monty57

We can either play for the very small chance that we make the playoffs this year, in which case we will probably be terrible for the next five years or so, or we can write this season off due to injuries and bad play and hope to make the coming years better. I came into this season hoping we could win another division title and maybe even make the World Series. At this point, the odds of that happening are pretty slim. We have about two weeks left before the trade deadline, so we need to make a decision pretty soon as to which path we're going to take.

seeing as he's also not a free agent until 2016, he's got value in that he's a controlled cost for the brewers or any team. in arbitration, he'll probably get around $1.0/1.2 million for next season. Yeah, my next paragraph used an example of bringing back someone like Mets' backup OF Baxter. Kottaras is a backup with team control, so he should be able to bring back a backup with team control. Maybe "I don't expect much" wasn't the best way to say it. I don't expect we'll get starting-caliber talent back for him, but we should be able to bring back someone who could play in the majors, or a young "high-risk/high-return" type minor leaguer. This is a classic example of an older, more expensive player blocking a younger, more talented, less expensive player. That doesn't mean the older player has no value, it just means he is tradeable. The Brewers could benefit by getting better, younger and cheaper and also could get another player at a position of need.

Personally, I'm in the camp to give him a blank check. but essentially I would sign him longterm unless I was absolutely blown away with a trade offer lock him up! Sign him. Do whatever it takes. For those of you who make these type of posts, do you really mean that you want the Brewers to pay anything for him? Doesn't there have to be a limit? What realistically is your limit for what you think the Brewers should pay, and how do you suggest "freeing up" the money to allow for said contract to be signed?

To me, these are contradictory. "Doing whatever it takes" to sign one player is not the "right kind of baseball decision" to allow Milwaukee to "continue to be a winning baseball team." If we were to sign Greinke to a $20MM/year deal, then I can't imagine we would trade Hart or Ramirez, as we would once again be "all in" next year, with the arguement "we have to go all in while we still have Hart." Therefore, we would have Weeks ($11M), Hart ($10.33M), Braun ($9.5M), Ramirez ($10M), Gallardo ($8M), Aoki ($1.25M), Lucroy ($0.85M) and Greinke ($20M) making around $71MM. That's $71MM for eight players. We'd have Morgan, Loe, Veras, Gomez, Axford, Parra, Kottaras, Narveson and Estrada arbitration eligible. Morgan and Gomez would probably combine for $5.5MM. Loe, Veras and Parra could cost $3MM each. Narveson probably won't be offered as he is too much of a health risk to guarantee $1MM. Kottaras probably won't be offered arby as we'd be paying him $1.5MM or so when we have Maldonado at league minimum. Estrada and Axford will be the only "values" as they're in their first year so they'll probably make $1-2MM each. If we offered arby to all of them except Narveson & Kottaras, we'd have 15 players accounting for around $88.5MM. That's right around where our opening day payroll was supposed to be this season, and we still need 10 more players. A rotation of Gallardo, Greinke, Estrada, Thornburg, Fiers probably isn't a playoff rotation next year. We don't have a bullpen. We have Bianchi/Ransom at SS/Utility IF. Sure we could dump Gomez and Morgan to save $5.5MM, but if we don't trade them this year, we either need to offer them arby or lose them to free agency. Same with Loe/Veras/Parra in the pen. If we don't offer them arby, then we're going to pay as much or more to try to find bullpen arms in free agency. If we were to extend Greinke, then I think the only way we could remain competitive is to trade Ramirez and Hart for good, young, MLB-ready players, and trade Gomez, Morgan, Veras, K-Rod, Loe, Kottaras for any kind of return we can get, hoping for some bullpen/bench help going forward. This would bring in some pre-arby talent which could help and would free up enough cash to fill in some holes. Since we wouldn't do that, then I think we need to trade Greinke and hopefully get a good package in return.

I'd look to trade Kottaras. He's going to be arby eligible this offseason, and with Lucroy and Maldonado, I could see us not offering him arby and losing him for nothing. Therefore, in order to get something out of him, it's probably best to trade him for something now. I don't expect much, but maybe we could get a relief pitcher (which we will need going forward), a bench bat, or a high-upside A-baller. Someone mentioned the Mets, so just as an example, if we could trade him for someone like their backup OF Mike Baxter, we could have a decent backup corner OF for the next four seasons. That could allow us to trade Morgan and maybe Gomez (due to Schafer and Aoki's ability to play CF) and save quite a few millions of dollars without taking a step backwards. Or, we could get a young reliever which would mean Melvin wouldn't have to spend several million dollars finding a free agent for that roster spot. But again, it comes down to how we view this season. If we're "going for it" this year, we can't get rid of our catching depth, so we'll probably send Maldonado to AAA in case Lucroy or Kottaras gets injured. Then we'll just dump Kottaras in the offseason.

(I know I'm overreacting, but I am sick of trading away talent). In Melvin's tenure, the only MLB talent I can think of the Brewers trading away are Sexson and Carlos Lee. Personally, I'm getting sick of us trading away prospects, signing expensive free agents because we don't have pre-arby guys to fill the roles, and watching guys leave as free agents because we refuse to ever trade anyone with any talent.

When averaged out over three years, he may be paid "what he's worth." However, after this season he will be owed $30MM for two years, which is probably more than he's worth. Also, the Brewers are only able to pay a few good players "what they're worth," and they need to fill a lot of their roster with good players playing for below "what they're worth." We don't currently have enough good pre-arby players, and arguably have too many guys playing for "what they're worth." If we could swap Ramirez for a couple of good, pre-arby guys we could help rectify that.

Since they'd be trading him to a playoff contender, it could be viewed either way. Some players would rather get traded to a team that looks like it could compete for the next few years rather than getting stuck on a team which looks like it could be out of the running for the next few years. When he signed with the Brewers, he probably thought they were front-runners for the playoffs this year.

When the Carlos Lee deal fell through, this was the first thing I thought of. They have Uribe at 3B and he's been terrible. Money isn't an object right now for the Dodgers, and they were willing to give up Z. Lee and Gould for Jed Lowrie, so I could see a similar deal for Ramirez. If we could get Lee or Eovaldi plus Gould, and rid ourselves of the Ramirez contract, I think we should do it. If we could also trade Greinke to Texas in a deal centered around Olt, all the better.

It's a bad move only if he remains in the bullpen the rest of the season, because then he will not have enough innings built up to be in the starting rotation all of next year. As to selling, I don't care if we wait nine days unless that nine days means we get a worse package in return. We'll never know how much better the offers are now vs later, but they would be better. As to "should we sell every year the odds are against us," not necessarily. At least nit in grand scale. However, we are in a situation where we are going to lose a pot of talent at the end of the season... probably more than any season in Brewer history. That has to be accounted for. Everything isn't done in a vaccuum.

Basing your hopes on memories of the "miracle teams" of the past who have come from behind and won is like going to a casino, seeing the picture of the guy with a million dollar check in front of him and thinking that since he won you could win too. Sure some teams have won, but more haven't. Russ stated that the odds of the Brewers making the 2nd wild card spot are at 5%. Since we're losing so much talent at the end of the season, "going for it" would be like betting your house that you're going to hit 00 on the roulette wheel.

I'd guess they're expecting to sell, and this move will get Thornburg a few more appearances at the MLB level prior to rejoining the rotation and will keep his innings down some so he can pitch all season. However, if he stats in the pen the rest of the season, he'll probably only get 30 or so more innings. If he pitched 136 innings last year, the goal should be to get him to around 155-165 IP this season, which would set him up for a full season in the MLB rotation in 2013. Being in the starting rotation the whole second half would give him too many IP, and keeping him in the pen would give him too few. If he's in the pen fir a few weeks and then moved to the rotation, it could be just right. Therefore, I'll only be upset if he's kept in the pen the rest of the season.

...and you have to consider what you would get back in trade for Hart.

I also wanted to address the draft pick compensation that people have been throwing around like it hadn't changed. I was under the impression that they had to be a top 10 player financially and you had to offer that much in arbitration to get the picks, or in other words only Greinke would grant us picks. That's not how I understand it. A team can offer a one-year deal to anyone they want as long as they were on their Opening Day roster. However, the deal is the same for everyone, and I think it'll be somewhere around $12-13MM next offseason. Obviously, teams will only offer the deal to players to whom they wouldn't mind paying $12-13MM. Therefore, if you believe a team would offer Hart a one-year deal after next season, then his value is 1.5 years of his service + a first rounder + a sandwich pick. He is probably worth more to another team right now than Greinke is, because he has more service time and could bring back the picks.

I don't think offering Marcum for $12 or $13 million is a no-brainer other than for Marcum who'd probably take it at this point. I said if he's healthy offering the deal was a no-brainer. Getting a healthy Marcum on a one-year deal would be excellent for the 2013 Brewers. That would fill in a big hole in the rotation and would get us one step closer to our prospects being MLB ready. If he doesn't accept (which is likely if he is healthy), then we get a couple of high draft picks. Of course we wouldn't offer the deal if he's hurt. In that case, we don't even get comp picks when he leaves and the Lawrie trade will look that much worse. I'd rather he just get healthy soon so he can get a few pain-free starts in prior to the trade deadline. If we sell, he'll be a big trade chip. If we don't sell, we'll need him if we want to have any chance in the world of making the playoffs.

This should be true of every player at any given time. Why limit your options? My car isn't for sale, but if you offer me double the blue book, I'm going to hand you the keys. yeah, but you can then just go use that money and put it towards a better, newer car, whereas, theres no actual guarantee that the brewers could get a better, newer player to replace someone like hart. He wouldn't be trading Hart for money. "Double the blue book" would mean he's getting talent back that is worth twice what Hart is worth. Just a stupid, extreme example, but if the Angels said "we don't trust a rookie for a playoff run, so we'll trade you Trout for Hart," Hart had better not be deemed "untouchable." GMs in playoff hunts are always looking for ways to improve, and you never know who will come knocking on the door with a great offer. Publicly stating that Hart is not going to be traded just tells other GMs not to knock on the Brewers' door.

Offering arbitration for free agents is gone, as are "Type A/B" free agents. If a team wants picks, they have to offer him a one-year deal, which is expected to be around $12-13MM this offseason. The player can accept the deal or decline the deal and become a free agent, whereupon the offering team will be compensated with picks. The big asterisk is that the player has to be on the team at the start of the season for a team to be able to get compensatory picks. That means the Brewers could get picks for Greinke and Marcum, but if they trade them the receiving team will not get picks. As to Greinke, teams will probably pay a lot for him even though they won't get picks, because he's a difference maker. For Marcum, we'll have to see if he's healthy by trade deadline or we won't get anything. If we hold onto him, we'll have to determine if we're willing to offer him a one-year/$12-13MM deal. If healthy, that's a no-brainer, but if there are lingering health questions, we may lose Marcum for nothing. For Hart, his trade value is very high right now because our trade partner could get compensatory picks for him. Therefore, the return on Hart should be far greater than the value of two high draft picks. If we wait until next year's trade deadline, we probably won't get much.

I just don't tihnk Melvin should be going out of his way trying to trade a guy that has performed very well in the last 3 years and is still signed through next year. I don't see the Brewers being a playoff caliber team next year, which is the final year of Hart's contract. Therefore, having his bat in the 2013 lineup will not add as much value as it would if we were fighting for the playoffs. Add in that we have Gamel for 1B at league minimum next year, and Aoki in RF for around $1MM, and the marginal performance increase of Hart over Gamel or Aoki becomes far less than the marginal salary difference. However, his bat has a lot of value to a team in the playoff hunt who is in need of a 1B/RF for this year and/or next, so his trade value to the Brewers is probably a lot higher than the value of him remaining a Brewer. As far as when to trade, the value we'd receive will drop off significantly if he's not traded now or this offseason. If traded prior to the start of next year, the receiving team will be able to offer him the one-year deal and get comp picks, so we should be able to get more than the value of a first rounder + comp pick if we traded him now or this offseason. If we wait until next year to trade him, then he has very little value, as all a team will recieve is a few months of an .800 OPS 1B/RF. I'd guess we'd get roughly what the Marlins gave up for Carlos Lee - an all-glove/no hit 3B and a guy who projects to be a relief pitcher. Really, the biggest reason to keep him seems to be for emotional / sentimental value because we've followed him for so long, and that is something we need to get away from. Financially and long-term performance-wise I think we're better off trading him for a package of top prospects to build for a better future. Whether that means trading him now (if we sell) or trading him this offseason really makes no difference to me... I just think that if they can get some good, young players for him, they should trade him.

Good grief, the Cardinals are like 3 games ahead of the Brewers at this point. Have you seen their starting staff? I'd be disappointed if the Brewers weren't able to catch them down the stretch. I believe you also said this about Atlanta, so I'll include them in this: The Brewers are in a position that they will lose a lot of talent this offseason, will still be stuck with a lot of high-priced contracts so much of their payroll will go to a few players, they do not have much quality pre-arby talent on the roster playing for league minimum and they have a bad farm system which will not be able to "fill the holes" on the MLB roster with good, inexpensive talent. Other teams (like Atlanta and St Louis) aren't in the same situation as the Brewers, so they have the luxury of "buying" without destroying their future. Let's say we don't sell and the Cardinals trade for someone. We could still catch them, but who cares? The Reds or Pirates take the division, we end up in third and the Cardinals get fourth. Then we look at next season and realize that a large percentage of our payroll is already accounted for and we don't have a SS or a bullpen and only have one "impact" SP. We'll need to spend $5-10MM to fill SS, a couple million to each veteran bullpen arm, and will probably need to pay at least one bleh starting pitcher around $10MM to be next year's whipping boy. To use your term, "We're cooked" as we'll have a huge payroll without much talent around our core of Braun, Yo, Weeks, Lucroy and Ramirez. This situation combined with a probable attendence drop-off could lead us to giving away high-priced players for nothing in a salary dump, making us all the worse. The thought of extending Greinke in this situation is laughable because we would need to fill SS, the bullpen, the bench and 3/5 of the rotation with league minimum guys and we don't have enough talented league minimum guys to fill the roles. Meanwhile, the Cardinals and Braves will go into next season with playoff aspirations as the talent they lose will be supplanted from their good farm systems. It is solely due to the situation the Brewers are in this season that I have been banging the drum on selling. Melvin built this team to be World Series contenders last season and this season. He created a window that will slam shut when this season's over. Last season almost worked, but this season hasn't. We can either cut our losses and sell in hopes of a quick "rebuild," or we can hope this team pulls off a "miracle run" and makes the playoffs, knowing that we will be really bad for the foreseeable future.

I don't think our not selling him this season means we're extending him. As long as we trade him prior to the start of next season, the receiving team would be able to get comp picks, so his value in trade now probably isn't that much higher than his value would be this offseason. Melvin has gone on record many times saying that he feels you get better value for pitching during the season and for bats in the offseason. We could very easily let Hart play our this season while Gamel is hurt, and then trade him in the offseason for a pretty good return. Even if we decide to sell, Attanasio and Melvin will not want to look like they're completely rebuilding. That would cause fans to stop attending games, and that is something they don't want to happen. They can sell the fans on "we're trading guys before we lose them for nothing" this season, and hope the excitement of watching the young players will keep coming out to the ballpark. Then in the offseason, they can spin a Hart trade as "Gamel is our 1B and Aoki is our RF, so that makes a 30-something Hart expendable," and most fans won't pay it much heed as they will be more worried about the Packers.

It's probably an overpay, but teams get desperate this time of year. Also, Dominguez got blocked when they signed Reyes and moved Ramirez to third. Often when a prospect is blocked, they get traded.

Actually Carlos Lee took too long deciding if he wanted to go to LA, so the Dodgers rescinded the offer. He has a limited no trade clause, which apparently Miami isn't on. I don't know if taxes are the reason he didn't want to go to LA, but Texas has no personal income tax, while California's is 9.3% (I believe there is also a "Mental Health Services Tax" of 1% added to incomes over $1MM). Carlos Lee is owed around $9.5MM more this season. Taxes are paid in the stadium in which you play, but for home games, that would be around an additional $500,000 Carlos would pay in taxes if he were traded to the Dodgers. The Marlins also play in a state with no personal income taxes. Anyone know anything about Matt Dominguez and Rob Rasmussen? MLB.com says Dominguez is the Marlins' #2 prospect, but while he's got a golden glove, his bat isn't ready. I can't find much else about him.

Seriously??? They don't have a SS for 2013. Isn't it worth $125K to get a read on whether Bianchi could be that guy at major league minimum next year instead of spending $3-5 million on some mediocre veteran fill in? I'm just looking at it as a business owner. There is a pretty good chance that if the Brewers don't turn things around there will be a lot of empty seats as the season progresses. The tickets may already be sold, but things like parking revenue and concession sales are really going to take a hit. Their budget should be set on projected attendance and it should be designed to make a profit. Going $10MM over budget in order to "go for it" this season probably ate up all the projected profit and then some (they may have even projected playoff revenues in their euphoria of signing Ramirez). Now they're looking at probable revenue decline, and these businessmen are seeing big red dollar signs. This can easily be remedied by dumping some salaries in trade, but that decision has not been made. If they do sell, then guys like Bianchi will be called up and no one will give it a second thought. If they don't sell, and they don't start to play better, then each of the owners will take a financial hit this season. They are a limited partnership, so at some point the money stops coming out of revenues and starts coming out of the owners' pockets. It is at this point that $125,000 starts to become a lot of money, and the thought of paying someone like Izturis not to play becomes less palatable. As I said on page 1, from a personnel perspective I'm all for bringing Bianchi up. However, I have to believe that the owners are pretty upset with the way this season's playing out... Melvin & Roenicke "sold" them that going over budget for "a cleanup hitter" would be what it takes to make the playoffs. Now your butt's on the line to pay for this mistake, and it could be pretty expensive depending on how the fans react. The owners have to be trying to decide if this season can be salvaged enough to keep fans showing up, and if not how they will be able to limit their personal financial hit. Adding to that hit so they can watch Jeff Bianchi play can't be too high on their list at the moment.

Sigh again. The Suppan comparisons are what will happen to him when he has an off night. Some people will use Suppan to argue everything. "If we don't re-sign CC we'll have a bunch of Suppans." "If we don't re-sign Fielder we'll have a bunch of Suppans." "If we don't re-sign Greinke we'll have a bunch of Suppans." "We're going to sign a free agent... it'll be another Suppan." "If you rely on prospects you're just going to have a bunch of Suppans." "It's hot outside, must be because of Suppan." Maybe in time people will forget Suppan. Personally, I'm happy to see Fiers playing well, and hope that he and some of the other prospects will play a big, positive role on this and future Brewer teams.

In Logan's defense, we are already somewhere around $10MM over budget for the season. Maybe $125k is "one game's parking revenue," but if that money has already been spent, it can't be spent again. In "baseball terms," $125k may not seem like a lot of money, but in real life it is a lot of money. If the owners' group has to dip into their own pockets to pay this extra $125k, would they feel it's worth it to see Bianchi play if they don't have to? I'd guess that if they had a Ryan Braun-type prospect then the owners' group would have no qualms about paying some extra money. Bianchi doesn't quite fit that bill. Now, if we were to do something like trading away K-Rod to save a few million dollars, then we might be able to spend money elsewhere. If and until that happens, the owners probably don't want to go into their personal accounts while the team on the field stinks. They're probably busy trying to determine how bad the attendance will be (and therefore how much revenues will drop) if this team doesn't turn things around quickly.