monty57

I didn't know Katin was out for the year, but I kind of put him in as a joke. I originally put "whipping boy" Katin, as I knew there was no chance of him being an option. I always liked him, but Melvin sure didn't seem to. It's too bad that he got hurt when he finally got a chance to go to a team that might use him. -Hall as an NRI wouldn't be a bad idea. If nothing else, he could be minor league depth. I don't know how he is defensively these days, but he hits RH and plays multiple positions, so he's worth looking at. He hit well in Boston in 2010 before his awful year last season. -I always thought Burrell was a lefty-killer, but three year splits have him OPSing .646 in 242 ABs vs LHP and .788 in 696 ABs vs RHP (.748 OPS overall). Still not a bad option if available - he made $1MM last year for San Fran. -Gomes is more of a lefty-killer, OPSing .875 vs LHP and .729 vs RHP over the past three seasons (.776 overall OPS). He made $1,750,000 last season. He only had a .665 OPS last season, but still OPS'd .863 vs LHP. Either Burrell or Gomes would be good 5th OF options if they could be had at the right price, and would accept a bench role.

I'd guess our bench will consist of: Backup catcher: George Kottaras - good power & plate discipline Utility IF: Izturis - switch hitter, but basically there for defense and to give Gonzalez some days off Utility IF: Green - good bat. May start year in AAA Platoon CF: Morgan/Gomez - Morgan makes a decent bat against RHP when he's not starting. Gomez is more of a defensive replacement / pinch runner, but he could be our primary RH bat off the bench if Green, Izturis and Gindl/Schafer make the team. Corner OF: Depends on Braun / Aoki situation. If we sign Aoki and Braun is suspended, then I'd see Gindl/Schafer or a veteran RH corner OF filling this role We still don't know what the bench will look like, but recent history would lead me to believe that Melvin will sign a RH veteran rather than having both Gindl/Schafer and Green on the bench. My biggest worry with the list above is that it is very LH heavy, and as we saw this past year, that can put us into bad match-ups late in the game. Katin could be on the roster as 5th OF, and he could help solve the need for a RH bat with power, but I'd bet on the Melvin's normal $800k veteran as a RH option either as a corner OF or as a backup 1B/3B.

Yovanni Gallardo is pretty well liked, but I wasn't saying that there are no prejudices in baseball or in life in general. What I was saying was that a study of increases/decreases in ticket revenue in MLB would have an awfully hard time proving that baseball fans are racist. When an author uses a study which doesn't prove something, and then uses the phrase "fans showed a prejudice against international players," I believe the author may have an underlying motive. Note the final paragraph of the article: The paper, "Discrimination and Demand: The Effect of International Players on Attendance in Major League Baseball" is set to appear in the March issue of the journal Social Science Quarterly. I think maybe they're trying to play on an emotional response (racial tension) in order to sell their wares. As I stated, there's probably an increase in fans when a player from a foreign country signs with a particular team... just look at the Japanese media which follows some of their star players, there has to be increased viewership and merchandise sales. The linked article just seems to have some flaws.

Winning drives ticket sales It's more complex than that, or else the Tampa Bay Rays would sell out every game. Revise that to say "a team's record generally plays a significant factor in ticket sales" and you would be more correct. That said, I too would like to see the underlying data used, the article makes it sound like a pretty simple economic model, which didn't factor in anything other than team revenue and the number of foreign-born players. That wouldn't hold much credibility, as anyone could see that there's more to the difference between the Yankees' and Royals' team revenues than simply the number of foreign-born players on the roster. Problems I see right off the bat with the article: From the article: "The preference peaked in 2000 when each international player added approximately $595,632 to ticket sales, the study showed" Dollars from ticket sales seems like a poor way to judge a cause / effect relationship. The Brewers sold 3MM tickets last year and plan on raising ticket prices and are still selling them at a record pace. If they sign Aoki, this study would state that Aoki was the reason we bring in more $ in ticket sales next year, when the rise would have likely occured whether he was signed or not fans showed a prejudice against international players Nothing in this study could "show prejudice." Do they have pictures of people with signs containing racial slurs? Were people throwing rocks? Just my opinion, but when I see the term "shows prejudice" regarding a study which doesn't actually "show prejudice," then I start to believe that the authors may be trying to slant the article to show their own prejudices. The average MLB team that season showed 10.8 foreign-born players on its roster and garnered an average of $6 million in additional revenue, the paper said. Versus what? Did they have zero foreign-born players and then suddenly put 10.8 foreign-born players on the team? Does inflation or economic conditions have any effect when comparing 1985 to 2000? That season, some teams fielded as many as 14 and as few as seven international players, the paper said. This translated into a $4 million difference in revenue among teams with the most and least number of international players. Does he mean "teams ranged from seven to 14 international players," or "one team had between seven and 14 international players on the roster throughout the year"? Could the Yankees having 14 foreign-born players garner more revenue than the Rays with 7 foreign-born players? In a subset of 30 teams with 25-man rosters, with billions of dollars of revenue, $4MM in revenue seems like a pretty insignificant amount, even if I could figure out the exactl meaning of the poorly written sentence. University of Michigan research also suggests that owners' profits could increase by recruiting more international players. Are we talking profits or revenue? The whole article discusses revenue, not profit. Maybe setting up international facilities and paying $50MM posting fees could eat up a little of that $4MM revenue increase they're touting. The study only looked at revenue from ticket sales but if the same effect happens on television, the revenue increases would be even greater. Maybe they could have actually looked at data rather than saying "if." As I mentioned earlier, revenue from ticket sales is probably not a good measuring stick, particularly if they are using nominal versus real (inflation-adjusted) data... something the article doesn't note. If a ticket cost $10 in 1985 and the same ticket cost $20 in 2005, then it should be a pretty reasonable conclusion that the team would generate more nominal revenue in ticket sales in 2005, even if they sell less tickets. Plus, some teams have added seats, and some have new stadiums, factors which don't seem to matter in this study. "The one thing that I thought was kind of interesting is it seemed like American sports are trying to get more international players and a more international audience, but in Europe and even in Canada they seem to be trying to get more domestic players," Winfree said, referring to policies that limit the number of foreign-born players in certain sports, such as football in Canada or soccer in Europe. This may explain partly why American fans like international players - because they're still a novelty, Winfree said. Sounds kind of like opinion there Mr Winfree. Maybe you could look at revenue from ticket sales in Europe and Canada and see if they rose during the massive economic boom from 1985-2000. I should note that the article was written by someone other than the authors of the study. Since the authors were college professors, and not 10-year-olds learning Excel, I'd hope that they used something more complex than the article showed. I'm sure there would be some boost from signing a foreign-born player, and a good economic study would help Melvin determine whether there may be some off-the-field benefits of signing Aoki.

Pierre was also signed to a $10MM+ / year contract. It's one thing to pay a couple of million a year for Pierre's career line of .296 avg / .345 OBP / .363 SLG / .708 OPS with good CF defense. I would not be happy if we signed someone for $10MM/year and he put up that line. If the contract is taken out of the equation, I agree that Pierre gets a bad rap, especially from a group that normally preaches the importance of OBP over SLG. If we are able to sign Aoki to a reasonable deal, and he is able to put up a .350+ OBP, batting against RHP & LHP, while playing good defense, then he will be valuable to this team. He could fill in for Braun to start the year, and it's not a bad thing to have an excess of talent when Braun returns. Someone could get hurt, or Morgan or Aoki could be traded for a position of greater need.

I'm rying to keep this part of my brain locked away, and remain optimistic, but every "win now" move makes it more & more difficult. If we win back-to-back division titles, and maybe even make a World Series, then going through a rebuilding period won't be as hard to stomach, but it would be terrible to miss the playoffs and miss the opportunity to trade away some very marketable trading chips to rebuild on the fly this year. People like to speak of "the weak NL Central." The Cardinals and Reds should be very good this year. The Cubs won't be good, but they have some talent and aren't "gimmie" games. The Astros stink, but no other division has a 6th team and they'll be gone soon anyway. The Brewers have a talented team this year, but it's very possible that through July (much of the time playing without Braun), the Brewers could be third in the division. If that's the case, I would rather "sell" and get some good young talent than play for the hope & prayer that we turn it around in the second half. As Robin19 alluded, Melvin has not been a seller in the recent past, even when it looked like he should sell. If we're down in the standings I'll be hoping for a big selloff this year, and instead we'll probably trade some of our prospects for a band-aid which won't be enough to push us to the playoffs. I guess I'd look at this year as: Division Title/Playoffs > selling at deadline > missing the playoffs and letting some or all of Wolf, Greinke, Marcum and K-Rod walk If the market is good enough this year, and our trading chips could bring back enough return, I'd probably even trade in a "decent shot" at a playoff appearance to avoid seeing that much talent walk away for nothing, and having us in major rebuild mode (with little payroll flexibility) for the next few seasons.

Something a little bit more than what the White Sox got in return for Quentin. If a team like the Tigers were looking to trade for a bat Jacob Turner would be a very long stretch but you would be getting back a #2 or #3 type pitcher with the potential to be a #1 or an ace. Again, I don't see any way we'll trade him this offseason, as we're in "go for it" mode, but if we could trade Hart mid-season (if we're out of it) or next offseason, and get a young #2/3 starter, I'd think that six years of a #2/3 starter with Gindl in RF (both making league minimum) is better than one more year of Hart at $10MM and then letting him walk for nothing.

Starting pitching is always needed at the trade deadline, and we could possibly have three good starters to trade in Greinke, Marcum and Wolf. I expect that we will extend one of Greinke or Marcum, but trading two of these players would bring us back quite a bit in prospects for next year and beyond. With Hart's ability and contract, he would be a huge trading chip at the deadline as well. We'd also have a smaller chip in Morgan, who is replaceable with Schafer, who could probably bring us a lower-level prospect. I'd love to win the division again, and we have a team that is capable of doing just that. However, St Louis and Cincy also have good teams, and if we're behind them, we could do a very quick mid-season rebuild which would make us a lot stronger for 2013 and beyond. We'd still have a strong core of players, and we could add some good, young talent to help supplement that core going forward. I'd much rather see us sell and get good prospects than see us miss out on the playoffs and watch Greinke, Marcum and Wolf walk away.

Winning and losing play a big role in attendance, but there are always multiple reasons for attendance increases/decreases. If there were a direct correlation between winning and rising attendance, Tampa would pack the stadium, and the Braves wouldn't have had empty seats during playoff games. Milwaukee fans were pretty much done with Selig. A big reason for the increase in attendance was new ownership, and the fans' belief that the new ownership was doing everything they could to put a good product on the field.

My point was if we want to talk about trading prospects for other prospects, it took the #1 prospect in all of baseball to get a prospect pitcher who peaked as a #2. To the topic of the thread, I think it's more about trading Hart for prospects. Since we in a "go for it" year, we aren't trading him this offseason, but for discussion sake, what would Hart bring in trade? He's an All-Star player with a reasonable contract for two years, so I'd have to think he'd bring back a pretty good package of prospects. What would be a reasonable return if we were to trade Hart?

I keep seeing that 48.5 M number, well, for 2012, the Brewers will have 4 guys making at least 43.3 M in Hart, Greinke, Weeks and Wolf. If K-Rod gets more than 9M, then that number goes up even more. It really isn't that big of a deal.They actually make $42MM. However, we also have relatively inexpensive All-Star/potential Hall of Fame talent in Ryan Braun and Yovanni Gallardo, with some important positions (Axford, Lucroy, Narveson, all of our bullpen except K-Rod, most of our bench) playing for league mimimum. Plus, Ramirez signed a back-end loaded deal to keep us from completely breaking the bank this season, and we went over budget to get a decent SS for a year. No one outside of the organization knows anything about the Brewers' finances, but respectable sources said we would have less than $10MM to spend, and we at least doubled that (K-Rod, Ramirez, Gonzalez, possibly Aoki), so I think we're really stretching the budget to try to win it all this season. I believe our opening day payroll will be around 25% higher than last year's, and we probaby wouldn't do that without realistic World Series hopes. You can have 40% of your payroll spent on four players when you have other good inexpensive players. You can't have over half of your payroll spent on four players when you don't have other good inexpensive talent. Since we have depleted the farm system in recent years, and have blocked our top prospects, who will fill out the "inexpensive star player" roles in a couple of years? We will probably have some SP coming up, which is good, but do we have enough to fill out all of the open slots, or will we spend more money to extend Greinke or sign other FA's, and where is that money coming from? Gamel and Lucroy will be in arby, but neither of those project to be anywhere near the Braun/Gallardo talent level. We've pretty much destroyed any trade value of Green, who now will be stuck in AAA or on the MLB bench for the next three years. Schafer and Gindl bring some hope, and possibly we could trade Hart next offseason to bring in some young talent. It's certainly not hopeless, but the contracts are signed, and Melvin is going to have to work around them or trade them. I worked it out in another thread, and dont' remember the exact details, but I guessed that if we extend Greinke or sign a comparable FA, we'd have somewhere around $75-80MM committed to Gamel at 1B, an aging Weeks at 2B, a really old, expensive Ramirez at 3B, Braun, Axford, Yo, Greinke, Narveson and Lucroy. The other 16 positions on the team need to be filled with the leftover cash. With a $90MM payroll, that's $625k a player. With a $100MM payroll, that's $1.25MM a player. All this without a strong farm to fill those positions.

I'd ride out his prime years, get 25-30 HR from him each season, and then say 'thanks' and let him walk when he gets a $12 million/year deal just as he starts to age. But we keep doing that with everyone, and therefore we are less and less able to replace players after we "say thanks and let him walk." Eventually this will lead us to a position where we have a number of high-priced players taking up a high percentage of your payroll, and no good, young, pre-arby guys to fill out the roster to make the team competitive. In other words, we'll look a lot like the 2011 version of the Cubs, only with a smaller payroll, and therefore longer "down period." That period could start as soon as next year, and it's really looking bad in 2014. When was the last time we traded a veteran for prospects...Overbay six years ago? Every trade we do is either veteran for veteran or prospects for veteran, and then we let the veteran walk and get little to nothing in return. Even when we've been pretty much out of it, we've still spent prospecst for vets rather than selling off some chips to stock the farm. Now we have a new CBA and have just been burned by K-Rod, so we will probably not even get some of the draft picks we always say are going to revive the farm system. Hart's production and his reasonable contract make him tradeable... someone may actually give us good, young, pre-arby talent for one of our veterans for whom we have some decent replacements who are MLB-ready. I certainly wouldn't give him away, and with the way things have played out, if we have playoff hopes this year (which we do), then we're not trading Hart this offseason, as we don't have any position that we could upgrade enough in trade that would offset the downgrade we'd get by losing Hart. However, I'd trade Hart either mid-season if we're out of it, or next offseason for sure.

But if the team keeps losing players like Sabathia and Prince Fielder to free agency, how much longer can the success last? Not just losing them, but losing them and getting little in return. Eventually the cupboard gets bare when you trade prospects for major leaguers and then lose the major leaguers after a short period (Fielder obviously doesn't fit in this category). I'm more than happy that Braun, Weeks, Gallardo, and Hart have all been extended. Who could have envisioned such a scenario just five years ago? I too am glad we've been able to extend our "core" players, and hope we continue to do so. However, we will have Braun, Weeks, Gallardo and Ramirez making $48.5MM in 2014, while we have a pretty weak farm system, and have recently shown no interest in allowing rookies to play. We need some pre-arby guys to step up in a big way over the next couple of years, or we may have to start trading away some of those "core" players, reversing Melvin's recent trend. We can't keep trading prospects for expensive vets and signing expensive vets to block prospects and not have a salary crunch at some point in the future.

As others have said, a good, low-risk signing to add needed depth. Since I don't see Green getting much PT if he makes the MLB roster, I'd like to see Ishikawa as the primary LH bat off the bench, backup 1B, possible backup corner OF, while Green plays everyday in AAA. If Green makes the MLB roster, I'd prefer Ishikawa to play 1B in AAA, as there's no way Roenicke would give Green pinch hit opportunities over the veteran Ishikawa.

The Brewers are entering dangerous territory as far as relying too heavily on expensive free agents and not enough on cheap home grown guys. They can't survive like this As it stands right now, in 2014 the Brewers will have $48.5MM tied up in four players (Braun, Weeks, Yo, Ramirez). There is a good chance that Ramirez will be a better player this year than Green would have been, so that move helps us win today. However, in 2014 he will make $16MM and will be virtually untradeable. Going with Green would have been riskier in the short-term, but would have given us a lot more flexibility for the future. I would like to see Greinke and Marcum extended, as I said when this thread opened in November. However, I share Paul253's worry as quoted above. Let's be cheap and say we get Greinke for $16MM and Marcum for $11.5MM per year. In 2014, that would put us at $76MM for six players, plus guys like Gamel, Lucroy and Axford in arbitration. In order for us to be competitve with $76MM tied up in six players (or close to $90MM tied up in nine players) would be if we had a lot of pre-arby players at every other position, or if the TV deal is better than any of us believe it to be. With that in mind, the Ramirez deal seems to have been a bit of desparation on Melvin's part to try to take the division again while the starting rotation is intact, and has to mean that the possibility of extending both Greinke and Marcum has lessened. It probably also means that we'll have a quick trigger finger as far as selling at deadline if the Reds and/or Cardinals are ahead of us in the standings. Otherwise, we'll be in a big salary glut for the next few seasons unless we trade away Braun, Weeks and/or Yo (assuming Ramirez's back-end loaded contract will be untradeable). If I didn't have a lot of faith in Attanasio's financial acumen, I'd be pretty worried about the mid-term future of the Brewers.

Something like $4.25M I believe I'm scratching my head at the pointlessness of making a bid with no intention of offering him a large enough contract to entice him to play here. If they didn't think he's worth paying a low end starter/platoon guy salary, why block him from going elsewhere? He would seem to be a guy that could make other guys expendable in deals for other needs and be a viable top of the order table setter for the big bats.Agreed. Did they post their bid prior to K-Rod accepting arby or the Ramirez signing and now they don't have money to offer Aoki? Or was Aoki a fallback plan in case everything else fell apart? It's kind of odd all around, as Melvin said they don't know anything about the players in Japan, then they post a lowball offer on Aoki which is accepted, then they fly the guy to Arizona, then they (allegedly) make an offer they can't seriously believe he'd accept.

Morgan was only worth Cutter Dykstra nine months ago. I seriously doubt that he would bring that much more now. He had worn out his welcome and was being given away nine months ago. Since then, he has played well and was put in the national spotlight as a positive influence on the Brewers. I'm not sure why you would mess with a platoon that seemed to work pretty well last year just to add a B-level prospect. Because we potentially tripped and fell into a better option with Aoki. I'm fine keeping Morgan / Gomez as a platoon. However, if we sign Aoki and he's a better option than Morgan, we should see what the market is for Morgan while his value is high. I don't think Aoki will sign as a bench player, so if we get him, once Braun returns Morgan will either sit the bench or get traded. If Morgan ends up sitting as our 5th OF this season, we'll have to pay him nearly $2MM, and his trade value will drop to zero by the end of the season, so I'd rather try to trade him, if and only if all the other variables fall into place. As for "B-level prospect," as I said earlier: If Morgan is "plenty cheap," and is a sound MLB player who we could pencil in for 120+ starts, batting #1 or 2 for a team with World Series hopes, then why would he have no trade value?

Exactly. The talk of trading either of these guys makes little sense to me. It's not like they are going to bring a blue chip prospect, any 'prospect' that you get will have plenty of warts. Sounds like a Dean Taylor move to me. If Morgan becomes a problem, you just DFA him. I don't think that this team should trade anyone for prospects until they show that they won't be competitive again in 2012. That's what rebuilding teams do.If Morgan is "plenty cheap," and is a sound MLB player who we could pencil in for 120+ starts, batting #1 or 2 for a team with World Series hopes, then why would he have no trade value? I'm only a proponent of trading him under certain circumstances. The first variable is whether or not we sign Aoki. He is a superstar in Japan, and while that doesn't mean he'll be a star here, he seems better than many here want to give him credit for. The second variable is what happens with the Braun suspension. If Braun is suspended, then trading Morgan before Braun returns wouldn't seem smart. The final variable is what we'd get in return. I don't want to give him away, but if we'd get a decent return and the other variables are met, then we should look at trading him. If we get Aoki, I think he should start in LF while Braun is suspended, with Morgan / Gomez in CF. When Braun returns, if everyone is healthy and Aoki has played well, then we should look at trading Morgan. or If we get Aoki and Braun is not suspended, then we should look at trading Morgan this offseason, as Aoki would probably be the starter in CF, with Braun in LF, Hart in RF and Gomez a better option as a defensive replacement. I'd prefer a better bat as the 5th OF/first pinch hitter off the bench. In either of these cases, if no one would offer anything in trade, then I'm fine with Morgan & Gomez as the 4/5 OFs. If we could get a decent return in trade, I'd take Gindl or Melvin's standard $800k vet corner OF as the 5th OF / pinch hitter.

The Brewers added ARam and Gonzalez to shore up the left side of the infield and will place Gamel at 1B. By adding those 3 players to the infield the Brewers would have upgraded 2 positions offensively and defensively (3B and SS), and 1B defensively. Gamel has high upside offensively and it will be interesting to see what he can do when given a decent amount of playing time. I always hope Brewers players do well, but I'll really be pulling for Gamel to succeed this season. Probably as much as I rooted for Rodgers to succeed when Favre left. -Gamel is a former top prospect who has been completely dismissed by almost everyone. -Gamel succeeding will help the Brewers win in 2012 -Gamel would be a nice, cheap player for several years when we'll really need some pre-arby guys to contribute -Gamel succeeding may remind the Brewers that rookies can play and should be given opportunities

If Aoki's signed and Braun is suspended, I'd start out with Aoki in LF, Gomez/Morgan straight platoon in CF, Hart in RF. Barring other injuries, when Braun returns I'd look to trade Morgan for a prospect and move Aoki into CF (either in platoon or full-time). If Aoki's signed and Braun is not suspended, I'd trade Morgan now, as we'd probably get more for him now than we would mid-season. Then I'd go Braun/Aoki/Hart with Gomez as defensive replacement. If Aoki is not signed, and Braun is suspended, I'd start with Gindl in LF, Gomez/Morgan in CF and Hart in RF. If Aoki is not signed and Braun is not suspended, we'll almost certainly see the OF we ended with last season: Braun in LF, Morgan/Gomez in straight platoon in CF, Hart in RF.

Basically he operates like he's a large market GM even though he's in the league's smallest market, and we enable him because people from WI tend to be incredibly loyal to our teams. It's too easy to say that Wisconsin has great fans, while other teams suffer due to bad fans. Since a lot of baseball players come out of Florida and California, while all Wisonsin produces are football players, I can't buy that people of Florida and California won't go to baseball games. Rather, I think the GM has to put a lot of thought into marketing/perception as well as into team building, and therefore he should be given a lot of credit for attendance. The fans' impressions of the team have a lot to do with moves made and how they are spun. Since the Selig era ended, Brewer fans have constantly been bombarded with the message that we have an owner and management who will do everything it takes to win, and the fans have bought into it. First they spun our initial rebuild centering on the Sexson trade as a necessary move towards future greatness. Then we heard loads and loads of (for lack of a better word) propaganda about how the team would be great as soon as Fielder, Weeks, Hardy, etc made it to the big leagues. Then we heard how taking on salary in the Lee trade could be the move which put us over the top. We as fans didn't need a World Series season to show up, becuase the Brewers did a great job of marketing everything in a positive light. We were salivating over having a .500 season for God's sake. By the time we started winning, we were already selling out a good share of our games. Meanwhile, there is Tampa and Oakland. The Buccaneers and Raiders both have solid fan bases, so why doesn't anyone show up to watch the Rays & A's? Both teams have/had better on-field success than the Brewers, so while winning is important, it can't be the sole reason why people show up or don't show up to games. Just speculation, but could it be that while Friedman's staff spends a lot of time finding good, young players, the message the public hears is "all the people around here are Yankee/Red Sox fans" and "our stadium stinks." In Oakland, the A's media spin seems to center around what a hero Beane is, rather than promoting the team in general. A's management likes to play the martyr, with a lot of "we can't draw because those mean Giants take all the fans," and "we've got a $40MM payroll, so we can't compete." I can understand how fans might not flock to the stadium when all you hear is negativity. Any success could be seen as transitory and continually trading away popular players for prospects and fielding a team of players fans haven't heard of could foster that belief, especially in baseball, where most people haven't heard of any players until they reach the majors. The Brewers' brand was horrible a decade or so ago. Wisconsinites hated losing, hated Selig, hated the fact that they were paying for a huge new stadium and were embarassed to be associated with the team. Melvin and Attanasio have turned a rotten brand into a brand that people across the country are envious of. Building a successful brand is not the same as putting togehter a winning team. I don't know if Freidman understands that, and I think Beane likes to build himself as the brand, which elevates himself, but doesn't bring fans to the game. The Brewers got fans coming through the gates long before they started winning, and now the fanbase is getting rabid. I have some trepidation as to what moves will need to be made over the next couple of seasons, as we could lose 3/5 of our pitching staff after this year, and are looking at a payroll cruch in a few years. However, I trust that the current management understands finances and marketing. Maybe the future revenue stream will allow for a bigger payroll then any of us expect. Or, maybe we will need to sell off some of our players. If marketed correctly, fans will still show up.

Here's something to ponder: If "team control" has become so valueable that teams would not trade a good, young starting pitching prospect for Prince Fielder (a guy who is consistantly in the MVP race and is probably going to make over $20MM next year), then isn't team control the "overvalued coomodity" in baseball right now? If so, is Melvin correct in moving some of his overvalued commodities for what is undervalued, which apparently is star players with 1-2 years left on their contract? I think Melvin tried prying young SP for Hart, and eventually signed him to a pretty team-friendly deal when there wasn't a good market. Then he tried prying young SP for Fielder, and again found that there wasn't a good market. At that point he decided that since prospects were overvalued, he could build a World Series caliber team by trading some prospects for vets.

I want no part of his bat being used to PH ever, it was bad enough with Counsell last year being trotted out there to PH. One would hope that a manager would realize the roles of his bench players and use the better bats as pinch hitters and the good glove guys as late inning defensive replacements. Izturis should be used to give a starting SS some days off, and potentially to occasionally take over 2nd or 3rd late in the game to improve the defense. If Green makes the team, he should get any starts at 2B or 3B when Weeks/Ramirez need days off, and both Green and Ishakawa should easily PH over Izturis. I'm not saying this is what Roenicke will do, just that it seems to me to be the logical option.

There seem to be quite a few reasonable extensions being handed out to good SP recently. I think that bodes well for the Brewers if they are still looking to extend Greinke and Marcum. I doubt they'd go four with Marcum, but somewhere around 3/$36 with a 4th year option/buyout would probably be in the ballpark. FIB4brew's original thought of 5/$80 for Greinke is probably close as well. Whether they can afford to extend them with Aramis on the books is the question, but if Attanasio and Melvin find a way to fit them in the budget, I'd be pretty happy. I'd love to see the Crew able to hold onto Yo, Greinke and Marcum and gradually work the prospects into the rotation. We'd probably need a $110+MM payroll in 2014 to handle both of these extensions, but maybe the new TV deal and continued record ticket sales (at higher prices) make that a possibility.

At least some of the fans remain optimistic. Wisconsin has great sports fans. We don't need to feel that we have the best team in the league, we just need to know that the owner isn't lying to us. So many fans were disenchanted with the Selig's that they stopped going to games. Attanasio has been upfront with the fans and has shown that he will do his best to put a decent product on the field. The fans are responding. That said, it will be interesting to see what happens when we have to go through a rebuilding period.