monty57

You said "Ramirez and Gonzalez each played 149 games last year, and are presumably healthy right now, so I don't see how this move equates to "a lot of starts" for Izturis as monty alluded to above." I was simply clarifying my point as to how Izturis could end up with far more PA's than many of us would like to see him get. Nothing too bold, just a simple illustration. I certainly hope it doesn't come true, but I could see it happening. As far as the final roster spot, are you alluding to Izturis, who is the only backup SS we have and therefore has to remain on the team, or Ishikawa, who Roenicke likened to his 2011 pet Mark Kotsay? Last year, many were guessing that Kotsay's tenure may be short-term, but he ended up playing a lot because Roenicke invented ways to make sure he got playing time. I think something serious will have to happen for one of these guys to not be on the roster. Conrad is a utility guy at AAA, so he's not going to force his way onto the roster. Almonte is the AAA 1B, and after last season Miller Park would implode if Almonte was called up. Green will get called up if Weeks or Ramirez goes on the DL, but this won't affect Ishikawa's roster spot. I think the only way Ishikawa goes bye-bye is if, while he is misused in the OF, he literally spins in crcles trying to catch a fly ball, trips and falls over and the ball bounces off his head while he is lying on the ground, bouncing over the wall for a game-winning home run. Other than that, I fully expect to see Izturis and Ishikawa on the MLB roster all season.

Ha, I knew I'd find it. From 3/26/12 article on the Brewers' site: Pestano is a right-handed pitcher, but Aoki has also shown a knack for hitting left-handers. He homered Sunday off Dodgers ace and reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw in a 10-pitch at-bat. "This guy could end up being our 'right-handed hitter' on the bench, which sounds weird," Roenicke said. This is why Ishikawa made the team. Roenicke intends on Aoki being the team's primary "RH bat off the bench" (even though he's left handed) and Ishikawa being the team's primary "LH bat off the bench." I'd bet Ishikawa will be the backup corner OF vs RH (which is dumb because defense matters, but I'll bet it happens) and Aoki will only play OF when Gamel sits and Hart plays 1B vs LHP. This makes more sense to Roenicke than using Conrad, who destroys LHP, as the RH bat off the bench, and using Aoki, who plays excellent defense, as a corner OF. Aoki's ability to hit LHP and RHP would make him a good option to occasionally rest Hart & Braun, but he'll pretty much rot on the bench while Ishikawa learns OF on the fly in MLB games.

Is it a conspiracy theory to think that a guy who has made hundreds of millions through the valuation of distressed debt would take a "distressed franchise," make some shrewd moves to greatly increase it's value and then sell it for a monumental monetary gain? If baseball is indeed a business, then that would indeed be one good business move.

I would assume that a DL stint would bring Green to the Brewers, but what happens if Gonzalez, Ramirez and Weeks all stay relatively healthy with only a few day-to-day injuries. Let's say they average 145 starts each. 162-145 = 17*3 = 51 starts for Izturis at say 4.5 PA/start, that's 230 PAs + say 70 or so PAs as one of the only RH on the bench (he's a switch hitter and the only other RH is Gomez, who will start 1/3 or so of the games), so that's around 300 PAs for one of the worst bats in MLB. 300 PAs is roughly a half a season of a full-time player. If Gonzalez gets hurt, then Izturis could see a lot more PA's. Izturis' OPS for the last few years in reverse order: .450 (only 30 AB), .545, .622, .628, .618, .612 As a backup SS, he's okay to stash away and only see 10-15 starts and almost no pinch hit opps. As the only utility IF who could easily see 300 PA, he's not good. Conrad is actually a good option vs LHP (OPS vs LHP .893, .810, .856 over the last three seasons). The only reason Ishikawa is on the team is because he reminds Roenicke of Kotsay and he liked (mis)using Kotsay. We would have been far better off with Conrad than Ishikawa on the roster. This move is likely to cost us some wins.

I don't believe this is true. The group he would sell the team to would go over all contractual obligations. Expensive long-term deals would lead to the price paid going down. Remember the outrage when it got leaked that Wendy the Witch was dropping payroll to $27M for ?2004? It was so they could sell the team the next year. No long term or expensive contracts drove the price of the team up. She knew she would get more money if the new owner was free to build the team they wanted. I think these long, risky deals (like A-Ram) are signs that he is not going to sell any time soon. Back then they were a doormat, and were going to remain a doormat whether they had expensive contracts or not. Today, a back-to-back NL Central Division Champion will sell for a lot more than a doormat. I doubt he's looking to sell, but he is a financier, and could turn a huge profit if he were to sell today. Maybe not so much if he lets Greinke walk and they're doormats for a few seasons while they get their books in order and see which prospects pan out while Richie Sexson, oft-injured Geoff Jenkins and Ben Sheets... Oops I mean Ryan Braun, oft-injured Rickie Weeks and Yo Gallardo keep the loyal fans tuning in.

I've heard that same reasoning used as to why we need to extend Greinke

I would never have imagined that Kotsay would start in CF when we had Gomez and Morgan on the roster. Roenicke said he views Ishikawa as this year's Kotsay, so I think he'll do all kinds of things I would never believe.

Ishikawa is on the MLB roster because Roenicke likes him and sees him "this year's Kotsay." In other words, he is on the roster all year, and the rest of the team will just have to be worked around him. That this move means Izturis will get 300 or so PAs, we only have one backup to cover 2B, SS & 3B, we have no legitimate RH bat on the bench, etc doesn't matter because Roenicke likes him. Be prepared for Ishikawa to quickly become the most hated man in a Brewers' uniform as Roenicke continues to find ways to find him playing time. My first guess is that Hart will "need" a few days a week off to rest his knee and Gamel will "need" a few days a week off because rookies can't be everyday players.

Lately I've been thinking about where average payrolls are going to be in 3-5 years and then going forward. Personally I think we are going to see a heck of a lot more money being thrown around. It seems like baseball is an ascending sport. It also, IMO, seems like the new rules in baseball are pushing more money into the ML rosters. Player salaries have risen faster than inflation and should continue to do so. I think you're correct in assuming salaries and payrolls will continue to escalate. This may be financially sound or financially foolish by the owners. We won't know unless a team declares bankruptcy, as the MLB financial books are closed to the public. TV deals seem to be exploding, foolishly so. (Have the Brewers released details on their deal?) That right there is going to push more teams towards the Luxury cap threshold. It is reasonable to assume that in 3-5 years that the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Dodgers, Rangers and Phillies all could be pushing up near the luxury tax. A New York paper wrote a story which said something to the effect of "the old Brewers deal was $10 million a year and the new deal triples that." This is why many are projecting around $20MM of additional revenue for the team. Note that this does not necessarily mean $20MM more in payroll, just in revenue. Shortly after this was announced, the Angels announced a deal for (I believe) $130 million a year - a full $100 million a year more than we presume the Brewers will make on their deal. Recently, I saw a interview with Stan Kasten, former Braves President and part of the Dodgers' new ownership team. He discussed the TV deals and said the days of the superstation are past, the model of team ownership of stations is going away and the local deals (FSN-type) "seem to be working really well right now." This leads me to believe that the Dodgers will have a shiny new nine-digit-per-year TV deal soon. While this leads to more big market / small market worries, when the Reds signed Votto, one exec (I don't remember who) mentioned not only that he expected a new TV deal during the tenure of the contract, but also that things like MLB Network and the internet are funnelling more money to everyone. I remember a few years ago when Selig put in the rule that all games over the internet would share revenue, that I thought this was a smart move by Selig to eventually even out TV revenues, as eventually all games are going to be shown over the internet... it's just a matter of time. Kasten mentioned "the internet or whatever may replace it" as his view of the future of TV deals. On a smaller scale it seems like the new Draft rules seem to be taking away the approach that a few teams have taken to recently which is to try and build long term strength by going extreme in spending in the draft and in the International markets. With that avenue being taken away owners should theoretically be able to put that money back into the ML rosters. I think you're seeing that with the Nationals and Pirates. They're starting to see the fruits of their draft spending and are now beginning to lock up their young talent. Deals like the first Braun extension are becoming more popular and allow for smaller markets to keep their stars for an additional couple of years. This helps even the playing field. It's the extensions beyond that which are very expensive, and is the realm Melvin has entered (probably too often) in recent years, and is where I (and to a larger extent TheCrew07) say Melvin is trying to act too much like a big market team than a small market team. To this point, but on a side note, I think the Phillies' run is nearly over, as their core is now mid-30's. The Nationals, Braves and Marlins are all young and talented and can lock up their "cores" and fight for that division for the foreseeable future. As weird as it is to say it, the Pirates and possibly the Reds are positioning themselves to be the teams to beat in the Central in the near future. As the Pirates continue to lock up their young players and guys like Cole and Taillon (overpays in the draft) reach the majors, they could be pretty good. So for a team like the Brewers might be in a bit of a tough spot. They will never have a TV deal that will be competitive with major markets. They also won't be able to do what the Pirates and Nationals have done over the last few years and spend foolishly (don't mean that as a negative just that they spend crazy money in the draft, I wish the Brewers would have when they could have). I agree, and in my opinion the worst thing they can do is act in a financially foolish manner. Many on this board are extremely well informed about the draft, and they were screaming (as loud as you can on a message board) for the Brewers to overpay for some players during recent drafts. I'm with you that I wish the Brewers would have taken advantage of this opportunity while it existed. Overpaying some for a super-prospect and extending them when they're pre-arby was a way for smaller markets to succeed. Instead, we chose to offer expensive extensions to guys who were already in their "expensive" years, trade our farm system for more expensive players with limited "team control" remaining, and sign expensive, market-value deals to free agents. Now we're tied into these expensive deals into the future and don't have much of a farm system left. So Mark A might have to decide is it worth it to boost payroll into the $120 million + range to stay in the top 12-15 for payroll or try and compete payroll wise. The positive is that if Baseball is ascending as much as I think it is then team values should skyrocket also. So can/could the Brewers afford $120-140 million dollar payroll and come out with a profit over a 5 year time frame? Probably not, but hopefully an owner like Mark A would look at it as a long term investment. Perhaps taking a bit of a loss each year but keeping the value of the team ascending. Mark A is smart about money. Too smart to let a "baseball guy" run him into bankruptcy. I begin to wonder if he is trying to push up the value of the franchise as high as possible so he can sell the team for a big profit. Right now, he could probably net an easy couple hundred million in long-term capital gains in a sale and leave the new owner with a bunch of expensive long-term deals. So after my thoughts that are probably half incoherent and half flat wrong Not at all. I enjoyed reading your post. my impression is that Grienke should be affordable by the Brewers at roughly $20 million a year. The cost of elite talent will not be going down so sign it while you can. It would push the Brewers core of long term commitments past $70 million as stated previously but it should allow for enough roster flexibility to stay very competitive. I think Greinke will probably be extended, and I agree that the cost of elite talent is on the rise. However, I don't agree that we'll have financial flexibility if $70+MM is tied up in five players. I think we'll have to trade someone else, I my guess is Weeks (because I feel Ramirez's contract makes him untradeable, Braun is the face of the franchise and trading Yo would seem foolish if the thought of signing Greinke was to have two "aces"). I think a Weeks trade is financially smart, and maybe baseball smart. By the time I see him being traded, he'll be past his prime (31 or 32), but still good enough and with enough team control that other teams would probably fall over themselves to trade for him. Meanwhile, we have Green and by that time Gennett to step in and take his place, and we could get some good young talent in the trade which would help us fill in pre-arby (inexpensive) talent around our "core." If Gamel is having an impressive season try and get him to sign a $10 million 5 year deal with 3 option years. Look at doing something similar to at least 1 of the upcoming pipeline of pitching. Peralta, Thornburg, Jungman, or Bradley. Getting a few cost controlled young players would obviously be key to the Brewers being able to afford so many high salary players. Agreed. We still need young talent coming up through the system, and we need to pick who our "future core" will be and lock them up early, buying out a year or two of free agency. This is a strategy we need to continue. However, we also need to be able to realize when the correct time is to cut ties with them. I think one of our problems right now is that we made some good moves a few years ago and have now grown emotionally attached to some of our players, which is leading us to either continue to offer extensions when they are no longer available at a value, or allowing the players to play through to free agency, when we get nothing in return.

That sums it up pretty well. From the article: "Manager Ron Roenicke hopes Ishikawa develops into this year's Mark Kotsay, the veteran outfielder who was a favorite of the skipper last season." So having this year's version of Mark Kotsay is more important than having a backup infielder. This move means that Izturis will get a lot of starts and will be our primary RH bat off the bench when Gomez plays, but hey, at least we can see if Ishikawa can play center field. We'd just better hope Gamel doesn't start off 0-for-8 or we'll see Ishikawa taking over as our starting first baseman. Conrad wasn't anything special, but at least he filled a position of need. All Ishikawa does is give Roenicke a new toy to misuse, a la Mark Kotsay.

It's not pointless, as we have no shortstops in our entire system. It just wouldn't help us win the division this year.

I don't know much about Jorge Vazquez who was recently released by the Yankees, but he appears to be a power-hitting right-handed 1B. We could use a power-hitting RH 1B on our MLB bench. He hit for a .262 avg / .314 OBP /.516 SLG / .830 OPS with 32 HR at AAA Scranton last season. He's 30 and has played most of his baseball career in Mexico. Does anyone know anything about him, and would he have any value to the Brewers? http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?utm_source=direct&utm_medium=linker&utm_campaign=Linker&id=vazque002jor

- Hart won't be resigned after 2013 - Marcum is gone after 2012 - Wolf's option isn't picked up next year - Gomez is gone, unless he resigns for cheap - Loe is likely gone - K-Rod is gone - Kottaras is potentially gone - Morgan could go if we think we have solid replacements in Aoki and Schafer - You'd have to rely on at least one of Peralta or Fiers to go into the rotation in 2013. Maybe both. - You'd have to count on several young players to step up and fill roles, guys like Schafer, Green, Maldanado, etc. ...and none of this affects the fact that we will have somewhere over $70MM tied up in five players in 2015 if Greinke is extended. We were supposed to be around a low-$80MM payroll team this year, so even if we get an additional $20MM from the new TV deal and throw in some inflation, we'd only have around $20-some million to pay the remaining 20 players on the roster, which includes several million each to Lucroy, Gamel and Axford. Are we really going to have 17 pre-arby guys on the roster in 2015?

If I had to bet right now, I'd say Greinke will be extended, Hart will be traded after this season and Weeks will be traded after either this season or next. Morgan and Gomez will either be traded or not offered arby after this season. Schafer will play CF, Gindl will play RF and Green and/or Gennett will play 2B. If Gamel has a good year, we'll extend him to a team-friendly deal buying out 1-2 FA seasons, and from one of the Hart/Weeks trades we'll finally find a good, young SS and maybe another young option for our rotation. My faith lies in the hope that Melvin will remember that veterans can be traded before reaching free agency, and we don't have to block every prospect with an expensive FA. I'm generally optimistic, but my mind is tuned to looking at financial situations. The Brewers should be good this year, and we can make it through the next few years, but Melvin will have to shift gears and pull his best George Costanza "do the opposite" when he sees future Aramis Ramirez / Taylor Green situations.

But adding Greinke would mean over $70MM to our top 5 in 2015, and after that $40MM to our top 2!! Plus, we've had young, cheap talent helping out the MLB roster, but now all of that talent has become expensive, and we haven't put much faith in young guys recently, so we don't have too many league-minimum guys filling in around the core talent. Essentially, we'll have Yo, Greinke and three "non-top" prospects for the rotation, Braun and two "non-top" prospects in the OF, 35-year-old Ramirez, 33-year-old Weeks and "B talent" Lucroy and Gamel and "F talent" SS prospects with a mid-30's closer and journeyman relievers. I like Schafer, Gindl, Peralta, etc, but we don't have any Braun, Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, etc coming up through the system. Without extending Greinke, we are going to be in a mess next year, but our recent spending habits have made extending Greinke pretty difficult, and our fanbase now seems to demand "name players" at every position. We shouldn't have signed Ramirez to the back-end-loaded deal, but we did, and now we're stuck in a financial mess. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope they have a lot more money than I think. Melvin said his payroll this year was supposed to be between $80-90MM, and we're over $100MM, and now we're looking at tying $70+MM into five players a few years down the road without "superstar prospects" to play for league minimum. My wife has told me to stop thinking about this and just enjoy the season, so I think I will. Go Brewers, win the World Series, and I'll try not to worry about the financial purgatory you'll be in soon.

I agree, but you're assuming that we'll have $20MM+ to spend. As WTP mentioned earlier, here is the obligation for 2015: 2015: $50.50m Braun: $12m Weeks: $11.5m (option) Ramirez: $14m (option) Gallardo: $13m (option) That doesn't take into account Lucroy for a few million, Axford well into arby, etc. After 2015, Braun starts getting really expensive, and he & Greinke alone would cost around $40MM/year. I think that a Greinke extension means that at least one of the guys in the list above will have to be gone. Ramirez will be vitrually untradeable, so my guess is that a Greinke extension means that Weeks will be traded either after this season or next, and we will see Green and/or Gennett manning 2B. If we also figure that Morgan and Gomez will be replaced with Schafer, Hart with Gindl, Wolf and Marcum with some of our minor leaguers, etc, then it is possible that we could afford a Greinke extension. We'd just have to hope that all of our "B/C" level minor leaguers pan out into everyday major leaguers.

I like the concept, but is this the Melvin reality? This is the last year of Melvin's all-in period before he sails off into retirement. Trading K-Rod for a good prospect seems like a really good idea from a long-term perspective, but I haven't seen Melvin put long-term over short-term in quite a few years. Why would he be worth something now? Because he's still a good pitcher with a strong history of closing who is now signed to a reasonable one-year deal and doesn't have a "games finished" clause attached to him. Most teams with playoff inspirations who lose their closer to injury would like to have K-Rod.

I don't like Izturis, but I can't blame him for our not having a decent bat on the bench. That is mainly on our insistance on retaining three center fielders on the roster, and on our desire to have Green get regular PAs in AAA so that he's ready to step in when one/both of Ramirez and Weeks have a month-long injury mid-season. If our wish is to have a back-up SS who can be our primary bat off the bench, that will be a wish that will go ungranted. Players who can defend at SS and swing a decent bat make a lot of money and don't sit on a team's bench. My biggest concern with Izturis is that he's supposed to be a defensive whiz, but this spring he routinely booted easy plays. If he doesn't have a good glove anymore, we would be better with Maysonet.

I think that we have to get out of the small market mentality here. And that, my friends is how people / businesses go bankrupt. Forget about financial responsibility... we want it, so we're going to get it. We traded our best prospect for a decent pitcher with two years left. We then traded the rest of our farm for a great pitcher with two years left. We've extended everyone who would extend to keep our window open, and then we signed a back-end-loaded deal for an aging slugger at 3B who should help us win this year. We've seriously limited our financial flexibilty going forward in order to win last year and this yera, and eventually that comes back to bite you. The Dodger rumors that they want to go big after some big free agents in the near future led to Cain and Votto signing monster extensions, and raised the price tag on Greinke. It is still possible we extend Greinke, but I doubt it's possible we extend him and hold on to our other "core" players. If we extend Greinke for over $20MM a year, in a few years he & Braun will make around $40MM a year between them!! We would need to trade off most of the rest of our higher priced players and basically make Greinke and Braun (and maybe Yo) our core and build around that. Since Ramirez will be basically untradeable after this season, I think this would mean that at least Hart and Weeks would be gone quickly and maybe the talent they would bring back (if we'd trade for young guys) would help us get our payroll in order.

In my opinion, the Reds are going for it and they think they will be relevant the next 5 seasons, which I think is their window of opportunity, because that is what their core is signed till. That has to be it. Teams seem to do these deals knowing they'll regret them in the final years, but they feel the move needs to be made now in order to win in their "window." The Cubs signed Soriano and re-worked Zambrano & Ramirez's deals (opt out clauses) in order to try to win before the sale, and they're now working through all those bad contracts. The Phillies signed Howard when they knew they had a World Series caliber team, and they're now in their final year(s) of being good as their core is all in their early-to-mid thirties (except Hamels who has Boras as an agent and will probably walk). The Reds probably see blood. The Brewers will lose a lot of talent after this season, and may need to rebuild. The Cardinals main threats (Carpenter, Wainwright, Berkman, Beltran) are all old. The Cubs are at least a few years away from being good and the Astros are leaving. With some good young pitchers and position players, the Reds probably feel they can win the division a few times over the next five years or so, and have a shot at the World Series. Does it seem weird that the Reds and Pirates could be set up to be the teams to beat in the division after this season? It's still a horrifically bad deal, but at least PrinceFielderx1's point makes some sense of it.

Are you sure? I thought i saw reading that it was an 8 year extension for a total of 10 years. could be wrong though. Either way I think this is good short term but could cripple them long term According to MLBtraderumors, he's right, it's 12 years en toto. The Reds will pay $20-something million to Votto until he's 40. There's no way this contract ends well.

I wouldn't read too much into it. My guess is Heyman said something like "there's no way you'll stay in Cincy... look at Fielder." To which Votto responded something like "I don't play in Milwaukee, I play in Cincinnati." As far as the deal, if it is indeed a $200MM deal, and we assume that any player is worth that, I'd say it's likely that Votto will put up better numbers nine years from now than Fielder or Pujols. Of course nine years is a long time, and anything can happen in that amount of time, which is why there is immense risk to any team to sign a deal like that. It doesn't break my heart to hear Cub fans wishing Soriano's contract would end, and it won't break my heart a few years down the road hearing Reds, Angels and Tigers fans wishing the Votto, Pujols and Fielder contracts would end. I do hope Brewers fans aren't praying for Braun's contract to end five or six years from now.

The article on the Brewers' site today said that the Brewers are down to 27 men in camp. Conrad's made the team, and Ishkawa will only make the team if Hart can't go opening day. The other guy is that lefty RP who had a collapsed lung, who they will send down, but he's had a pretty good spring, so they're keeping him with the team a little longer. I think he'll see some MLB time this year.

If Hart passes his test today and plays in the major league games going forward, it looks like Ishikawa will be sent down, and our roster will be set.

$100 mil for 5 years is a fair deal for the Brewers. The article I linked above mentions 5 years / $80MM as a bogey. I'd guess something a little north of that. Physically he's been so been healthy that the odds are beginning to stack heavily against him making it through this next contract without a significant arm injury. With pitching it's not of a matter of "if" a pitcher is going to get hurt, it's "when". Crew07, I know you do a lot of reading on the subject. Are there studies specifically for players who have made it to a certain age without injury? This seems to be a case where a specific subset makes sense, even if the subset may not seem large enough to be statistically significant. In other words, taking a subset of hard-throwing pitchers with a certain frame / throwing motion who have made it to age 28 without injury and following them to see if they ended up with significant injury seems to make more sense than saying something like "x% of all pitchers have an injury by the time they reach 31."