Brock Beauchamp

The Brewers had a more successful season in our second year of existence, but unfortunately, October was unkind to Craig Counsell and the Brewers once again. After cheering on a team for 162, it's frustrating to see this happen so many times in a row. Thankfully, in baseball, hope springs eternal. We have a long offseason ahead of us with many important decisions to make at 1 Brewers Way. But before we get into that, let's look at the 2023 season and the users who provided some of the best content that kept us all coming back daily. Most Popular Post The most popular post of the 2023 Brewers season was in the thread Upcoming Brewers Milestones, started by yours truly. Enter @Underachiever, who went above and beyond by listing a gaggle of upcoming milestones, which rightfully earned it the most popular post of the baseball season. Thank you for such a quality contribution, Underachiever! As a gift, we'd like to offer you this really cool Brewers dugout mug, carved out of a baseball bat and emblazoned with the Crew's logo. Most Popular Post Runner-Up Draft day is always an incredible event in the community. It's 2-3 of our most active days of the calendar year, and in this Draft Day 2 Thread, @Jenkins5 celebrated this moment of newly-drafted Cooper Pratt liking their tweet. Cool little moments like this are what make a community so much fun. We all follow the Brewers - probably at an unhealthy level at times - and getting small feedback like this and celebrating it amongst like-minded fans is rewarding. Thanks again, Jenkins5! Most Popular Blog Blog traffic is still pretty light around Brewer Fanatic. I encourage all of you long-term users to check out that section of the site, as it's a great place to voice your thoughts in a long-form way, and every blog post is promoted through our various social media channels and reaches thousands of Brewers fans. It's a great way to get your voice out there if you're interested in trying your hand at writing without any kind of scheduled commitment. Our most popular blog entry during the 2023 season was this piece from @Ghostbear about where baseball's future might be. With analytics taking over so much of baseball, where can the next gains be found? How can teams like the Brewers extract maximum value from individuals? It's an interesting read, and thank you, Ghostbear, for taking the time to write it up! As a gift for this blog, we'd like to offer you this cool Bernie bobblehead! Most Prolific Posters These are the people who keep us coming back to Brewer Fanatic on a daily basis with their multitude of content, takes, and contributions to the site. During the 2023 season, the two posters who received the most system "points" through thread creation, commenting, blogging, and receiving reactions are @wiguy94 and @Brewcrew82. Thank you both for your dedication to the community and all you bring to it! That's all we have for this installment of the community awards. Thanks again to every community member who reads, writes, and reacts to the thousands of voices we have on the site. You're the glue that holds this place together, and now, let's see an exciting offseason and GO CREW!

This is something of a shock. While Counsell-to-Mets rumors have been swirling all year, the Brewers still have their manager under contract through the end of the World Series. Teams will often grant permission for their employees to be interviewed by other MLB clubs but often only if the job opening is a step up the ladder for the employee. Obviously, this is not the case with Counsell, who is interviewing for a lateral position in New York. Counsell is already one of the highest-paid managers in the sport but when it comes to pure spending power, no one in the sport can compete with the Cohen-owned Mets. More to come as the situation develops.

Well, the Craig Counsell rumor mill has begun churning in earnest, thanks to Jon Heyman of the New York Post. In the end, it feels like no one has any idea what Counsell is thinking or where he will end up in baseball, if he remains in baseball at all. One aspect of this story stuck out to me. I knew Counsell's situation in Milwaukee is rare but I didn't realize it was this rare: "Counsell is believed to be the only one of 30 managers who lives year-round in the city he manages, so there’s a definite home-field advantage for Milwaukee." That's crazy. Ultimately, it might come down to money though Counsell may not be swayed by a small pay raise. He made roughly $21 million as a player and his salary as a manager is reported to be around $3.5 million, which puts him near the top of manager salaries in baseball. Would Counsell risk the bright lights and cut throat media presence in New York to leave his home town team? Only Craig knows for sure and it feels really weird to be talking in this context about a manager instead of a player or even a front office executive.