monty57

Paul's plan gives us a team of Braun, Lucroy, Weeks, Gallardo, Axford, Estrada, and no one else with any sort of proven track record for major league success -- a glorified KC Royals of the past couple years: loads of prospects but anyone with any solid experience quickly earns his way to a better team for yet more prospects (the start of a vicious cycle that many teams have a tough time breaking). The only player he mentioned trading who will be with us beyond 2013 is Ramirez. If we could land Olt in a Greinke deal, he is a Top 50 prospect who should be ready to play next year. We could let Green get everyday playing time for the remainder of this season to help us see what we have in him. If he knocks the cover off the ball, Olt can start next year in AAA. If not, Olt can be our opening day 3B next year. Meanwhile, the young pitching we'd get back for Ramirez could bolster the young pitching we already have, leading us to a situation in the not-too-distant future where we'd have an excess of good, young, inexpensive pitching, which is never a bad problem to have. Hart only has a season left on his contract. While I like him, Aoki is putting up good numbers in RF for 10% of Hart's cost, and Gamel will be back next year at 5% of Hart's cost. If we could bring back a top prospect at a position of need and save the $10.333MM we'll owe Hart, we should do it. His trade value is high now, and should remain high through this offseason. Due to the new CBA, if we wait until next season, his trade value will plummet. The offense will definitely take a hit (no pun intended) next year without Ramirez and Hart, but I believe freeing up $40MM over two years and bringing in top young talent would be worth it. As to the "viscious cycle" you mentioned, I don't see it happening. I think it's much more likely that Melvin would offer Olt and others a Braun/Lucroy-type extension early in their tenure in order to keep them around more than the six years we'd already have them, becoming new "core" players. I like the thought of occasionally trading away useful vets when we have good, young players to replace them, but trading a bunch of guys all at once to infuse young talent into the system should be a one-time thing, which was brought about by Melvin signing a bunch of players whose contracts all end at the same time. In other words, we're in kind of a unique situation, and what Melvin does now can help determine the future path of the team. I think the best action will be to trade away some of our "chips" now for top young talent, let that talent gel next year, and look to field a playoff-competitive team again in 2014. We will likely see a decline in attendance next year no matter what. Brewer fans began flocking to the stadium when our top prospects (Fielder, Weeks) started moving onto the MLB roster, so I don't believe the conventional wisdom that fans will only show up if we continue to pay vets top dollar. If we can bring back guys like Olt in trade, we can market to the fans that they need to come out to see this kid (and other young players) play.

Olney was on last night discussing the Rangers' situation. He made a good point that with the Rangers possibly losing Hamilton after the season, they realize that their chances of winning a World Series will go down. He said they will definitely move some of their top prospects to get an ace this year, and he thinks that if Hamels doesn't re-sign with the Phillies that they will work a deal centering on Olt-for-Hamels. Profar's a pipe dream, but I still think the best situation would be landing Olt in a Greinke trade, and trading Ramirez to the Dodgers for pitching. We probably have to wait until Greinke makes another start to prove he's healthy, but I really hope Melvin moves before the Rangers trade for Hamels.

It may not be P.C. to say this, but not only will teams question his physical health, but they'll also question his mental health. No one knows the truth of why he was skipped. It seems to me that Greinke was upset at being skipped, so I lean towards a dumb move by Roenicke, but if I'm a GM the "battery recharge" episode would spook me. At the very least, I'd lower my offer.

Well in that you are 100% accurate. I think there are people speculating on who next year's draft picks will be so that they can decide if we will be able to trade them by 2016.

Welcome to my world... it's scary here :-) The good thing is that with the Dodgers new owners trying to show how rich they are, I honestly believe we could get the "Jed Lowrie package" of Zach Lee and Gould for Ramirez. A few weeks ago, I would've thought he was untradeable in anything but a complete salary dump, but now I think we have a chance to get some decent prospects back without paying his salary. We're losing Hart after next season, and by trading him before next season starts the receiving team would get the compensatory pick, so I'd like to see what he could bring on the open market prior to next year. I'd hold Weeks to see if he can get the ship straightened out. He's a good player, and I don't want to trade him when his value is at it's lows. The team can save quite a bit by non-tendering several players or trading them. But how do they replace them? We need a bullpen, and if Veras, Low and Parra are non-tendered, we will pay at least $5MM for any decent veteran arm we bring in. Probably $3-4MM for not-so-decent veteran arms that will make us throw things at the TV next year. I can't imaging we're going to bring five or six rookies up from the system to fill out our bullpen when we just signed a near-record-breaking deal for Greinke. Gomez and Morgan could be dropped to save $5-6MM. That's why I've been calling for a Morgan trade since Braun was exonerated - I'd rather get something than nothing for these guys... maybe we could even trade them for a bullpen arm to help solve the problem from the paragraph above. The problem is, we either need to trade them now, lose them for nothing, or offer them arby and risk not being able to trade them (meaning we'd have to pay them next year). In my opinion, the best answer there is "trade them now," but that would mean that Melvin would have to break down and trade someone. The arbitration cost estimate of around $40 million is way too high... I figure it's closer to about $24 million for everyone they'll actually keep I hope you're right, but assuming they're off by 40% might be a stretch. Also, remember that we need to replace those guys that we don't keep, and we don't have a lot of guys coming up from the minors to replace them. FA's are expensive.

Remember when the Yankees were going to trade us Melky for the final year of Cameron, and Melvin hung up the phone because Cashman wanted the Brewers to pick up some salary? We all laughed at the time.

The Cain extension ruined the chance of keeping Greinke. ...without seriously risking the financial solvancy of the team. Sure they could "back up the truck," but are they dumb enough to do it if it will lead to fire sales in the future? why are we counting Narveson out? Because he's hitting arby, which means we would have to guarantee him a million dollars or so when we probably won't even be able to see him throw a ball until after the arby's been accepted. Its' possible he remains with the Brewers, but unless we get some really promising news, I'd guess they'll decline arby and re-sign him to a minor league deal, which I believe is what they did with Capuano in a similar situation. Please, do not trade Aoki. Can't we get good players for once and try to hang onto them, not try to trade them off as soon as we see they have value? I agree that I don't want to see Aoki traded, as we need good, inexpensive players. However, who in the heck have we traded off as soon as we saw they have value? Who have we traded off when we saw they didn't have value? Who on the MLB team has been traded since Carlos Lee six years ago?

Teams get desparate as the trade deadline approaches. If a GM receives a phone call when he's in the middle of reading a newspaper article crucifying him about how they're losing games because they need starting pitching, a spreadsheet of how much value Player A has relative to Player B can be thrown out the window. Someone should do a study on "dumb trades" and see how many are done at trade deadline vs how many are done in the offseason. I'd guess more are done at the deadline.

... Greinke-Gallardo-Fiers-Estrada-??? ...A lineup of Aoki-Lucroy-Braun-Ramirez-Hart-Weeks-CheapSS-Gomez That, of course is assuming we are able to sustain a $118MM payroll. If not, then you'd have to assume that at least some of our higher priced players (Hart, Ramirez, Weeks) will be gone. I just don't know if bringing Greinke back is what's best for this club. Me either, it seems that people are starting to believe that he is going to walk on water on his way to the bank while curing some blind guys along the way. IIRC, Greinke has been on a total of one winning team in his tenure (last year's Brewers)... he can't do it alone, and if we pay 1/4 of our payroll to him (and 3/4 of payroll to eight players), with little to no really good pre-arby talent, I don't know how we'll sustain a playoff-caliber team around him. I really think the best/only way to make a Greinke deal work is to immediately (before next season) trade Hart & Ramirez for good, young, pre-arby guys. We probably won't because that could weaken the 2013 roster, but it would give us what we need... good pre-arby talent and some financial flexibility.

This is a handy little site another poster referred me to a while back: http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/2012-roster.shtml As it shows, the estimated payroll liability next year - without Greinke - is $95.8MM if we don't exercise the Wolf & Gonzalez options, but we do offer arbitration to all who are arby eligible. We went into last offseason with a budget in the upper $80MM's, and went way overbudget when K-Rod accepted arby and Ramirez showed interest, and we decided to "go for it." It would seem that there is a good possibility that we will break even or lose money this year if we play through without trading anyone away. We will have some additional revenue coming in next year, but it seems very likely that we will see a substantial decrease in attendance, so I doubt we'll have a $100MM payroll, much less a $115MM payroll. Attanasio in the past has said he would raise payroll for a "special player" like Sabathia and I would assume Greinke, so the $100MM payroll may happen if Greinke is signed. That won't be the case if we don't re-sign Greinke, so with $95.8MM staring at us, I would think we'd look to cut payroll rather than add, so I can't see how we'd keep everyone we have while adding moderately high-priced SP, SS and RPs. All that said, I don't know what we do if we do extend Greinke, or even if we don't extend Greinke. I'd have to think that Hart will have to be traded, as we have Aoki playing RF for 10% of what Hart makes, and we have Gamel playing 1B for 5% of what Hart makes. Ramirez is hitting well, but trading him would free up $30MM over the next two years - that in itself is about 1/4 of what we'd pay Greinke over the next five or six years. It's not "doom and gloom," at least not from me. It's simply looking at the big picture and trying to figure out how all the pieces fit into the puzzle. I think "selling" now would really help the team going forward, and I think the only way we "sell" is if we lose some games, particularly against the Reds starting tonight. If we don't sell now, and the previous posts stating that we've offered 5-year / $112MM to Greinke are true, we will be looking at around a $115-120MM payroll going into 2013. It would be great to think that's a sustainable level, but I don't believe it, especially if we see a decrease in attendance. That would lead me to believe that we will be looking to dump salary in the offseason, which may or may not be as "easy" as it is now (when the Dodgers seem to be begging to add salary). If you can show me how you would put together a playoff-caliber team in 2013, without selling, and within a realistic budget, then I'd love to see it. Otherwise, please understand that those of us who are sadly saying that we think it's in the best interest of the franchise to lose a few games before trade deadline are doing it because we want to see the franchise look better going forward, not because we like hoping our favorite team loses. *I feel that I need to P.S. that I am not condoning trading Greinke, Hart, Ramirez or anyone else for a substandard return. They should all garner some good young players if we decide to trade them, and of course we shouldn't trade them unless they bring good players back.

I would like to trade Hart too but I'd wait until the offseason. I think Hart could bring a really good package and I don't think LAD would have the best. Honestly, if they were willing to part with Lee & Gould for Lowrie, I would think we could get at least Lee for ARam. I don't think Morris will be ready until 2014 so I'd trade ARam now and see what Green can do with some consistent PT. Then in the offseason you can ship out Hart and maybe get a 3B back if Green isn't up to par. Then hopefully Gamel is ready to go at 1B again in ST. I'm torn on both Hart & Ramirez, which is why I hope Melvin has a long-term plan laid out. 1) If we don't trade either, we'll have a good offense next year, but probably not the pitching to compete, and we'll lose Hart for nothing (1 comp pick) at the end of the year. 2) If we trade both, it would be hard to have a good team next year, but we could get a lot of young, inexpensive talent back that could really help us in the future. 3) If we only trade one, I don't know which one to hold onto. Hart is homegrown and less expensive, but he's gone after next season unless we extend him into his mid-30's. Ramirez is older and more expensive, but we have him for two years, so we could always trade him this time next year or even following the 2013 offseson.

I feel like this kind of describes our owner as well (who is from LA), especially when it came to the Ramirez signing. "We lost Prince, we'll just go sign another slugger." This is part of the reason I don't think they'll trade him - he was their "big acquisition." Good call. I think Attanasio definitely has some "I'll show you" attitude, and I hope the shrewd money-manager in him wins that battle. This isn't about who has the biggest hat, it's about who has the most cattle. You don't get the most cattle by killing off the calves to make a bigger hat or by selling off all the cows to buy one big bull.

Exactly. It's a negotiation, so buyers are going to try to push the price down and sellers are going to try to push the price up. We just have to hope that Melvin is the better negotiator, so he is able to get the buyers to pay a little more than they'd like. If Dempster goes to the Dodgers, that's fine, because they don't have the prospects we'd want for Greinke, and it takes an arm off the market. If Hamels re-signs with the Phillies, that's great because that makes Greinke the unquestioned "prize" of the trading market, without diminishing demand at all. I'd like Melvin to move before Hamels gets traded to Texas, but even if he doesn't a trade of Hamels to Texas may make the Angels desparate to get Greinke. Just a sample of some things going on... Melvin needs to take advantage of everything out there to get the best deal possible. He has a big "chip" that other teams really want. He just has to let them know how much they need Greinke.

We also got a 16-6 3.83 pitcher during our best chance at a championship in a generation. Agreed, and I enjoyed every minute of last season. I wasn't trying to give commentary on whether it was or wasn't a good trade, just that having the Greinke era commence with a single comp pick isn't how I envisioned it would end when they acquired him 20 months ago. I enjoyed "the Greinke era" as well, but as it is seemingly coming to an end I'm faced with the stark reality that two years (maybe 1.5 years) is a very short time frame, while the "Escobar/Cain era" in Kansas City is just getting warmed up, and the "Odorizzi era" hasn't even begun. As you mentioned in your first post, I too will be much happier if we can get five or six years of a good player or two (not saying elite or Hall of Fame) for the final few months of Greinke. That to me would be a better end to "the Greinke era" than watching him pitch meaningless games before losing him to free agency. By the way, I like the way you summed up your feelings on re-signing him: "As a huge fan of watching Greinke pitch I will be very excited if the Brewers re-sign him. From a risk management standpoint I will be terrified." Well put. I think that sums up the feelings of a lot of posters here who are in the "sell" camp.

Which is probably why the new owners are thumping their chests telling everyone they'll take on big money to get good players. If they were to add Dempster and Ramirez, they would suddenly look a lot better. Los Angeles is a different world, and the owners want to prove they're part of it. If we get a chance to take advantage of this, I'm all for it.

I was going to respond, but Paul said everything I wanted to say, so I'll just ditto his post.

MLBtraderumors says the Dodgers are not trading Zach Lee for "a rental like Dempster." If they were willing to trade Lee for Jed Lowrie, I'd want him as part of a Ramirez deal.

As Oldcity alluded, it's about odds. We have a small chance to make the playoffs this season, and trading some guys would crush that chance. However, losing the talent we're losing after this season, while still being on the hook for a lot of big contracts would make the chances of getting to the playoffs in future years pretty small. Trading some of our players could increase the odds of the Brewers making future playoffs. Trading Greinke will bring back some players who will help us in the future. Trading Ramirez and/or Hart would bring back players who could help us plus it would free up a lot of cash. Trading guys like Morgan may not bring a lot, but we'd get something for a player we may just dump after the season. I'm not saying everyone should be traded, but selling with a plan could give us the talent and financial flexibility to compete beyond this season.

"seem to be" None of us have any idea what has been going on in the front office. That's why I always try to qualify my responses with things like "seem to be," "likely" and "probably." CYA - cover your assets :-) I hope the Brewer brass sat down a month or more ago and said "what are we going to do here," and Melvin started testing the water. Honestly, I hope they sat down before the season and said "we're losing a lot of talent after this season, so what's the plan if we aren't winning." I hope that as we sit here less than two weeks from the trade deadline that they are 90%+ certain as to what they're going to do. It's always good to have hope. Finally some posturing from Melvin (from McCalvy article): But under the new rules, midseason additions no longer qualify their new teams for compensation. Prevailing wisdom has the change diminishing the value of a player like Greinke. Melvin doesn't buy it. "In 2008, when we made the Sabathia trade, the focus wasn't necessarily on Draft picks, the focus was on getting into the playoffs," Melvin said. Yes, Melvin said, the Draft picks were part of the Brewers' calculation when they parted with then-top prospect Matt LaPorta and two other players including current Indians center fielder Michael Brantley. But not the key to the equation. Would Melvin part with those players today, knowing that under current rules he would not get top Draft picks on the back end? "We might have," Melvin said. "It depends -- at that point, we wanted to get in. We hadn't been to Postseason in 25 years. You think Pittsburgh wants in? Do you think they should worry about next year's Draft picks? You think the Braves want in after losing the way they did late last year? You think the Angels, after the money they spent, want in? Think the Tigers, after the money they spent, want in? "Draft picks -- they can always say that. They just have to make their own decisions." So it looks like Pittsburgh, Atlanta, the Angels, and Detroit are on Doug's radar for trading Greinke and he's trying to up the ante on them.

This isn't like football where you can target positions of need. You should almost always be targeting the best player available. Since you said Texas has the best farm system, thats who you probably want to deal with first. And some prospects take longer than others to reach the bigs, other trades can happen, there's FA signings, etc. so you don't really know what the makeup of the team will be. If Melvin traded ARam, we would likely need a 3B (unless you go with Green) so Olt would fit nicely there (I think Texas is nuts if they think they won't have to give up Olt in a deal for Greinke/Hamels). I'd rather see the Brewers move sooner rather than later, so that Texas doesn't make a deal with Philly before we decide if we're "buyers" or "sellers." I like the thought of dealing for Olt because it makes Ramirez expendable, and I think the Dodgers would really like to trade for Ramirez. If we don't get a top 3B prospect, Ramirez isn't going anywhere, because I think we've already shown that Melvin/Roenicke aren't sold on Green as a long-term starter. Moving Greinke in a deal centered on Olt, and Ramirez to the Dodgers in a deal centered on pitching would completely change the Brewers' future direction.

On the plus side, it would make missing the Brewer games over the next five or six years so I can watch my son's little league games a lot easier. I agree with Paul that if we do decide to be "buyers" this season it will be more along the lines of Komatsu-for-Hairston type trades than it would be an our-farm-system-for-Hamels trade. I would rather sell, but if Marcum can't be traded due to injury and Greinke's value drops significantly due to "battery recharge," then we may just end up playing out the year with what we have. I don't like that we'll lose Greinke, Marcum, K-Rod, etc and end up getting one draft pick in return, but I won't be overly surprised if it happens. If that is the case, then we may make minor moves to pick up a bullpen arm or something.

Gonzalez's option was based on plate appearances, which he obviously isn't going to reach. If he comes back, it's as a free agent on a new contract.

"seem to be" None of us have any idea what has been going on in the front office. That's why I always try to qualify my responses with things like "seem to be," "likely" and "probably." CYA - cover your assets :-) I hope the Brewer brass sat down a month or more ago and said "what are we going to do here," and Melvin started testing the water. Honestly, I hope they sat down before the season and said "we're losing a lot of talent after this season, so what's the plan if we aren't winning." I hope that as we sit here less than two weeks from the trade deadline that they are 90%+ certain as to what they're going to do. It's always good to have hope.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, so to speak. I guess where I was going is that I hope they're looking at guys like Hart, Ramirez, Morgan, Gomez, Gamel, Green, Gennett, Weeks, etc and saying "which of these guys are going to be part of our plans going forward and how do they fit in." I like the concept of building around a "malleable" core group. Determine who is important to the team going forward and build around them, but being open to trading former core pieces when new core pieces emerge. Not saying trade everyone at once, but rather continually trade off pieces when other pieces are there to replace them. We never did that, so now we're in a position where trading off multiple pieces at once is a viable alternative. What do we do with Hart and Ramirez? If we are "going for it" next year, we are better off with both of them in the middle of the lineup, but that limits our flexibility elsewhere (financially) and doesn't "take advantage" of two of our better trade chips. If we're rebuiding, they are two good trade chips that could bring in young talent, but will really hurt our offense for next year. If we don't trade Hart, do we lose him for nothing after next year or do we extend him and how would that extension effect the future? If we don't trade Ramirez now, will teams trade for him later when he's owed $20MM for one year? Melvin should have had an "exit strategy" for Hart when he extended him and for Ramirez when he signed him, meaning he should have know what do we do if we're winning, and what do we do if we're losing, and he should have had an idea how and when they could be replaced. This isn't crystal clear, but it shouldn't be opaque. We got lucky getting Aoki, as Melvin seemed stunned when his million dollar bid won. However, that bit of luck makes trading Hart a real possibility, as we have a good replacement in RF playing for 10% the cost in RF and Gamel playing for 5% the cost at 1B. That said, I doubt Hart will be traded and instead we'll either trade him for little next year or lose him for nothing after next season while Gamel ends up being a bench bat... short-term thinking even when blessed with some luck. While every piece may be obtained and dealt with separately, there has to be an overall plan, and Melvin should know how each of the individual pieces will fit into that plan before adding that piece. That way maybe we won't end up with a 20-year period without pitching or a complete lack of SS's in the system, but four MLB ready CF's. We won't have all of our decent prospects blocked in AAA until they're in their mid-to-late 20's. I believe that if Melvin had offered an extension to Greinke the day he traded for him, he could have locked him up right then & there. That seems like an obvious move if you have a good long-term plan in place. Add Greinke to be the long-term #1 guy and add Marcum as a short-term guy to win while we have Prince. Instead it seems like we added them to open a window and we'd worry about long-term extensions when the players are closer to free agency if we had the money and felt that would keep the window open. Adding guys without knowing how they fit into the long-term plan is what I (and I believe others) mean when we say "patching things together." What Melvin does in the next couple of weeks could have a pretty big impact on where we'll be for the next few years. I don't know if it's in the best interest of the Brewers to trade Ramirez to the Dodgers for young pitching, but I would hope Melvin would know that, and would've prepared for this contingency before he ever signed him last offseason. The answer shouldn't be "we signed him for three years, so we have him for three years and we'll see where things are at then."

That's why I kind of think it's a bit of a ploy. They're trying to set the market low in the same way the Phillies were trying to set the market high when they said they'd expect four or five prospects for Hamels. From a negotiating standpoint, I think they could be saying "Profar's off the market but we'd go as high as Olt or Perez." The frustrating thing is that while Texas and Philly are posturing and the Dodgers and Angels are screaming "someone trade with us!!!" the Brewers seem to be spinning around in circles and falling over.