. Our offense survived the loss of Prince Fielder without missing much of a beat. If the right deal came around and we traded Hart, our offense would still be fine. It may cost us a bit, or Gamel may show that he deserves the spot, and we don't slip at all. However, if we could get value comparable to what we received for Greinke, I think it makes sense to make the trade, as we could shore up another position(s) with inexpensive youg talent for six years. As to Gomez, I think Schafer has about even odds of outperforming Gomez this year. After seeing the feeding frenzy around Bourne and Upton (likely upping the value we'd receive from Gomez in trade), I think trading Gomez makes loads of sense. The mentality that we can never make a move looking for the future, and every move has to be to maximize our team's chances right now will lead us to hit a cliff that will lead us to years of rebuild. The Astros are a prime example of the unwillingness to give up on "lifelong Astros" and trying to win during the Bagwell/Biggio window... "we can't waste the last years we'll have the killer B's." They're still trying to dig their way out of their "window" strategy. So are the Cubs. I don't want to go down that road... I like having good Brewer baseball teams to watch.

I wouldn't make any decisions based on Coulter. There are a lot of posters here who follow prospects closer than I, but it seems to me that the Brewers picked up Coulter for his bat, and not his ability as a catcher. It'd be nice if he makes it as a catcher, but he could easily be moved out of the position. As to Lucroy and Maldonado, catcher is the one (non-pitching) position where you can have two good players and they'll both get playing time. Maldonado still has to prove himself, and something like a 70/30 split will give him a good share of ABs, while keeping Lucroy fresh througout the season. I certainly don't want to trade away Maldonado unless someone really overpays, as we don't have much depth at the position beyond the MLB level. Who knows what the future will bring. If both remain healthy and productive, and we have someone come up from the farm who will make a good backup (or even a starter), then we trade one of Lucroy / Maldonado. Until then, I'm happy to have two good, young, inexpensive options at catcher instead of our normal zero.

I really am comfortable with this kid at SS for the years to come! I fully expect Segura will sign a "Lucroy-style" extension (or at least Melvin will offer it), so hopefully there will be eight "years to come" as opposed to the normal six.

Good pickup, especially for 1 year/$2.25MM. Melvin seems to have done a pretty good job re-building a mess of a bullpen with limited money to spend.

A) A salary cap won't happen. The Union will be 100% against it, and the ownership would only be about 50% for it, as the teams with the payroll advantage wouldn't want to lose it. B) The biggest thing that would even the payrolls in baseball would be for the teams to split all the TV money. Again, owners won't agree on this, so I doubt it will happen. C) What I see as a big "equalizer" in the future is that internet revenues and MLB Network revenues are (I believe) split evenly among teams. I can't see the future, but I'd bet that within the next decade or so, all TV will be viewed in some way from the internet streamed into your TV, and I'd bet MLB will make sure that MLB Network is the one airing all the games. MLB will greatly increase their revenue, and it will be split among all the teams. If I'm in any way correct on this, it makes sense that so many stations in the big cities are signing huge, long-term deals with teams. That could be the last deal they'll sign.

Plus $1 in additional revenue does not necessarily equal $1 in additional payroll.

He didn't throw enough strikes, which led to way to many runners reaching base and scoring position Over the years, I've seen a lot of posters espousing the strategy of signing as many fireballers with no control as we could, and "seeing what sticks." The above referenced quote shows exactly why I've never liked that strategy. Ideally, your bullpen is filled with an assortment of guys, but if I had to choose one, I'd much rather have a bullpen filled with guys who have a lot of control, but don't strike out a lot, rather than a bullpen filled with guys who strike out a ton of guys, but have no control. We seem to be switching from the latter to the former this offseason. Hopefully guys like Gorzelanny and Badenhop can bring some consistancy to the 'pen.

PFx1, I agree the baseline payroll will have the ability to rise with the new money coming in, which is why I used $90MM in my statement: "With say a $90MM payroll, the average salary of the 25 players is $3.6MM. For every $14MM player on the roster, you essentially need around four pre-arby (league minimum) guys on the roster just to meet your average." To add to that, you could obviously only fit six $14MM players on a $90MM payroll (6x14=84), but the other 19 players, even at league minimum would equate to around $8.5MM, so really, even if we had 19 MLB-ready guys at league minimum, we can't afford to have more than five or six eight-figure salary players. In reality, we can probably afford two or three eight figure players in a "normal" payroll year, as we will never have 19 good, MLB-ready guys playing for league minimum. Braun is one of those two or three players for the foreseeable future. In that light, is Hart worthy of being on that pedestal? The problem with the new TV money flowing throughout the league is that iffy players like Gomez are now being considered by some to be worth of a multi-year, eight figure contract. The Brewers' ability to raise their baseline payroll by "x" hurts them when league average payrolls rise by substantially more than "x." I certainly don't think Gomez (or a player of his talent-level) should be one of the few eight-figure guys we can field. The Brewers were able to act like big money teams for a while because they were coming off of a very low payroll, they had (and used) some inexpensive, superstar prospects, and Attanasio was finding ways to generate revenue that the Seligs didn't realize. Acting like a big money team now has the team in the situation where they have big guaranteed obligations to a few players which will take up a large percentage of their projected payroll for the next few seasons, at a time when they don't have any superstar prospects to play for league minimum. Plus, the ownership group (it's not just Attanasio) have foregone profit for the chance to win, and probably would like to make some profit for a while. Now, it is a benefit that the payroll will go up, because it lessens the negative effect of the long-term guaranteed liabilities. It is also good that Ramirez's contract will be (mostly - deferred pmt) gone after 2014, which will allow for the team to have some financial "breathing room." However, I do not think that it is wise to eat up that "breathing room" by guaranteeing a lot of money to Hart, when we have multiple capable replacements in-house who would play for around 3% of what hart would cost on a yearly basis, allowing us to focus our limited resources elsewhere. The Brewers will be able to pay some players eight figure salaries. That's a good thing. They will not be able to pay numerous players eight figure salaries, so they really need to be choosy as to whom they will offer eight-figure salaries. They chose to essentially lock Braun up for life, which I like. However, to those saying "we can't waste years in which we have Braun," please realize that it is partially because we're going to pay Braun a lot of money that we cannot offer big contracts to some other players that we may like to sign. Personally, I prefer saving the money so we can offer "Lucroy-type" deals to some of the prospects we have. We could sign about six "Lucroy-type" deals for the total guaranteed cost of one Hart deal. I'd rather go that route.

Ramirez comes off the books after next year and Weeks and Gallardo the year after that. Braun's big money doesn't kick in until 2016. I would think they could afford to extend Hart if he gives them a discount in years, say 3 instead of 4. I think he'd have to sign a Ramirez-type deal where he takes a "paltry" salary in the first year, with larger salaries after 2014. This would allow for us to sign him, but would hamper future decisions, as he would eat up a large part of our payroll. We'd move from being financially hamstrung by Ramirez's contract to being financially hamstrung by Hart's contract. It's not a good idea to continually commit yourself to guaranteed long-term liabilities that eat up most of your projected future revenues. I'm fine with Braun making big money playing for the Brewers. By the end of his career, he will have surpassed Robin & Molitor as the greatest Brewer ever. Hart is not Braun, and the Brewers cannot afford to pay eight figure salaries to too many guys. I have questions as to how much marginal value Hart will even have over Gamel/Morris over the next four or five seasons, so I don't see a big reason to pay him an average of $14-15MM/year when we could pay someone $400-500k/year for similar production over the length of the contract.

I highly doubt it's the Brewers. Melvin's in budget mode, and Bianchi is at least as good a player as Yuni for less money.

I'm pretty sure that Rogers is still pre-arby even though the bfan net page has arby. I wouldn't ignore the guys like Axford, Estrada, Narveson that are in arby, as they will be making quite a bit of change by 2014. Thanks for the Rogers info. I agree the others can't be ignored, but for the illustration, I was simply looking at the known and guaranteed deals. If things hit the fan, we technically could just not offer arby to someone and get out of paying them. We can't do that with a guaranteed deal. But, you're right, if all things remain the same, the arby guys will certainly eat up a lot of the "spare" payroll we'd have left over after the guaranteed contracts.

Hart will get his offer. We'll put it at 14mil. Now its 67.8mil for 7 guys Gomez then gets his offer another 14mil. Now you're at 81.8mil for 8guys. And you have Axford in year 2 arby, Rogers in Year 1 arby, Estrada in Year 2 arby, Badenhop in Year 3 arby and Narveson in Year 2 arby. Add those up, and you're well over $90MM for 13 guys, so we'd still need to find 12 more players. We've been hesitant to field 3 or 4 pre-arby guys in the recent past, but even if we found 12 pre-arby guys, we'd likely still be over $100MM payroll, which I highly doubt Attanasio will okay unless he's pretty certain he has a "special" team. If we had to find FA's to fill any holes, we'd probably see a $110MM+ payroll, which I really doubt we'll see in 2014. I doubt both Hart and Gomez would accept the QO, but it's a risk the team really can't take. If they both accepted, someone (probably Ramirez or Weeks) would essentially have to be given away just to dump some salary. I'd far rather just trade Gomez now to a team who believes as some on this site do that Gomez is equivalent in value to Upton. We could get a decent prospect in return, and let Schafer man CF. If Gomez really is worthy of a QO, then his trade value right now is even higher, as the receiving team in the trade would get a comp pick for him. This ultimately is the reason the Brewers need to occasionally either let people walk or trade them away. With say a $90MM payroll, the average salary of the 25 players is $3.6MM. For every $14MM player on the roster, you essentially need around four pre-arby (league minimum) guys on the roster just to meet your average. If we want to continually extend guys because we like them and the team supposedly can't live without them, then we will find ourselves in the position illustrated above, where a few guys eat up all of our payroll, and we don't have enuogh good, inexpensive guys to fill out the roster, so we find Melvin sifting through the scrap heap just to fill out the roster... this is kind of the position we're in right now, but it could get worse. Since the answer is to occasionally let people walk or trade them away, and I generally would rather recieve something instead of nothing when a player leaves, I think that when there are serious questions as to the playoff chances for the team (as there are going into 2013), we seriously need to consider trading expensive guys entering into their final year of team control.

Per Brewerfan.net's salary page, here are the Brewers' 2014 obligations over $1MM, not including guys in arby (Axford, Badenhop, Rogers, Estrada, Narveson). In other words, these are guaranteed obligations: Braun $10MM Weeks $11MM Ramirez $16MM Gallardo $11.25MM Lucroy $2MM Gorzelanny $2.8MM That's $53.8MM for six guys. We may take the risk and "find money" for Hart, but I doubt Melvin/Attanasio will risk the chance that Gomez would accept a qualifying offer. The QO will likely be higher next year. Paying Gomez $14-15MM for a season when we're already on the hook for the guys above might force a "salary dump," as we may have to look to give away Ramirez or Weeks to cover Gomez's salary. 2014's obligations are why I think trading Hart now for a package of prospect(s) who will be ready around 2014 makes some sense. Assuming Melvin doesn't add another big contract, after 2014 salaries get a little better. Having a couple more good pre-arby players on the roster in 2014 will allow us to avoid salary dumps in 2014. Beyond that, we should have the money to extend some of our pre-arby guys to Lucroy-type deals well into the future, and we'd have some good, young, talented players we'd want to extend to these type of deals.

Karstens might be a decent arm to add if we got him cheap. My big worry with any pitcher who throws in a big park is how well he'd do in Miller Park. ERA+ is league and park adjusted, and Karstens ERA+ is: 2006 - 120; 2007 - 42; 2008 - 104; 2009 - 77; 2010 - 82; 2011 - 110; 2012 - 94. 2009 was the first year he pitched over 100 innings. It would be interesting to see his splits as a starter vs reliever, because if you are correct that he has pitched better as a starter, he could be undervalued in the same way I feel Estrada is undervalued. In 2009, he only started 13 of his 39 games and in 2010 he started 19 of his 26 games. The flipping between starter and reliever could help explain why he posted a 77 & 82 ERA+. Regardless, if we could get a roughly league average guy for a two-year $7-8MM deal, it would be pretty low-risk, as barring injury we should get some good starts and be able to trade him away as the prospects force him out of the rotation. It would fit with Melvin's other moves this offseason... boring but helpful.

Yes. It's the average of the highest paid players, so as salaries escalate, the qualifying offer will escalate. There is little chance that teams will offer the QO to any but the top players, whereas in the past teams were willing to offer arby to about anyone. This was a win for the players' union. There will be a lot more free agents, as there were a lot of mid-tier players in the past who couldn't get good offers in free agency because teams weren't willing to give up draft picks for them. Now teams have to consider whether or not to make the QO to All-Star caliber players. It certainly changes the strategy for teams who used to sign free agents or trade for players with the expectation that they could re-stock their farm system when the free agent left (a strategy Melvin admittedly used numerous times). If Hart has a similar season in 2013 as 2012, the Brewers would put the QO on Hart. You get a draft pick or his services for 2014 and not the downside of a long term contract. Even if Morriss has a great year in AAA, he could wait one more if need be. I would imagine that they would, although it would probably present a 40% increase in pay for Hart, which would have to be allowed for in the budget. With the current obligations, that would make things pretty tight. It also means that whoever we would trade Hart to would likely recieve a comp pick, so they would "pay" more for Hart in trade. Note that this goes away as soon as the season starts, so we'd probably get more now than we would mid-season. I do not think we'll make a qualifying offer to Gomez, so if we don't trade him, we get one more season from him and then he walks and we get nothing in return.

Yes. It's the average of the highest paid players, so as salaries escalate, the qualifying offer will escalate. There is little chance that teams will offer the QO to any but the top players, whereas in the past teams were willing to offer arby to about anyone. This was a win for the players' union. There will be a lot more free agents, as there were a lot of mid-tier players in the past who couldn't get good offers in free agency because teams weren't willing to give up draft picks for them. Now teams have to consider whether or not to make the QO to All-Star caliber players. It certainly changes the strategy for teams who used to sign free agents or trade for players with the expectation that they could re-stock their farm system when the free agent left (a strategy Melvin admittedly used numerous times).

Agreed. That's why I find it odd that they are trying to stockpile pitching now. It's not like their trying to get young guys to build around. They don't have the financial restrictions of small market teams, and they still need to keep some talent around to maintain the fanbase. They'll make plenty of money even with a payroll in the $80-100MM range, so their "rebuild" looks different from that of a small market team. They've got young guys coming up that they can build around. Right now they're filling the rest of the roster with average-ish players and still making a lot of money. Once the core is built, they will fill in with good, expensive players. Plus, as Fear the Chorizo mentioned, they will be able to flip some of these guys off mid-season for some prospects. They were a mess a few years ago, and they're working through it. They are fortunate enough to have money to blow while they work their way through it. I'd hate to see the Brewers get into that situation, because they really would have to fill the roster with trash for a few years until the big contracts got off the books and the farm was rebuilt.